The Girl In Between (The Girl In Between Series Book 1)

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  My throat burned, those first few breaths setting my lungs on fire. I rolled onto my side, staring at those footsteps in the sand, at the deep impression of her knees. She was just here. I saw her. But then she wasn’t.

  I blinked, sunlight searing. Sulfur tears peeled down my sunburned skin, my fingers padding them dry. I finally opened my eyes and stared down at my hands, examining the unfamiliar scars and callouses. I looked down at my clothes, dark jeans and some t-shirt with weird shapes on it sticking to my skin.

  I stumbled to my feet but my legs were still liquid and I sunk back down, crawling to the first sand dune. The tide licked at me, still reaching, and I kept crawling, getting as far away from the water as possible.

  I looked down the beach to where the water seemed to disappear behind the tree line, and then just past the next sand dune, the beach giving way to tall grass and a narrow dirt road that spilled into a bright blue sky. None of it looked familiar. Not the dark trees. Not the road veering around the bend. Not the beach. Not even my own shadow trembling next to me. I stared at my hands, throat tightening, trying to remember.

  Remember. Jesus, anything. Just remember something.

  But there was nothing. There was no one. No echo of a past I might have lived, of a place I might have come from. There was nothing and I was empty.

  Chapter 3

  Bryn