Someone sighed. I ducked my face into the dark, my body finding the wall. The beds were lined in rows, some people snoring, others wincing against things I couldn’t see. Dreams.
Except, they weren’t dreaming. They weren’t really sleeping at all. This—this place, these beds; the restraints holding them down—this was the dream. And somehow, I was supposed to wake them up.
Footsteps sounded down the corridor, chasing the sirens. I knew they were looking for me now too. And that’s exactly what they would find. Just me.
I grazed the Dreamers one at a time, the clank of their empty restraints against the bed drawing the footsteps back in this direction. I touched them, released them, and then they vanished. One by one.
The dreams clung to me, their memories so loud I almost didn’t hear the door. I opened my eyes, the light of the hallway sallow and dim compared to what was radiating from me. I expected the guards to cower. To run. To stand in silent awe.
But the sound of his voice forced my eyes to adjust in an instant, the sparks against my skin churning to a fierce red flame.
“It’s good to see you’re finally awake, Bryn.” Dr. Banz clasped his hands, daring to take a step in my direction. “He’ll be happy to see you too.”
The flames shrunk, burning a crisp blue. Anso.
“No, not Anso.” Dr. Banz straightened his glasses. “In fact, we still have some time before he finds out you’re awake. You should follow me before it runs out.”
Confusion dimmed the flames. “I don’t understand.”
“Your father,” Dr. Banz said. “He’s waiting for you.”
84
Roman
The wind scattered me too. But it didn’t carry me to Celia’s front steps or the love seat next to Bryn’s body. It didn’t hurl me back into the quarry or force me back behind the wheel of that car. It littered me across the sand, the rolling waves pressing me into flesh and bone. They rocked me, warm, the salt licking my lips.
The water nudged me onto the beach and I crawled out of the spray. I rubbed the sting from my eyes. And then I saw the stars.
Stars.
They clustered in bursts of blue and red, the light so bright it pulsed. Beating. Beating. I stared up at the Milky Way from Bryn’s memories and I could hear her heart. Beating.
85
Bryn
I tried to focus on putting one step in front of the other, on the swish of Dr. Banz’s lab coat, on the flickering lights. Not on the narrowing of the walls, the darkness trying to blur my vision. What if Cole’s dreams were too potent, not just reigniting my memories but forcing me to relive them?
“Where am I?” It was a question I’d stopped asking months ago, but even though the nightmare hadn’t seemed to have changed, I had.
Dr. Banz stopped at the end of the hall, a pair of sliding glass doors opening on command. “This way.”
My father’s back was to us. He was standing. Arms folded. He let out a breath, his sagging shoulders and tilted head making my chest clench. For days he’d been trapped in a body that couldn’t breathe. In a prison made of his own flesh and bone. But in all that time I hadn’t stopped to consider what had been left of his mind. Is this where he’d been? Where they’d sent him?
“Dad…?”
When I was finally close enough to see what had his eyes pinned to the floor, I lost my breath again, the shock and haze that had almost crippled me earlier threatening to steal the sight. But I couldn’t look away. Even when my father took me in his arms. Even when I let myself collapse in them.
The center of the room was fractured, the white tiled floor broken by the faintest fog. It carved a looking glass the shape of a casket. My body lay inside, the rest of Celia’s guest room empty. There was a broken lamp on the floor, other furniture askew. Then I saw the cracks that climbed the walls.
“What happened?” I finally forced out.
My father pulled back, looking too. “It’s started.”
I shook. “What’s started?”
Dr. Banz approached. “Like I said, we don’t have a lot of time.”
The last time I’d seen Dr. Banz he was plunging a needle into my neck, forcing me into Eve’s nightmares. Just like he’d forced Sam. He was the reason she haunted me, a ghost instead of a girl. She was just a girl…
“You.” I glared at him, remembering the sad man; the monster. My father’s hold on me tightened and that’s when I realized I was straining, my fists glowing again. “You’re supposed to be dead.”
Dr. Banz clasped his hands, the emotion that flashed across his face too brief to discern. “I am.”
My heart dropped, my father’s hold on me suddenly ringing false. I let go of him, hands testing the air instead. “This place…”
“It’s a waiting room of sorts.” D. Banz sighed. “Reserved for people who have…some kind of unfinished business in the real world. Something for which to make amends…”
At some point Dr. Banz’s voice disintegrated and all I could hear was my pulse between my ears. I caught my father’s jacket, teeth of the zipper biting into my palms. He squeezed me tight, pressing his chin against my forehead. I remembered how the stubble used to burn when he’d kiss me goodbye.
I didn’t want to say goodbye to him. Again.
I couldn’t.
“I can make you wake up.” I looked up at him, gripping the collar of his jacket again. “I can find—”
He peeled my fingers away, jaw tight. “Bryn…”
“No.” My fists clenched as I wrenched myself from his grasp. “No…” I slammed my hands against his chest. “You can’t go. Not again. You can’t leave me.”
His eyes burned red. “I’m sorry, Bryn.”
