The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Sam screamed and I looked up, trying to tug a storm over our heads, to make it rain like I had when they’d attacked me in the dream-state. But I couldn’t see the sky. I could only see the oil slick of their underbellies.

  “I’m scared,” Chloe croaked.

  My pulse was in my ears, sloshing like the tide. The sound like rushing water, like…

  “Chloe, can you swim?”

  “I don’t know how.” She was hysterical, straining to breathe.

  “Then don’t let go of me,” I said. “Take a deep breath.”

  Sebastían locked his arms around us as I dragged everyone over the edge. We clung to each other, tumbling in a mess of limbs. The locusts arrowed in, taking a bite every chance they got. But we didn’t let go. We couldn’t.

  The ground had severed itself in two, rocks frozen mid-tumble down into the water. The falls rushed after us, the spray soaking me before I even hit the lake. We broke the surface and a rough current dragged us deeper, ripping us apart. I saw Sam clawing for the surface, Sebastían catching her by the wrist before she was pulled too deep. I twisted, kicking and looking for Chloe. There was a flash of blonde hair and I dove for her, but there was more than one current, a wall of water holding me back.

  Sebastían struggled too, frantic as he fought to hold onto Sam. The water came like a giant fist, pounding me back. Chloe spun, the current tumbling her end over end. She grimaced and I knew she was losing air. We all were.

  I kicked as hard as I could, reaching for her until it hurt. She reached back.

  Chloe reached for me.

  And then the current stole her into the darkness.

  I hung there, limp, letting the water beat down on me. I wanted to stay there, to shrivel into the emptiness, but an arm coiled around my waist, dragging me toward the surface. I felt the sun and the side of the bank but I couldn’t breathe. I wouldn’t. Sebastían dragged me onto the grass and I stared up at the empty sky, the sun trailing stars all around us.

  He leaned over me, eyes sad and smiling as he tore the wet hair from my face. “That one was mine.” And then he was gone.

  32

  Roman

  I sat on the edge of Bryn’s bed, her head in my lap as I stroked her hair. I pulled it tight away from her face until I could see the tears.

  “What now?” she asked.

  I was confused but I wasn’t sure I should say so. This Bryn was the fragmented version I knew and she needed something from me—reassurance, answers. Somehow I had to give them to her.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” She rolled onto her back, hands reaching for my face. “I’ve missed you.”

  I split in two. “I’ve missed you.”

  “Can we make this right?”

  I hoped she was talking about us, about all of the time we’d been apart, about all of the things we’d done and seen, all of the hurt we’d caused each other. I nodded and she hooked her arms around my neck, pulling herself against my chest.

  Her eyes flicked up to mine but she wasn’t relieved, she wasn’t beaming. She was angry. “Then we will.”

  “The bark’s smooth now,” Adham said, nodding to the branch we were sitting on.

  I’d asked him to meet me and now we were sitting in a tree just on the other side of a fenced cul-de-sac. From here we could see Cole’s bedroom window, the curtains drawn, the lights off. It would have felt invasive under any other circumstance, maybe even uncomfortable. But it was also necessary, now more than ever.

  “Does he know you sit up here?” I asked.

  “He doesn’t need to.” Adham let his shoes gently knock together. “I’ve learned to navigate the distance. I might not be able to see him from here but I can still reach him.”

  “How?”

  Adham closed his eyes and the air around us began to warm. It funneled out from his hands, his face, every bit of exposed skin charged with the dullest glow. The light was so faint it was almost grey, just a thin sheet of fog crawling towards Cole’s window.

  “How do you do that?”

  “It’s all about visualization.” He smiled. “My mom’s a yoga teacher. I just…” He looked towards the window again. “I just concentrate, I guess. I imagine casting this net over everything, drawing it in close.” He shrugged. “It’s a lot easier than trying to fight something I can’t see.”

  “And it works?”

  “It’s not the same as being there, being close, but right now it’s enough.”

  Right now, I thought, but maybe not soon.

  “I know of someone who’s taking the Dreamers,” I said.

  Adham took a deep breath but he was resolved to listen.

  “His name’s Michael. He’s like us...well, was like us. All this time we thought he was trying to save the Dreamers but it turns out he wasn’t. It turns out he’s been…possessed.”

  “By the shadows?”

  I nodded.

  “So there are probably others out there like him,” Adham said. “There probably always have been.”

  “Except the Dreamers were hidden before.”

  “And now?” He drew down a branch, let it snap back up. “We’re supposed to be some kind of bodyguards but what do we do when the body isn’t what’s being attacked? How do we fight that?”

  “We can’t.” I didn’t mean it. Even after the dream with Bryn, after her telling me that I couldn’t save her, there was still a part of me that couldn’t accept it as the truth. But there was another part of me that was just tired of thinking, of failing every time I tried to follow my gut. That part of me believed her without question.

  “No, we can, we just don’t know how yet,” Adham said. “There has to be a way.”

  “But what?”

  He looked at me. “Do you still dream with her?”

  I was quiet. I’d tried to find Bryn every time I closed my eyes but all I’d found of her were memories. They felt real but they also felt random, fragments of my subconscious or hers. I told Adham about the strange dreams, trying to recount every detail while at the same time trying not to sound desperately hopeful. He could tell I was and I could tell he was too.

