The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Valentina stomped circles around Michael and Andre. “How did no one see them leave?”

  “We didn’t patch the door,” Andre said, shooting Vogle a look. “They could have slipped out.”

  “They wouldn’t have left us.”

  “No,” Michael said. “They wouldn’t have.”

  I nudged Shay, trying to keep my voice low. “How many?”

  “Four Rogues. Jonah, Miles, Xavier and Tolly.”

  I struggled to match the names with the faces I’d seen that first day Michael and the others had taken us hostage.

  “They were new,” Shay added. “Hadn’t been with us very long. Tolly and Xavier were still really shaken up about their Dreamers.”

  We reached the street corner and I almost slammed into Valentina who’d come to an abrupt stop alongside the others. Shay knelt beside me, hands raking through shards of glass so fine they ran like sand through her fingers. Everyone else was looking up.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  Valentina pointed. “Explosion at the Köln building.”

  “Shit, the whole street’s blocked,” Michael groaned.

  “Whatever it was blew out every window,” Valentina added.

  Shay rose next to me, looking up, and then I did too, the big steel frames, glassless and swaying from the height. A policeman said something in German and Vogle pulled me to the other side of the street.

  Glass crunched beneath my feet and from that distance I could finally see the police tape and the entire sky reflected in shards against the sidewalk. Glass ringed the building, pieces littering the steps and larger shards settling in piles against the walls.

  Shay was still holding a piece. She turned it over and over in her hand and then when she caught me watching her, she handed it to me without a word.

  It rested there, thick and heavy, and I wondered if this was the piece Bryn had touched. I examined the edges but they were clean, no sign of her blood or her handprint. But it was warm, or maybe I was just imagining it, though something about it felt unnatural. Like Bryn. Like the dream.

  Only it wasn’t a dream. It couldn’t have been. Because we’d touched, I’d remembered, and now this. I thought about what Bryn had said, about how she was never meant to just see the future but to control it.

  I let the shard of glass fall to the ground, a crack ignited across the surface. Because that wasn’t all she had said. She’d said she wasn’t afraid to die anymore. She’d said she was more afraid of what would happen if she didn’t. But what she’d really meant was that she was afraid of this, of the things that might get broken in the wake of a strength she still didn’t understand yet. And in that moment, staring at the brokenness all around me, I was afraid of it too.

  “Let’s keep it moving.” Michael pressed forward, oblivious, and I decided to let him stay that way.

  I still wasn’t sure whether or not Vogle was right not to trust him but I wasn’t going to use Bryn as a way to find out.

  “There’s an abandoned warehouse up ahead,” Domingo said. “I think I’m getting something.”

  “They call it Die Grube, The Pit. Lots of homeless,” Vogle added.

  “Sounds promising.” Michael rubbed his hands together, as if fighting the cold, and smoke trailed up from the gaps.

  When we reached the building Domingo swept the exterior but he just shook his head, his steps slowing as he kept glancing back over his shoulder. “There’s something in there. But I don’t think it’s the girl.”

  Valentina raised an eyebrow. “Something…”

  Before Domingo could say more Michael was already standing at the tall steel doors. He slid one back, the sound grating against my ears, and Andre followed him inside. Vogle hesitated, we both did, but after a few more seconds of hesitation I figured it would probably be safer to follow the group inside than to stand in the empty parking lot. It was getting late and even though I was starting to get the feeling that there wasn’t much I should be afraid of, I was still in a strange place. One that was probably called The Pit for good reason.

  The inside was bare and almost reminded me of a barn. Tall beams held up the scaffolding, the ceiling pocked with holes and cracking in places where rainwater had slipped through. Birds warbled, frantic at our footsteps, but other than that it seemed empty.

  There was a faint clanking and Michael and Andre followed the sound to the far side of the building. There were round metal cases stacked halfway to the ceiling forming a makeshift wall and when Michael stepped on the other side, he stopped. Even his lungs paused and the only sound I heard was the wind.

  The others in front of us tensed, taking slow steps to Michael’s side. I tried to see through the cracks between the barrels but I only caught flashes, the details blurred by the faint moonlight pouring in from the broken skylight.

  My shoe scuffed against Vogle’s heel. I hadn’t noticed him stop but when I looked up I did the same. Not just my feet but every part of me.

  They lay on the floor, muddied, frozen. All sleeping. All with their mouths hanging open in a stalled yawn. All with a thick shadow hanging over them.

  Jonah. Miles. Xavier. Tolly.

  Shay was instantly on her knees and so was Valentina, both of them crawling towards the bodies on the floor as Domingo and Charles both clapped their hands together, the light casting the shadows toward the ceiling. But they didn’t blink out. The shadows charged from one corner of the room to the next, racing at a strange gallop. There was something canine about them, an awful howl rising over the sound of Shay and Valentina’s voices.

  Shay shot up, spiking one shadow dead center with a shard of light, the ends curling in like a wilting flower as it turned to ash. She fell back down next to the girl named Tolly, trying to shake her awake.

  “Michael,” she called back, “what’s happening?”

