The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I gripped Roman’s shoulders. “On the count of three I want you to explode.”

  He eased back.

  “One.” I stretched, easing my mind into every corner of the train station. I cast a net over every body, remembering the promise I’d made to myself in that restaurant in Spain. The promise I’d made to my mother. “Two.” I took a deep breath. “Three.”

  Roman lit up, our bodies curled up in the center of the sun. Light rolled from our skin like waves, the rush ripping apart the walls and the metal train cars and the machine guns and the monsters that held them. I could sense the world coming apart at the seams but all I could see was Roman. He stared back, so familiar. Not just because if I searched his eyes long enough I could still see the boy who’d washed up in my arms, but because if I kept searching…I could see the hero he’d become. The hero I needed to be too.

  Roman searched my eyes the same way I searched his and I almost broke our hold, afraid of what he’d find. But then he smiled, the light around us burning white. And then he kissed me.

  I waited for a rush of heat, for his lips to ignite something supernatural. Starlight. Fire. But the taste was so distinctly human, the brush of his lips reminding me of everything I’d ever wanted. Everything I should have been fighting for all along. Because this…the shadows and Anso and the flames beneath Roman’s skin…it was all a dream. Just a dream. But what I felt for Roman was real. And that’s what I wanted. Not just to be alive again, in love again, but to be real again.

  The light around us dimmed, peeling from our skin in a slow fog as people began to stir. Their voices mingled with night sounds and a gentle wind, nothing left of the train station except the seam where the tracks ran straight into the mountains. A few people stood, looking in that direction, the shadow of the tracks their only guide to safety.

  I reached for Roman, trying to stand.

  He hesitated. “Bryn…” He let out a tight gasp that redirected my gaze. “Look…”

  The crowd had dwindled, men, women, and children forming a misshapen circle in the dark. But they weren’t gearing up for another fight and they weren’t cowering in fear.

  A young girl raced forward, dropping something in the grass in front of me before running back to her mother’s side. An old woman followed, kissing the crucifix around her neck before doing the same. One by one people offered whatever religious trinkets they’d been clinging to, tears washing the ashes from their cheeks.

  I backed away, afraid that they’d recognized the monster in me and were only trying to appease it with prayers and gifts.

  “It’s okay,” Roman said, sensing my discomfort. “They’re just saying thank you.”

  L'ange. L'ange.

  They kept repeating the word, Joseph’s memories providing me with the meaning.

  “They think I’m some kind of angel,” I breathed.

  Roman whispered against my ear, “Maybe they’re right.”

  I looked up at the moon, its ugliness reminding me of all the destruction I’d caused, was still causing just because I dreamed. “But I’m n—”

  “Let them,” Roman stopped me. “Let them hope.”

  I didn’t know if I should or even if I could. But as I stared at their offerings, meager, desperate, all I wanted was to give them something in return. I reached for any semblance of hope and what I found was Katri.

  I remembered her, gasping and shaking as I’d pulled her out from beneath that bleeding body. Her wings had been clipped, shoulder blades bare and ripping through her skin. A few feathers had clung to the brittle bones. White.

  I felt the frantic steps of the crowd, their voices pulling my eyes open. Katri’s wings enveloped me, stark white, the down bedding in the grass. I unfolded, gaze down. I wasn’t sure if I was insulting Katri’s memory or somehow bringing it back to life. I wasn’t sure if I was just giving these people false hope. But as Katri’s wings strained to take flight, their weight making me feel safe, I wondered if maybe there was no such thing. Maybe the only thing false was fear.

  I reached for Roman’s hand, flecks of his light caught in Katri’s feathers. He smiled, just as awestruck, and then I leapt. Into the unknown of that dark and endless night, fear dropping from me like sandbags as I soared only on the magic of things hoped for.

  44

  Zaire

  I smell them burning before I hear the sounds. I blink and there are already tears. Not just from the light but from knowing what’s behind it. It’s instant, the knowing. I know my mother is asleep across the room. I know my little brother is snoring into my back. I know my grandfather is awake and waiting just like I am. I know we are all about to die.

