All Our Yesterdays

by Cristin Terrill

He hands me the keys to the car. “See you on the other side.”

  Thirty-One

  Marina

  In the cab with Finn, I turn on my phone. We’re almost to my house, but my mother could be leaving any moment, if she hasn’t already. I have to get out of this city. Everything else pales next to my need to get as far away from James Shaw as possible right now. I dial Mom’s number without listening to the three voice mails I already have from my parents.

  “Marina!” She picks up after the second ring. “Are you okay?”

  “I guess,” I say. There are no words for what I really am.

  “You’re in big trouble, young lady.”

  “I know,” I say, “but I’m on my way home. And I want to go to New York.”

  Something in my voice softens her. “It’s going to be good for you, honey. I really believe that.”

  It doesn’t matter. At this moment, nothing does. “I’ll see you soon.”

  “You okay?” Finn asks softly when I hang up.

  I shake my head. The fury that burned inside of me has gone, leaving me cold and empty. It feels like the time I cut my foot on a broken bottle. The ER doc gave me an anesthetic so he could stitch it up, but I knew the pain was still there, lurking behind the numbness, waiting for me.

  “You did the right thing,” Finn says.

  I turn to him. “Did I? I abandoned him when he needed me.”

  “Maybe that’s what he really needed. Something to shock him into some sense.”

  Or maybe it will make everything worse. Maybe he’ll start acting even more recklessly, and I won’t be there to stop him. “I hate myself.”

  “Hey, don’t say that.”

  “It’s true.” I cover my face with my hands. I don’t want him to see me cry. “I’ve never been any good for anyone. James is the only person besides Luz who really cares about me, and I left him. I’m mean and selfish and shallow and ugly, and I never do anything right, and—”

  “Stop!” Finn pulls my hands away from my face, his fingers firm around my wrists. “M, don’t say that.”

  “Nobody loves me, and why should they?” I’m half wild now, the tears thick in my throat. I try to pull my arms out of Finn’s grasp, but he holds tight. “How could they?”

  “Marina.” He puts his hands on my face, thumbs brushing the tears from my cheeks, and guides my gaze up to his. “That’s not true.”

  For once there isn’t the smallest trace of humor in his ocean-colored eyes.

  The cab comes to a sudden, screeching halt in the middle of the street. It pitches me forward, and I slam my head against the back of the driver’s seat. Black dots pepper my vision, and the world swims before me. I’m distantly aware of Finn yelling at the driver, but all I can think of is a song I learned in kindergarten.

  Buckle up your safety belt,

  Every time you ride.

  Don’t forget, not even once,

  Safety belts save lives!

  My head is throbbing, but it’s such an absurd memory that I laugh. Finn’s hands are on my face again.

  “Marina? You okay?”

  I touch my forehead, and my fingers come back clean. “Yeah, I think so.”

  The driver’s door is open, and he’s standing outside the cab, hollering at something, waving his arms in the air. I crane my neck to see through the windshield. My vision is still dark around the edges, but I can clearly see the black car parked across the middle of the street, blocking the entire road.

  Finn is checking me for injuries, so he doesn’t see the door of the black car open or the man who steps out of it. Tall and slim, with neat dark hair and pale skin. I close my eyes and rest my pounding head on my knees.

  “Oh God,” I moan. “I think I really am hurt.”

  Finn puts a hand on my head, stroking my hair, and normally that would be bizarre, but it doesn’t even rank in the strangeness of this moment.

  His hand freezes. “What the hell?”

  Then there’s a bang, deafeningly loud. I know exactly what it is. I bolt upright and see the cab driver staggering to the ground, and the window beside me splattered with fine red droplets. I try to scream, but the sound lodges painfully in my throat. Through the haze of blood, I see the man I thought was a hallucination walking toward us, gun at his side. I don’t understand how he can be here, how he can have killed a man in cold blood.

  Because it’s James.

