I sat in the bleachers with Robbie, just as I had done that first night, pretending to watch the basketball game while Piper took up her station in the nearby bathroom and Kieren and Scott stood guard in the hallway. The only difference was that this time, Brady was sitting with us. But I was relieved that nothing else had gone awry from the original plan.

Brady followed our lead as Robbie and I discreetly left the stands before halftime, walking confidently past the guards who were not-so-secretly stationed by the doors, under the guise that we were headed for the bathrooms.

Once out of the gym, I retrieved Piper from her hiding spot in the bathroom and we met up with the boys, trailing Scott who had procured the large ring of keys with which he had led us to the secret entrance to the science lab.

I was keeping my nerves in check so far. Despite the frosty air between Brady and Piper, the day had been progressing just as before.

Yet after our rendezvous with our friends, after Scott's fumbling with the key ring that I had always suspected was a bit too clumsy—I never did learn if Scott was working for my mother all along—and after we had made it into the secret alternate passageway to the abandoned network of halls that led to the science lab, that's when my nerves really began to kick in.

Piper and Brady were both acting as though the other didn't exist, with Brady staying noticeably close to me, as though I could somehow shield him from the avalanche of feelings he was going to have to deal with eventually.

We had reached the hallway where I distinctly remembered that Piper had told Robbie she loved him, and he had told her he loved her too. But this time, as if gagged by an invisible handkerchief, Piper remained silent.

Had I made a mistake bringing Brady? Was it stupid to add another factor to the plan—even one that theoretically shouldn't affect the outcome?

And would all of this be a moot point if we made it to the science lab and found that Adam hadn't fulfilled his promise to distract my mother?

I frantically looked for any trace of him as my friends and I began the perilous last stage of our journey—twisting through the once-deserted hallway that had been leftover from when the high school had been a military complex in the nineteen-forties. Our path dimly illuminated from high-up windows at the top of the walls, my friends and I progressed en masse towards the science room at the end of the corridor.

But there was no sign of Adam.

As before, the bricked-up doorways that had always lined this path were now mostly open, the droning hum of office workers filtering out of some of the rooms. But that only added to the surreal feeling that we were floating somehow, ghostlike, towards our destination.

Yet I wasn't a ghost. The tell-tale pounding of my heart against my rib cage told me that I was real, flesh and blood, and that I had only a short amount of time to relive this chapter of my life.

If a person spent too long in DW, especially in Yesterday where changes had huge consequences, it would eventually become too late to come back. That was something Sage had taught me when I had asked if my mother—my real mother, Ana—would be coming back home to me. I could still hear Sage's words in my head:

"Your mother is gone," Sage said, her voice oddly calm. "She's been in too long. That other woman, the one you saw under the lake—she's all that's left now."

I didn't know exactly how much time I had, but I did know this: if I stayed too long, I'd be stuck forever. And if my mother succeeded this time in stopping not just my friends, but myself as well, from returning to that day when I had closed up the lake portal, the world I'd be stuck in was the hell that lurked beneath the lake.

Again, the thought came back to torment me: Is that what Adam secretly wanted?

But my question was answered a second later when a loud crash came echoing out of one of the doors that lined the hallway. My friends and I all froze, frantically looking around for the source.

When a second thudding crash followed the first, Brady pointed to a door just a few feet up—one we would have to walk right past to make it to the science lab.

"What is it?" Kieren frantically whispered.

"It's my mother," I responded.

"How do you know that?"

"I—"

But I didn't get to finish the sentence, which was just as well.

Robbie moved his body to shield Piper from whatever might be lurking behind that door, and Brady, in disgust, started marching away from them in the direction of the crash.

But when I heard my mother's irate voice come resounding out of that same room, I reached out to grab Brady's arm and stop him.

"You'll never find her this way, Adam," I heard my mother spit in her most terse voice. Having been brought to America when she was only nine and raised, along with my aunt Amalia, by her single Mexican mother, Mom didn't normally have any trace of an accent. But when she was angry, I always thought I could hear remnants of my abuelita's voice, reprimanding us in Spanish to clean up our rooms or help her in the kitchen.

Adam's voice in response was calm but slightly higher than normal: "Then you won't either."

A deathly silence followed. Signaling to my brother to wait behind me, I began sneaking up towards the open doorway. But Kieren tensed up before I made it more than a step.

"Marina, no, no," he whispered, stopping me with the forcefulness of his voice.

"I need to see," I responded.

But Brady wasn't having that either. "I'll go," he interjected, all but pushing me aside in order to approach the door. Stooping down low, he bent his head around the cracked-open door, but immediately whipped it back, cringing with an expression that told me he had been spotted. "Shit," he whispered.

