The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I fell back, examining the crowd, wondering if they’d seen it too. But there was no way. There was no way they could…there was no way Carlisle could…

  But I saw it.

  Carlisle crawled to his feet, shoulders heaving, but he didn’t come towards me again. Instead, he turned and headed for the house, kicking a steaming log back into the fire as he went.

  The crowd trickled back inside too, bored, and I scaled the fence, heading towards the street. Fear forced me to look back and I spotted Carlisle in a front bathroom window, throwing water on his face and scraping off the blood. I couldn’t see his eyes from that far away but they sent chills down my arms anyway.

  I drew closer, trying to sense the shadow, to draw it out somehow. I needed proof that what I’d seen wasn’t some fucked up figment of my imagination, a byproduct of all the booze, or maybe just my rage. Carlisle shifted but his movements were still human. Just before I turned away, the air darkened. The shadow bled out in a pool, faint and swimming around him. At first it was just smoke, transparent, innocent, but then it billowed, thickening until the smoke was ashes, until the ashes were something whole again. Until it was standing, totally exposed, letting me know it was in control.

  The human form pulsed in and out as if it was being displayed by an old projector. The shadow turned to fog again, winding through Carlisle’s limbs, anchoring every motion until he looked exhausted with the simple act of breathing. And I realized that was how it must feel. Like wearing lead. Like being sucked dry.

  I ducked, trying to shield myself even though it knew I was there. I wracked my brain, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. I remembered the story Andre had told about his Dreamer, Olivia, and her sister; how the shadow had used someone close to Olivia to lure her out of Andre’s reach. But Carlisle and I weren’t close, not anymore. So why would it choose him?

  Unless the shadow wasn’t trying to lure me somewhere at all. Unless it was trying to hurt me instead.

  I blinked and the bathroom was aglow again, the shadow gone, no one but Carlisle standing in front of the medicine cabinet mirror. He flinched, looked over his shoulder, but I ducked behind a tree before he could spot me on the street. I tried to take another step but my hand was flush to the trunk, ice crystals burning my skin. The cold spread from the ground up, a locked jaw of winter that sparked pain in my veins and joints.

  An even fiercer chill grazed the back of my neck. I turned, the shadow watching and wearing my face. But not just my face. The shadow was me, fully formed: same shoes, same shirt, same mussed hair. But this Roman’s eyes were rotten and bleeding, red lines carving down the snow of his face. He looked like bone.

  He reached for me and I couldn’t move. I didn’t…want to move. The rush of cold barreled in through my nose, my lungs tightening. But it felt good. It felt…

  “Roman?” Jimmy trekked across the lawn, searching for me.

  In that instant the hold was broken and I reared back a glowing hand, striking my doppelganger and turning him to ashes. I broke into a run before Jimmy could catch up to me but when I looked back it wasn’t Jimmy I saw. It was the shadow, standing again, watching me. It lifted a finger to its grey lips, a hush that stole my breath, and then it slinked off behind a guy in a Broncos hoodie who had stopped in the night to tie his shoe.

  15

  Bryn

  There was no sleeping without our bodies, each one a shield of bone and skin that was the only hope of us finding a way out of here. And we had no idea where they were or who was watching over them.

  I hadn’t brought myself to ask Kira or the others who they’d left behind, or maybe who’d helped them get here. Every time I closed my eyes, trying to give myself a break from those endless concrete walls, Roman’s face would creep into my thoughts, stirring them open again. I wondered if that’s how the shadows had driven the others mad. If they were reliving every moment just like I was.

  Or maybe they were just waiting for the guards to return, for another one of us to disappear. I waited too, tensing at every strange sound that echoed in the corridor, tensing at the quiet as everyone mulled over the last thing Victor had said—that what Anso really wanted was power.

  But as I replayed Anso’s words and the sound of his voice—threats that were full of disgust—I knew that Victor was wrong. What had Anso called me? An abomination. And as he’d said it, there’d been no awe in his expression, no lust for power in his voice. He’d looked at me with nothing but hate.

  “Hey…” Kira interrupted my thoughts. “You okay?”

  “So far,” I said, honest. “How about you?”

  She stared at the door, pulling on a strand of hair that had come loose from her bun. “I can’t even remember how long I’ve been here.”

  “Do you remember anything from before?” I asked. “About how you got here?”

  She pulled her bent knees to her chest, jeans torn over a few fading scars. “I’d been walking to my friend Nathan’s house. He’d been avoiding me for weeks but that day he’d said we needed to talk. When I knocked on his door no one answered and I ended up walking home alone just as it was getting dark.”

  “Was Nathan your boyfriend?” I asked.

  “I’m…not allowed. My parents think I’m too young. But he was…” She smiled, even in this place, and I knew not just who he was to her but what. He was like Roman.

  “I know.” There was a part of me that wanted to smile too but I couldn’t.

  She bit back her own, cheeks pink. “I was just down the street from my house. I could see my front door and then all of a sudden I couldn’t anymore. Everything was dark and I was dizzy and cold and then I just…hurt. I think I hit my head or…” She rolled up her shirtsleeves, revealing where her arms were covered in shiny scars. “I don’t know what happened after that.” She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, tears trickling down her wrists. “I don’t even know what’s happening now.”