  The rebels are made of marching boots and flames, the first round of gunfire chasing my pulse into a gallop. I hear the choking click of fresh ammo. I see the shadow of bullets slicing through flesh.

  My grandfather sits up. My brother screams. My mother slaps a hand over his mouth.

  I hold my breath. And count the steps.

  One. Two. Three.

  Someone mumbles; then laughs, a sadistic cooing trying to lure us out. The coo turns into a shout, the rebels’ silhouettes swelling outside the thin metal walls of our home.

  My grandfather grips his hatchet knife, the flesh of a mango still clinging to the blade. Light bounces off the metal as he turns it over in his hand. My mother grips my little brother and I grip her, her heartbeat through her skin as wild as mine.

  We wait.

  The door heaves open, ripping from the hinges. I’m ripped up too, a stranger’s hand around my throat. His face is like my father’s and I realize that he’s from our village. Was. My brother is ripped from my mother’s arms and as the rifle is shoved into his hands my heart rips from my chest.

  “Don’t do it!” I scream.

  I’m struck and so is my mother. She spits up blood, the mouth of the gun pressed to her chest. She holds it between her hands, hiding the barrel, hiding her tears. My brother is flooded, shaking and choking. His knees buckle and that’s when my grandfather lunges. He drives the knife between the ribs of one of the rebels. The rebel pulls it out and uses it to slice my grandfather’s throat.

  I howl, hurling myself at the man. I wrestle with the knife, blade bloodying my hands. But I want him to cut me open. I want to paint him with what’s inside.

  He rears back, yanking the blade from my grasp. But I swipe first, raking my fingers across his face. His eyes flash yellow, then black, then red. He shakes so hard I think his bones might shatter, his body convulsing and breaking our belongings instead. Foam clings to his lips, choking him pink. Then he falls.

  The explosion from the gun sends me against the wall, ears ringing as I look to where my mother…sits…breathing. Smoke from the barrel swirls above the rebel’s body like a ghost.

  I wrench the gun from my brother’s hands, his mouth unhinged in a silent cry. My mother wraps him up but she never takes her eyes off of me.

  She stares, awestruck and afraid as she looks from me to my body still sleeping in my bed, and then she says, “Run.”

  We dash between the trees, running on silent breaths. I have lived in this jungle for seventeen years, marveling at its wildness, but nothing is as wild as this night. Flashes of gold glitter between the leaves as growls and moans spur my feet forward. The beasts watch us run, paws snapping twigs, bodies barreling through bushes, frenzied by my blood. Any second one will pounce.

  The river whispers up ahead, red and moonlit within the trees. I crash into the soil, dirt filling my nose and mouth. I cough, fighting the weight of whatever has me pinned. Suddenly, I’m yanked up by the neck, hanging in the air as my mother and brother cower against a tree.

  The ghost speaks, his breath a foul thick thing. “It even smells like death.”

  I am frozen, his lips kissing the spattered blood on my cheek. I lock eyes with my mother, urging her to keep going. I smell his opened mouth, teeth breaking my skin as I howl. Then he drinks.

  He drains me one
drop at a time and I want to wake myself up. But I can’t leave my family in this jungle. I can’t leave…

  He tosses me to the ground but I am too weak to move. I can see his body heaving, breathing. Waiting.

  I watch him wait for death.

  I watch him scream.

  For a minute I think the poison is working. Working its way into his veins, into his heart, into every inch of him. But then he quiets and it is a quiet I have never felt before, pressing down on me with the weight of the moon. He looks up at it too, cursing, crying.

  I watch him cry.

  I wait for him to vanish but then he coaxes my mother and brother from the shadows of the jungle and I cry too.

  45

  Bryn

  We found them resting against a row of trees, all staring straight up. Words fell away the moment we looked too, the building dwarfing everything around it. Zaire was only being held thirty miles from the train station but the scale of the old church made it feel like we were in another time. There was also something…predatory about it, the windows winking at us like eyes. Soon we’d have no choice but to find the teeth.