  “I know it’s just because I miss her,” I confessed. “I know none of it’s real.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Adham asked. “After everything we’ve experienced, we can't say that dreams don’t mean anything. They do. They brought us all together.” He paused. “I know you feel like there’s nothing you can do for Bryn. I know you’ve probably tried everything...but we can’t stop. For Cole’s sake, even if he doesn’t believe in any of this or in me, and for the sake of all the Dreamers who are still awake and all the ones who aren’t, we can’t stop trying.” He stared at Cole’s window. “It’s our divine responsibility.”

  “Divine?”

  He nodded, sincere and absolute. “The shadows don’t haunt you because you’re evil, Roman. They haunt you because you’re not.”

  When my phone started buzzing in my pocket it didn’t feel like divine intervention. It felt like an ominous summoning. I’d been waiting for Felix to call with news about the Rogues or Bryn or Michael and I braced myself for which mystery he’d unraveled first.

  “Bryn?” I started.

  “Not Bryn,” Felix said.

  “What have you found out?” I asked, impatient.

  Adham was too, his eyes darting to Cole’s bedroom window. We both jumped down from the tree as I put Felix on speaker, Adham and I huddled over the microphone.

  “So, that boy who was kidnapped in New York City, it turns out we weren’t the only ones creeped out by his whole ghost get-up.” Felix shot me the link to the same article he’d shown me before. “Comments section, third page. Scroll down until you see the username NightKnight1999.”

  I found the username and read the comment out loud. “The Children of The Moon walk among us. Don’t buy into the media bullshit. This child is a God summoned to destroy us all.”

  “What is
he talking about?” Adham asked.

  “At first glance he seems like your run of the mill conspiracy theorist,” Felix said, “until you get to the whole ‘this child is a God’ part.”

  “What does this mean for the rest of us?” I said. “Does he know? How many people know about the Dreamers?”

  “Slow your roll,” Felix said. “He could just be a lunatic.”

  “You wouldn’t have called me if you thought that. Look, Felix, you have to use your hacking or coding or whatever fucking computer skills you have to find out a name, where this guy lives, and who he knows.”

  “Done.”

  Adham and I exchanged a look.

  “What?”

  “Done as in I’ve already found out who he is and where he lives.”

  “And?”

  I could practically hear the smile on Felix’s face. “And he lives in Roswell, New Mexico.”

  “Let me guess,” I said, “alien enthusiast?”

  “You bet.”

  I looked to Adham. “Road trip?”

  “Sounds like we don’t really have a choice.”

  Felix cleared his throat. “Sure wish I could tag along on this one guys, but I’ve already spent the past twenty-four hours researching this motherfucker and stalking him on Google maps. By the way, beware of the booby traps. Apparently this guy used to live illegally close to Area 51 and he claims his home was ransacked and his ‘research’ stolen. Hence the trip wires and catapult launchers.”

  “What the hell?”

  “Call me when you head out.”

  The moment Felix hung up, I felt the bass from a car stereo against the pavement, a pair of headlights soon following. They flashed on us once before snapping off, the car screeching to a halt. I climbed back onto the curb just as Carlisle leaned out of the idling car, one of his lackeys in the passenger seat, the other like an eclipse against the back cracked window.

  “Wait a minute,” he said, “does Jimmy know you’re out whoring around behind his back?”

  “Fuck off.”

  Adham and I crossed the street but Carlisle steered around to corner us again, his lackeys stepping out of the car. I turned to Adham and rolled my eyes.

  “How’d you like the new paint job we did on your house?” Carlisle finally stepped out of the car too, teeth glinting behind his crooked smile.

  I stuffed my hands in my pockets, showing him that I was neither threatened nor amused. “You know, I’m not really an egg wash kind of guy.”

  I’d been too exhausted the day I’d found the eggs to really give a shit, but standing here now, this close to him, something gnawed at me. Something angry and feral that stirred every time he took a step.

  “Not my most creative, I’ll admit, but hopefully you’ll like my next attempt much better.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  He moved closer, the rage ricocheting off him like a cyclone. “I’m talking about getting even.”

  “Even for what?”

  His eyes dulled, the shadow finally coming out to say hello. “Everything.”

  I shoved him against the hood of his car, the grimace on his face warming me from the inside. I waited for his lackeys to drag me back but when I turned they were already on the ground, Adham standing over them, perfectly still and composed.

  “I tried to warn them that violence wasn’t the answer,” Adham said.

  “So you took them out at the fucking knees?” Carlisle spat.

  One of his lackeys rolled, clutching his shinbone.

  “So I gave them a demonstration, instead.”

  I turned to Carlisle, slammed him down again. “You stay the hell away from me. I know what you want. I know what you are.” I was speaking to the shadow now, Carlisle’s mouth unhinged in a manic smile. “And if you weren’t inside this body you’d be ashes. Fucking dust.”

  Carlisle’s eyes fluxed, the current in them shifting from dark to light until the blue ones I recognized were staring back at me. “What the hell is wrong with you?” The confusion on his face was genuine and it almost cracked his tough guy veneer completely. He had no idea what I was talking about. “We’re just fucking around, alright?”