  Tolly’s back arched and so did the others’ as they twitched against whatever had climbed inside them.

  “Leave them.”

  Everyone stiffened, not sure they’d heard him correctly.

  Michael raised his voice. “It’s too late. Leave them!”

  “What?” Valentina stood, her gaze fierce.

  A shadow materialized above our heads and swept down across the body at Valentina’s feet. She spun, glowing hand catching the cold darkness and ripping it down like a bird in flight. She mangled it, lightning striking within the shadow, but Michael snatched her by the wrist and the shadow disappeared before she could finish it.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she said.

  “We’re not here to play superhero,” he snapped. “They’re dead. Can’t you see that? We’re wasting time when we should be out there looking for the girl!”

  Suddenly Charles was between them and I thought he might swing. But then more shadows darted down, still trying to crawl into the bodies they’d been sucking dry before we’d found them, and Vogle clapped his hands together, hurling the light at shadow after shadow. As soon as I remembered to breathe I was back to back with him, the force pouring from both of us steeling our bodies together.

  “We’re wasting time!” Michael pushed us apart.

  “You call this a waste?” The light faded from my hands, my concentration broken.

  “It’s too late for them,” he hissed.

  “What are you talking about?”

  The shadows started thinning but not because of our presence. They were thinning because they were disappearing into open mouths, each body swelling back to life. My arms fell at my sides.

  “We can’t just leave them like this!” Valentina yelled, as if hoping her voice would wake them. It didn’t.

  “We won’t,” Michael said.

  “But…” I was shaking now. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying that we’re going to put them out of their misery.”

  “Michael!” Shay was sobbing. “There has to be another way. We can drive the darkness out of them. We can wake them up. We can do something.�
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  “No.” Michael’s voice was cool, the sigh that accompanied it the first sign of feeling he’d shown. But he wasn’t sorry. I could tell that much. “Shay…”

  She looked at him, face tightening until the feeling was gone from her too. She nodded.

  The walk back to the truck was long and quiet. When we reached the bridge, Vogle kept walking, leaving me behind and I let him. When I caught up to Michael he grimaced.

  “What now? You find a stray dog that needs saving or something?”

  I ignored him. “What was that back there? How was there nothing we could do?”

  He waved a hand. “I’ve seen it all before.”

  “So, the shadows somehow hijack four Rogues in the middle of the night and you’re not even going to bat an eye?”

  He kept walking.

  “Hey, I want some answers.”

  He spun on me. “It’s over now. We did what we had to do and those shadows aren’t a threat to us anymore. Now we can turn our focus back to finding the girl. That’s it.”

  “But what if it means something? What if it has something to do with the Dreamers, with Bryn?”

  “You sure do have a lot of questions, boy.”

  “And you don’t seem to have very many answers.”

  “You want answers? Go find them yourself. I’ve spent the past seven years looking for Dreamers and you know what I’ve found?” He squared to face me, our noses almost touching. Then he said, “Pain. That’s all there is.”

  He left me, following the others to the truck, and when I couldn’t feel my legs anymore I walked back to the hotel alone. I pushed open the door to my room and found Bryn curled up in the bed. I forgot I was supposed to meet her at the hospital tonight but luckily she seemed to have had a change of plans. One that involved luring me to the bed with a smile so faint it hurt, even though the last thing I wanted to do was sleep.

  I stripped out of my jeans and sweater and crawled in next to her, her warm legs hooking around my waist. This was the first time I’d ever felt her this close but I was too exhausted to be nervous. All I wanted was to feel her, to let my body collapse against something real and soft and safe. We sat there for a long time, her crossed legs around me, hips in my lap. I looked at her and she looked at me, as if we were still dreaming and the proof of this moment could only be justified by the way it felt against our skin.

  I leaned in slow, pressing my lips to hers as if they were the only key that could lock away all of these feelings inside me. But the second she pulled away they all came rushing back. Her face darkened, the thoughts racing through her head finally sinking her down onto her back.

  She curled up against me, burying her face, but before I could say a word—about what I’d just seen, about what Michael had said, or even just to ask her if she was okay, she spoke.

  “I’ve done something.”

  “Done what?”

  I thought she was going to mention the Köln building but then she said, “My grandmother. I dreamed and I saw something. Or more like something saw me and now she’s gone.”

  “Your grandmother’s gone?”

  “You remember her.” Bryn propped herself up on her elbow. “You remember her being here? You remember…”

  I nodded. “Yes.” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d seen her but I knew she’d been sharing a room with Bryn and Dani.

  “Now she’s gone.” Bryn swallowed, hugging her knees. “No one remembers but me. My mom said she died before I was born. She was so surprised…and hurt when I asked where she was that I know she was telling the truth.”

  “You said you dreamed?”

  Bryn told me about dreaming of her grandmother’s childhood home, about watching them have dinner and tell stories and kiss each other before going to bed. Then she told me about the strange man she’d seen hiding in the darkness, how he’d lured her great-grandmother into the trees.

  “Anso, that’s what she called him,” Bryn said. “He was trying to force her to come with him and when I stepped out from behind the trees he saw me.”

