The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “What is that?” she asked before I could construct a question of my own.

  I handed it to her, my thoughts like raging wasps, stinging me from the inside. “It’s from my father.”

  “Oh, Bryn…” She folded the letter, the expression on my face making her too afraid to look. “Did he…what did he say?”

  My voice broke. “Everything.”

  I thought about the nightmare Sam and I had been trapped in after we’d escaped Anso’s prison—my father storming into the house; sending my mom into the wall—the violence stuck on a loop. That wasn’t the only night he’d come home bloody and covered in bruises. Or drunk. Or panicked. Or afraid. All these years he’d been terrified of something the rest of us couldn’t see. This wasn’t the first time the shadows had attacked him. But what if it was the first time they’d done more than just cause him pain?

  Over the past eighteen years they’d caused us all so much pain. My grandmother. My father. Dani.

  Her hands sat perched on her knees, her eyes down. I watched her shift and stiffen and I realized it wasn’t the look on my face that was making her uncomfortable. It wasn’t my father’s corpse. It was me. My veins were as red as Roman’s, my goose bumps sharpening into Devyn’s scales.

  I watched Dani’s reflection in the vanity mirror and it gave away the horror she was still recoiling from—Devyn, Sanders, Eric, Rafiq. She looked at me with the slightest hint of fear and I knew we would never be the same again.

  “You shouldn’t be here,” I said, trying my best to apologize not just for the things I’d done but the things I was going to do. “You shouldn’t have to see any of this.”

  “And you shouldn’t have to do any of this,” she said.

  She kept her distance and I realized her fear wasn’t just directed at me but at herself too. Celia had done all she could and even though we’d watched the shadow that had possessed Dani disintegrate, it had still left behind wounds we couldn’t see. Wounds that had the potential to heal or fester into something worse. I wondered if Dani could feel it happening, the sickness of it returning.

  “You should let Felix take you home,” I said.

  She shook her head. “We want to help.”

  “You can’t,” I said. “Not with this.”

  “But Bryn—”

  “Look at him.”

  Dani’s gaze fell.

  “Look at him, Dani.” I stood, making my way to where my father rested on the bed. “Just look.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do.” She hung her head, fighting my thoughts. I focused an ounce more, wishing, hoping; forcing her to look. Her gaze snapped in my father’s direction. “Stop it.”

  “Look at him.” I took her face in my hands. “Please, Dani. I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “Hurt?” she croaked. “I died.”

  “What?” I stammered.

  She grimaced, took a deep breath. “I died, Bryn. I felt it.”

  “No, Dani…”

  “I did. And then I came back. You brought me back. But I’m different. I’m…”

  “You’re here.”

  She nodded. “I’m here and I’m not leaving.” She gripped my hands. “You don’t understand, Bryn. The shadows…Anso…they took something from me. Something I can never get back. I hate them.” She squeezed her eyes shut, the edge to her voice making her sound like herself again. “I. Hate. Them. And I just want to do something. I want to be here. I want to fight back.”

  “You did fight back. You won.”

  “Not yet.” She let go of me and took my father’s hand instead. “Not yet.”

  “But Felix?” I lowered my voice. “He’s already been hurt…more than once.”

  “We’re not just some useless humans, you know.” Felix appeared in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

  I smiled at that, faint but real. “I know that. I just don’t know what’s going to happen next.”

  “You’re leaving,” Dani said.

  “And I don’t know how long I’ll be gone. Your mom’s probably already worried.”

  Dani’s gaze wandered. Even though she and her mom had never gotten along I knew she couldn’t stand the thought of hurting her. Not after everything they’d already been through with losing Dani’s father and our grandparents.

  But then she said, “Actually…I already took care of that.”

  “Took care of it how?” I asked.

  “I called and told her that I moved in with Felix.”

  “She managed to fit her entire room in her luggage anyway,” Felix said.

  “Those were essentials,” Dani snapped.

