The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “You’re going to look for her…” Andre said.

  Celia’s face flashed behind Valentina’s shoulder, a warning in her eyes. The truth was I was too afraid of telling the others what she’d said.

  Ever since Carlisle’s body being dragged out of the quarry had been shown on the national news, they’d been looking at me like something broken. It was the look Dani had given me at the window. The same look everyone was giving me now. Whatever I said about Bryn or the future would seem like it was coming from a place of pathetic desperation. I didn’t want their pity. I didn’t even need their trust. All I needed was for them to let me go.

  “I’m going to look for the Dreamers left on her list,” I said. “If she’s looking for them too then maybe I’ll find them both. Either way we don’t have time to wait for her to rescue them one by one. We have to do something.” I handed the list to Andre and let him examine the names and coordinates. “If we work backwards we may be able to rescue a few before running into her. It’s worth a shot.”

  He frowned, almost grimacing. “I’ll…come with you.”

  “Andre, you don’t—”

  “I do.” He sighed, staring at the ceiling where Olivia lay sleeping upstairs. “It’s almost over.” He squeezed my shoulder, then Valentina’s. “Almost.”

  I knew he didn’t want to leave Olivia but I also knew that he could see I was on edge, ready to hurl myself straight into the chaos just to feel useful again. Alive again. Shay had channeled her helplessness the same way. I wondered if she’d found Calvin’s body yet but then I remembered it was probably in pieces, which meant that Shay probably was too.

  There were so many shattered pieces and I might not have been able to put them together the way that Bryn could, to fix everything that was broken. But saving the Dreamers, protecting Bryn, heeding to whatever destiny had brought us together…it was the only thing that made me feel less broken. It was the only thing that made me believe I could be, not just good again, but whole again. I wanted to be whole. I wanted Bryn to be safe. But more than anything I wanted the world and our future in it to remain intact. Bryn deserved a future, and even if I had to destroy my own in the process, she would get one.

  30

  Adham

  I swing my legs against the bark of the tree, wondering if Cole can hear the drumming, if he knows I’m out here at all. That I’m always out here. I can see his bed through the window, the blanket hiked up over his shoulder. It grazes his neck as he shifts, his dreams more restless tonight than usual.

  But I’m not thinking about the things that haunt him—I’m close enough to strike if I need to. I’m thinking about the blanket. About the way it curves over his chest; the way it hugs his arms in tight, stealing the scent of his skin. I watch him drag it to his chin, tucking into a ball, and all I want is to be that blanket. Since the day I first saw him it’s all I’ve ever wanted. To be that close. To be the thing that covers him and keeps him warm.

  The clouds above me disintegrate, moonlight tracing the outline of my perch against Cole’s bedroom wall. All he would have to do is look, my shadow telling truths I don’t know how to yet. But he doesn’t. He sleeps, probably dreaming of someone softer, someone female. I stare at my shape in the dark, wishing I could mold it into something new. Someone Cole could love. Not because I don’t like myself but because the agony of being bound to someone who doesn’t love me back is too excruciating to bear.

  My shadow moves, edges stretching like dough. I look from my head and hands back to the shadow, the shape still morphing. It bleeds from floor to ceiling, arms growing as thick as the tree I’m sitting in. I grip myself in handfuls but nothing’s changed. I look back at the shadow and then I see the teeth. The moonlight careens off white and then red. It drips onto Cole’s blanket.

  I fall from the tree, racing to the window. It’s locked and I rear back a fist but the glass doesn’t shatter. I light up, my flames painting Cole’s face until the heat stirs him. He blinks and then he jumps, scrambling for the head of his bed. He’s wedged against the wall, so close I can see his face.

  He screams and my temperature spikes, flames scorching the side of the house. I try to burn through the walls but they only blacken, nothing cracking but me.

  I grip the glass. “Cole! Cole, run! Run!”

  He shakes, blood dripping down the side of his face. His mouth unhinges but no sound comes out. He’s limp, too afraid to run. I’m too afraid to look away. I slam my fists against the glass but there’s no give. There’s no way in or out.