  He’s James, and he’s not James. He’s definitely not the James I ran away from barely twenty minutes ago. My vision tilts and whirls. This person has James’s face, but it’s twisted into an alien expression, the corner of his mouth curling upward as though in distaste and amusement at the same time. His eyes are too sharp, his hair too short, his body too tall and broad.

  A shiver goes up my spine. I’m hallucinating, I must be.

  I sit frozen in my seat, staring at not-James through the bloody window, but Finn flies into movement. He grabs me around the back of the neck and shoves my head below the window of the cab, covering me with his arm. As we cower there, he kicks open his door and crawls through it, pulling me after him.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” he whispers. We crouch on the pavement, keeping the cab between us and the gunman. Finn looks around us for an escape route.

  “Did you see him?” I say. “Did you see—?”

  Somewhere there’s the squeal of tires and the slam of a car door.

  “Marina, run!” a familiar voice cries.

  Finn yanks me up by the wrist and sprints for the gap between two houses across the street, dragging me after him. I throw a look over my shoulder, expecting the impact of a bullet at any moment, and what I see stops me dead in my tracks.

  The James who isn’t James is running toward us. But before he reaches us, he’s tackled by another man.

  By Finn.

  The same Finn who’s holding my hand is wrestling not-James to the pavement.

  My deadweight jerks Finn back as he tries to run. He turns and freezes at the sight.

  The two men in the street continue to fight. The dark-haired man with James’s face is taller and stronger, but the fair man who looks like Finn is quick. He twists the gun out of the dark-haired man’s grip and sends it skittering across the pavement. The dark-haired man hits him across the face with a loosely curled first, the thick thwack of it ringing through the quiet street. Then he removes something from his belt, a black rectangle that fits neatly into his hand and shows a tiny glint of metal in the light.

  “Marina!” not-Finn cries, his eyes never leaving the weapon. “Run!”

  The dark-haired man jabs what I think is a Taser into the fair man’s side, and he convulses once, his body arcing up off the pavement like a puppet jerked on its strings, before collapsing back to the ground, his eyes closed, mouth agape.

  The real Finn comes out of his shock before I do and yanks on my wrist. The two of us run, the slapping of feet like thunder behind us as the dark-haired man comes after us.

  “Faster, Marina!” Finn yells.

  “I can’t!”

  Finn darts into the gap between the houses, pulling me so fast behind him that my feet barely skim the ground and each step jolts the joint of my shoulder. I’m not going to make it. I know I’m not.

  “Just go!” I pant.

  “No!”

  A hand closes around my other arm. I scream.

  “Marina!” Finn cries.

  The scream dries up on my lips as I look up into the face of the man who caught me. This close, looking into those light brown eyes, there’s no denying it.

  “I’m sorry,” James says, and I feel the jab of metal against my stomach before the world upends and goes black.

  Thirty-Two

  Em

  Finn goes to steal a second car so he can catch up with Marina and his younger self, leaving me with the Chevy. It jerks underneath me as I pound the gas and then the brake. James and Richter have an enormous head start on me, and the odds of my finding them are st
aggeringly slim. My only hope is that they turned onto Fourteenth Street, the major route from downtown to Virginia, because they were headed out of D.C.

  I drive perilously fast, gunning the car up to fifty through the crowded center of downtown when there’s a break in traffic, dodging around slower-moving cars, and running red lights. My hands shake against the steering wheel, and I’m convinced that any second I’m going to collide with something or someone.

  I watch the other cars as I drive, looking for Richter’s silver sedan amongst the traffic. I spot a silver Lexus at a stoplight in front of me. Richter was driving a Lexus, wasn’t he? I weave my way through four lanes of traffic toward it, but then I catch a glimpse of blond hair and oversize sunglasses in a side mirror.

  There’s no way I’ll find them.

  I stay on Fourteenth Street as it takes me out of D.C., toward the Pentagon. There are silver cars all around me. There must be more silver cars in the world than any other color. I speed past them, glancing at the occupants with no real hope of finding who I’m looking for.