  “What’s left of it?” Andre asked.

  Roman shook the ashes from his shirt. “This.”

  “And the people?” Shay asked.

  “Bryn saved who she could.”

  “And now they’re travelling on foot.” I stood apart from the group, trying to imagine what nightmares I’d unleashed. I thought of all of those people, all of those refugees, trying to follow the empty tracks through the heart of the mountain. I could almost hear it beating.

  “Bryn…” Roman led one of the Dreamers over. “This is Quinn.”

  The Rogues had done their best to dress up Quinn’s wounds but the blood was already starting to show through the gauze. I knew getting him to Vogle as quickly as possible was the only way to keep them from scarring. He was so small, his arms and legs stiff with dirt, but it didn’t keep him from shaking. He tried to still but his memories were like gnats making him twitch and cower.

  “I can take them from you,” I said.

  He paused, listening.

  “The nightmares.” I reached out a hand. “I can make them go away.”

  He reached back, slow, his tears a stark reminder that once…he was just a child. He deserved to be that again. I pulled him to me, squeezing as tight as I could, channeling those childhood hugs from my mom that used to almost break me in the best way. He hiccupped, sighed, and then he was gone.

  As soon as Collin looked into my eyes I knew his body wasn’t sleeping. But as he stood in front of me he wasn’t just strangely relaxed, he was ready. He was…relieved.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I couldn’t accept his gratitude, but when he took my hand, his memories playing inside my head—of Collin and his daughter, of Collin and his wife, their gravesites side by side—I understood it.

  Kascidee was last. As I anticipated her touch, I remembered my hesitation the last time we’d been face to face in Anso’s prison. The moment just before we’d touched, the last two links in a desperate chain, I’d wished for freedom. I was still wishing for it. Maybe at least one of us would get it.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I said.

  “Thanks to you.” She hugged me, unleashing a current that simmered with every smile from her younger sister and sparked with every screaming fight with her stepfather. She held onto me, afraid of losing the dreams—the only thing that had kept her safe.

  “She’s waiting for you,” I whispered, reliving the memory of her sister’s face in the window as she’d followed the Rogues into the night.

  Kascidee nodded and then she finally let go, blinking out in a blue spark.

  The Dreamers left behind the faintest memory of sunlight, all of us basking in it until a cold wind snatched it away. Suddenly, I was grateful that all I’d had to do was wake them from their dreams, Roman and the Rogues taking on the miserable task of rescuing them from their worst nightmares. As I measured the shadow of the cathedral in the grass, I considered that maybe letting them help me wouldn’t be the worst thing. Maybe they should have been helping me all along.

  I stared at the faces of the Rogues, trying to sense whatever strength they had left. Domingo still hadn’t found Stassi’s body and I could tell he was on the verge of skipping straight to grieving just like Shay. I wasn’t sure if they could handle more bad news but I had no choice.

  A sigh split me in half. “Something happened after all of you left.”

  “Is everyone alright?” Shay asked.

  “Olivia.” Andre stiffened. “Did something—?”

  “She’s fine,” I said. “Everyone’s fine. But…Valentina and her Dreamer are on the run. She overheard me say something about her Dreamer’s body being dead. I didn’t know she was in the house.” I met each pair of eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  Andre already had his phone pressed to his ear. It rang eight times then nothing. “She’s probably already off the grid.”

  “I can track her,” Shay said. “We’ll find them.”

  Domingo gripped his chin. “I think I know where she is.” He looked down. “She…called me after she ran. I didn’t realize that’s what had happened until now but she mentioned something about Lathan and Charles. She asked me to meet them.”

  “Where?” Andre asked.

  “Ketchikan.”

  Roman cocked his head. “Ketchi-what?”

  “It’s in Alaska,” Shay answered. “It’s one of Lathan’s safe houses. We looked for him there years ago when he was still missing.”