  “And you think…” I wasn’t sure how I should finish that sentence. I wasn’t sure where Bryn was going with this.

  She looked up at me. “He asked her if she had children and she lied and said no.”

  “But then he saw you,” I said.

  She nodded.

  “So now…”

  “So now everything’s changed and my grandmother’s gone. She’s…dead.”

  “No.” I sat up, reaching for her shoulders. “She’s not.”

  “But—”

  “Why did he want to know if she had children?” I asked.

  Bryn shook her head. “I don’t know. He just kept telling her that if she was lying he’d find them. He said…that her time was up.”

  “So she knew he was coming?”

  “It seemed like it.”

  “Then maybe that’s why she lied. What if she knew that if she said she had children he would eventually come for them too?”

  The air trailing from Bryn’s nose came to a halt, her entire body still. “He took her,” she said. “And I have to get her back.”

  39

  Bryn

  “You’re late.” Sam was leaning out of a decrepit doorway, a hand waving me inside.

  “For what?”

  She pressed a finger to her lips, eyes eager, and I followed her inside the building. The space was small, the bare floor muddy and sticking to my shoes. Rain trickled down the insides of the windowpanes, carving alongside the cracks that made the draft even colder. It smelled like dead leaves and gasoline and I coughed against the cold.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  “Not far,” Sam said.

  Through the window I could still see the bridge and I realized that the dream had only displaced us slightly rather than hurling us into some other time and place.

  “She’s sleeping,” Sam said, leading me through a doorway.

  “Who?”

  Leaves covered the floor but mixed among the damp debris was something dark. I bent down and Sam tugged at the blanket, revealing a small blue wrist, blonde hair that was almost grey, and a pair of trembling eyes.

  The girl kicked her feet, sinking against the wall.

  “It’s okay,” Sam said, reaching out a hand to her.

  The girl’s hand was shaking but it seemed to still some as Sam held it.

  The stranger narrowed her eyes at me, her voice thick and muddled as she said, “You.”

  “Me?” My lips were trembling now, from the cold, from the look in the girl’s eyes. “What about me?”

  “He wants to take something of yours.” Her accent was harsh but I couldn’t tell if it was Spanish or something else. “He wants to steal from you like he stole from me.”

  “Who?” I crept closer. “What are you talking about?”

  She glanced around, the sound of the wind drawing her eyes toward the open doorway. Still frantic, she said, “Michael.”

  “Michael…” I bit down on my lip until it wasn’t numb anymore. “Michael. The Rogues.”

  The girl was still shaking but she had enough energy to roll her eyes, hatred seething behind her fear. “Rogues. So he’s convinced them.”

  “Convinced them of what?” I pressed.

  “To follow him.”

  All I could think about was Roman. “What does he want with them?”

  “The same thing he wants with all of us.” The wind whistled through the door and the girl shot up, gripping her knees. “Did he follow you?” she hissed.

  “No.”

  “If he followed you, if he finds me he’ll…no. I’d be dead. I’d be worse than dead. I can’t go back. We have to get out of here.”

  Sam tugged on my sleeve. “She’s supposed to come with us.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I only ever find things that are important.”

  The girl gripped Sam’s hand, steadying herself as I led them back outside.<
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  “Are we still in the city?” I said, looking around.

  Beneath the moonlight I could see now that the girl was in nothing but jeans and a thin jacket, the sleeves torn and the hood riddled with holes. She looked small but I couldn’t tell if it was her age or her hunger. Her collarbones looked sharp enough to cut straight through her shirt.

  Her teeth chattered as she pointed without looking. “Bridge is that way.” She pointed to our left. “Rhine.” To our right. “The cathedral.”

  “We should take her to the hotel,” I said.

  I knew my first instinct should have been to take her to the hospital but it was the middle of the night and something about the way Dr. Banz had been acting made me think the hotel would be safer for tonight. She could come with me tomorrow afternoon but for now what she really needed was some warm clothes and something to eat. Not questions and syringes and testing rooms that were colder than the frigid air outside.

  I led us toward the bridge, the girl jumping at every sound. She seemed to be muttering something under her breath, her exhales short and sharp like the ping of typewriter keys.

  “What’s your name?” Sam asked.

  It was quiet for the first time since we’d left the abandoned building, almost as if she couldn’t remember the answer to that question.

  “My name…” she finally said. “My name is Stassi.”

  “Stassi,” Sam repeated. “That’s pretty. I’m Sam.”

  It was quiet again and I looked back. “I’m Bryn.”

  “Bryn. Sam.” Stassi chewed on her jacket sleeve. “And Stassi. And you. And you. And…” She was nodding, eyes darting from left to right.

  “Who?” Sam asked.

  “There’s so many,” Stassi croaked. “All of them. Everywhere.” She fell to her knees, rocks cutting through her jeans. She didn’t even notice the blood. She just gripped the sides of her head, burying her face.

  “Stassi?” Sam was trying to brush her hair from her face. “It’s okay. We’re almost there.”

  She was rocking back and forth, repeating something over and over. I bent down close, trying to make out the words.