  Moonlight glints against bone, the monster raising its claw. Then it drags it straight down.

  “You okay?”

  Every muscle jumped, my clothes drenched in sweat.

  Cole knelt in front of me, waving a hand. “Sorry, did I wake you up?”

  I scraped the sweat from my face, taking a deep breath. “No, I was just—”

  “Dreaming.” Cole furrowed his brow. “You were dreaming, weren’t you?”

  I sat up, forearms on my knees. “I think so.”

  “Apparently nightmares are sort of contagious right now. Vogle had one earlier and so did Celia.”

  “About what?” I asked.

  Cole shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Don’t really want to know.” His expression was almost…concerned. Or maybe I was just imagining it. “What did you dream about?”

  My face warmed. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him the truth. I didn’t want to scare him with the fact that I may have just summoned the monster he’d been foregoing sleep in order to avoid. Or with the fact that my worst fear was losing him.

  “I don’t really remember,” I finally said.

  “Well, whatever it was obviously scared the shit out of you.” Cole looked down. “I’m…glad you weren’t eaten alive or anything.” His face burned and so did mine.

  “Thanks…”

  “Listen,” Cole sat in the chair next to me and I noticed that the sliding doors to the dining room were shut, “I need to talk to you about something.”

  My heart raced, sweat pouring behind my neck again. I could tell by the look on Cole’s face that he’d been wrestling with something. My chest tightened and I took another deep breath, trying not to anticipate his every word, trying to sit as still as possible. “What do you need to talk to me about?”

  Cole cradled his head in his hands. “I’ve been holding it in for days now. But I just can’t do it anymore.”

  I almost reached for him, snapping my hand back just as he looked up again. “What is it, Cole?”

  “I need you.”

  My pulse sloshed between my ears. “What?”

  Cole lowered his voice. “I said I need your help. Do you remember when Domingo asked me to read Stassi’s memories to see if I could find her body?”

  My heart plummeted. “This is about Stassi?”

  Cole nodded. “I…” He paused. “I lied when I said I didn’t see anything.”

  I was quiet, trying to shove every ounce of disappointment somewhere dark and deep and out of reach.

  “I know it was wrong,” Cole said, misreading my expression altogether.

  He thought I disapproved of the lie; that I cared at all. More proof that he didn’t understand the chains I was bound by. Cole could lie. He could kill. He could break my heart and nothing I felt would ever change.

  “Now he’s out there, searching for her. While I know the truth.” Cole exhaled. “That there’s nothing to find.”

  I finally untangled from my own thoughts. “What do you mean nothing?”

  Cole met my eyes. “She killed herself, Adham. Before Bryn found her. Before Domingo even started looking.” His mouth quavered. “The shadows got to her and she couldn’t take it. They drove her mad and she just couldn’t take it.”

  “When?” I imagined Domingo searching for her and going just as mad. “How?”

  Cole buried his face in his hands. “I watched it dissolve to nothing.”

  I stood in front of him. “Her body
?”

  “It doesn’t matter how it happened,” Cole said. “You don’t want to know what I saw. What it felt like. She’s gone, Adham. She’s gone.”

  I stared at the floor as I spoke. “We have to tell him.”

  Cole looked up. “She begged me not to.”

  “It’s not her choice.”

  “What if it is her choice?” Cole said. “It’s her body.”

  “It’s not her choice.” I clenched my fists, fingers smoking. “You have no idea what he’s feeling right now. You have no idea how much it hurts.”

  He looked away, quiet.

  “He deserves to know, Cole.” My throat burned. “Please…don’t put him through any more torture.”

  Cole stood without a word, leaving me alone again. I turned my back to the door as it slid shut and that’s when I saw the blood. A thick trail wound beneath the dining room table, merging with three giant scratches in the wood. I followed the stains, kneeling to graze the splinters. My fingers came back red. It was still warm.

