The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Another moan swelled within the walls and Malin clenched her fists in reply. She was wrestling with it, the ocean charging the ship as her thoughts tried to force it back.

  “No.” She grimaced. “I won’t let you.”

  The walls vibrated, and then one by one the seams split open. Water trickled in before knocking me back in a rush. It filled the small corridor, turning me numb in an instant. The spray caught us first and then more seams ripped open, foam lapping to my waist and then my chin.

  I spotted Malin rushing to a set of stairs, the water letting go of her on command.

  “Wait,” I called. “Malin!”

  But Malin wasn’t running. She was marching.

  We hurried up the stairs as the water rose. Roman fell against my arm, his foot caught on one of the steps, the pressure of the water wedging it deep. Water sloshed from wall to wall, Roman’s head dipping under the waves. I watched the light of his hands burn green but the water was too cold. I tried to pull him up but I lost my grip, the water knocking me back.

  My head struck the railing and I slipped underwater, my eyes burning as I tried to find Roman’s foot. He’d twisted the metal in the wrong direction, his ankle bleeding as he tried to yank it free. Sparks glittered beneath his skin but he couldn’t coax them out. His cheeks flamed red. He was losing air. I took his hand and it was like a rocket, the water boiling as the metal gripped between us turned to sludge.

  We swam to the surface, falling onto the deck that was already filling with water. Wooden slats popped and groaned as more water rushed out. The ship was pocked with geysers, Malin winding between them as the crew fought with whether or not to try and grab her or abandon the ship completely.

  The bow bowed, staffs snapping clean off and drifting into the ocean. I called Malin’s name again, trying to distract her, to get her to slow. Before I could stop her with just a look she paused. Just for a second, just long enough for her gaze to travel up, the water rising with her.

  The ocean split in two, a giant wave rising on either side of the ship. I spotted the white bodies of fish suspended in the sheen, the current stalled as if there was a wall of glass between us and the water. The moon rippled just on the other side, another layer of shadow darkening its red face.

  “Malin!”

  She froze, finally caught in my snare. But then the water came crashing down, the force sending me tumbling. My knee knocked my chin as my hands scrambled for something to hold onto. I slammed against metal, the pain like a jolt of electricity. I tried to stay calm as I waited for the water to let go of me, but I was buried, the current barreling in one direction—down.

  I kicked, trying to fight it, to search for Malin. Bodies slammed into me, hands gripping my legs, my arms. I kicked at a man who was trying not to get sucked out to sea, the current absorbing him like a drop of rain.

  I crawled forward, using the broken pieces of the ship as handholds while I tried to pull myself in the direction Malin had gone. The water hardened in spots, knocking into me like fists, clawing and trying to hold me back. I fought too, kicking and swinging. It spun me and I slammed shoulder first into more metal.

  The current was so loud, the ocean unleashing a scream that made my bones ache. But beneath the knocks and tears and muffled screams I heard another sound. Right by my ear, pressed so close I could feel it slithering into my very thoughts.

  Sink, Bryn.

  My hand slipped on something soft and I jerked back, the metalwork I’d reached for replaced by flesh.

  Just sink.

  Dark hair twisted in the current but when it peeled away I saw my face—the one that had peered out at me from that blood-filled bathtub in my nightmares. While trying to escape Anso’s prison I’d faced the memory of my parents fighting and I’d faced the fire at the farmhouse. And when I’d found Roman’s mother on the bathroom floor, her death had reminded me of all the worst fears I’d had for my own mother.

  Water had spilled over the side of the bathtub and I’d thought it was my mom lying there, clutching a razor and ready to end her life. But when I’d peered over the edge I’d seen my face, a pair of hands latching onto my arms and dragging me into the water.

  The eyes staring at me now flashed dark and then I was tangled in limbs. I fought from the grasp of my ghost but I was knocked by something heavy. Another body. It grabbed at me and I fought free, swimming and trying to avoid more hands.

