All Our Yesterdays

by Cristin Terrill

  Connor tilts his head back, like he’s trying to see past this building and into the horizon. “Is the future really so bad?”

  Finn steps forward and touches the outer wall of the warehouse, which will one day make up a part of his cell. “Worse.”

  I look Connor in the eyes. They’re numb with shock right now, but someday they’ll be the only kind eyes that look on me for months. “We can’t change things without you, Mike. You’re the key to it all.”

  He takes a moment to process this and sighs. “Well, I guess you already know I’m going to say yes, don’t you?”

  “We do now.”

  Connor pulls a multi-tool from his pocket and begins to unscrew the grating across the drain. I take the piece of paper that I carried across the years out of my pocket to look at it one last time. There’s nothing for me to cross out. Earlier versions of me, Ems that I’ve never known and that have been spawned by each attempt to change time, have left evidence of every plan they ever tried to prevent the future. There’s only one option left, and it falls to me. If killing him doesn’t work, nothing will.

  I kiss the piece of paper and put it back inside the plastic bag. If I fail, maybe the next Em—who’s out there somewhere, walking around happy and carefree, with no idea of what’s coming for her—will succeed. I tuck the plastic bag deep inside the drain, and as Connor screws the grating back into place, I hope to God she will never be in that cell to find it.

  Connor hides us in a particularly desolate corner of the warehouse for the remainder of his shift. He brings us peanut butter crackers and chips from the vending machine and leaves us hidden inside a broken-down Humvee. Finn divvies up the snacks—I notice he gives me more than my fair share, and I don’t stop him—and we eat silently, curled up on the cracked leather in the back of the massive vehicle.

  “Oh my God,” Finn groans, licking orange dust from his fingertips. “Do you remember Doritos being this good?”

  “I don’t remember anything being this good.” I peel a strip of peanut butter off a cracker and suck on it, trying to make it last as long as possible. “How soft is this seat?”

  Finn bounces on the leather cushion. “It’s heaven.”

  The upside to being imprisoned for a few months? It doesn’t take a lot to please you.

  We spend the rest of the night in the Humvee. He sits close enough to touch me but doesn’t, and I’m grateful. My insides are mixed up enough right now without that. Instead we just talk, and in the dark of the vehicle’s interior, it’s so hard for me to make out his face that it’s almost like being in our cells again. I find it surprisingly comforting. He and I spent so many hours talking through the wall that separated us, saying things to each other in the safety of our own little prisons that we could never have said face-to-face. It’s nice to be able to remember how to be in the same room as him slowly, by degrees.

  “Remind me, what did we try before this?” Finn says. “I mean, the last version of us.”

  “We—they—got rid of Noah Hickson,” I say. It was item number fourteen on the list. I stared at it so long that I can still see each word when I close my eyes.

  “Oh, right. The engineer?”

  “Yeah. I guess they thought the doctor wouldn’t be able to design Cassandra without his help.”

  “Still can’t say his name, huh?”

  I shake my head. The thought of that name on my tongue makes me queasy.

  “Me neither,” Finn whispers. “So . . . got rid of him how? Did they kill him, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. I hope not, which is silly. Why should I care what a different version of me once did to a complete stranger?

  “But Cassandra still got built.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So we really have no choice, do we?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Em?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I know things are still kind of weird between us, and this is going to make me sound like a total girl, but . . .” He scoots closer to me in the dark. “Can I hold your hand?”

  With a knot in my throat, I offer him my hand. He laces our fingers together, and we hold on to each other until we fall asleep.

  Connor wakes us up sometime later, and in the light it’s hard for me to look Finn in the face.

  “Brought you some shoes,” Connor says, dropping a pair of faded sneakers on the concrete in front of Finn. “Can’t save the world barefoot.”

