“Give him a call,” Adham finally said.
He was anxious to get to Oswald before he posted another photo of Roman online. And before he mentioned the Dreamers. For some reason Oswald had been focusing his little crusade on the Rogues. Maybe because he was seeking revenge or maybe because the Rogues were an adversary he thought could actually be beat. Maybe he feared the Dreamers more and that was why he’d left them out of his fear mongering narrative. Or maybe he was just waiting for the right time to expose them too.
I was anxious to get to Oswald before Bryn returned with the last Dreamer and climbed back into her body. With both Yolotli and Eleuia dead —our worst fears confirmed right before our eyes—we had to find a loophole in the Rogues’ curse and we had to find it fast. For now we were back to our very risky and very temporary plan A, which involved Stassi manipulating Bryn’s memories long enough to keep her corpse from rotting. But that wasn’t good enough.
Even though Oswald’s current fame was based on a false theory about the Rogues he’d still devoted his life to studying their history. What if he knew something about their curse that we didn’t? What if he knew something that could save Bryn and Roman both?
“Are you sure you two want to do this?” Cole asked.
I stared at the picture of Roman on Oswald’s home page. He’d tagged it with words like “devil” and “antichrist.” I couldn’t help but remember the look on Roman’s face when they’d showed him on the news and exposed his darkest secret to Bryn. He’d felt like a monster and then she’d left, proving that maybe he was one.
I didn’t know where he and Bryn were or if they’d seen any of what was being said about him on the Internet or on the news. But if they had, I couldn’t help but wonder if he agreed with it, if it justified what he’d been feeling about himself all along. If he did believe Oswald’s garbage it could set him up to fall right into one of Oswald’s traps or it could give him permission to finally become the monster the entire world was hunting. Either way, it was dangerous. For Roman and anyone who tried to stop him. Which was why we had to stop Oswald first.
“We don’t really have a choice,” I said, using one of Bryn’s go-to explanations. “Roman’s our friend and if there’s anyone out there crazy enough to believe Oswald’s bullshit and actually try to find him…and kill him we can’t just sit here and do nothing.” I spun my cell phone on the dining room table. “In fact, it’s those crazy conspiracy theorists willing to risk their lives that we’re really saving in this scenario.”
Adham nodded. “I’m much less worried about Roman being attacked and much more worried about his attackers. They could end up dead…”
“And then he’d end up hating himself all over again,” I added. “Trust me, I’ve seen depressed helpless Roman and he is not fun to be around.” I entered Oswald’s phone number and cleared my throat at the first ring.
“What are you going to tell him?” Adham asked.
“That the car will be there to pick him up in half an hour.”
Cole stared at the makeshift wall the Rogues had constructed out of plywood, pieces of the night barely poking through. “But…you’re really going to go out there?”
I stared too, the darkness beckoning like a dull heartbeat. Or maybe that was mine knocking, knocking against my ribs.
“Go where?” Dani was behind me.
She’d been helping Celia distract the Rogues while Rafael and Vogle disposed of the bodies and she was not supposed to know that we’d arranged for Oswald to be at a hotel just thirty minutes away so that we could kidnap him and hold him hostage.
She said: “Who are you calling” at the same time that Oswald said: “Oswald Grimly speaking.”
I swallowed, angling away from Dani even though she was standing three inches from me and it was pointless. “Uh, Mr. Grimly…”
She snatched the phone out of my hand and mouthed: What. Are. You. Doing.
I could hear Oswald repeating his greeting at a frantic pace on the other end. His voice went from confused to suspicious in less than five seconds.
“It’s Oswald. We’re trying to kidnap him,” I whispered as seriously as I could.
“You’re trying to—” Dani panicked, holding the phone at arm’s length. “You’re trying to kidnap him?”
I turned the laptop screen in her direction.
She examined the photo of Roman. Oswald had uploaded a new version with a target on his forehead.
Dani’s cheeks burned red. Then she pressed the phone to her ear. “Mr. Grimly, this is…” I scribbled out a script and she cleared her throat, “Doug Adelman’s assistant. He spoke to you earlier about arranging a car to pick you up and bring you to the station. Will you be ready in about half an hour?”
As Adham shrugged on his jacket, Cole peered out the window to where the stone Bryn had hidden us under was still broken in two. Adham and I would slip through before making our way on foot. Until we found a car that could be hotwired and stolen, of course.
When I pulled on my jacket Dani wrenched the collar. “Where do you think you’re going?”
In the fifteen minutes since Dani had found out about our plan I’d failed to mention that I’d be venturing out into nightmareland with Adham. He didn’t know cars and I didn’t know self-defense. It was a necessary partnership.
“You’re not going out there,” she said when I didn’t answer, as if the tone of her voice would make it true.
I knew if I went she’d be angry but from the look on her face she already was. But I was angry too. I swiped a bead of sweat from my forehead as it ran down the side of the fresh gauze. Vogle had changed it four times since the bleeding had finally stopped and each time I hadn’t looked. Until the last time.
