The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  My feet find the floor and I tug a blanket over my shoulders, venturing into the hall to find my mother so that I can tell her the medicine didn’t get rid of my nightmares.

  The glow of the television washes the stairs, the light casting shadows. The first step is slick. I clutch the railing and it’s dripping. My hand falls as the television paints the wood green, then blue, then red. Beneath my foot the imprint is even brighter. I fumble for the light switch, blinking against the brightness. The bloody shadow of my foot is on every step, all heading in the same direction. Up.

  26

  Bryn

  It wasn’t the first time Roman had touched me since I’d absorbed Alma’s dreams. I’d taken his hand, manifesting us somewhere new; we’d shielded one another from the blast in Ian’s grandfather’s barbershop. I’d grazed his skin; he’d reached for mine. And all this time I’d seen nothing. I’d felt nothing.

  But as I slipped from his grasp, abandoning him and making him feel like a monster, for the first time…I felt something too. I saw something.

  Through Alma’s eyes the scene burned red, the color settling against Roman’s skin. I carved shapes in the rubble that looked like men. Rogues.

  They lay, eyes open, woundless and still. I scanned for shadows, for Sebastían, for Anso—searching for a weapon strong enough to do what so many of them couldn’t. But there was nothing.

  There was only me.

  I sunk into that dead space, my mind not racing but quiet. The silence pressed down on me, crushing, crushing like the deafening buzz after an atomic blast.

  Roman was…Roman…he’s…he’s not…

  Those first few thoughts came in flashes, meaning turned to dying sparks before I could make sense of what I was seeing.

  I imagined Roman alone and staring into the bathroom mirror. He probably thought I’d left because I hated him. Instead, Roman’s confession about Carlisle had made me feel something else.

  Solace.

  Because I didn’t want to lie either.

  Roman felt like a monster, but so did I, and in that split second before leaving I wondered: maybe even if after all of this we couldn’t love ourselves or even each other, maybe at least we’d understand.

  Or maybe it was too late. The blood covering Roman thickened, deepening to black and stealing Alma’s vision, his face hidden beneath time and tears. I brushed my cheek, shaking at the sight. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d cried. Part of me wondered if after…dying…I still could. Feel. Hurt.

  For a long time all I could see were my hands. I stared at the lines and the scars, remembering the last time I’d felt this. This time I didn’t have another sculpture to destroy. Then again, the sculpture had never been just a bunch of scraps I’d thrown together in an effort to make something beautiful. It was me—sharpened and molded and burned into something infinite.

  The Rogues were supposed to be infinite too, trapped on earth by a curse or a dream while their Dreamers died alone. That part had come true already, my death finally separating me from Roman the same way the other Rogues had been separated from their Dreamers. But he was supposed to live. After all of this…he has to.

  But…Michael.

  The vision Anso had planted in Kira’s memories had left a searing scar I couldn’t shake. It pulsed, luring me back to that place where I could see and feel what my grandmother had felt, where I could see and feel what Michael had felt too. I fought off his memories, remembering instead how I’d punished him for what he’d done.

  I killed him.

  Long before Dr. Lombard. Long before Ian’s captors or Emir’s. I’d killed him. Even though he was supposed to be immortal. Even though he was supposed to be cursed.

  I stared down at my hands again, imagining the blood running underneath, my veins surging with something I didn’t understand. By destroying Michael, had I destroyed the curse too? Had I changed the rules somehow? I’d been changing and destroying things since the minute I’d woken up dead. If I’d done this…what did that mean for the Rogues? For Roman…

  I sunk, made of lead, the room as empty as I was. The texture covering the wall twisted and turned red.

  I love you.

  I’d spoken the words out of desperation, but even as I’d said them, I’d sensed there was a part of Roman that didn’t believe me. I’d wanted to feel it. Since waking up after escaping from Anso’s prison, all I’d wanted was to ignite with his arms around me like I had every other time we’d touched. But there’d been too much darkness inside me snuffing it out; keeping us apart. There’d been too much darkness inside me to feel anything at all.