  I stood. “You what?”

  Dani sighed; stood too. “Yeah…she sort of freaked. But then she seemed kind of relieved that I was rebelling in a normal way for once. Especially after all those weeks of me, you know, hiding away in my room and being possessed by a demon.”

  “She didn’t feel abandoned?” I asked, thinking of my own mom and how I’d sent her and my uncle off on some whirlwind adventure in an effort to keep them safe. Without Dani my aunt was going to have to grieve my grandmother’s death all alone.

  “Oh, absolutely. Which is why she told me that she was going to book a one-way ticket to meet your mom in Europe. I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not.”

  “Oh, she definitely wasn’t joking.” Felix held out his cell phone, Dani’s mom’s social media account displaying a new profile picture. She and my mom were standing in front of a castle. “Caption says they’re in Spain.”

  Dani smiled. “They look…”

  I took the phone from Felix, looking closer. “Happy.”

  I stared at my mom’s photo, trying to make out her eyes beneath her sunglasses. Even slightly obscured I knew what was there. Joy. Love. Freedom. All of the things I’d told her to feel. I thought seeing her this way might make me feel them too but all I could think about was how much I missed her.

  “You did the right thing,” Dani said. “And…this whole thing with the Dreamers isn’t supposed to last forever. Eventually I’ll go home. I’ll just tell my mom living with Felix didn’t work out.” Dani shrugged. “Eventually we’ll all go back to our normal lives, right?”

  “Right,” Felix said, saving me from another lie. He gripped Dani from behind. “Wait a minute. What do you mean living with me didn’t work out? You haven’t even tried it yet.”

  “It’s just an excuse in case my mom needs me.”

  “And if I need you?”

  She pushed his arms away. “Jesus, Felix, could you be any more selfish? Anyway, it’s Bryn who needs us right now.”

  I shook my head, still trying to convince myself that they should leave. “I d—”

  “You do,” Felix cut me off. “Someone has to be here to explain what the hell’s going on when the rest of the Dreamers wake up. Plus, Roman’s just made me head of operation Rogue Retrieval. And…besides, I’d prefer if we hung around for a while just in case, you know, Dani decides to try to kill me again.”

  I waited for Dani to snap at him again but all she said was, “He’s right.”

  “Is that the real reason you want to stay?” I asked. “You’re afraid?”

  “I just…” She shrunk. “What if it didn’t work?”

  Felix hugged her tighter. “It did. I was just—”

  “Being honest,” Dani said. “And you’re right. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “Do you feel…?” I wasn’t sure how to finish that question. Do you feel evil? Do you still feel like you want to kill me?

  “I feel…” Dani paused. “Like I was sick. Really sick and now I’m slow and a little disconnected…sort of like I was just run over by a truck. Sometimes it’s still hard to recognize myself. Sometimes I still don’t feel like myself.”

  “You’re you,” I said. “You’re safe.”

  Two sharp honks blared from outside.

  “Who’s out there?” I headed for the stairs. “Did the barricade come down?” Headlights was
hed the staircase as we descended.

  Rafael had his truck backed toward the front door as Dreamers piled onto the bed. The stone wall I’d manifested was crumbling as if something had blown straight through it.

  “Shay.” Roman cleared his throat. “She…was upset.”

  “And in a hurry,” Felix said.

  “I can see that.”

  “Celia found her Dreamer’s body,” Dani added.

  “Just his body?”

  Roman nodded, his face washed red. The moon was even wider now, the crimson reflection caught in the clouds like a stain. Celia had rolled out a television into the dining room, Stassi and Cole crouched inches from the screen. They flipped through channels, shots of the moon on every single one.

  Stassi had Cole’s arm in a death grip. Domingo had left with the other Rogues in search of Stassi’s body. She had no memory of what had happened to it and he had no leads but he was headed back to Spain, to the village where they grew up, hoping that maybe Stassi had been separated from her body before Anso found her. I wondered if without Domingo, Stassi could sense the Dreamers we’d laid to rest. She found Cole’s skin and held on tight, his eyes widening as he witnessed her memories. But he didn’t let go. I could tell by the sadness radiating from them both that unless she asked he never would.