  Another pair of eyes cut through a dark tangle of hair. Another pair of hands clawed at me. I ripped them from my arms and from my ankles as I struggled towards the surface. But I didn’t know which way was up and everywhere I looked there were more bodies. More ghosts.

  They muddied the water, twisting and bleeding. I set myself aglow, repelling the dead and wading slow as I tried to sense Malin.

  Malin. Speak to me. Reach for me.

  Something tugged back. I spotted a silhouette, dark and hanging limp. Malin was fixed like the delicate centerpiece in a snow globe as the debris and bodies floated all around her. Her hair swirled around her face, so much longer now that it wasn’t frozen. It whipped in the current, revealing another pair of eyes peering back at me. I finally saw his hands wrapped around her waist, his skin pressed to her skin, and I realized that Malin wasn’t sinking. She wasn’t dreaming. She was drowning.

  Alma’s vision unraveled, the memory tangled with the present. I watched Sebastían hold Malin. I watched him wake her, stripping the dreams and absorbing them into his skin. Then I watched him let her go.

  Malin drifted, convulsing and trying to breathe. As she struggled I realized for the first time that my lungs hadn’t strained for air. Not because I was dreaming but because I was already dead. But Malin wasn’t. She was awake in a nightmare of Sebastían’s creation, in a body that didn’t belong in the real world. She was dying.

  I dragged myself towards her, remembering Chloe, remembering the way the current had snatched her from my sight after we’d broken the surface of the lake; the way I’d lost my hold even though our escape from the locusts had been designed by my own dreams. I remembered the way she’d stared at me as I hung there, helpless. She’d reached for me. She’d begged me to save her. But I couldn’t.

  Malin drifted, disappearing like a drop of ink. I reached with everything in me, trying to pull her back. The ocean finally relented, the current carrying her in my direction. She fell into my arms but when I wrapped myself around her she didn’t reach back. She didn’t struggle. She didn’t stir.

  We broke the surface, cold air burning my skin. I blinked against the night; against the stars so bright they drew tears.

  “Bryn!”

  I kicked, trying to keep Malin above water as I searched for the sound. Roman was clutching the half broken mast. Whole. Reaching for me. I wondered how long he’d been hanging there, searching for me beneath the waves. I wondered why I hadn’t been looking for him the same way.

  “Are you alright?”

  I didn’t have the strength to answer. I should have been asking him the same.

  He caught my arm and pulled us towards him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Malin lay in a tangle between us and I knew Roman thought I meant her. That I was sorry for whatever tragic mistake had led to her drowning. And because I was too much of a coward to admit that I hadn’t thought of him, that after seeing Sebastían turn into the very thing he’d always feared most, I still wasn’t…I let him.

  20

  Dani

  The cage is too small. I press myself to the bars. I try to make myself shrink but he can still reach me.

  “Where is she?”

  His voice moves inside my head, each letter growing claws. They scratch and dig and tear into my thoughts. He’s looking for something.

  “Bryn.”

  I don’t answer and he turns, shadows rising like smoke and revealing the other cage in pieces. Felix shakes the bars. He screams.

  “Where is she?”

  M
y voice finally fights its way to my lips but something else yanks it back down.

  “Where. Is. She.”

  I watch Felix tremble. He can’t see me. He can’t see me hesitating. I force the sound to my lips but they’re pinned shut. The smallest sound escapes and Felix looks up. He sees me. He reaches for me.

  “Where?” Anso growls and I shudder.

  I want to save Felix. I want to say it. I want to scream. Nothing comes out.

  Anso turns to dust, specks swirling until the sound of thrashing sand becomes a deep buzz. The specks harden until they’re black. I shake the bars; I press myself to the floor of the cage, waiting for teeth, for blood. I try not to look. I can’t look.

  But then the flap of wings drags the breeze somewhere else. I shake, crawling onto my knees as the cloud hovers over Felix. He stares at me, trembling. And then he’s buried.

  I fell hard, rolling, sweating. Tangled in heat and blankets and…

  “Dani.”