  And now I was feeling everything.

  For the longest time I’d thought I’d already lost it all; that Anso had taken everything from me. But as I crumbled, replaying the shadows across Roman’s face, my dull reflection in his eyes, I realized that I wasn’t even close. And I realized that maybe my humanity was never trapped in my flesh and blood, confined to the corpse that made me human. Maybe the best parts of me…the good parts of me were in Roman. Maybe they always had been.

  If only I could reach them now.

  If I was being honest, baring every ugly part of myself, the real reason I’d left Roman behind was because I was dangerous and because I hated myself for it. For what I’d done and the way it had felt…the second before, the second after, the gut-wrenching seconds in between.

  And I didn’t know how to tell him that part. I didn’t know how to tell him that I was drawn to the destruction. In those brief moments of causing someone pain I’d felt more awake than I’d ever felt before. More dead too. And after seeing Roman’s body; the Rogues twisted in the debris, I realized that if I hadn’t left him behind, my death wouldn’t have been the only inevitability.

  But maybe there was a way to keep both of us from being destroyed completely. I pulled myself up off the floor, not just replaying Alma’s vision but the moments before—Roman’s words; mine. Alma’s vision had sparked before I’d vanished, meaning it was a version of the future that was only certain if Roman was by my side. But he wasn’t. I was alone. He was safe. Maybe if I stayed away he always would be.

  27

  Dani

  We were supposed to save the dead for last but suddenly finding the Dreamers a safe transport home wasn’t the priority anymore. Making sure Roman’s curse was still intact was. Making sure he wasn’t dead too.

  Felix groaned, running a hand down his face. He didn’t even register the gauze this time. Maybe it had already become a part of him or maybe he just didn’t have time to care about what he’d lost now that we might lose Roman too.

  “Nothing?” I asked even though I knew the answer.

  “Rafiq and Alma were ghosts even before Bryn took their dreams,” Felix said, “and Magda was just a kid. We don’t know anything about where she came from. I’m just glad Celia was able to at least find her name.”

  I’d found her name. Bryn had left us empty-handed and we’d buried Magda as a stranger. When Felix had asked Celia to find any information about her she’d feigned weakness, pretending to use me as an anchor again while she led my conscious to Magda’s childhood bedroom.

  I’d stepped over a stuffed bunny and a broken pencil, her room separated from the rest of the small cottage by a single white sheet. Her bed was two pillows and a pink quilt, the cold floor beneath covered in newspaper. A piece of cardboard was nailed to the wall above her bed, the letters of her name scratched out in black and white. Celia had plucked it from my thoughts at the same time they’d pleaded with her not to say anything about me. She’d listened, telling Felix Magda’s name as if her sight was still intact.

  It still wasn’t enough to find Magda in the real world. But as afraid as I was of the others knowing about my visions, I was even more afraid of the visions themselves. Of getting lost in them and not being able to find my way back.

  Standing in Magda’s childhood bedroom, I hadn’t just found the things she’d left behind. I’d found pieces
of her too. Her thoughts, her memories, her emotions. They’d clung to the walls and risen up from the floor, swirling around me as a strange breeze had slipped in between the cracks in the walls.

  Standing in Magda’s space had been like slipping on her skin, the lure of a life that didn’t belong to me slowly chipping away at my own memories. I’d felt myself disappearing and if Celia’s voice in my head hadn’t yanked me back out I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to find my way.

  “Felix…”

  His fingers raced across his keyboard. “Yeah?”

  I’d held onto Felix, I’d slept in his arms and I hadn’t found his body. I hadn’t seen some version of the future without him in it. Maybe that meant he was going to be okay. Maybe that meant I could tell him what Celia had done. Looking down at the list of Rogues whose Dreamers were dead and who could very well be dead themselves, I realized that maybe this was why she’d done it.

  “Felix, I have to tell you something.”

