Пинтип Данн - Remember Yesterday

“How do you kill the beast?

You take away his food, he feeds off the air

You cut off his head

He grows another one with hair.

How do you stop the chairwoman?

You become her friend

And change the system from within.”

Her eyes twitch. As if she’s trying to open them. As if she’s struggling to remember how.

I suck in a breath. The only other time this happened was when I sent her the memory. That means she hears my words. That means she has a reaction.

“The jingle did its job,” my father says softly. “It triggered her mind. Her mind has stopped zooming, and it’s trying to figure out where to land. Now, it’s up to the two of you. Let her hear your voices. Bring her back to us.”

Logan brings her hand to his chest. As we planned, he’s going first. “Come back to me, Callie. Please. Wake up.”

I shoot him a look as if to say, Is that all you’ve got?

He shuffles his feet. I know he’s uncomfortable. He’s been shut down so often whenever he talked about Callie. He’s had to put so many priorities ahead of his grief. He’s not used to speaking so openly.

“Give her your heart, Logan,” I murmur. “That’s why you’re here.”

He nods, swallows. And begins again.

“Callie. Calla Lily. My heart, my red leaf. I’ve been in love with you since I was twelve. Since you leaned back in your chair, craning your neck to see the sun. I knew from that moment you were the girl for me. You’re good and kind and brave. More importantly, you love deeply and unconditionally. You don’t hold anything back.” His voice breaks, and he lowers his face over their hands. “You…you destroyed me, Callie. I understand why you did it. You wouldn’t be who you are if you hadn’t. But you’ve been lying there for ten years now. I continued living, but your absence is the constant in my life. It greets me every morning and accompanies me to bed every night. I can live without you. I know that now.”

His voice grows stronger in both volume and depth. It pierces all the way through me. “But I don’t want to. I gave you a leaf to remind you of the sun, Callie. But you are my sun. Without you, my world is dark, and it’s time for you to come back to me again.”

I stare as hard as I can at her face. Is that another twitch? Yes, it has to be. A definite flutter of her eyelashes. She’s trying. Father of Time, she’s doing her best to get her eyes open.

Come on, Callie. You can do it. Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

And then, miracle of miracles, it happens. Her eyes creak open. They shut again immediately. But they open once more, squinting against the dim light. They dart around the room a few times, a hummingbird lost in flight, and then they settle on me.

My world tilts. Flips upside down, turns inside out. If I weren’t holding onto Callie’s hand, I might slide right off this plane into a different dimension. Is this moment really happening?

It is.

“Jessa?” her voice rasps. It’s little more than a whisper, and it isn’t any wonder. She hasn’t spoken for ten years.

My eyes are wet and blurry, and I don’t know if I’m crying, or if she is, or if it’s the very air that’s weeping. “It’s me, Callie. I’m here. And so are you. So are you.”

The others get in line, and one by one, they each have their moment with her. She recognizes all of them, even my dad. And then, it’s Logan’s turn. They don’t say much, but they don’t need to. Their love is apparent in the graze of his knuckles against her cheek, in the way their gazes latch onto each other’s and refuse to waver.

My heart is full to the point of bursting. I’m crying and laughing. I hug my mom and kiss Tanner and toss baby Remi into the air. I’ve experienced joy before, but nothing like this. Nothing even close to this.

I know, without a single, slightest doubt: I’ve never been so happy in my life.

Later, I’m in front of Callie once again. Holding her hand once again, while the others talk to one another in small groups. My sister lies against her pillow, exhausted. The machines kept her muscles from atrophying, but she’s not used to sitting and breathing on her own.

Still, there’s a reddish tinge to her cheeks that wasn’t there earlier. The light in her eyes completely overwhelms the fatigue in her face, and her breath, while short, has the unevenness associated with life.

I check my joy. My job here isn’t done. I didn’t get to say the speech I prepared, and maybe that’s just as well. It won’t preempt what I’m about to do now.

“I have something to say to you, something everyone should hear,” I tell Callie, raising my voice to get the others’ attention. My throat is tight; my heart, the one that so recently expanded like a balloon, feels even tighter. “For a long time, I believed I should’ve died instead of you. I felt unworthy of your sacrifice. You gave so much—not only to me but also to the rest of the world. You gave us back the belief in ourselves, in our own free will, in the control we have over our futures. ‘Remember yesterday’ became our rallying cry. Remember Callie. Remember what she did to change her future. If Callie could do it, then we can, too.”

I take a deep breath. This one comes from deeper than my lungs. It comes from the very center of my soul. “While I appreciate what you gave me, while I honor and love every bit of who you are, I’ve come to realize that you made a mistake. That’s okay. Because every mistake brings us closer to the right answer.”

I let her hand slip through my fingers, and I back away. Ryder and Angela part as I crowd into them, giving me a clear path to the wall screen. And the security panel next to it.

“How do you stop the chairwoman?” I flex my hand. My fingers are shaking, but I don’t need steadiness for what I’m about to do. “Not by taking your own life. Not even by cutting off the fingers of a little boy. You can’t stop the chairwoman by delaying the invention of future memory. First, because science won’t be delayed forever. And second, because future memory is simply a tool. You can’t stop a monster by taking away her tools. You have to get into her brain and you change her, and if she’s unmalleable, then you have to change her organization.”

My back bumps into the wall. And there it is: the red security button, at the top left corner of the panel. The one with a direct line to PuSA, the Public Safety Agency. The one that alerts the authorities of a traitor in our midst. Every ComA employee is urged to install one in his or her home, and every apartment in the scientific residences has one.

“I used to believe I was unworthy, but not anymore. Everything that’s happened has led me to this moment. When I finally prove my worth to you.”

My eyes drift to Tanner, and he gives me a single, precise nod. He’s the one who helped me hide all the equipment. He’s the one who knows about and believes in my plan.

Quickly, before I can change my mind, I flip open the glass cover and push the button. “You have exactly six minutes to get out of here before PuSA arrives. Run through the woods and jump into the river. I’ve hidden canoes on the other side. There’s enough dry food and equipment in them to last you several months in the wilderness. Medicines for Callie, formula for Remi. Everything you could possibly need to make your lives comfortable. It’s time for you to go on the run once more.”

The anger, the rants, the cries explode instantaneously.

“What are you doing?” Logan roars. “Callie’s still weak. She’s in no shape to travel.”

“Remi’s just a baby,” Angela wails. “She might die out there in the wilderness.”

“I didn’t think you had it in you,” Ryder bites off. “In all our years of friendship, I never pegged you for a traitor.”