  Then the cars around me grind to a halt. For the first time ever, I thank God for D.C. traffic. I pull off onto the shoulder and start to drive, slowly, scanning the cars that are deadlocked in the actual lanes. If they were headed this direction, I may be able to find them.

  The traffic is thick and slow for miles. I’ve driven two, maybe three, on the shoulder when I see a silver Lexus ahead in the far left lane. I slow to a crawl as I approach it, even though there are three lanes of traffic between us, in case one of its occupants should see me. I squint out my window as I get close, and my breath hitches.

  I’d know that profile anywhere. It’s James in the passenger seat.

  Now what? I didn’t actually expect to find them, so I didn’t think this far ahead. But I guess there’s really only one plan. Kill him before the doctor gets to Marina. Whatever it takes.

  I turn my blinker on and ease back into the right lane of traffic. I wish I’d heard from Finn; he should have caught up to Marina by now and called to let me know she was safe. I maneuver the Chevy so that it’s two lanes over from them and several car-lengths behind, and I slowly follow them down Fourteenth Street and onto the exit for Pentagon City.

  Pentagon City is like a mini downtown, full of high-rises and huge buildings that house government-consulting firms and private defense contractors. I follow Richter through the streets and watch from a stoplight as he turns his car into the underground parking garage of a nondescript office building sandwiched between two luxury apartment complexes. The only thing that catches my attention about the place is that a man in a suit is standing by the attendants’ station at the entrance of the garage.

  I’ve seen a lot of parking attendants in my time, and even the valets at my mom’s favorite restaurant in LA—the ones who take over the keys of movie stars’ Bentleys and Aston Martins—never wear suits.

  I park the Chevy in a no-standing zone one street over and get out. I check my cell phone for a call from Finn—nothing—and tuck the gun inside my belt, leaving the bag with the rest of our possessions in the backseat. I don’t expect to ever see the car again. Whatever it takes, I’m finding James inside that office building and ending this.

  Of course, I can’t just stroll in. Somehow, in my jeans and hoodie, I have to look like I belong in that sleek building for long enough to find him without attracting attention. Finn would know how to do it. I try to think like Finn, and immediately my eyes go to the pizzeria across the street.

  I come out of Little Romeo’s a few minutes later with a small cheese pizza—which, even in my state, I can’t help but notice smells like heaven—and a bottle of Coke. I walk toward the office building, practicing my casual face along the way, which is hard to make when my heart is racing so fast. But I have to stay calm, logical. It’s the only way I can help Marina.

  Outside the building there’s a brass placard listing the offices inside: Sheen and Goldberg Dentistry, Republic Gas and Petroleum, a few law firms, and something called the Associated Institutes of Research. AIR. The name rings a distant bell in my memory. Rina, one of the people who was taken with us at the house in West Virginia, had worked in intelligence before the world went insane. She used to tell us about all the organizations that served as front groups for different intelligence agencies, and I’m sure she mentioned the AIR. I’d bet my life that the Associated Institutes of Research is really the SIA and that James and Richter are inside.

  Which is good, since that’s basically what I’m doing.

  I take a deep breath and push open the glass door to the lobby. I’ve walked into places where I had no business being dozens of times, and I know the key is to project confidence. If you look like you belong, people assume you do. I nod at the guard behind the front desk, lifting up the pizza as if to indicate I’m here on a delivery.

  “Where you headed?” the guard asks, rising from his chair.

  I look down at my receipt. “Sheen and Goldberg Dentistry? I’m looking for Marcy.”

  “Fourth floor,” he says, pushing a clipboard toward me. “You’ll need to sign in.”

  “No problem.” I scrawl Elizabeth Bennet across the sign-in sheet. Is this the extent of the security here? Obviously the SIA has decided to hide in plain sight. “Take it easy.”

  “You too.”