I stared up at him, a child again. Desperately wanting to still believe that just changing my clothes or my hair or the sound of my voice would somehow change his trajectory. But it was always fixed—whether I loved him or not; whether he loved me or not—he was never meant to be near me. He was meant to be in motion, constantly drifting farther and farther away.
But this was too far. Because this was forever.
“Bryn,” he breathed into my hair, “there’s something I have to tell you before you go.”
Tears soaked my face. All I could do was shake my head.
“Bryn, please…”
“He’s right, Bryn.”
My heart jumped at the sound of Vogle’s voice. I blinked past the tears to see him standing next to Dr. Banz.
My chin slipped from my father’s shoulder. “Vogle…?”
He cleared his throat, the words harder to get out now that I was looking at him. “Hello, Bryn…”
My heart raced. “What are you doing here?”
His jaw tensed, uneasy.
“Vogle.” My brow creased. “What’s going on?”
He let out a breath, awestruck. “Your mind is a powerful thing, Bryn. A beautiful thing.” He buried his hands in his pockets, thinking. “After you released Eve…you kept me with you. Somehow…”
“What do you mean, I kept you with me?”
He smiled. “I mean you dreamed me.”
Dr. Banz cut in. “Just like your death and the Rogues’ curse.” He sounded more concerned than surprised.
“My death…” my throat burned, “was not a dream.”
Dr. Banz looked from my father to Vogle. His eyes finally settled on me. “All of this is a dream,” he said. “Everything that’s happened has happened because you feared it. You feared it so much that you breathed life into it.” He paused. Then his voice dropped. “Your father’ attack…”
“How many nights did you lie awake wondering if you’d ever see me again?” My father’s voice was even weaker, ready to break. “I put that fear in you. That you weren’t good enough. That you weren’t loved. That I would disappear one day and never come back.”
A sweat painted my neck. “You’re saying that I made the shadows attack you?”
Dr. Banz tread carefully, his voice low. “We�
�re saying that you made everything.” He took another step toward me, as if trying to sense my fragility. “Your fear of losing Vogle kept him in purgatory and your fear of losing Roman broke the Rogue’s curse of immortality.” He softened, unnerving me. “Your fear of dying from your disease…well, that manifested as well.”
The temperature in me rose again. “You mean…I killed myself?”
“Not exactly,” Vogle interrupted. He could see I was on edge. “As your dreams have gotten stronger, they’ve amplified your emotions. Those emotions then served as the catalyst for the dreams. It’s an interconnected relationship.”
My face flushed and I almost lost my balance.
You dream, you destroy. You dream, you destroy.
It was all I could hear.
“Think of your fears as seeds,” Vogle went on. “They planted themselves in your dreams, turning those dreams into nightmares. Once your dreams started interacting with the real world—changing it—then those fears took on a life of their own, manifesting in a way that made them real.”
“I can undo it.” I’d meant for it to be some kind of declaration. Instead, it came out weak and uncertain.
Vogle and Dr. Banz exchanged a look.
Then Vogle said, “We’re not sure.”
Dr. Banz cast another worried glance at Vogle. “It’s highly unlikely. Destroying Anso will keep the world from ripping apart at the seams, saving whoever’s left to save. But it won’t change…”
“Who’s already dead,” I finished for him. “Like you.” I looked from Vogle to my father. “Or me…” My throat clenched. “I can’t save me.”
“Technically,” Dr. Banz clasped his hands, “you’re not supposed to.”
I stared at my body through the looking-glass. “Technically, I’m supposed to die.” I turned to Vogle. “I was always supposed to die. That’s how the story ends, right?”
My father wrapped his arms around me, trying to chase away the pain. There wasn’t any. I felt everything…and nothing, too afraid to let myself linger in that quiet space.
“How do I get back?” I pulled away from his embrace. “I want to end this now.”
“Bryn…” My father tried to reach for me again, stopping the moment I looked down.
“Do-n’t.” My voice cracked. I took a deep breath, batting away every thought about the future I wouldn’t have. I tried to force a smile. “I’ll be back before you know it. We’ll be together again soon.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, kissing me on the cheek, the goodbye as temporary as all the others.
My father had spent his entire life running. From the shadows; from me. Luring the darkness away and keeping me safe. Even when I’d begged him to stay. Even when it had broken my heart to see him go. He’d hurt us both in the hope that my pain would only be temporary. But our reunion on the other side was only proof that it wasn’t. That he’d failed to do the one thing Celia had instructed him to do—protect me.
Roman was wracked by guilt for the same reason. But they were both wrong. It wasn’t my father’s fault that I was dead. It wasn’t Roman’s. It was mine. Because dying from my disease had been my greatest fear, and even as every delivered Dreamer had made me stronger, I still hadn’t been strong enough to quiet the voice inside me that said something was wrong.
Irrevocably, disastrously wrong…with me.
That was the voice I’d listened to.
That was the voice I’d fed.
But feeding it had only fed my fears. And then those fears woke into the real world, devouring everything.
For so long I’d believed I was broken and now those cracks and faults and fallacies were leaving the world broken too. It was on the verge of being a wasteland…not because I was chaos and not because I was dangerous. But because I was blind to my own miracles.