  His hands rested on his knees. He looked up.

  I hesitated, still unsure how to start. I finally shook off the nerves and faced him. “Celia did something to me…” Then I stopped. Still afraid. For both of us.

  Felix lowered his voice. “…did something to you?”

  I realized my hesitation had backfired and I let out a deep breath. “She gave me her visions. I don’t know how or why.”

  “Wait.” His voice spiked with panic. “What? Dani, what are you talking about?”

  I told him about seeing Shay’s Dreamer, Celia’s sight drawing blood as she’d forced it inside me. Then I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I think Celia saw something about herself. I think she saw her future…”

  He raised an eyebrow. “You mean that she doesn’t have one?”

  I nodded. “Maybe.”

  He scanned my face, tracing down to my hands and back up again. “Are you okay?” I knew what he was searching for. Darkness.

  “I’m fine.” I crossed my arms, concealing a shiver. “I think.”

  Felix pushed the laptop out of the way, crawling over to me on the bed. “You think? Dani, that’s not good enough. Not after—”

  “I know.” I looked down. “I’m okay. I just don’t really know why she did it. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  I stared at my hands.

  “Dani.”

  “I was afraid I’d see something. About you.”

  Felix’s voice wavered. “Have you?”

  I shook my head. “No.” Felix had been in my nightmares but that wasn’t what he’d asked. Besides, maybe my nightmares had been just that. Now that the Dreamers weren’t the only things waking up, I just hoped they would stay that way.

  “Have you seen anything about the Rogues?” he asked.

  “No.” I paused. “But I haven’t tried.”

  “Is that why you’re telling me now?”

  I sat up, finally looking him in the eye. “What if it’s what I’m supposed to do?”

  Felix took my hands. “You’re not supposed to do anything, Dani. You didn’t ask for this. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  He made the choice sound so simple. But there was no choice. Not really.

  “If there’s something I can do…I should. I have to, Felix.”

  His brow furrowed. “What kind of something?”

  I pulled his laptop in front of us both, his list of dead Dreamers parallel with a list of blank spaces, waiting to be filled with the names of their Rogues.

  I looked back at Felix. “What if I can find them? What if Celia can show me how?”

  Felix lowered his voice again. “You still trust her?”

  Bryn didn’t trust Celia. She was a liar and a secret-keeper and by living in hiding she’d betrayed us all. Me, Bryn, our grandmother. Now Bryn and my grandmother were dead. I’d been dead too. But then Celia had brought me back. I wasn’t sure that I trusted her but now…maybe that wasn’t really a choice either.

  “She gave me her sight. I trust her enough to show me what to do with it.”

  Felix hung his head. “Well, I don’t.” He looked up. “But I trust you. And if your gut is telling you to do something, that it’s worth it, that it’s safe, then I’ll be by your side the entire time.”

  Safe. Nowhere was safe. Not sitting on this bed, in this house in the middle of nowhere, beneath a bloodstained moon that wouldn’t sleep. Not in Felix’s arms or in the Dreamers’ memories. But I had to do something.

  The Bryn I knew, the girl I’d grown up with, wouldn’t be gone forever. I believed that with every part of me. And when she finally came back to us, I had to make sure that Roman was waiting for her.

  “She needs him, Felix. They need each other. We can’t let it end like this.”

  Felix pulled me to him. “We won’t.”

  When we reached Celia’s bedroom she was already lighting a row of candles.

  Without turning to face us she asked, “Are you ready?”

  I clenched my fists, forcing myself inside. “Yes.”

  I sat on the floor as Celia traced a circle of sand around us both. She sat across from me and I took her outstretched hands. Eyes closed, she pulled me through time, every second a piece of string, each one vibrating a strange hum that made me warm. But then she let go and I drifted into cold black. I waited for light, for sound, for someone else’s memory that felt like home.

  The black peeled back from my vision and then everything was red. The Rogues lay in a row, side by side, some on their backs facing the sky, some in a tangle of limbs, some in pieces. I couldn’t stop looking at the pieces.

