All Our Yesterdays (3 page)

Like everything else, contemplating my escape and/or death eventually gets boring. So boring that I’m almost relieved when my door opens to reveal the doctor and the man Finn and I have dubbed “the director,” the puppet master who pulls the doctor’s strings.

Almost.

I pretend to yawn, because I know it rankles him, but my heart is hammering. “Is it time again already?”

The director inclines his head, and a soldier comes forward to yank me to my feet and sit me down in the metal folding chair they’ve brought with them. He secures my hands to the supports of the chair with the same kind of zip ties our gardener used to use on the rosebushes.

“Her feet, too,” the director says. I’m gratified to see he remembers what happened last time.

Once the defenseless teenage girl surrounded by the men with machine guns is properly restrained, the interrogation begins. I used to count how many times the doctor and the director visited for one of our little chats—thinking each time might be the last, that their patience would run thin and they’d finally kill me—but I lost track somewhere in the twenties. That was weeks ago.

“Where are the documents?” the director says.

“You’re not even going to ask me how my day’s been first? Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

The director slaps me across the face. Unlike the doctor, he doesn’t mind bloodying his hands. My vision swims. The movies didn’t prepare me for this, for how much getting hit actually hurts, and somehow it’s always still a shock.

“I’ve got no time for your games today,” the director says. “We need to know where the documents are. Who did you give them to? China? India?”

“Lives depend on this,” the doctor says quietly from the corner of the room, as though he gives a damn.

I blow the director a kiss as best I can without the use of my hands. I know very well that the moment I tell them where the documents are, my last bargaining chip is gone. That I have that information and they don’t is the only thing that’s kept Finn and me alive this long. Even when I’d rather give it up and get my death over with already, knowing I also hold Finn’s life in my hands keeps me silent. No matter what they do.

And they do their damnedest.

I’m sure my screams wake Finn from his nap, but at least I don’t give us up.

Three

Em

Another day passes. I’m only half awake, staring at the ceiling, trying to make out the cracks I know are there in the faint bluish light from the hallway. I finger my bruises idly. From the way they feel when I press my fingers against them, I think they’re probably that purplish-red color that’s like the bedspread in our old guest room. My mother always liked that color. I suspect it had something to do with her affinity for a good cabernet.

I hear boots in the hallway and frown. I’m not hungry; is it time for breakfast already? But no, the lights are still off.

My door opens slowly, and the guard behind it is one who’s only recently been assigned to us. I like him. There’s still the glimmer of basic human decency in his eyes, and, unlike Kessler, he always hands me my meals and even says thank you sometimes when I hand the tray back. I’m unsure of his name. Connor? Cooper?

“When you were little,” he says, hovering in the doorway, “you had an imaginary friend named Miles. He was a purple kangaroo.”

I bolt upright. “What?”

“Come on. We have to go.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m getting you out of here.”

My mouth goes dry, and my tongue feels suddenly too large for my mouth. This is what I’ve been waiting for. The way out. I never told anyone about Miles, not in my entire life.

Except, apparently, this guard.

“What about Finn?” I say.

“Him too. Hurry up.”

I jump to my feet, and my legs are surprisingly solid beneath me. I reach under my mattress and pull out the sheet of paper in the plastic bag, stuffing it in my pocket. The guard—Connor?—is already gone, on his way to free Finn. I step toward my cell door slowly. It’s wide open. I touch the door frame with the tips of my fingers, examining the place where the walls that have been my boundaries for so long end and become nothingness. I take a tentative step through, and for one stupid second I think I might cry.

I hear the rattle of a key in a lock, and turn, watching Connor struggle to open Finn’s cell. Oh my God. The realization crashes over me like that rogue wave at Kiawah Island that knocked the air from my lungs: I’m about to see Finn.

Connor finally manages the lock and pulls the door open, and everything slows until the silence between each heartbeat in my ears is expansive and deafening. If I reacted to our sudden freedom like an animal who had forgotten the world outside its bars, Finn flies out of his cell like a bird from a cage. I barely have time to look at him before he collides with me in a tangle of arms and legs, holding me so tightly I can’t breathe and don’t care.

“Oh my God,” he says over and over. “Oh my God.”

“Let me look at you.” I pull away and put my hands on his cheeks, examining his face. Blue eyes, of course. And how could I forget that mouth? Thin pink lips with one crooked corner always suggesting a mocking smile. My God, how had I never noticed before how handsome he is? “You need a haircut.”

He rubs the side of his thumb over my cheekbone. “You’re beautiful.”

I’ve been scared for years. On the run, isolated from everyone I love, and then locked in this cell, tortured and interrogated with the threat of death always hovering over my shoulder. But I swear I’ve never been as scared as I am when Finn leans forward to kiss me for the very first time.

He presses his lips to mine so softly that I think he must be afraid this is a dream that will dissolve at the best part. His hands press tighter to my back, pulling me close, and for a second all my fear is drowned out.

“I’m sorry,” Connor says, “but we’ve got to get moving.”

Finn shoots me a shy smile as we disentangle ourselves, and Connor draws his gun as he starts down the hallway. I take Finn’s hand and weave our fingers together. Now that he’s beside me, I don’t want to lose him again, even for a second.

Connor leads the way, and we follow just behind. My head is constantly moving, taking in everything around us. It’s my first glimpse of the place since they locked us in here however many months ago, and I wasn’t in a state then to take in the scenery. There are three more cells next to mine and Finn’s, reinforced like ours with cinder-block walls and metal doors, but they’re empty. The rest of the hallway seems to be used for storage, and it’s so banal that I’m shocked and not a little offended. It looks like the doctor packed Finn and me away with the rest of the old junk, like a box of winter clothes put away for the summer and eventually forgotten.