  “I know.” I reached for her, not sure what else to do. “We’re going to find a way out of here. I promise.”

  “Bullshit.” Victor was glaring at me from across the room. “Don’t tell her that. Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  My cheeks burned, partly from anger, partly from regret. Maybe Victor was right. Maybe promises like that would only make things worse, especially if I couldn’t make good on them. Some of the people in this room had been here so long they couldn’t even calculate the time. If they hadn’t managed to find a way out by now maybe there wasn’t one.

  “I’m just trying to help,” I shot back, not sure what else to say.

  “You want to help? Let the guards take you instead the next time they come.”

  “Victor.” It was Sebastían, his eyes like daggers.

  “What?” Victor waved a hand, that smirk on his face again. “I’m sure they could use a…what did you say you were? Some kind of weather girl?”

  “Shut the hell up, Victor.”

  “Make me, pyromaniac.”

  Sebastían was across the room, the collar of Victor’s shirt in his fist. “Like this?”

  My back was pressed to the wall and when I looked around so was everyone else’s. Just the sound of Sebastían’s voice made the room feel twenty degrees warmer. I tried to speak, to move, to break them apart, but there was something in Sebastían’s eyes that steeled me back.

  He threw Victor against the wall, Victor’s head hitting the concrete with a harsh thud that set my teeth. Sebastían stood in the center of the room, his breaths slowing and his eyes brightening half a shade until it looked like he was just as terrified as the rest of us.

  “Shit, man.” Victor scratched his scalp. “You better be glad there are ladies present or else I’d kick your fucking ass.”

  The faintest banging reverberated from the concrete floor. Kira gripped my arm. Victor froze.

  And then Joseph said, “They’re coming.”

  I felt their footsteps more than heard them, each low knock echoing in my gut
. The door pushed open and the two guards who’d carried me in earlier stepped inside. I backed into Kira, shielding her between me and the wall. Sebastían jumped to his feet, backing up too and shielding us both.

  The guard on the left just grinned. “You call that hiding? Trust me, you can’t hide in a place like this.”

  The guard who’d almost made my head explode pointed straight at Evan. “You. Get up.”

  Evan clutched his knees, blinking as if he were in a daze.

  “You fucking deaf?” The guard yanked Evan up by the collar of his nightshirt.

  “No…” Christine crawled forward. “Please, he’s just a boy.”

  “Too bad he’s not.” The guard dragged Evan towards the door.

  Sebastían crossed in front of them and in an instant there was a web of light climbing from floor to ceiling. One of the guards held out a small metal cube, electricity crackling from it like a storm. Sebastían lifted a hand to the barricade, the sparks reaching for his skin. The light stung him and he flinched back, the rest of us frozen as the guards dragged Evan into the corridor.

  My pulse was in my ears. “What’s going to happen to him?”

  Joseph hung his head. “We don’t know...but he’s not coming back.”

  I paced, trying to scratch the fear from my skin. “We can’t just sit in here and wait for them to pick us off like—”

  “We’ve already tried everything,” Christine said. “We’re no good in here.”

  “In here…” I pressed a hand to the door’s metal surface. It buzzed, the echo of a strange current trapped inside. “How many times have they come to take someone?”

  “Four,” Kira said. “But that’s just since I’ve been here.”

  Joseph nodded. “Without sleep it’s hard to tell where the days end and begin, but they’ve been coming more often, I know that much.”

  “What about the people they’ve taken so far?” I asked. “Was there anything…I don’t know, special or strange about them?”

  Anso had hunted each and every one of us, but when he’d tested me in that torture room, it was because he was looking for one Dreamer in particular. One who was special, maybe stronger, and definitely more dangerous.

  Victor tugged at his beanie. “Like I said, they were all over eighteen.”

  “They seemed harmless,” Christine added. “Nothing special.”

  “Except for…” Kira paused, treading carefully.

  The words cut up my throat. “Except for Sam.”

  “I tried to stop them when they took the little one.” Joseph wrung his hands. “They knocked me down and said if I interfered again they’d take me instead. I told them to, to leave the girl and take me. They wouldn’t.” He looked down. “When she didn’t come back I decided not to interfere again. I’m not sure I want to know what’s out there.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Sebastían’s voice startled me.

  I exhaled. “Sam is special. They must know that.”

  Victor raised an eyebrow. “Special how?”

  Telling the truth about Sam felt dangerous but so did keeping it to myself. If they’d already taken her maybe it didn’t even matter. “Sam can find things.”

  “That’s why they took her,” Sebastían cut in, “to find the rest of us.”

  “There’s something else,” I said, everyone angling in to hear me. “Sam was only eight but she could already control her dreams. She could dream with other people, she could move herself, and she knew how to hide from the shadows.”

  “Already? But that’s…” Christine raked her hair away from her face. “That’s impossible.”

  “It’s cruel, is what it is,” Joseph said. “The reason she’s had to learn to hide from the shadows is because she’s been vulnerable all this time. She hasn’t been hidden like the rest of us. Whatever…”

  “Veil,” I finished.

