The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I hesitated, afraid of the words fighting towards my lips—about Anso’s daughter haunting me, about her voice like a siren song. I couldn’t scare Dani. I couldn’t tell her the whole truth.

  “I’m carrying the nightmares everywhere I go and people keep dying. Dreamers. Their captors. Innocent people.” I hung my head. “I can’t put another Dreamer inside a corpse. I can’t put another ghost inside a living body. How will I be able to take Lathan’s Dreamer from him? How will I be able to force Valentina’s Dreamer to his death?”

  Dani froze as Stassi stared at the ceiling, listening and following the sound of footsteps.

  “What—?”

  Dani clutched my arm and then she pointed straight up, mouthing, “Valentina.”

  I traced the air vent and the cracks in the ceiling, anywhere my voice could have slipped through.

  “Maybe she didn’t hear,” Stassi breathed. “They told her Rodrigo’s wounds would have to heal before he could wake back into his body.”

  My heart sunk. “They lied?”

  “They had to,” Dani whispered. “She’s the one who blasted a whole through our fortress.”

  “Bryn…?”

  Felix’s voice pulled me. His arms hung limp at his side, his face pale. Since the locusts…I hadn’t asked him about the pain. I hadn’t asked him anything at all. I didn’t need to. Felix didn’t know how to feel sorry for himself and I knew he’d never allow me to feel sorry for him either. So I’d said nothing. Acknowledged nothing. Apologized for nothing. And because he was my friend, he’d let me.

  “What is it?” I asked, trying not to stare at the slim black bandage over his eye that had replaced the bloody gauze.

  He took a step back, his shirt washed with the glow of the television. The flickering light ushered me into the dining room, not all of it artificial. There were flames behind the glass, the screen split in two as one frame showed Roman’s booking photo and the other showed security camera footage of him fuzzy and furious. And on fire.

  In the background of the frame on the left I spotted Adham and Cole, Cole cowering in the corner of the cluttered basement while Adham tried to rein in Roman’s fury.

  “What the hell is this…?”

  “So, uh…remember when you were still asleep in the hospital?” Felix asked.

  I glared at him.

  “Oh, God.” Dani pressed a hand to her mouth.

  In the video, Roman gripped some strange man’s ear between his fingers. It was smoking.

  “You were a part of this?” Dani snapped.

  “A very small part,” Felix assured her.

  My voice rose and Felix jumped. “Tell me everything!”

  Cole rolled, grabbing at the blankets he’d been tangled in, probably terrified of the fact that his body had betrayed him long enough to sleep. “What’s wrong?” He sat up, scanning the room. “What happened?”

  I ignored him, looking from Felix to Adham. “Now!”

  Felix, Cole, and Adham told me everything. About the strange comment Felix had read on one of the news articles about the Dreamer from New York who’d been kidnapped (but who’d actually been rescued by Charles) and about his cyber stalking of NightKnight1999, which had led to Roman, Adham, and Cole tracking down his hiding spot in an effort to find out what he knew about the Dreamers, which ended badly when the guy turned out to be a total psychopath (which, somehow shocked everyone but me) and Roman almost killed him.

  “And now it looks like he’s sold the footage to every major news station in the country on the basis that Roman is somehow responsible for the current apocalypse.”

  “You can take a deep breath now,” Dani offered.

  Felix wrung his hands. “I really can’t.”

  I froze, reconciling Felix’s panic with the fact that Roman wasn’t here. He was out there…in the world. Surrounded by people who thought he was some kind of antichrist.

  And then I remembered the restaurant I’d resolved to rubble, my skin glowing just as mysteriously as Roman’s as I was caught in front of all of those cell phone cameras. I grabbed the remote and flipped through channels. I finally found my face, the shot of me on fire spliced with the one of Roman.

  Adham knelt in front of the screen. “How did they make the connection?”

  Felix shrugged. “How could you not?”

  I shook. “No…” And then I swung. “Shit!” My fist collided with the wall, a crack racing up the ceiling, the plaster sloping until I thought it was going to cave in.