  I watched Celia from across the room as she stared after Rafael’s taillights backing toward the porch. She looked anxious but I couldn’t tell if it was because he was leaving her to drive the Dreamers to the airport or if it was because he was leaving her with me. I still wasn’t sure if I could trust her. She was the curator of too many secrets, a runner just like my father. She’d hardly left this house in the past thirty years, hiding away and leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves.

  She caught me looking and disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later I followed.

  “You told him.”

  “I had to,” she said, knowing immediately that I was talking about my father. Maybe she’d been waiting all this time for me to confront her.

  “But why not the rest of us? Why did you make the effort to find my father but not your own sister? You could have warned her.”

  Celia was quiet for a long time. “I didn’t make the effort. I dreamed of him and the next day I saw him at a truck stop just down the road. It was fated.”

  “You told him we were all cursed…I don’t understand his part in all of this.”

  “He was more than a part.”

  “Was?”

  She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I just meant that it was his destiny to be your father. It was his destiny to be a danger to you. The shadows could sense you all around him and if it wasn’t for my mother’s veil hiding you all those years they would have found you. Then again, eventually the hauntings would have become so violent that you would have ended up as collateral damage anyway. That’s why he had to disappear.”

  “Because of me.” I gripped the kitchen counter. “They haunted him…they hurt him because of me.” I looked up. “That’s why they attacked Dani too.”

  “And now she’s safe. She’s alive.”

  “And my father?”

  Celia sighed. “He’s neither dead nor living.”

  “For how long? Forever?”

  She frowned and I could tell she wanted to reach for me. “Nothing lasts forever, Bryn.”

  Truck doors fell closed, the sound of goodbyes drawing us back into the living room.

  “We’ll make sure they make it home safe.” Adham shook Roman’s hand before Rafael whispered something to them beneath the rumble of the truck’s engine.

  Roman nodded and then Adham climbed in back with the Dreamers.

  “First round of flights leave in about an hour,” Roman said. “I hope they make it on time.”

  “If the airport’s still open,” Cole said, pointing to the local news. “People think it’s the end of the world out there.”

  “It sort of is,” Felix said.

  “Which is why we can’t have them roaming the streets,” Roman added. “Planes were the quickest way.”

  I thought of the photograph of my mom and my aunt, their wide smiles and sun-kissed cheeks. I wondered if they were staring up at the moon right now or watching the news. I wondered if they were afraid. “They should be with their families right now,” I said before turning to Dani. “Will you keep an eye on all of this while we’re gone?”

  “Wait, are you actually giving me some sort of task?” she said, smiling.

  “A small one,” I said. “A safe one. You and Felix stay inside and watch the news, check the Internet, just look out for anything…strange.”

  “Strange…” Felix repeated. “You know, I’m not exactly sure what that actually means these days.”

  “Just let me know if you see anything you think I should be aware of—hoards of locusts, zombies, spontaneous tsunamis—anything apocalyptic. It might give us a clue as to how much time we have left.”

  “Left?” Dani wrinkled her brow. “Let’s not talk like that yet, okay?”

  I pulled the list of names from my pocket and realized why we hadn’t left with the Rogues earlier, why I’d hidden upstairs with my father, why I hadn’t been able to look any of the Dreamers in the eye as they’d left. I was stalling. I was breaking. Because the first name on the list…the next Dreamer whose tragic memories I’d claim…was Kira.

  Felix bounced on the balls of his feet in front of Roman. “Are you ready for this?” He reared back his fist.

  “Whoa.” I stepped between them. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  Felix cracked his knuckles. “He won’t feel a thing. One hit and it’s lights out. Then you’ll both be dreaming.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Vogle came from one of the back rooms where he’d been tending to the wounded bodies. He dropped his medical bag and bit the top off a syringe before plunging it into Roman’s neck.