  “Yes, whatever veil that’s been hiding us and filtering our abilities until our eighteenth birthdays never applied to her.”

  “What do you think they’re planning?” Kira asked.

  “They.” Victor’s voice was practically a growl. “You mean him.”

  “Him.” Christine shuddered against Joseph’s shoulder. “He was…”

  “Awful.” Kira clutched herself.

  I remembered Anso’s hatred; how he’d looked at me like he wanted to destroy me. But he’d restrained himself. Why?

  “Do we know if he asked us all the same questions?” I knelt in front of Kira. “Do you remember what he said to you when you woke up?”

  She paled and I could see her straining for air, for words.

  I brushed her arm. “It’s okay.”

  “He asked me what I remembered,” Joseph said, his voice flat.

  Kira nodded, eyes pinched shut as she tried to snuff out the memory of something terrible. “Me too. Then he asked me what I dreamed about. I said I could make plants grow. I didn’t want to tell him more than that.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’re pumping Evan for information right now,” Victor said. “They’ll probably know about all of us soon.”

  “You think he’d tell them?” Christine asked.

  “I think he’d do anything to save his own ass,” Victor hissed.

  Sebastían eyed me, the intensity not just startling this time but…striking. Like something hot. Like…pain. “Did he say anything else to you?”

  I tried to decide whether or not I should tell them I’d recognized Anso or that I‘d seen him take my great-grandmother. If I did, I risked being exposed, but if I didn’t tell them, what if we never found a way out of this place?

  Sebastían read my face. “What is it?”

  “I knew him.”

  “You what?” Christine asked.

  Knew was too strong of a word and I backtracked. “I recognized him.”

  “How?”

  I hesitated, trying to get the words right. Then I told them about my great-grandmother. Not how I’d come to be in that place and time when she was taken but how I’d known that he was the one who’d taken her, still burying the details that would reveal I was something more than what they thought.

  “My grandmother used to tell me about him,” I lied. “Sort of like a really scary bedtime story.”

  “So, he’s tried this before,” Christine said.

  “But he must have failed,” Joseph concluded. “That’s why he’s trying again. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Do you think the others found a way out?” Kira asked. “Do you think your great-grandmother—?”

  “No...” My gaze fell. “No one ever saw her again.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, squeezing my hand.

  “I didn’t know her,” I said, realizing she’d mistaken the fear on my face for grief. Fear of what he’d almost taken a second time—my grandmother—and fear of what he was trying to take now. Me.

  But he wouldn’t.

  I wouldn’t let him.

  “He said he was looking for someone.” Sebastían had his back to us. “Someone special…” He turned, looking right at me. “Did he say that to you?”

  Joseph cocked his head, thinking. “I don’t recall.”

  “He hardly spoke,” Christine said.

  Kira nodded. “He just asked me about the dreams.”

  “Yes.” The word fell from my mouth, nothing but air. But Sebastían saw. He knew.

  “Do you know who he’s looking for?” he asked.

  My skin was hot and I found the wall again. The only reason Anso had taken Sam before the others was because she was special. But that was before I’d woken up here, and when I’d opened my eyes on that torture table, Anso had made it sound like he was still searching. If Sam wasn’t the Dreamer he was looking for, that meant he…she was still out there. Maybe hidden by the veil. Maybe hidden by something else. And what had he said would happen if he didn’t find her?

  The world would be an open wound.


  Chaos.

  Wasn’t that why the first Dreamer was killed? Her father had cut her into pieces, burying her half-alive all because she was mad, because her dreams had the power to shift the planets out of orbit.

  Chaos.

  Wasn’t that all I’d created since the dreams first started? I thought of the destroyed antiques shop where the shadow had attacked Sam, the glass from the Köln building, my grandmother being wiped from everyone’s memories. All because I’d dreamed. Because my thoughts were fuses, the night sky was full of sparks, and every time I slept they collided, igniting something tragic.

  I knew exactly who Anso was looking for and I knew why. Because no one should be able to control the future. No one should be able to shift the planets out of orbit. No one should be able to cause that much pain.

  “Bryn…” Sebastían moved closer, his expression threatening and warm, curious and frightened all at the same time. “Do you know who he’s looking for?”

  Me. Anso is looking for me.

  I hushed everything inside me until all I could hear was my own pulse—an echo of the body that was still out there somewhere, of the life I still wanted to live. Then I looked right at Sebastían and said, “No, I don’t know who he’s looking for.”

  There was a flash of anger across his face, then resolve, and finally relief, every emotion betraying the last until I couldn’t tell if he knew something I didn’t. About me, about Anso, about all of this. Up close I could see the blood matted to his hairline and the bruises that ringed his throat. I wondered how many times he’d refused to answer Anso’s questions. What was he so desperate to hide?

  “You said Sam knew how to hide herself from the shadows.” Christine broke the silence, speaking through her fingers. “What if whatever power they have is the same power keeping us here? And if she somehow found a way to shield herself from them…”

  “Then maybe we can too,” Joseph finished.