  When the dust settled we all stared straight up. Nothing. I rounded the corner and when I didn’t spot Valentina in the living room I raced up the stairs. The hallway was quiet, the old floorboards betraying nothing. I followed the cold spots from room to room.

  “This one’s empty,” Dani whispered.

  Stassi peered out of another room, frowning.

  I pushed open the last door on the right—my father’s room. The only thing moving were the shadows of the curtains, a gust of wind tangling them. Fingerprints were pressed into the dust along the pane. Below, the roof sloped down, an easy climb for a Rogue, even with her Dreamer in her arms.

  “They’re gone.” Dani spoke but the words were all strung together.

  She brushed my arm and then she disappeared, her voice ringing down the stairs. There were footsteps and falling doors as everyone spilled out into the yard. Rafael climbed over the crumbling rock and Adham followed, Vogle not far behind, their silhouettes burning red as they searched the darkness for Valentina.

  I stood there by the window. Watching. Just watching. Thinking about all of the hours, all of the days and weeks and months and years that Valentina had spent waiting to find her Dreamer. All of the years her Dreamer had waited to be found. And now I was supposed to rip them apart.

  It didn’t matter where Valentina went. It didn’t matter which corner of the earth they were hiding in. All I had to do was brush the skin of his corpse, his ghost whispering the place. I would find them.

  I just didn’t want to.

  I did my best to avoid my father’s face as I slipped into the hallway. The space felt too cold and too narrow, Celia’s home like a morgue where the nearly-dead waited in line for their final breath. I tried to take one now, sucking in air, but nothing felt real anymore. Not my lungs. Not this place.

  “Because it’s not.” Anso’s daughter was nothing but a harsh breeze, pressing me to the wall. She manifested one dark limb at a time. “You stitched me out of thorns and stars. Don’t you remember?” She yanked on my wrist, cold as ice. “The needle scarred you, every finger pricked. You stitched and you stitched.”

  I closed my eyes, desperate. “Go away.”

  Anso’s daughter twitched, puzzled. “But you’re everywhere.”

  The cold vanished in a rush, angrier this time. Confused. I was too. What had Sebastían meant when he’d said, He’s not in my head, Bryn. We’re in yours. Anso’s daughter was always trying to cast me adrift, dangling her insanity in front of me like a lure. Had Anso’s son done the same to Sebastían? Or were they all being controlled by Anso? Trying to drive me out of my mind?

  It’s not working…

  It’s…not…

  “Bryn, are you alright?”

  I opened my eyes. Stassi. Instinct told her to reach for me but I stepped to the left, reminding us both that it was too dangerous. I realized that I was wearing every worry; the look on my face so unsettling it had almost convinced her to take the risk.

  “I’ll find her,” I said, trying to explain why I’d hidden instead of run.

  “But not now…”

  “Maybe I’m saving the hard ones for last. I don’t know.” I shrugged. “But maybe it won’t be so hard to end their lives the closer I am to ending mine.”

  Stassi’s face wrinkled, my words too honest. “I want to show you something.”

  Stassi stopped in front of the room where my body lay. She pushed open the door and I waited for the smell, for the death to coax me inside,
closer, closer. But I was still. Everything was still.

  “Look,” Stassi said.

  “Stass—” My voice cracked; then disappeared.

  “It’s okay, Bryn. Just look.”

  I stared down at the black hole that was my body and imagined the cosmos dying inside. I waited for its pull, strong and ready to pulverize me. More stillness. I traced my face, the skin no longer sallow and grey. I looked like I was sleeping. I looked…alive.

  “What—?”

  “You’re my friend, Bryn,” Stassi said. “And friends don’t give up on each other.”

  “Roman got to you,” I said.

  “Roman’s right.”

  “He’s delusional,” I said, wanting to tell Stassi that she was too. But this…this body in front of me—olive and full and strong and almost…alive—it was the most beautiful delusion I’d ever seen and all I wanted was to believe it; to live in the hope of it for just one moment. But…“it’s not real.”

