Remember Yesterday

31

We are led to a small, square cell. Plain walls, no furniture. It can’t measure more than ten feet by ten feet.

One of the guards shoves me toward a wall. He has a five o’clock shadow tattooed onto his laser-smooth cheeks, and he stops in front of the complicated security panel by the door. “You’re in here for four hours and forty minutes. Let’s round it up to five hours, just to be safe.” He keys in the parameters, and a red digital clock appears in the air. “Once the timer counts down, the doors will open and you’ll be released. Until then, make yourself cozy.”

He laughs at his not-funny joke and leaves the room. The door closes behind him.

A second later, I’m attacking the metal surface, dropkicking the doorknob, punching the security system. Pain lances through my hands and feet, but I keep hammering. My sister’s out there, and I won’t be locked in here. I won’t.

Parts of the panel break off and dangle in the air. The hologram clock wavers and disappears. My hands are slick with something wet and slippery and red, and then a pair of arms wraps around my torso and pulls me away.

“Jessa, you’re bleeding,” Tanner says. “Why don’t you—”

I throw his hands off me. “Don’t you ever touch me again.”

“I’m sorry.” His eyes are like black holes in space, with their own gravitational pull. I could tumble into them so easily—but I’ve learned my lesson. I fell into them once, and I won’t make that mistake again.

“This isn’t the way I wanted things to work out,” he says in a low voice. “Believe me, I never wanted to hurt you or Callie.”

“Funny. I’ve heard you say that before.” I gasp at the air. The oxygen leaks out of my lungs the moment it arrives. “Too bad I can’t overlook the end result this time. Because of you, my sister is dead once again.”

“Jessa, I—”

I clap my hands over my ears, and liquid smears into my hair. More blood. “Don’t talk to me. Not now, not ever.” I crawl into the corner, making myself as small as possible. Getting as far away from him as possible.

I can’t do this. I can’t talk to Tanner. I can’t listen to his excuses. I can’t sit here and exist. Not when this is happening again. I barely survived the first time. If Callie is taken from me once more, I will shatter.

“She never came back to you.” Tanner’s voice floats above me. “Her body is here, but her mind continues to skip through time. Even if you could have maintained the bond, there’s no telling if she would’ve ever come back.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better—or yourself?”

I lift my head just in time to see his face crumple. He sags against the wall, sliding lower and lower until he joins me on the floor. “I’m sorry, Jessa. You have no idea how sorry I am. I didn’t know this would happen, but you’re right. I never should’ve betrayed you in the first place. This is my fault.”

I collapse into sobs. Because it doesn’t help me to hear his apology. Sure, it gives me someone to blame. It gives me a target for my anger. But hating him doesn’t bring back Callie.

I want to rip the security system from the walls. I want to wrap the past around Tanner’s and my necks, pulling and squeezing until one or both of us passes out. I want to stomp on Fate’s face and dare a thunderbolt to come into this cell. If it strikes me, so much the better, because then I won’t have to feel this pain anymore.

I don’t know how long I cry. I don’t know when my lungs give out. Eventually, I’m aware of the cool, hard concrete against my skin. Of my throat scraped raw and of the dried tears stiffening my face.

Tanner lies parallel to me, close but not touching. When I look at his face, he blinks, slowly, drowsily, as if he’s been watching me for a good long time.

And then, I feel it. The bond snaps. A severance so clean and thorough I know there’s no hope of resurrecting it. The bond that’s been with me ever since I was born, connecting me to my sister. The one Angela convinced me that I imagined, the one that became stronger than ever when I sent that memory into Callie’s mind.

The bond that connects Callie with our time.

I get on my hands and knees, but I can’t rise any farther. Like a newborn calf, my shaky limbs won’t support me, and I crash to the floor. “She’s really gone now. She’s dead.” As I say the words, the meaning crashes over me.

The. Abrupt. Stark. Finality. Of. It. All.

I can’t breathe. My lungs fold in on themselves, over and over. I can’t think. My mind detaches from my body and goes whirling into space, searching, seeking, chasing my sister through time. I can’t feel. My nerve endings blow up—and die. Like Callie. Like every good thing left in this world.

Tanner scoops me up and settles me on his lap, cradling me like a baby. A few thoughts flash across my brain. I hate him. He’s my enemy. He killed my sister.

At this moment, I’m too broken to care.

“I know it feels hard right now,” he murmurs. “I know it feels unbearable, like you’ll never survive. That’s how I felt, too, when my parents were killed. I didn’t think I could go on. But I did. Time passes. You take one breath and then the next. The moment disappears, and the next one arrives, and you’re still here. There’s honor in that. Simply enduring.”

I close my eyes and keep them closed. Because that’s what life without Callie feels like.

Dull. Dark. Dead.