“Where is everyone?” I whisper once we’re through the locked door that separates our hallway from the rest of the facility. So far we haven’t spotted a single soldier.

“It’s the middle of the night, skeleton shift,” Connor says over his shoulder. “And I drugged the coffeepot in the break room.”

“You know,” I say, “I’m really starting to like you.”

“Don’t decide that until we get to Cassandra.”

We creep toward the heart of the facility, which I see now is huge. Connor has to be careful to keep his boots from thumping against the concrete floor, while Finn and I pad silently in our thin prisoners’ slippers. My breathing grows more labored with each step, the center of my chest burning from the effort. I didn’t realize what a toll living in a room only four steps across was taking on my body until this moment. I glance at Finn to see if he’s starting to sweat and shake the way I am, but he seems unaffected. He’s probably been working out in his cell, the vain little bastard.

I’m wishing now I’d thought of it.

“You okay?” he says. I’ve been slowing down, and he’s now pulling me forward where our hands are still clutched together. I nod, take a deep breath, and force myself to quicken my pace.

I’m so focused on putting one foot in front of the other that I don’t hear the door open at the other end of the hallway or see the dark-haired man step through it. But Connor does. His arm crashes into my chest, shoving Finn and me into the recess of another doorway, and I only catch a glimpse of the man as I’m shuffling backward, out of sight.

It’s the doctor. I plaster myself against the door and try to rein in my ragged breathing.

Connor walks toward him, and terror slices through me like a knife. I’m suddenly sure this has been some setup of the doctor’s, another trick to break us down. Connor will turn us back in to him now, and we’ll never leave our cells again. I’m seized by the wild desire to run.

Maybe sensing what I’m thinking, Finn squeezes my hand, holding me in place.

“Connor, what are you doing in this part of the building?” we hear the doctor ask from our flimsy hiding place. All he has to do is take a few steps in our direction and the recess in the wall will fail to hide us any longer. “Aren’t you supposed to be watching the prisoners?”

“Yes, sir. Abrams is covering me. The sergeant sent me to find you.”

The doctor sighs in irritation. “I’m not even on duty; I just came in to finish some paperwork. What does he need?”

“Not sure, sir. All he said was that he needed to see you in cent-comm.”

Footsteps approach us. Not Connor’s heavy-soled boots, but what I’d bet my life is fine Italian leather. I press myself so hard against the door at my back that I’ll have new bruises to add to my collection if we survive the night.

“I need to go to my office first,” the doctor says, “and then—”

“He said it was urgent, sir.”

The footsteps stop. “Take your hand off me, soldier.”

Oh God. I ball my free hand into a fist. If the doctor comes this way, at least I can give him a few bruises of his own before he kills me.

“Excuse me, sir,” Connor says in a shaken voice. “I only meant that the sarge really needs you, and there’s not time . . .”

The silence stretches, and with my eyes closed I can almost see the evaluating expression on the doctor’s face as he looks at Connor. To my ears, Connor sounds wildly guilty, and the doctor would have to be deaf not to realize something is amiss. I can only hope his obliviousness to people and his own sense of invincibility will win out.

“Fine,” the doctor finally says. “I’ll go to cent-comm, and you get yourself back to those prisoners. And next time, remember your place.”

“Yes, sir.”

The doctor’s lighter step moves away from us, and I release the breath I’ve been holding.

“We’ve got to move now,” Connor says when he returns to us. “He’ll know something’s up when he gets to cent-comm and no one’s there. It’s on the other side of the facility, though, and Cassandra is close.”

We run through the corridors, Connor ten or fifteen feet ahead to scout for other soldiers and Finn practically dragging me alongside him. When we stop, I double over, resting my hands on my knees as I struggle to catch my breath. Finn rubs my back in soothing little circles, but Connor’s attention is entirely focused forward. He has his gun pulled up to his chest, poised at a turn in the hallway. He holds a finger to his lips.

“Control room’s right around the corner,” he whispers. “It’ll be guarded—nothing I could do about that—so you two stay back.”

Finn tenses beside me. “What are you going to do?”

“Does it matter? Once you go back, none of this will have ever happened, right?”

I swallow another gulp of air. “That’s the idea.”

“Don’t move.” Connor tucks his gun back into its holster and turns the corner at a run. We hear him shout, followed by the sound of fists banging on glass. The control room. Finn puts his arm around my shoulders, and I tuck myself close to his body. God, he’s warm. It’s been so long that I’d forgotten how warm another person could be.

“Fire in A-Wing!” Connor cries. “We need all units. Come on!”

There’s a pause, then the barely audible swish of a door opening.

“There’s no alarm,” a soldier says, “or radio call.”

“We can’t leave our post,” a second adds.

The sudden pop of two gunshots reverberating off the hard walls is deafening. I clap my hands over my mouth.

“Come on!” Connor shouts.

Finn starts to run, so I do too, rounding the corner and approaching the control room, which is surrounded floor to ceiling with bulletproof glass. The two soldiers are slumped in the doorway, a pool of dark blood beneath them, spreading with each second. I never could have imagined so much blood. The movies didn’t prepare me for the sight of two men whose heads have been blown off, either.

Connor stands inside the control room, on the other side of the guards’ broken bodies. His face and uniform are speckled red, and I shudder when he holds a hand out to me. It’s his right hand, the one he used to shoot with, and the blowback has left a shadow of tiny red dots across his skin. I force myself to take it, and he helps me jump over the bodies of the dead men. Finn leaps after me, but his foot lands in the edge of the spreading pool of blood and slips out from under him, sending him sprawling to the floor. I help him up, and he kicks off his sodden slippers.