  As I wait for the elevator, I look at the directory posted on the wall. The Associated Institutes of Research takes up the entire top floor in this twenty-four-story building. Once inside the elevator, I press the button for twenty-four. Nothing happens. The doors remain open, and the button stays dark. I press it again, harder. To my relief, the doors close, but the elevator remains still. Now I’m just standing here like an idiot. That’s when I notice the card reader tucked in beside the emergency phone panel. Well, of course. Even if they’re hiding in plain sight, they can’t have just anyone posing with a pizza gaining access to the floor.

  Time for a new plan.

  I stand in the motionless elevator for several minutes, racking my brains for a solution. Even if I do get onto the twenty-fourth floor, there will no doubt be guards and all kinds of extra security measures. The odds of my reaching James might as well be nonexistent. I need a plan that gets me near him.

  All the while, a little clock ticks at the back of my mind, reminding me that each moment I delay is one in which the doctor might be doing unspeakable things to Marina as his perverse way to get revenge on me. I glance at my phone and try to calculate how many minutes have passed since Finn and I parted. He should have caught up to her by now. I should have heard from him.

  Finally, with the best plan I can come up with, I jab the button for the twenty-third floor and cross my fingers as the elevator starts to move.

  The doors open onto a receptionist’s desk with a glass sign above it that proclaims this to be the law offices of Holden, Hewes, and Stein. I quickly remember what Finn taught me about how to get what you want from people: pay attention to them, figure out what they want and what they’re afraid of. The receptionist is young, so she’s probably inexperienced and a little uncertain. She’s wearing a floral blouse with big hot-pink flowers on it, so she’s not a stickler for rules. I need to be someone she won’t find intimidating, someone she’ll sympathize with and then forget.

  As I step out of the elevator, I summon what I hope is a sweet, dopey smile.

  “Hold, please,” she says as I approach, pushing a button on the phone console and giving me a bright smile. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m here to bring my dad some dinner.” I gesture to the pizza. “He’s going to be working late tonight.”

  “Who’s your father?”

  “Mr. Hewes.” Dear God, please let Hewes be a man.

  “Let me call him and tell him you’re here.”

  “Oh, please don’t!” I lean toward her, like we’re sharing secrets. “He doesn’t know I’m home from college. I want to surprise him.”

  She looks uncertai
n. She’s probably supposed to call employees when they have visitors, but hopefully she’s still intimidated by the partners and doesn’t want to speak to Mr. Hewes any more than she has to. Finally she smiles. “Okay then. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to see you. You know where his office is?”

  I point to my left. “This way, right?”

  “That’s right. Have a good evening!”

  I walk down the corridor, and as soon as I’m out of the receptionist’s sight, I dump the pizza and Coke in an empty cubicle. They’ll only slow me down and make me easier to spot now. I walk quickly through the office, trying to project an air of belonging and being too busy and important to be bothered, and somehow it works. Despite my ratty jeans and hair that hasn’t been washed for days, no one at this high-class D.C. law firm says a word about my odd presence. I prowl the perimeter of the floor, keeping to the edges, and after several minutes I find what I’m looking for.

  The staircase.

  I duck into the stairwell, which is made of concrete with metal handrails and floor numbers painted in black on each landing. I climb up to the twenty-fourth floor on quiet feet and stand in front of the door. As I suspected, there’s a key card panel beside it and who knows what waiting inside. I take the stairs up to the landing above, the entrance to the roof. It’s locked, but I don’t care about that. I peer over the handrail at the door to the twenty-fourth floor, gauging the angle and distance. It’s doable. Assuming that a hundred other things I’m depending on don’t go wrong.

  I check my phone again as I run back to the law firm. Still nothing. Something’s gone wrong, I know it. I’m still here, so Marina is alive, but I don’t know how much longer that will last. I have to get to James before he gets to her.

  I find the ladies’ room in a secluded little hallway near the stairs. There’s a fat sugar cookie–scented candle beside the sink, and I cross my fingers with one hand and grab it with the other. A cheap plastic lighter lays behind it, which may be the first piece of good luck I’ve had. I clutch it in my hand.

  “Come on, Finn,” I whisper. “Hurry.”