All Our Yesterdays by Cristin Terrill

Author:Cristin Terrill
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2013-07-01T05:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Em

Finn and I park across the street from the hospital and wait. My gut is churning. Finn rifles through our backpack and comes up with a Snickers. He offers me half, and I have to pretend I’m not hungry, even though I haven’t eaten since yesterday. I can’t tell him what’s really wrong: the acute flash of memory that threw me back into my prison cell, how I had the perfect opportunity to end all of this by putting a bullet into James through that window, or how I hesitated because Marina was beside him. I should tell him, but I can’t.

I hate myself.

I must look as sick as I feel, because he puts a hand on my knee. “It’s going to be okay.”

I look at him. Really look at him. For so long, he was only a voice to me, and now he has a body and a face once more. I want to memorize every expression so that no one can ever take them away from me again.

I try to smile. “When did you become so trusting?”

“Around the same time you became so cynical, I guess. Now try to inhale. It’s good for you.”

“Yeah, yeah.” The front door to the hospital slides open, and Marina steps out. I hit Finn in the shoulder. “Look!”

Marina runs to the street and flags down a cab, the younger Finn on her heels. The photographers and news crews still camped outside the hospital don’t even look up, and the two of them climb in and drive away.

“Where are they going?” Finn asks. “Just the two of them?”

“I don’t know.” I’m glad I didn’t take that Snickers, because my stomach is turning flips. “But it means James is alone inside.”

Before, Finn and I had to wait for James to come out of the hospital on his own because we can’t make a move on him while the three of them are together. We can’t risk coming face-to-face with our younger selves; the fabric of time might not be strong enough to survive it.

But if James is alone again, it’s our best chance to do things right this time.

“He’ll be protected in there,” Finn says. “He’ll be with Nate, surrounded by armed guards.”

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy. But I think we have to try, don’t we?”

“You’re crazy, but let’s do it.”

We wade through the mobs of press and supporters, who pay no more attention to us than they did our younger selves, and approach the entrance of the emergency room. I stop short near the front of the crowd. I’m close enough to see through the sliding glass doors. Beyond them, there’s now a portable metal detector manned by two officers.

“Okay,” Finn says. “Change of plan.”

“What’s the new plan?” I say.

“I don’t know yet.”

We both stand there, thinking. A girl from the crowd hands me a candle, and I stare into the flickering flame.

“The ambulance bay?” I whisper.

Finn shakes his head. “Too conspicuous. Plus, it’ll be guarded, too.”

“Maybe you could distract the guards, and I’ll slip around the outside of the metal detector?”

“Too risky.

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