  I blinked, Felix’s face too close to see. He eased back, coming into focus. I saw his smile first and then I saw the gauze. It was pulled tight over his left eye, grey and pink stains like amateur watercolors. He looked down at his IV when he noticed me staring. I looked down too.

  I didn’t know what to say, what I could say. It was the third time I’d dreamed of Anso, of being trapped in one of his cages, of being interrogated by him about Bryn. I hadn’t been able to close my eyes in this house without seeing his face. But this was the first time Felix had been there too.

  I didn’t know if I was dreaming of him because of the sight Celia had injected me with or because I’d finally been giving myself permission to sleep. I didn’t know if I was dreaming at all or if Anso’s presence, his voice inside my head was something else. A warning that he wasn’t done with Felix. A warning that he’d come back for me too.

  My mouth dried up and all I could do was pull Felix close. He exhaled and I inhaled, my body shaking against tears. From the relief of feeling him. From the relief of waking up.

  “I’m alright, Dani.” He led a strand of hair away from my face, his own clinging desperately to his signature smile. “Vogle’s got me pumped full of drugs and Celia’s been floating me the good stuff on the low.”

  He reached for the cup he’d been sipping on for the past couple of hours. I wasn’t sure what was in it but it was potent enough to still be steaming. He took a drink and gagged, coughs split by a laugh. “See? I’m better than ever.”

  Felix was alive. He wasn’t trapped in one of Anso’s cages. He wasn’t trapped in my nightmares. But that didn’t mean he was okay. I examined his face in the corner of my eye, noticing the lines and shadows, his body begging for sleep. What if Felix wasn’t okay? What if he never would be again?

  “Dani…” Felix plucked a tear from my cheek.

  I blinked back the rest. “I love you.”

  He frowned. “Don’t just say that out of pity.”

  “I’m not.” I sat up. “I’m saying it out of fear.”

  He looked away and I hung on his neck. “I can’t lose you, Felix.”

  Memories of the day came flooding back. I remembered my mom coming into my room; the phone still gripped in her hand as she told me there’d been an accident. Then she’d dropped it, falling to her knees. I’d fallen too, somewhere dark and deep and out of reach of everyone but Felix. He’d found me. He’d saved me.

  I rested my forehead against Felix’s shoulder. “I don’t think I could survive if I lost someone else.”

  He wrapped me up, his mouth pressed to my hair. “You won’t lose me.”

  “But I almost did.”

  He exhaled. “But you didn’t.” He cupped my shoulders, his voice as hard as he could make it. “I need you to stop looking at me like I’m some kind of three-legged puppy. I’m here and I’m fine and nothing has changed.” He looked away. “Do you know how much it kills me to see you sad?” His hands fell to my knees. “It hurts, Dani. Worse than being stabbed by a six-foot crow or losing a fucking eye.” His cheeks burned. “I need you to look at me the way you used to. I need you to be annoyed and condescending and in love with me even though you don’t want to be.”

  “Felix…”

  “I mean it, Dani. I need you to be you…because it’s the only way that I can be me.”

  I pressed my hands to Felix’s back, tracing his spine, trying to read him even though I didn’t know how. Celia’s sight was supposed to help her find things, but besides disaster, I really didn’t know what I was looking for. The truth. The future. I needed to know that Felix had a future…with me.

  “What are you thinking about?” he asked, cautious.

  My hands climbed to Felix’s neck, then into his hair, my fingers barely grazing the gauze. “I don’t know…”

  I hadn’t told Felix what Celia had done. I wasn’t sure how. Part of me was afraid that I’d see something awful—Felix hurt or Felix…dying—and this close after a kiss or after waking up next to each other he’d see it in my eyes. And then the Felix I knew would be snuffed out by worry. I didn’t want to destroy the parts of him I needed most. His optimism. His hope. Without them it would destroy me too.

  “It’s hard to sleep,” I finally said. “Which is what you should be doing right now.” I hung the blankets over his shoulders before he could argue or ask me another question.

  He patted the pillow next to him. “Only if you sleep too.”