  Finn slips his feet, whose soles are still stained with the blood of the soldiers who died in the future, into the shoes. My prisoner slippers are thin, but they’ll get me wherever we’re going. Finn does up the laces while Connor explains his plan for sneaking us out of the warehouse, which involves the loading dock and half a dozen old wooden pallets Connor told his boss he wants to turn into tool storage. Twenty minutes later, we’re in the bed of Connor’s pickup, lying underneath a tarp along with the dusty pallets, as he drives past the guard station on the road leading away from the warehouse.

  “Well,” Finn whispers. “This feels familiar, at least.”

  Once we’re a few miles down the road, Connor pulls over, and we squeeze into the cab of the truck. He takes us to his house, where he lets us shower and gives us fresh clothes of his own to wear. I emerge from the bathroom with my wet hair dripping down the back of Connor’s giant black hoodie, and go looking for Finn. I find him—wearing dark jeans worn thin at the knees and a long-sleeved T-shirt—eating pancakes at the kitchen table. Connor slides a plate toward me.

  “It’s all I know how to make,” he says.

  I sit and just stare at the stack of pancakes, which are dripping with syrup and dotted with little puddles of butter, for a full minute. I want to curl up with them.

  I don’t know how long Finn and I eat, but I do know Connor has to make up another batch of batter because we polish off the first in minutes. By the time I finally put down my fork, I’m so stuffed with pancakes that I think I’ll be sick, and it’s the best feeling ever. I treasure my nausea, and judging by Finn’s low groan, he does too.

  While Finn does the dishes, Connor disappears from the kitchen and comes back with a duffel bag in one hand and a plastic case in the other.

  “Extra clothes,” he says. “Some first-aid stuff, a couple of protein bars. It’s not much, but—”

  “It’s great, Connor,” I say. “Thank you.”

  “I’ve also got . . .” He opens the case, and inside is a semiautomatic pistol and a box of ammunition. Finn and I glance at each other; we didn’t tell him we were planning to shoot anyone. “You’re going to need this, right?”

  Finn forces a laugh. “No! We don’t need a gun—”

  “Not yours,” I cut in. Connor deserves the truth, at least, for all he’s done for us. And he’s obviously not stupid. “We can’t have it traced back to you. You have to be working at Cassandra in four years, and that’ll never happen if your gun is used in the commission of a crime.”

  “I got it at a gun show when I was living in Arizona. No registration required. It’ll never get traced back to me.” He offers me the case again. “It’s okay. I know the world doesn’t get changed without people getting hurt.”

  I stare at the gun. Truth is, we’ll probably need it. With a gun, you can kill from a distance; you don’t have to look the person in the eye as you end their life. Finn and I are going to need that. I reach for the case.

  “Em—” Finn says.

  “You know how to use it?” Connor asks me.

  I check the safety on the 9mm, latch the case, and stow it inside the duffel bag.

  “Yeah,” I say, remembering the hours of target practice Jonas put us through in the mountains, shooting at crude, hand-drawn targets tacked to trees. “We know.”

  With that, the pleasant warmth of the little kitchen and the lingering taste of syrup on my tongue evaporates. This isn’t a vacation back to our comfortable past; it’s a mission. I can’t let myself forget that again,
even for a moment, because the remembering hurts so badly.

  Connor drives us to the bus station in the next town over, which I learn is Oakton, Pennsylvania. All these months, Finn and I have had no idea where we were. I lean my head against the cool glass of Connor’s truck window and stare at the world that passes by outside. First it’s nothing but cropland, dusted with sparkling white frost and broken up by the occasional house or candy-red barn or grazing horse. The sky is like a perfect blue bowl placed upside down over the world—the color vibrant above us and fading to white on the horizon—and it’s bigger than I ever could have remembered. We drive into the little town where the bus stops, and my breath catches in my throat.

  There are colored awnings over the doors of the shops along the main street, and the wrought-iron streetlamps are still decked with fat Christmas lights. People walking down the street don’t hurry with their heads down or glance behind them for fear of approaching soldiers. The last time I was out in the world, there were Marines with machine guns on every busy street corner who could demand your ID for no reason at all. We were at war with China and fearing impending air raids against California, while a group of terrorists was setting off bombs in smaller cities up and down the East Coast. Even your home wasn’t safe. With the government monitoring cell phones and Internet usage, one questionable word was enough to have the DHS breaking down your door and dragging you off to a FEMA camp as a suspected terrorist.