I knew it was gone but the fear of having a physical reminder of the pain finally let go of me long enough to look. To see the future of my face. And as Vogle had unwound the fabric around my head, the gauze slipping lower each time before finally falling onto my shoulder and revealing the puckered skin, sagging, and sinking into a dark red wound—I realized that the future wasn’t pretty.
But at least I had one.
“Felix…?” Dani had me by the shoulders now.
I looked down. “Adham doesn’t know cars and he shouldn’t travel on foot.” I met her eyes. “He needs my help. So does Roman.”
“And who’s going to help you?” Her lip quavered. “Who’s going to take care of you?”
“I can take care of myself, Dani.” It was a lie and everyone knew it. But maybe after trekking through hell and back it wouldn’t be. I just needed her to trust me. I needed to try…
“I won’t let anything happen to him,” Adham said. “Oswald’s only thirty minutes away. We’ll be back before you know it.”
“If you come back.” Dani crossed her arms. “We’ve spent the past few days watching the world fall apart and now you’re actually going to go out in it? I want to help Roman too but…” Her voice dropped. “Not if it means losing you.”
I pulled Dani to the other side of the wall that separated the living room from the dining room. She fought tears and I hated making her feel helpless. But I felt helpless too and for some reason the thought of going with Adham to capture the enemy was the only thing that made me believe that I didn’t have to be. I wasn’t just going with Adham because he might need me to help him hotwire an abandoned car. I was making a choice. I was choosing to be useful. To be brave.
“I need to do this, Dani.”
“Why?” she said. “To make yourself feel better?”
I sunk, my hands pressed to the wall on both sides of her face. “Maybe.”
“Look at me.”
I did.
She pressed her forehead to mine until I all I could see was the sparkle of tears. “If you die I will never forgive you.”
I kissed her. She smiled and I decided it was the last thing I wanted to see before following Adham into the dark.
Adham hesitated in the doorway, probably waiting
for Cole to react the way Dani had; hoping he would.
Instead, Cole just gave Adham a slight nod. “Don’t get eaten alive or anything.”
Celia jumped in before their goodbye could get any more awkward. “Be careful out there. I want you to carry this.” She handed each of us a black stone that was smooth and shiny like marble on one side and rough and jagged on the other.
“What are they?” I asked.
“Just for good luck,” Celia said.
“You’ll just follow the same road you travelled earlier to get to the hospital,” Rafael said, passing something to Adham that I didn’t quite see.
Adham tucked it into his coat pocket. A flask. “We’ll be back in no time.”
Back in no time became an instant exaggeration the moment we stepped outside. From the house we couldn’t see what was beyond the crack in the stone and I practically had to drag myself toward the opening. Adham was cautious too, glancing over his shoulder at Cole’s face in the window every few seconds until we finally reached the edge of Bryn’s fortress.
When I saw the moon, still red and leaving a bloody trail in the grass all the way to the road, I felt sick. I almost felt like turning back. We crawled to the other side, a strangely tepid breeze whipping the trees and forcing us to a halt. Adham examined the darkness in one direction while I examined the darkness in the other. Nothing moved or made a sound.
“Looks…not so scary,” I said. “No hell mouths or monsters.”
We took a few steps toward the road and then the wind picked up, swirling around us until my ears popped. Then the breeze fell straight down.
“What was that?” I tried to turn around but I was too afraid.
Adham looked back first. “It’s gone.”
I eased back in the direction of Celia’s house and the invisible fortress Bryn had built over it. I couldn’t see the crack from where we stood. “Maybe we wandered too far south.” I took slow steps north, waiting for it to appear.
Adham lifted a hand, testing the air and sensing the empty space. Then he charged forward, running straight through the clearing. Valentina had run into the stone face first when she’d first brought Rodrigo. But Adham just kept running. He cut left and then right, zigzagging across the empty field as he waited for something to bring him to a stop.
It was fear that finally slowed him. He dropped his hands. “I don’t understand.”
I turned back toward the road and suddenly felt the crunch of caliche beneath my feet. It twisted like a long white bone in front of me.
Adham approached, tentatively, afraid of stepping off the grass.
I was afraid to move too, staring at my feet. “What’s happening?”
“Do you see that?” Adham pointed at the bend in the road, a bright light shining in the distance.
He took one step onto the caliche road and we raced forward, the night and the trees snapping past us as the road carried us to a small farmhouse. Gravity let go of us and I dry heaved into the grass, gripping my knees.
“What the hell?” I choked.
Adham put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, “Don’t move.”
“Tell that to the thing that just hurled us across—”
Adham shushed me.
I followed his eyes and zeroed in on a small light shining in the window of the house. The door was ajar, the sound of cartoons drifting out. We followed it inside and spotted a little boy sitting up on his knees in front of the screen. Adham took a careful step closer and I stopped him.
“Hello,” Adham said.
The little boy didn’t look back. He didn’t move an inch.
Adham and I approached in unison, waiting for the sound of us to stir him. But as we moved closer, not even his shoulders moved, as if he wasn’t even breathing. His left ear came into view, then the soft surface of his cheek. But it was puckered, almost like he’d been chewing on a piece of candy.
We stood directly in front of him, the glow of the television against our backs as we held our breath and waited for him to blink. Then the dimples on his cheeks began to skitter, his entire face rippling as if there was some strange current under his skin.