  I lay back, waiting for him to close his eyes. I’d fallen asleep next to Felix enough times to know that it would take him approximately eight seconds to start snoring. He never tossed or turned. He never had nightmares. I counted his breaths…four…three…two. His lips barely parted, sleep trailing out.

  I wanted to stay right there, staring at the place where his face was pressed to the pillow, hiding the gauze and making it seem like he was right. Like nothing had changed. But I couldn’t stop seeing the locusts. Or the blood. Or how helpless we’d both been until Bryn drowned the nightmare in one of her own. I didn’t want to be helpless. Maybe Celia didn’t want me to be either; maybe that’s why she’d given me her sight in the first place. So that I could see what the others couldn’t. So that I could do what the others couldn’t.

  I slipped out from under the blankets, Felix rolling over and clutching the pillow instead. I crept towards Celia’s bedroom, the door open, lamplight spilling into the hallway. She sat in an old maroon wingback chair, hands gripping the arms even though her eyes were closed, her head tipped to the side.

  I took a step back, not ready to wake her. We’d all been desperately in need of sleep, and while the rest of us had been dragged under against our will at some point or another, our bodies forcing us to sleep in those brief hours between Bryn and Roman’s returns, this was the first time I’d seen Celia this still.

  I turned to go when something slithered in my periphery. The lamp next to Celia shook, rocking back and forth as shadows swirled near her feet. They twisted in and out, long and winding, climbing her calf until they were made of scales.

  The snakes hissed, snapping at the air as they tangled into a knot around her legs.

  She didn’t move. I didn’t move.

  “Celia!” Rafael pushed passed me, the snakes shrinking beneath his glow.

  He shook her and they evaporated, ashes tracing their outline before he scattered the mess with his boots.

  Celia blinked, ignoring Rafael and looking at me instead. “Did you see them too?”

  I crept closer. “Was it another vision?”

  Celia examined my face. “You slept.”

  I nodded.

  She narrowed her eyes, reading in my expression that I’d seen something else. Something worse.

  “They weren’t visions, Dani.” Celia paled, horror-stricken. “They were nightmares.”

  I stiffened, my mouth dry again. “How do you know?”

  She stared down at the ashes. “Because the Dreamers aren’t the only ones waking up.”

&nb
sp; 21

  Roman

  It seemed like we were wading through one funeral after another, all for strangers who had seemed like nothing more than obstacles the day before. Obstacles between Bryn and surviving; between us and the end of the world.

  Malin’s body was still breathing when we carried it into the clearing. Vogle and I were the only ones to accompany it outside, everyone else watching through windows, Andre standing guard by the back door, Rafael propping it open in case we needed to make a run for it. Bryn’s was the only face not pressed to the glass because she was the only one who wasn’t wondering how Malin was dead.

  For a while we just watched her body as it lay in the grass, shifting with each breath. Rising, falling, dreaming. Her eyelashes fluttered but I couldn’t tell if it was from the breeze or if there was some bit of her consciousness left. I wanted her to be still so that we wouldn’t have to see it stop—her lungs, her heart. I didn’t want to see her flesh animated by hope. I didn’t want to have to snuff it out.

  Vogle took a breath, questions he couldn’t get out.

  “I don’t know what happened,” I said. “She…”

  “Drowned.” Vogle ran a hand down his face. “Maybe Bryn woke her too soon…”

  I’d been drowning too, the current dragging me through the dead and debris as panic drove salt down to my lungs. But then something had sucked me out, the water spiraling in reverse until I could see the moon. The wind had felt like it had hands and I was dragged out, skin scraping wood as I grabbed hold of the half-broken mast. I’d thought it was Bryn, that she’d manipulated the current and saved my life. But when I’d searched the waves she was nowhere and then I’d seen someone jump. They must have been perched on the mast too because as soon as they hit the water I was knocked back by the spray. It was warm.

  I told Vogle about the ship and the ocean cracking it in two. “If Bryn had touched her underwater, she could have lost her mind.”

  “And in that moment of panic all it would have taken was one deep breath,” Vogle said.