  “So, they’re just hiding out?” Roman said. “Until when? They know what Bryn has to do.”

  “Ketchikan is not a place where Lathan goes to hide,” Domingo said. “It’s a place where he goes to think.”

  “You think they’re planning something?” I asked, already exhausted by the thought of another fight. But then again, if I were Valentina or Lathan, wouldn’t fighting feel like my only option? It was either that or the death of the person I loved most. It wasn’t even a choice.

  “You should go to them,” Andre said. “Stall them somehow.”

  “Or try to talk some sense into them,” Roman added.

  Shay knew the impossibility of that and just said, “At least let us know if they leave.”

  “They’re the last ones on my list.” I twisted my arm beneath the light of the moon. Zaire. Rodrigo. Cora. Callum. After Zaire, there’d be no more rescuing Dreamers from cages or prisons. From Hell. I fell against the trunk of a tree, remembering the hours I’d spent reading every body; searching for the soul that belonged inside. Stassi and Calvin were still lost; maybe Calvin was dead. But drudging Dreamers from their graves wasn’t part of the prophecy and even without Stassi’s body I could still take her dreams if it came to that. “It’s almost over.” A single tear tangled in my lashes, not ready to fall just yet. I looked up at the Rogues and then back to the fortress where Zaire was being held. “It’s almost over.”

  I cast Domingo west, spotting Lathan’s safe house in his memories before placing him on the front steps. Then I carried Roman, Shay, and Andre to a dark corner of the church, my mind scouring the space for safety. We manifested in the shadows, curtains drawn over the windows in an empty, dust-filled room. It swirled like snow in the glow of the Rogues, so thick I almost sneezed. Shay pinched her nose shut too, the tiniest squeak escaping.

  “I don’t like the way this place feels,” Roman said.

  “It’s creepy,” Shay added.

  Andre approached the door. “Let’s find out why.”

  We formed a chain, invisibility climbing from one hand to the next as Andre eased the door open. People in pale colored uniforms drifted through the corridors, oblivious.

  I inhaled memories—plastic and antiseptic. “Do you smell that?”

  The Rogues jumped, my voice foreign inside their heads.

  “What?” Roman thought.

  “It’s not an old chu
rch.” I eased their gazes down the hall, a few beds barely visible behind half-opened doors. “It’s a hospital.”

  A woman passed in front of the doorway across from us. She paused, scanning every shadow and slant of light. We sidestepped past her, as silent as possible as we made our way down the corridor. I pressed my free hand to the wall until it started to hum—not words but a signal, almost primal as it tugged me inch by inch towards one of the rooms.

  A pair of eyes spotted us from within the door seam, weak and fighting to stay open. His arm hung over the side of the bed, an IV stuck to his wrist. A red line poured from his other arm too, four more IVs draining the veins on his legs. He was pale, losing so much blood that his dark skin was almost grey. Everything was bruised. His eyelids, his lips, his hands. He reached one out, desperate.

  “Zaire…” I hoped my voice would calm him, the sound of his name a reminder of who he was, who he’d been before they’d taken him.

  His voice was half choke, half whisper, Joseph’s memories translating his words. “You’re not dead.”

  My heart stuttered, brow furrowing to hide my surprise. I summoned the words in Lingala I knew he’d understand, the thick tones sticking sweet on the roof of my mouth. “They just can’t see me.”

  “But I can,” he whispered.

  I nodded. “I’m like you.”

  He shivered, almost angry. “There is nothing and no one like me.”

  I eased back, tried to soften. “I’m here to help you.”

  It was the same speech I’d given to every other Dreamer the moment I’d sensed them panicking. But when Zaire barely looked up, it struck me that maybe he’d been promised the same too many times, and too many times he’d been betrayed.

  My next instinct was to reach for him, as if just my hand on him, any hand on him would somehow ease the strain of breathing. He was in so much pain. But I stopped myself, staring at the IVs attached to every major artery.