  But here, in the past, there are Christmas lights. I turn to Finn and see that his eyes are as wide as mine.

  “Was it always this beautiful and we just never noticed?” I say.

  He takes my hand but doesn’t reply, and we continue staring at this old world of ours in awe until Connor pulls into the Burger King parking lot where the bus is waiting.

  Connor pays the driver for our tickets and gives me the rest of the bills in his wallet. I wish I could protest, but I know we’ll need them. He shakes Finn’s hand and gives me an awkward hug while the driver loads the last of the luggage.

  “When I was little,” I say into his ear, “I had an imaginary friend named Miles. He was a purple kangaroo.”

  “Um.” Connor lets me go. “Okay.”

  “No one else knows that,” I say. “No one.”

  “Oh, so that’s how—”

  “That’s how I’ll know to trust you,” I say.

  “Got it.”

  Finn touches my elbow. “Bus is ready to go.”

  “See you later, I guess,” Connor jokes. I blink and see him riddled with holes, his kind face spattered with blood as he falls to the floor. I blink again, and he’s standing in front of us, smiling and young and whole.

  “You’re the best, Mike,” I say, and when he walks away, I add him to the list of people I hope I never lay eyes on again.

  Six

  Marina

  James eats his orange in the back of the hired car as it drives us toward the Mandarin Oriental. Somehow he misses the powdered sugar still clinging to one corner of his lips from Luz’s empanadas. If I were Sophie or Tamsin, I would lean forward and wipe it off for him, my fingers lingering seductively at the edge of his mouth. It would drive him wild with lust, and he would take me in his arms and kiss me. I try to make myself move. I reach for him but lose my nerve with my hand hovering in the air and reach for my hair instead, brushing a nonexistent strand back into place. I can’t do it. Instead I sit frozen in my seat and don’t say a word about the sugar. At least I can appreciate how cute it looks.

  Finn, in an ill-fitting tux, is waiting for us outside the hotel. He performs an elaborate bow as we climb out of the car. “My Lord Shaw! And Lady Marina of the House of Snobs!”

  He reaches for my hand and actually kisses it, and I snatch it back before anyone can see. Why does he always have to try to make me feel stupid?

  “Did you bathe in that cologne?” I ask. The cloud around him is thick enough to choke a cat. “You know, there’s this thing called soap—”

  “It’s Eau de Homme,” he says, straightening his bow tie. “You know you can’t resist it.”

  I gag.

  “Oh, by the way, man,” Finn says, inclining his head at James, “you’ve got food on your face.”

  James wipes the sugar from his lips and shoots a mock glare at me, and I hide a smile.

  We walk inside, following the stream of well-dressed people to the hotel ballroom. The vice president is speaking tonight, so security is tight. Secret Service agents are posted at regular intervals throughout the hotel, and our invitations and IDs are checked thoroughly before we’re directed through metal detectors. Once we’re cleared, an attendant leads us to our seats, three chairs at a large round table near the back of the ballroom. Two other couples are already seated, and I see the distinct darkening of their faces as three teenagers join their table.

  The expression on one woman’s face changes when she recognizes James. She raises her wineglass with a hand weighted down with jewels—new money, my mom would say—and whispers to her husband behind it. The man’s head swivels to stare at James, who’s too preoccupied with turning off his cell phone to notice. I’m about to ask them if their parents taught them it was rude to gawk, which will make dinner a little uncomfortable but be worth it, when Finn clears his throat loudly beside me. Everyone automatically looks at him, and he’s staring at the woman and her husband with a steeliness I’ve never seen in his goofy expression. The couple immediately turns away.

  James looks up from his phone. “You okay? I think they’re bringing water around.”

  “Nah, I’m cool,” Finn says, winking at me, and I turn away.

