Remember Yesterday

54

I open the door—and not a moment too soon. The older Tanner has a little boy in his arms, and he’s half carrying, half dragging him toward a spinning spherical blade. The kind used to cut through wood. A tool you would need to construct mazes out of planks of varying sizes. A whine fills my ears as the blade slashes through the air. Just as easily as it would slice through human skin.

The boy kicks and screams as though his life depended on it—and maybe it does.

I run up to them and grab Tanner’s arm. “Tanner! What are you doing?”

He flicks my hand away like it’s an insect. “This kid is stronger than I remember being,” he pants.

“I don’t care who you are,” the boy screams. “I don’t care if you are me. You could be Father Time himself, and I still wouldn’t let you hurt me.”

“Pay attention, you little brat,” Tanner says, his voice strained. “This is for your own good. It’s a bit of pain for a lifetime of remembrance.”

He grabs the boy’s hand—his younger self’s hand—and tries to force it toward the spinning blade.

My heart lurches. Dear Fates. I step between them and the spinning blade. “Tanner, stop! Explain to me what you’re doing.”

He looks up, his eyes so wild I almost don’t recognize him. “If anyone would approve, it should be you. I’m giving myself a reminder of what’s important.”

He pushes his younger self to the floor and digs his elbows into the boy’s back. “I’m the cause of future genocide. I invented future memory. I take full responsibility, and that’s why I’m going to fix it.” He sucks in a breath, winces as if it hurts, and then sucks in another one. “If I cut off some of my fingers, then I’ll change the course of our future. When I grow up and see that severed mouse’s leg, I’ll know not to do what I did. Not to invent future memory. We’ll shift to another path. The riot won’t happen. Callie’s life won’t be in danger. Chairwoman Dresden will continue to be stymied.”

“We can’t change the past.” I grip his shoulders. “You’re the one who keeps reminding me. Remi—”

“Will still be born,” he interrupts. “If you saved Callie, the ripples would extend to everyone close to her, which includes Mikey and Angela. But my ripples will die long before it touches any of you. None of you even know me at this time. We won’t even live in the same city for six more years. Whether or not I’m missing a few fingers won’t affect any of your lives one iota.”

“You don’t know that,” I whisper.

His jaw tightens. “The payoff is too great. I have to risk it.” He gets off the boy and, with renewed energy, hauls him up and once more tries to force his hand to the blade.

My mind spins, working through his logic.

If he’s right, future memory wouldn’t be invented. Callie would still be bonded to me. Dresden would have to find another way.

And Tanner…Tanner would be missing a few fingers. He’ll bear the scars for the rest of his life. Add to this the torture that’s about to come, and it will rock him to his very core. It will change him.

The Tanner Callahan I know—the one I’m beginning to love—might as well be dead.

The blade touches skin, and the little boy’s scream pierces the air.

“No!!!” I throw myself at them with all my strength, knocking them away from the blade.

Tanner hits the ground, and I wrench his younger self from his arms. I pull the little boy, who is full-on hysterical, onto my lap.

“Not like this.” I kiss the boy’s forehead, wetting the too-familiar black hair with my tears. “Callie already injected herself to keep future memory from being discovered. And then you invented it anyway. Don’t you see? No matter what we do, science will find a way. You told me yourself. We can’t stop science any more than we can stop the beast in the nursery rhyme. How many more lives do we have to ruin before we understand that?”

The older Tanner pulls his knees to his chest, his shoulders vibrating violently. “I can’t be responsible for genocide. I can’t be the cause of that and live with myself.”

“No,” I say with all the force in my soul and body. But he’s not listening to me. As lost as he is in his own guilt, he doesn’t hear.

So I turn to the little boy on my lap. “You are not responsible, do you hear me? The only one who can be blamed for Dresden’s actions is Dresden herself. None of this is your fault. Not the world you live in and not your parents’ accident.”

“Do you really think so?” The boy stares at his hand, where blood is blooming from the cut in between his fingers. “If I had listened more, if I had behaved better, maybe the chairwoman wouldn’t have gotten so angry. Maybe she would’ve punished me instead of them.”

I grab a roll of gauze from a nearby table and wrap his finger as best as I can. “There was nothing you could’ve done. You did the best you could, and your parents would’ve been so proud of you. I’m proud of you.” I tie the gauze, hoping it holds long enough until a real medical assistant sees him. “You’re not responsible for the world, Tanner. Just try your best, in everything you do, and I promise you it will be enough. You may feel alone here, so alone. But I promise you that you will be valued. You will be loved.”

He buries his face in my neck. “You’re nice. Are you an angel, just like my mommy?”

I swallow hard. “Something like that.”

“When I grow up, I want to marry you.” The fabric of my shirt muffles his words.

I laugh through the moisture wetting my eyes. “Why don’t we work on being friends first?” I wrap my arms around the little boy, and I glance up to find the older boy watching me. I can’t read the expression on his face, but that’s nothing new. I’ve never been able to tell what Tanner is thinking. But for the first time, I know what’s in my own heart.

So I look straight into his eyes and tell him. “You stay the boy you were meant to be. I wouldn’t change a thing about you. You hear? Not. A. Single. Thing.”