  31

  Bryn

  Eventually I stopped seeing their faces. I stopped hearing their screams. I drifted into each Dreamer’s worst nightmare as subtly as the shadows, snatching them up without a fight, leaving behind their captors lit up in flames. I was dazed, damning everything. Because I could be forced by Fate to rescue the Dreamers but I couldn’t be forced to hope. That it all meant something. That it all mattered.

  Monica had been curled up in a coffin, her short breaths floating up through the slats in the floor. She’d been shifting an inch at a time, trying to silently scratch through the wood, trying to loosen one enough to breathe. Until I’d ripped them from the floor, that first full breath of air igniting tears. She’d been too weak to walk; too weak to speak. I’d tried to smile, to soften somehow so she’d know she was safe. But she was the thirty-first Dreamer on my list and I was no good at pretending. Instead, she’d stayed afraid until I took her dreams. Until she died.

  Haji had been turned to stone, laid in a slab of concrete that covered everything but his face and chest. I’d found him humming, haunted by the heat and the kind of monsters that appeared only after you’d been staring into the sun for too long. My shadow had poured over him, cool as I channeled the natural night. He’d opened his eyes, the color of his pupils running white. The constant moon would have been a welcome sight if he could still see. But he couldn’t. He could only feel me there, fighting to free him from the concrete. I’d pulled it from him in pieces, barely a wince making it past his strange song. As his dreams seeped into my skin, the song became even stranger. It was dark and joyous. And I knew he knew. That he was dead. That he was free.

  Katri had been buried under flesh. Soaked, raw, naked. When I’d manifested in the dark corner of the room, her wide eyes catching a glimpse of me, Anso’s daughter had appeared too. She’d whistled, the long notes ricocheting from one makeshift wall to the other, startling the man on top of Katri. He’d looked over one shoulder and then the other. Nothing. Then he’d slapped Katri across the mouth, blood trickling between her teeth as she grimaced. Her shoulders had been just as bloody, bone jutting out from her skin. I’d looked closer, the trace of feathers matted over scabs. She’d been clipped so she couldn’t run. The man gripped the bones like anchors and then I spotted his pants on the floor, a knife glinting in the back pocket. Anso’s daughter winked at me, whistling low as I led the blade to the man’s throat and sliced.

  Kester, Grace, Sergia, Malcolm.

  Alice, Garrett, Bram, Jade.

  Dreamers I recognized from Anso’s prison. Dreamers who recognized me from some dream or vision they’d had or maybe a nightmare.

  Christine, Victor, Evan, Joseph…

  I remembered being surprised in Anso’s prison by how seemingly mundane Joseph's ability had been. But when I’d found him tangled in wires, IVs and patches and clamps sucking at him like leeches; as I’d stared at his mouth, silent and agape, it was obvious the magic that had been stripped from him. While once he could speak the language of anyone living, of the trees, and even the shadows, now he couldn't speak at all.

  I’d crouched in front of him, forcing my face into his line of sight. “Joseph?”

  He’d smiled, finger twitching as if he’d wanted to reach for me. I’d reached for him instead, whispering the same lie I’d been gifting to all the others. That everything was going to be okay. He was gone before I could tell whether or not he’d believed me.

  Gone just like Lucy, Aram, Michael, and Anouk.

  Five more. Ten more. Fifteen.

  I’d rummaged through the rotting slush of landfills, through damp and decrepit basements, through two-foot crawlspaces, bubbling marshes, barn lofts, scorched forests, and abandoned children’s bedrooms. I found Dreamers tied to beds, tied to horses, tied to pyres. I found Dreamers choking on blood and dust and fear. I found them dressed as slaves and deities and murderers.

  I found them, taking their dreams and casting them in Celia’s direction like fallen leaves. One by one until the names scratched into my skin were nothing but barbs and tracks, the lines through each name forming a ladder. Descending. Down. Down.

  The farther I went the sicker I became, each rescue laying a magnifying glass on the parts of the world that people would rather pretend didn’t exist. But I saw the world; the people in it, and I discovered that it was a giant snow globe of disaster, glass walls and glitter masking the stains. The truth.