  “You’ve lived in this world of dreams your entire life and suddenly you don’t believe in miracles?” Stassi said. “You’re a miracle, Bryn. The fact that we were born this way is a miracle.”

  A miracle. Dani had used those same words to describe Roman waking from his coma at my touch. She’d convinced me of it then even when all of Roman’s doctors thought the worst. When his diagnoses revealed that he would never walk or talk or love me again. Why couldn’t I let Stassi convince me of the same now? That I could be saved. That Roman’s love could somehow spark a miracle the same way mine had?

  Suddenly, I ached for him in a way I hadn’t let myself feel since my grandmother’s funeral. But thinking of him, wanting him only reminded me that wanting wouldn’t bring me back to life. Wanting him wouldn’t keep him safe. Nothing would change my past or Roman’s future. Nothing Stassi did. Nothing Roman did. Nothing…

  “What have you done?” I asked, suddenly sick.

  “The other bodies were too burned and the Dreamers who belonged to them would be dead whether I could slow down the deterioration process or not. But yours wasn’t burned.”

  “Slow down the deterioration process… What are you talking about?”

  “My gift is in the past,” Stassi said. “Without my body I can see it and feel it but I can also manipulate it.” She knelt next to my body, her gaze tracing down my cheek and stoking a color I hadn’t seen in months. “I’m manipulating your past one cell at a time.”

  “I still don’t understand,” I said.

  Stassi turned a jar of water on the nightstand, Felix’s eye staring back at me. “It’s healed.”

  I stared at the veins, detached but flickering with the faintest pulse. “How? What did you do?”

  Her lips tightened into a small smile. “An experiment. And it worked.”

  She sensed my confusion, the doubt and the hope churning into anger. There was a vase of flowers next to the jar and Stassi reached for one of the fallen petals. She cupped it in her palm, the wrinkles stretching until they were smooth, the brown skin bleeding to a pink blush. The petal was brighter, younger.

  “This petal in my hand is from the past when the flower was just a bud. I didn’t conjure up the actual lily, just a memory, but the truth is they’re not so different. The cells in Felix’s eye and the cells in your body have memories too.”

  “Of what?” I asked, hesitant.

  “Of being alive. It’s a temporary fix.” She looked down, disappointed. “But it will keep your body from deteriorating until we figure out a way to put you back in it. Alive.”

  36

  Roman

  I rested the tips of my fingers against the grain of the door, trying to find the sound of her lungs.

  It was quiet.

  I waited a few seconds and then, “Bryn, are you okay?”

  Still nothing.

  I moved to knock. My hand pressed to the door and pushed it open instead.

  Bryn sat in the bathtub, hugging her knees, her spine sharp beneath her skin. She shivered but she didn’t move. I closed the door behind me, careful where I rested my hands and my eyes. I touched her hair, cold pricking my fingertips. When I touched the water it was even colder. It swirled pink, the blood she’d scrubbed from her skin matted in rags that lined the tub. She stared into it, hypnotized as it floated back to cling to her skin.

  “Bryn…” I wasn’t sure what to say but I knew I had to get her to move. I reached for the towel, holding it up for her. “Bryn, let’s...”

  She choked, a sob, and then she nodded. I looked away while she took the towel but when she stood her legs gave out. I caught her against my chest and she’d never felt smaller. The world had never felt heavier.

  “I can do it,” she whispered even though nothing but her lips had moved.

  “I know you can,” I said, pulling the towel tight around her as I sunk us down to the ground.

  She looked up at me, eyes fierce and full of tears. “One minute. Just one more minute.”

  I nodded and she rested her forehead against my chin, her full weight against me as she took one deep breath after another. I counted each one, wanting to tell her that I was going to find a way to fix this—her, us, everything. That I was going to find the Dreamer who was the key to all of this and that I was going to save us both.

  But all I could do was keep counting her breaths. Seven. Eight. Nine. When Bryn sighed and sat up, trying to crawl to her feet again, I knew she’d been counting too.