  Blood cut beneath them like a river, winding from limb to limb. It trickled out like veins, red strands turning to bright spools of thread. They grew taut, shivering in the wind as I followed them into darkness.

  The thread scaled the walls of a cave, hanging like bloody moss. I had no form but I could still feel the cold drops. I could still smell the death. It burned, bodies scorched by flames. And standing in the center was Michael.

  But he wasn’t alone.

  The threads stretched at the twitch of Bryn’s hand. Her eyes laced them into shapes; into loops and locks until the threads were a noose around Michael’s neck. She yanked them tight, cutting him open, and the cave filled with blood. It pooled at her feet and then she looked up at the thread woven above her head. It was a mesh maze, layer after layer climbing straight up.

  They hung, their wrists and ankles bound tight. At first, they looked like they were sleeping. But then I found Brandon Hartfield and I knew that they were dead.

  We had no photographs of the other Rogues, no physical proof that they belonged to the Dreamers we’d laid to rest. But as I stared at each face, I could hear someone whisper their names, shooting the sound like an arrow straight into my chest.

  I looked back at Bryn, wondering if it was her voice I’d heard. She looked back, noticing my consciousness there as if I was as real as she was.

  “I don’t know how to cut them down,” she said.

  A figure appeared from the shadows, the woman’s skin so pale it looked phosphorescent. She stood next to Bryn and said, “You can’t.”

  I lurched, another force latching onto me and dragging me back to my body. I felt myself slip inside my skin again, my lungs filling with air, my heart racing as I blinked against the light.

  There was a piece of paper in front of me, a pencil gripped in my hand. I let go and it fell to the floor in pieces, lead stains mixing with my sweaty palms. Stains covered the paper too, letters scratched in rows. At first it looked like gibberish, letters running into each other from one side of the page to the other. No spaces. No words. But then Brandon’s name leapt out at me the same way his face had and I drew a line to separate the rest.

  “Dani?” Felix perched on his knees in front of me. “What happened?”

  Celia moved closer too. “What did you see?”

 
; I paused, dropping the broken pencil again. “I saw…” My heart raced, seeing her face again, her hands covered in blood. “Bryn.”

  Felix’s brows knitted together. “Bryn?”

  My hands shook and I squeezed them between my knees. “I saw her kill Michael. And then I saw the Rogues. I don’t know how but somehow it’s all connected.”

  “She’s the one.” Celia stared at the floor. “She’s the one who broke it.”

  “She’s the one who broke what?” Felix asked.

  I looked right at Celia as I said, “The curse.”

  Suddenly my ears popped, the walls heaving as a loud groan raced through the house. I scrambled to my feet as Felix helped Celia stand. There was another groan, this one more human, more panicked. We followed it to the living room where Rafael had Vogle pinned to the couch. Vogle’s eyes were closed, his hands clawing at Rafael.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Felix asked.

  “He couldn’t save me.”

  We all spun at the voice. A girl in a hospital gown stared down at Vogle. She was just bones, sharp edges almost cutting through the skin at her elbows and knees. She took a step, skin breaking and blood trickling through. It painted the floor as she knelt by his face.

  “He tried but he couldn’t.” She brushed his cheek, tearful. “He didn’t know how.”

  Eve.

  Bryn had first learned about Eve after Felix had hacked into Dr. Banz’s computer. She’d been sick like Bryn and then she’d died, the shadows forcing her into a permanent sleep. I hadn’t really stopped to think about why Vogle was here; why he cared about Bryn the way he did. But it was guilt—guilt that he’d failed to do what he was made for. Guilt that Eve was dead. Was that why she was here? Because she knew the curse had been lifted? Had she come to take him with her? Could we let her?

  “You don’t have a choice.” Eve frowned, confirming she’d heard every thought. “Neither does he.” She pressed her hands over Vogle’s mouth, shoving the air back down his throat.