“Stay back,” Adham said.
“What’s happening?”
A reflex took hold of the boy’s body, snapping his jaw open. Horse flies climbed out. I shielded my face, trying not to breathe as Adham and I rushed for the door. Adham tugged on my arm, pointing to the other side of the kitchen table, to the bodies we hadn’t noticed before, something writhing inside them too. Something long and slick wriggled out of the woman’s mouth and I doubled over, falling towards the front door.
The buzz grew louder behind us, flies dancing on the static of the television, landing on every surface, knocking against the glass windows. Adham slammed the door closed behind us and then he set it on fire, flames jumping from his hands to the grain until the mouth of the house was charred black and crumbling.
“Was that a nightmare?” Bile burned the inside of my mouth.
“Wasn’t mine,” Adham said.
I caught my breath, stood straight. “Let’s get out of here before that one wakes up too.”
We turned our backs to the house. The caliche road and trees were replaced by brick buildings and dark alleyways. I found a street sign. Grover.
I pointed to a tall building up ahead. “We’re just six blocks from the hotel.”
Adham examined the flickering streetlights. “Someone wants us to get there fast.”
“Then why not drop us on the front steps of the hotel?”
Adham shook off a chill. “Maybe there’s something they want us to see first.”
Metal clanked from the mouth of the alley up ahead. Boxes tumbled, followed by a crash. A shape stumbled and dragged itself toward us. Long hair concealed her face, the strands just as spindly as her arms and legs. I was surprised she could even stand against the wind. But then I remembered the bodies we’d just seen and I wondered if there was something stronger setting her in motion.
Adham was careful too. He leaned against the wall of the building, flush and out of her line of sight. “Just let her pass.”
I nodded, looking away. There was another crash as if the dumpster had been hurled from one side of the alley to the other, metal zigzagging and grinding against brick.
I inched to the edge of the building and peered around the corner. The girl’s nose almost met mine. Her hands snapped around my shoulders, mouth opened wide. A foul smell drifted out that made my knees buckle.
Adham gripped her arm, tightening until I heard a snap. She screamed and he slapped a hand over her mouth, driving it back inside her. But it was too late. Others crept into the mouth of the alley; bodies I hadn’t noticed before perched above us on the tops of the buildings. They stood, bent in odd angles, so stiff they were almost invisible as dark clouds buried the moonlight.
Adham held tight to the corpse, her eyes still blinking. She picked at the bone cutting through her tissue-like skin. That’s when I realized that she hadn’t screamed out of pain—this girl couldn’t feel any—but she’d screamed as a warning, the bird-dog sent to sniff us out.
“What about this one?” The words barely made it past my teeth. “Yours?”
Adham shook his head. “But I think I know what to do.”
“What’s that?”
Adham snapped the girl’s neck and tossed her twisted body into the alley, her hands and feet scrambling as she tried to untwist herself.
“Run.”
Adham led the way, feet pounding against pavement as bodies landed all around us. He spotted them in the corner of his eye, one strike all it took to bend them in half. He ripped them in two and tied them into knots, slowing them down our only solution since they were already dead.
A man with his left leg snapped over his neck gnashed his teeth too close to my skin. He clawed at me and I screamed, stirring more bodies from the darkness. They circled us; flesh bruised and skin peeling away, shedding pieces of themselves as the
y moved closer.
I looked up, checking every window for light or the face of someone living. Another corpse reached out, scratching at empty air. I shoved him back, his fall taking out three others. The horde’s moaning reached a fever pitch and Adham pressed his back to mine, holding a flame out to the bodies on the other side of us.
“They don’t like the sound of that,” Adham said.
“Good.” I yanked two flares from my backpack and held them to Adham’s skin. The sparks drove them back.
“You ready to barrel through?” Adham asked.
“Ready.”
Adham knocked down the bodies in front of us, sending them scrambling, writhing on the ground. One latched onto my ankle, another snapping his fingers around my calf. Nails dug into my skin as I singed them with flames. I smashed a foot into the man’s face and he finally let go.
The moment I saw blood the trembling all around us intensified. The building we’d been shielded behind earlier toppled. Not brick by brick, but floor by floor, dust flying, the sound of bodies cracking beneath the weight spurring our steps.
In the cloud of dust, hands and teeth came out of nowhere, my focus pulled in every direction. I could hear Adham’s voice, flashes of him all I could see through the debris. Another body fell, legs twisting my steps and sending me flying forward.
I landed on my knees, face to face with a toothless man who was missing his left eye. He clawed at me, delirious, and I lost hold of the flares. But this time I didn’t scream. This time I exploded with something else. I drove a fist into the side of his face, knuckles buried in the empty socket. I struck him again and again and again.
“Felix!” Adham snagged me up by the collar.
A woman hung to my back, another trying to gnaw at my knee. I shook them off, fighting them back with my fists. I wasn’t afraid of the nightmare anymore. I was angry and it charged every step. I knocked back bodies with my bare hands, almost matching Adham with every blow. I followed him as he barreled through the last line of dead, flames catching them one by one until there was nothing in front of us but trees.
The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4 Page 128