When I found a way to defeat Anso, when I used my death to stitch back the seams and make the world whole again, that’s what it would be. A miracle. My life—before I was sick, in the midst of my disease, and just before the final gasp of this dying dream—would be a miracle.
I finally looked up, meeting every pair of eyes. “Sebastían can only find someone’s deepest fears. I’m the one who gave him the power to give them form. This hospital, the Dreamers, us…I created all of this too. Didn’t I?”
Dr. Banz nodded. “Yes.”
“I gave him power…” The dreams washed down my arms, that power wanting to spill out and tear down the walls. “Now its time for me to take it back.”
The room responded, the air seizing as if someone had clenched it by the throat. Then it let go, everything shifting—the particles in the air and the cells in my body.
The walls fell away, the tiles beneath my feet pooling to a slick black. When my thoughts wound around me like a cool breeze, I knew Sebastian’s hold had been broken, the prison he’d constructed from my fears finally crumbling.
But as I stared into the darkness, floating in the unknown between my own thoughts, the unknown began to stare back. The darkness growled, barely baring its teeth, and I realized that even though I’d freed myself from Sebastian’s shackles, I hadn’t freed myself from my own.
I tried to ease my mind back in the direction of my nightmare. But the blackness had stolen everything. Dr. Banz, Vogle, my father. They were gone. And I was alone.
I am alone.
The sound came again, closer this time. So crisp it almost sounded like a voice. As soon as I recognized the warning, it rushed me like a wave, hollow and knocking the air from my chest.
Broken. Broken. Broken.
Bryn…you’re broken.
It called to me, trying to coax out the fear before dropping it like an anchor. Trapping me in this place.
Irrevocably. Disastrously. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
But this place…this place was not desolate. This was place was not empty. Or broken. Or wrong. Because it was me.
You’re wrong. You’re broken. You’re wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
Stop.
Bryn.
…stop…stop…stop…“Stop.” My voice rang out, subduing the one that didn’t belong to me.
I forced my way into the silence, the sound slipping from my skin. Letting go.
The darkness beneath my feet shifted like sand. It weighted me down, soft, and pulling me forward. Until I could feel the granules against my skin. Until the darkness carved shapes like the rippled outlines of waves. The moment I thought of the water, it lapped against my feet, stars sparkling in the tide as I followed the shoreline.
Ahead of me, someone stood at the edge of the water. I crept closer, my eyes carving shoulders; catching sight of the wind whipping past his clothes. He was staring up, mesmerized by the Milky Way from my trip to Arizona.
I stopped, just as mesmerized. This was the place we’d first found each other. This was the place I’d first fallen in love. Roman took a step, then another, finally registering me in the dark. When he started running I felt myself falling all over again. And when he took me in his arms I knew this was the place we were supposed to say goodbye.
86
Bryn
“It still looks the same.” The breeze blowing off the ocean dried my tears before they could fall onto Roman’s neck.
He pulled just far enough to see my face. “It is the same.” His eyes roamed my mouth before staring into the tears that hadn’t fallen yet. Then quietly, he said, “Nothing’s changed, Bryn.”
I clung to him. “Everything has changed.” My hold tightened, forcing him to look closer. To see me and what I’d done. “I dreamed and I changed everything.”
I told him about the hospital, about the hours and days and weeks and months I’d spent trapped in my own head.
He fumed. “Sebastían did that to you?”
I looked down. “Because I let him.” I remembered every manic and maddening thing Sebastían had said—every riddle, every warning. “When Dr. Banz told me that it was my fears that had set everything in motion, that had created a
ll of this, I realized that wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. Sebastían had told me it was all in my head. Him. Anso. Everything. But I didn’t believe him.”
“You didn’t understand…how could you have known what he was saying? He didn’t even know what he was saying. Anso’s driven him out of his mind too.” My face darkened and Roman backtracked. “I didn’t mean—”
“I know what you meant,” I said. “And you’re right.” I stepped into the tide, facing the breeze head on. “I lost myself. In the power I stole from the Dreamers, in the guilt I felt afterward. I thought the distance and the callousness were somehow proof that I was getting stronger. But every time I pulled away, every time I hurt someone I was only hurting myself. Until I was weak enough for Sebastían to find a way in.”
Roman faced the breeze too. “We both lost ourselves.”
Without taking my eyes off the stars, I pulled his hand in mine. “I forgive you.”
He buckled, staring at the side of my face. His arm slipped around my waist, his weight against me almost sending me to the ground.
I whispered against his chest, “I’m sorry.”
He brushed my hair back, pulling my gaze to the sky again.
“Do you forgive me?” I breathed.
He was quiet, eyes flitting across my face.
“I know I don’t deserve it…” I said, remembering every tear and scream and drop of blood. Every horrible thing I’d done. The memories summoned the voice and I tried to force it back down. To bury it between our bodies; to burn it with Roman’s flames. “I’m sorry.”
Roman held my face in his hands. “Bryn, of course you deserve it.” His mouth quavered, everything bubbling to the surface. “You deserve everything.”
The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4 Page 139