  Roman collapsed.

  I fell next to him. “What the hell?”

  “Just a sedative,” Vogle said. “Perfectly safe.”

  “Safe?” I snapped.

  “Well, much safer than a concussion.”

  Felix gestured to Roman’s unconscious body with both hands. “Uh…did you see how hard he hit the floor?”

  Vogle crossed his arms. “Yes, well, maybe next time we’ll make sure he’s already there before I deliver that large of a dose.”

  “I’m fine.”

  I spun to see Roman standing behind me, intact and in his ephemeral body. “You’re not confined to your body anymore, Bryn, and you can move where you want when you want. If I’m sleeping, maybe I can do the same. It worked before.”

  I waited for something to bubble up inside me but the concern was muted. I said, “You’re going to hurt yourself,” only because it was a fact.

  Roman came to stand right in front of me, too desperate to be afraid. “You’re not doing this alone, Bryn. No matter what you think. I’m not letting you leave me behind.”

  “This time.” I rolled my eyes. “But never again.”

  I pressed a hand to Felix’s temple and immediately he was snoring, his legs giving out as Dani caught him in her arms. His weight sent her into the wall, a shelf full of ceramic cats crashing to the floor.

  “That probably would have been easier,” Vogle said, helping pull Felix to the couch.

  Roman looked away, his face cool. “Good to know.”

  Vogle’s cellphone rang and when he answered I could hear Andre’s voice on the other end. He was yelling.

  “Have you tried Shay? She should be there already. Maybe she can—” Vogle groaned. “We’ll get you on another…no, I know you are. I’m sorry but—” Vogle’s hand fell. “He hung up.”

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Andre’s flight’s been canceled.”

  “I told you guys,” Cole cut in. “People are seriously losing their shit out there.” He still hadn’t torn his eyes from the television screen. A male repo
rter was interviewing a farmer who claimed the “blood moon” had caused a spontaneous crop circle to destroy his field. Then he claimed it had killed one of his cows. Also spontaneously.

  “You’ve set loose wolves,” Vogle said under his breath. “It’s a miracle what you’ve given the Rogues but I don’t even want to think about what’s going to happen when they finally find their Dreamers. They’re going to kill whoever took them.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “They’re people,” Vogle said. “Just people.”

  “They’re monsters,” I corrected him, “and they deserve whatever happens to them.”

  “That might be true,” Vogle said. “But what about what’s going to happen to the Rogues? And you.”

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t want to know the answer to that question. Vogle finally disappeared to tend to the Dreamers’ bodies again, his despondence…his disappointment reminding me of something a father might do.

  Just the two of us, I finally turned to Roman, looking at him for the first time in what felt like days. “That’s what coming with me means.”

  “What?” he asked.

  “Coming with me means doing something horrible and not just to the people who’ve taken the Dreamers but to yourself.” I looked down. “Can you? If you have to…hurt someone…”

  Roman looked away, as if already feeling the shame of it, the necessity of it too. “I can do what needs to be done.” Suddenly, he stared, pained. “Don’t leave without me, Bryn. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Roman…”

  “All of the mistakes I’ve made…all of the pain I’ve caused…Bryn, if you leave me here it’ll all be in vain. I’m not useless.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “Then don’t do this alone,” he said.

  I knew he was afraid…for both of us. Because this journey wouldn’t just be about putting things back together, it would be about tearing them apart. We’d been broken enough, the two of us, and every time we’d put each other back together again. I could see it in his eyes that that’s all he wanted to do. To fix me and us and everything else. He just needed me to let him.

  “Okay.”

  I spoke the word as my eyes told him to go back, every cell in my body doing the same. I knew he could feel me pushing him away, the gravity that used to pull us together working in reverse. But he ignored it. He refused to go and instead he took my hand.