"What was that?" my mother asked, her voice echoing out of the small room.

A Russian accent followed, a man saying, "It was that kid. Dark hair."

"They're here," my mother hissed.

"I mean it, Rain, stand back," Adam shouted, no longer sounding so cool.

"Do you understand that you're killing her, Adam? You're killing Jenny right now."

Brady stood up by the doorway and I ran to meet him, no longer caring about Kieren's objections. What was my mother talking about? But Brady held me back before I could look in the room.

"No, Marina. There's a man with a gun. We have to go."

A gun? Did Adam have a gun on my mother?

But there was no time to find out. A struggle could be heard inside the room—feet shuffling, grunting. Suddenly a gunshot rang out, followed by plaster raining down from the ceiling. My heart leapt into my throat.

"Mom!" I screamed, my voice boomeranging from my throat before I could stop it. The next several seconds were an avalanche of chaos as panicking workers in the other offices shouted out, slammed doors, and in a couple cases, bolted out into the hallway, not pausing to consider what a bunch of teenagers were doing there before running for cover.

I realized I was on the ground, Kieren's body covering mine. But there were no more gunshots.

Over the receding din, I could make out Adam's voice: "Run, Marina."

That was all the encouragement Kieren needed. He pulled me back up to my feet and grabbed hold of Piper's hand. He shouted to the others, "Now! Just run!"

As we passed the office, I peeked in just long enough to see that my mother had not been shot, but that she and her Russian boyfriend—Alexei, that had been his name—were wrestling with Adam over control of the gun. A small black hole in the ceiling revealed the final resting place of the bullet that had fired.

"Adam," I called out, not sure what to do to help him.

My voice was enough to distract Alexei briefly, and Adam regained control of the gun, pointing it at his attacker's head.

"I'm fine," Adam called to me, his eyes still trained on Alexei and my mother, standing side-by-side. "They won't hurt me. Just go."

Right before I could start running, however, I saw Alexei charge Adam, wresting control of the gun once again from Adam's fingers. The two strong men began what seemed to be a battle of gladiators, the gun perilously dangling between them as they faced off.

I didn't get a chance to see who would be the victor, however. I felt a hand grab my wrist and yank, and it wasn't until we were almost in the science lab that held the tent to the three doors that I looked down and realized it was Kieren's hand.

"Scott," Kieren yelled to his friend, "you got the key?"

"Got it!" Scott yelled, apparently as relieved as everyone else to have escaped my mother. Maybe I could trust him after all. He quickly found the correct key in his ring and pried open the door to the science lab.

We were almost all inside the door when I heard footsteps barreling down the hall in our direction. A quick glance behind me revealed Alexei running at full force towards us. He reached Piper first, who had been lingering in the door as she'd waited for Robbie to enter.

Grabbing a fistful of Piper's hair, he practically lifted her into the air and hurled her away from the door. Robbie threw his full body onto Alexei's head, trying desperately to free Piper from his clutch. But after his years on the train, Robbie's strength was still diminished. Alexei threw him off like he was shaking off a raindrop.

Kieren, Brady, and Scott had already entered the room, but they came back towards the doorway when they noticed me freezing behind them.

I was ready to abandon the plan altogether rather than risk leaving Robbie or Piper behind with this vicious man, but at the last moment, my sacrifice ended up not being necessary.

Before I knew it, a knife was in Alexei's face. The large Russian froze when he saw it, slowly raising his hands and letting go of Piper, whom he had still been grabbing by the hair.

Brady stepped even closer to Alexei, letting him know that he knew very well how to use that pocket knife which he had pulled out, and that he would do so if needed. The Russian backed away, and Brady grabbed Piper's arm, pulling her behind him into the science lab.

Robbie followed suit, and once we were all inside, Brady slammed the door closed and twisted the bolt lock behind us.

"Let's go," Brady ordered the group.

Piper was still shaken, trembling and holding her hair. She started to cry, and Robbie, dazed by the whole experience, took her in his arms.

Brady folded up his knife and put it away in his back pocket, turning away from the couple. "I said let's go," he repeated, and we all followed him down the spiral staircase into the antechamber with the three doors.

From my pocket, I took out the photo of my mother at the Oregon beach and focused on it for a moment. I then inserted the coin into Yesterday and watched as the brick door turned into a glowing yellow portal.

Taking Kieren's hand in my right one, and Brady's in my left, I whispered to the others to do the same. And then, walking hand-in-hand, my friends and I entered the portal to Yesterday.

Something my mother had said the first time I'd tried this suddenly echoed in my ears:

Things end up the way they're meant to. Nature finds a way.