  That we’re all sick. Sick of being ourselves and of not. Sick of being powerless. Sick of being invisible.

  The truth was, the Dreamers weren’t being held captive by monsters but by the weakest, most pathetic of humans. And suddenly, leaving their captors alight, trapped in their Dreamer’s cages as smoke strangled them to sleep, was no longer about me destroying something evil. It was about me putting something wounded and pathetic out of its misery.

  So that’s what I did. I put down dogs. I swaddled them in flames and made them sleep. While Anso’s daughter fanned them. While she laughed.

  I stumbled onto a side street, too tired to know where. Her presence, every scratch of her voice was like weights around my arms and legs.

  I was weak and she sensed it.

  “You could climb right into it.” She pointed at the moon. “You could lay your head and rest.”

  I was angry and she stoked the flames.

  “Look at all these bodies.” She kicked a stone into foot traffic, a horde of drunken men all stumbling at once. Either they were celebrating the end of the world with the bender to end all benders or they were hoping to be too drunk by the time it actually happened to care. “Maybe you should climb into one of them. I love the way it sounds when you peel them apart.”

  I stopped, pressed my hands to the side of a dark building. “I can’t see you. I can’t. I can’t…”

  She circled me, edging in close. “Even when you close your eyes, it’s the shadow of my skin that you see.”

  My thoughts swam together, sick. “Go away. Go away.” I lost my breath, words barely a whisper. “Go…go…go…go…please.”

  She pressed her cheek to the wall right next to me, so close I could see my reflection in her bloodshot eyes. “That’s me you’re wearing.” She scratched at me. “Shed my skin. Give it back!”

  I dodged her, shaking, and trying not to scream.

  “Fine.” Her mouth twitched into a smile. “Then I’ll just have to take it.”

  I braced for another swipe of her hand, but instead she let the wind pull her apart, vanishing. I walked a slow circle, listening. I waited for her cackle, for the chill that meant she was near. But there was nothing but the clank of dinner forks and the brief brush of warmth wafting from an open door. I followed the sounds around the corner and realized why my feet had been dragging me in this direction.

  My mother.

  She sat across from my uncle, one finger tapping the edge of her wine glass as he spoke something in a whisper. She smiled. Even as the te
levision set in the corner flashed with blood. But she wasn’t the only one ignoring the destruction. The television was on mute as a trio of guitarists walked from table to table, a soloist singing something about spring as patrons drank their wine and broke their bread, laughing in a way that made me hurt.

  My mom laughed too and joy gripped my throat, tears coming as hard and fast as Malin’s waves. But then I remembered that it wasn’t real; that I’d done this. I’d wished it, my mom’s hand in Cole’s, my own wiping the strain and the tears and the sadness from her cheek. I’d molded her like one of my sculptures, pressing her into something that not even the death of her mother; not even the end of the world could break.

  I looked up, the moon continuing to darken, a bruised mouth, widening, widening, ready to devour us. I looked back at my mom. Happy. Delusional. But I hadn’t saved her from anything. Not yet.

  “Is that your mother?”

  A tight gasp fogged up the window in front of me. I took a slow step back, Sebastían just inches away, staring at my mom with the most wondrous look on his face. His mouth cracked and I thought he was about to start crying too.

  I backed away, one step, two. Out of all of the things I’d seen in this world—ugly and angry and evil—none of it had gutted me quite the same as finding their shells. Sebastían had followed me across continents; sometimes I’d followed him. But when I’d found myself a step behind, it was already too late. He’d taken six Dreamers before I could reach them. Six.

  Two corpses.

  Four living, breathing bodies.

  I tried not to think about Celia, Vogle, and the others scrambling to revive them once they landed on her living room floor. I tried not to picture them forcing that winter into warm skin. I couldn’t think about the burials. The dread. The silence. They had buried countless Dreamers—nameless strangers—all because I was too afraid.