  “Roman.” Adham pointed at a flash of blue and orange through the slats in the fence.

  I twisted Carlisle’s collar until I could barely fight the urge to strangle him. “We’re done here.”

  I caught up with Adham as he scaled the fence, the hem of my jeans snagging as I followed him over.

  “Was that Cole?” I asked.

  Adham held up a finger, lowered his voice. “He wasn’t alone.”

  “Was he sleeping?”

  Adham didn’t answer. He crept forward, the two of us winding from tree to tree until we could see Cole being led through the golf course. Blonde hair tore out from a messy ponytail. Chelsea.

  “Where are they going?”

  Adham shook his head.

  I pointed. “Neither of them are wearing shoes. Guess it’s safe to say he’s sleepwalking.”

  “And Chelsea? You think she’s dreaming too?”

  “No.” I remembered Olivia’s sister, Sara, and readied to break into a run. “She’s not sleeping. She’s possessed.”

  I kept Adham from jumping the gun, his hands twitching, knees quaking, every part of him wanting to hurl Cole to the ground and keep him safe. But we needed to know where they were going, and more importantly, we needed to know why.

  When the street shrunk to two lanes there wasn’t anywhere for us to hide. We kept our distance, trying not to lose them as they crept over the hill. Cole and Chelsea finally came to a road stop partially hidden by trees, a harsh breeze bristling through the leaves. Every trunk was arched, the branches swaying north. I took a step directly into the current and it felt like stepping inside a vacuum.

  “What’s happening?” Adham whispered.

  I scanned every shape and every outline, waiting for someone to appear out of the trees, for a pair of headlights or an opened door to a storm cellar we couldn’t see. One of the trees looked ready to snap, a powerful wind sweeping its leaves across the ground. But just behind it everything was still—tall grass barely swayed, and despite the night, I could see that it was green.

  “Do you see that?” I breathed.

  Adham squinted. “See what?”

  I pointed between the trees, moving closer. “The grass. It’s not dead.”

  Adham and I reached the tree line, shielded by a thick trunk as Cole and Chelsea came to a stop. This close to the strange field I could see flowers slithering up from the green grass, black and shaped like stars, I could feel the hot brush of moonlight; the steam after a recent rain. But the moon wasn’t out tonight and it was the thick of winter.

  Adham spoke under his breath. “Where are we?”

  I finally spotted the seam—a glittering lattice of light near the canopy where this grove converged with another. The tall grass shifted beneath the sound of footsteps. Someone was coming.

  A long sharp figure appeared, sending Chelsea to the ground with just one touch. It beckoned Cole closer just as Adham and I barreled out of the shadows, the stranger’s face almost stopping me in my tracks. Because even though I’d never seen him before...I knew those eyes. They were the eyes that had haunted Bryn ever since she’d exposed herself from behind those trees. The same eyes that had haunted her great-grandmother until the beast they belonged to finally came to claim her.

  Adham threw himself at Cole’s ankles but he was held upright by something we couldn’t see. On command he dragged one foot and then the other, Anso holding back time and space as he ushered Cole forward.

  I lifted a hand and hurled every ounce of light I could, trying to drive Anso back. The flames carved holes right through him, suturing themselves in seconds. He was unreachable.

  Anso smiled, his mouth belonging to a corpse. “I know your face.”

  “And I know yours.”

  Light glowed dull in the corner of my eye,
a slow grey mist radiating from Adham’s body and scaling Cole. Anso saw it too, distracted, and that’s when I lunged for him. My hand grazed the in-between, the rest of me threatening to go with it. But then the wind disappeared, the moonlight too, and I slammed against the ground, the air knocked out of me. When I looked up Anso and the strange night sky were gone.

  Cole swayed, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. I waited for him to yell or storm off like before, but he just sunk down in front of Adham, trembling. “What happened?”

  “It’s okay.” Adham’s hands hovered in the space between them and I could tell all he wanted was to reach out and touch him. He stopped himself, looked up at me.

  “You were sleepwalking,” I said.

  Cole shivered, the danger so fresh it was practically steaming up from the soil. I knew he could feel it—that something bad had almost happened, that something worse still could.

  Chelsea sat up, just as delirious as she scraped dead leaves from her hair. “What the hell?” She stumbled to her feet. “Where am I?” Cole took both her arms. “What’s going on?” she stammered. She looked like she was going to cry, and not just because she was standing in the middle of an empty road with her brother and two other guys who were practically strangers, but because she could feel deep down that it was all Cole’s fault. She was tired of his shit and now she was standing right in the middle of it.

  “Chelsea…” Cole looked her dead in the eye until she grew still.

  After a beat, Chelsea blinked, her cheeks not flushed from anything but the cold, the anger gone from her face. “Cole?”

  He hushed her with a smile. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m sleepy.” She yawned. “I’m going back to bed.” Her head fell onto Cole’s shoulder as he hooked an arm around her waist.

  “She won’t remember anything,” he said, face falling. Then he took his sister in his arms and started walking home.

  33