  I traced her spine in the bathroom mirror, noticing scars and scrapes she’d kept hidden for days, months, maybe longer. They burned red and white against her skin, so cold it was grey. The color climbed straight up, leaping from her skin to mine until the reflection of my face was dead.

  The corpse stared back at me, gripping Bryn’s reflection like a snare. I pinched my eyes shut, shaking, and she eased back. But when I opened them again the girl in my arms was dead too. Bloody. Grinning.

  She thrust her fist straight into my chest, breaking skin and bone until her fingers were strung around my heart. She tightened her grip, each throb of my pulse making her sigh a savage sound and then she ripped it free.

  Sweat stuck to my eyelids and the back of my neck, the sights and sounds trapped beneath such a thick fog that I couldn’t remember where I was. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d dreamed, let alone slept.

  When my vision cleared, Andre’s backside was the first thing I saw. He was up out of his seat and gripping a short stocky man by the throat. The man’s fists were swinging and missing like a child, while other passengers egged them both on. More male passengers stood in the aisle, women and children cowering behind them. Even the flight attendants were stunned silent, two shielded behind their beverage carts while the other held the intercom mic to her mouth and tried to form words.

  A body barreled down the aisle behind Andre and I jumped to block the assault.

  “Demons!” The man spat. “To hell with you!”

  He clawed at me, my muscles fighting so hard to keep my flames at bay. Heat peeled from Andre’s skin too, but even though it was hushed, the faint smell of smoke still sent the passengers into a frenzy.

  “What the hell is going on?” I grunted.

  Andre feigned a laugh. “You’re famous, remember?”

  An old man raised his cane. “Kill the devils!”

  A woman yelled something about there being a hundred of them and only two of us. Most seemed to agree those were good odds. Until Andre had had enough and he hurled the man in front of him all the way to the pilot’s cabin, denting the door and revealing the cowards inside.

  The plane dipped, everyone falling back into their seats. It shook so hard it made my teeth rattle, Andre suddenly lifting my arms and tying me into some kind of harness. Collin, the Dreamer we’d just rescued, was already strapped into one, head back, eyes closed.

  “Did he pass out?” I asked.

  Andre’s face darkened and then so did everything else. The window next to Collin was washed
grey, beats of black igniting in swirls on the other side of the glass.

  The plane dipped again, a scream rising up among the passengers as everyone clutched the arm rests of their seat. The lights flickered over our heads, a grating sound starting at the back of the plane and cutting forward. We held our ears, teeth gritted as the plane dipped again, this time sending us at a tilt.

  One of the flight attendants steadied herself at the front of the plane, hands raised as she tried to project her voice over the crowd. She said something about a storm and seatbelts and preparing for more turbulence. But as every window began to ice over I knew we weren’t flying through a storm.

  “They found us.” Collin’s eyes were finally open.

  The lights cut out, a dark shadow poised over every window. Glass shattered near the front of the plane, a howling wind reaching inside. More glass shattered, the windows gutted one by one.

  “Get down.” I pushed Collin into the floorboard, my hands already reaching for the cold.

  A shadow pressed against our window, darkening near the center like a wide mouth. Lines scattered across the glass and then it shattered fine like a powder. I steeled my hand toward the opening, keeping the shadow back.

  The plane bucked and my feet came up off the ground, my hands clutching at the arm rests as we dove straight down. People tumbled out of their seats, hanging on to whatever they could reach.

  Shadows slithered in through the cracks but in the chaos I could hardly make them out. Red light finally started to peek through the darkness, the moon staining the froth of waves. I could see the water coming fast, the screams all around us buried beneath the scream of the plane as it descended. I could hardly breathe.

  I strained to open my eyes past the force but Collin was just another shadow in front of me—his outline barely lucid—the people around me blinking in and out of focus as the plane came apart in pieces.

  We hit the water, my body shocked by the force and the cold. I opened my eyes and I was drifting in black. I waited for Carlisle to reach out of the darkness, for Bryn to carry me towards the surface. My heart raced, making it harder to stay afloat.