  Dinner is served by waitstaff in tails and white gloves, and the speeches begin. I can tell James is taking in every word, but after twenty minutes, Senator Gaines begins to sound like one of the grown-ups from a Charlie Brown cartoon episode to me: mwamp mwamp mwamp. In between stealing glances at James—James in a tux—I toy with my salmon and push the vegetables on my plate into neat little piles. After a while, I make a landscape out of them: a green broccoli valley at the base of Salmon Mountain, which rises toward puffy clouds of basmati rice.

  I catch Finn watching me, his expression lit up with mocking. How old are you, he’ll say, four? I wreck my landscape with my fork and lean my head against James’s shoulder.

  “Bored?” he asks.

  “A little,” I whisper.

  “Well, at least you look beautiful.”

  I forget about Finn entirely. I forget to breathe. Suddenly the idea of parting James from his clothes doesn’t seem quite so ridiculous.

  “Hey,” I say softly, hearing the words come out of my mouth as though I’m separate from my body. “Want to come over to my house when this is over? My parents left for Vail this morning.”

  James is watching the speaker at the podium. “Yeah, sure.”

  He often stays at my house when my parents are away, which is constantly, so he’s not getting it. But I can’t just say it, especially not here, with Finn Abbott two feet away. So instead, I put a tentative hand on his leg.

  Any closer to his knee and it would be merely friendly. If I gave it a quick pat, it would be friendly. But my hand is just a little too high on his thigh, and I try to channel Sophie as I give it a light squeeze. It may seem like a cool move from the outside, but my chest is so tight, I legitimately wonder if I’m having a heart attack.

  James looks up at me, and I see the cogs beginning to turn in his head.

  “Hey,” Finn says. “Nate’s up.”

  I jerk my hand back, and James turns toward the stage. I die in about forty-six different ways as I add this to the list of reasons I hate Finn Abbott, and I clench my trembling hands into fists underneath the tablecloth.

  Nate is the second-to-last to speak, right before the vice president. Mayor McCreedy, who’s an old friend of my mom’s and comes to every party at our house, introduces him. A “rising star” in the Democratic Party, recently elected Minority Whip and climbing t
he ranks in the House Intelligence Committee.

  Plus, he’s a Shaw.

  “Do you think Nate will run for president someday?” I ask while the crowd applauds, trying to sound normal. Tamsin or Sophie wouldn’t be all mute and trembling, so I won’t be, either. I’m casual.

  James shrugs. “He’s never said anything to me about it.”

  “He will,” Finn says. “Not the next time around, but after that, maybe. After he’s been a senator or governor.”

  “What makes you so sure?” I ask.

  “He’s got it all. The lineage, the resources, the perfect presidential hair. He’d be crazy not to run.”

  James laughs, not hearing the undertone of mocking in Finn’s words that I do.

  “Well, I think he’d make a great president. He’s smart and compassionate and tough. Plus, you know”—I shoot Finn a withering look—“he has such great hair.”

  “You shouldn’t discount the importance of a good haircut, M. It really—”

  I cut in. “I’m being serious here, Finn, can’t you—”

  “—says a lot about the man!”

  “—quit being an idiot for ten seconds?”

  “Guys, shh!” James says. “Nate’s coming on.”

  Em

  I sit on the frozen asphalt, leaning against the side of a salt-dusted Civic with Finn beside me. He rubs his hands together to keep off the chill, while I stare at the gun that lays in my own open palm.

  It’s heavier than I remember a gun being. It’s been a while, but I didn’t think I would forget that kind of thing, and now, for some reason, it’s all I can think about.

  “You sure you’re okay to do this?” Finn says. “Because I can.”

  I shake my head. “I’m a better shot than you, and we might only get one chance.”

  “You’re barely a better shot than me.”

  “Oh please, Abbott. You suck, and you know it.”

  “Maybe, but I didn’t grow up with—”

  I stop him finishing the sentence. I can’t bear to hear it.

  “I’m doing it,” I say. The words come out icier than I intended, like the air froze them as soon as they left my mouth, and Finn doesn’t argue with me anymore.