The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

Either way, it wasn’t the clue I was hoping for. The locket fell beneath my pillow as I looked through the rest of Bryn’s things. I reached for one of the photographs, her face filling the frame from one end to the other, smile so wide I could see the deep red of her throat. She looked younger. She looked happy.

  I grabbed a photo of her in paint-splattered overalls, bright green fingertips spread in front of the lens. She looked like she was reaching for something, a wicked grin on her face as she tried to rub some of the paint onto the photographer. I wondered who was on the other side of the camera—her mother or Dani or Drew.

  There were other photos—Bryn staring into the glowing glass of an aquarium, of her picking at a bag of cotton candy, of her tear-stained face as she held out a red finger, a splinter tucked just under the skin. I flipped through photos until I swore they were moving.

  My eyes wafted closed as the cold tried to force me under the blankets but I didn’t want to stop looking at her. I fought sleep, staring at Bryn, the first light of morning glinting against the window. But before the sun rose, sleep finally stole me, and when I blinked I was assaulted by the smell of sugar and grease.

  I stumbled back as a woman pushing a double stroller rolled the wheels right over my feet, two kids strapped in and chewing on giant corn dogs. I looked up at a sign that said STRAWBERRY LEMONADE 3 DOLLARS and realized I was at some kind of fair.

  I remembered the signs scattered in the trees near the farmhouse in Bryn’s dream-state; the tinkling of the bells, the carnival music warped and strange and making me feel watched. Because I had been. The shadows had been there long before I even knew what they were, but since facing them in Germany, they hadn’t reappeared. I hadn’t felt them either, not on the plane ride back, not in Bryn’s hospital room. But that didn’t mean they weren’t still there. Maybe they were, maybe they always would be, or maybe I was right and they’d finally stolen what it was they were after.

  I searched for any sign of them, but as the lane parted, people stepping to the side of the path, it wasn’t the shadows I saw but something blue—a spindle of cotton candy bobbing up and down. The little girl held it from her face, a piece stuck to her lips. Her eyes flashed like rippling water—sea foam—and I realized it was Bryn.

  My heart stopped or maybe it disappeared altogether, the sight of Bryn moving and breathing like watching a ghost. She looked lost as she stood on her tiptoes, scanning the people and trying not to get swept up in their current. A man holding a camera backed right into her and she tripped, almost dropping her cotton candy.

  Before I knew it I was kneeling in front of her. “Bryn, are you okay?”

  She pursed her blue lips. “You know me?”

  I hesitated. I knew it was just a dream but something about the way eight-year-old Bryn was looking at me made me wonder if I should lie.

  “Are you lost?” I asked.

  She nodded, cheeks red. “I’m going to get in trouble.”

  “By who? Your mother?” I searched the passersby for Ms. Reyes.

  Bryn nodded again. “She says I wander but I don’t. I just forget where I’m going sometimes.”

  “Where were you going?” I asked.

  She peeled a strand of hair from the sugar stuck to her cheek. “I don’t remember.” Her face wrinkled up. “I never remember. I just get lost. I always get lost.” Panic struck her and she was on the verge of tears. “I saw her come this way and then I couldn’t see her anymore. I couldn’t see anything except…” Her voice broke.

  “Except what?” I asked.

  Bryn’s eyes narrowed as she pointed a sticky finger towards the growing crowd, and there, winding between their arms and legs was smoke. Dark and dense, the shadow rose up like a beast.

  Bryn shielded herself at my side, tears in her eyes. “Will you help me find my mom?”

  “It’s okay,” I said, the darkness calling to me like a siren song, the flames in me ready to strike. “I’ll help you.”

  But then Bryn pointed, her face dry. Her mother stood in the middle of the pathway, spinning, calling Bryn’s name. Bryn looked back at me, hand folding into a small goodbye before she raced towards her mother. And then the shadow was racing towards them both.

  11

  Bryn

  The grass was gone. That was the only thing I knew for certain. My eyes were pinned shut, my senses returning one at a time. I felt the cold, the flat surface beneath me, my pulse hard-pressed against my wrists. They were bound by chains.

  I strained against my eyelids as something traced down my arm—a long calloused finger. But I’d spent a lifetime pinned down by Roman’s hands, burned and slit open by them, and I knew this touch didn’t belong to him.

  When the stranger brushed my cheek, my eyes shot open, another pair staring back. Two black holes. Awful. Endless. I was swept up in their current, reliving every quake and sob and held breath as I’d watched my great-grandmother disappear.

  Anso.

  He leaned in close, the cold coming off him like splinters. He examined me, black pupils swimming, savoring. They were nothing but hollow bruises, the blackness so deep that blinking was the only thing reminding me to breathe. To fight. Because staring into them only made me want to do the opposite. I concentrated on the chains, on the cold, on being trapped the same way he’d trapped her. His gaze fell to my chest, my heartbeat wild against my ribs.

  The night I’d watched him take my great-grandmother he’d been nothing more than a long dark shadow and a cold stare. Shielded behind those trees surrounding the house, I couldn’t see the scars or the bones or the evil that was covering him like a stain. But up close…this close I could see that he’d been carved from something ancient. Something wicked.

  “You.” My voice was made of dry weeds, the word just a sigh.

  I strained against my shackles, wishing I could tear him open. I shot up, trying to reach for any part of him that was exposed, but with one touch I buckled, his hand guiding me back down towards the table.

  “There,” he said, his hypnotic voice exactly how I remembered it, “you need to rest.”

  I tried to make out the shapes in my peripheral vision. I couldn’t let the panic take over; chasing away what little consciousness I had left. Think, Bryn. Concentrate. Where are you? A draft blew from somewhere I couldn’t see, strange lights flickering against the blackness like stars. Shadows lurked like moving things as dripping water echoed somewhere far off.

  I knew part of me was still dreaming, my body somewhere else. Maybe it was still on the floor of that observation room; maybe back in a hospital bed. Maybe it was buried in the plot between my uncle and my grandfather. But this place was real. I could feel it.

  A snarl clipped my words. “Where am I?”

  “This is not a place for questions,” he said.

  “Then what is it for?”

  His eyes fluxed and my insides were made of sharp points, every breath cutting me open. He held me still with his gaze and with some other terrible part of himself I couldn’t see. Is that what he could do? What he dreamed about? Pain. It was the only explanation I could think of for how he was haunting me. He was like me, I could sense it, and by the way his eyes roamed my face I knew he could sense it too. Was that why I was there?

  As if he could read my thoughts, the pain swelled and an awful sound tugged at my lips, a scream too weak to even make it past my lungs. He blinked and the pain stopped.

  “Answers,” he finally said, “from you.” He craned his neck, stretching over me like a serpent. “Now, tell me what you were dreaming of.”

  I stared at the ceiling, my pulse spiking, every cell in my body telling me to lie. “I don’t—”

  He hovered a hand over my torso, my back cracking as I lifted off the table. I screamed as he held me there, each of his fingers plucking a new kind of pain from my ribs to the balls of my feet.

  “When I said this room was for answers, I meant honest ones.” He lowered me back down. “You should know by now that there’s no su
ch thing as time. But if there was, I’d be prepared to spend an eternity breaking you into pieces until you told me what I need to know.”

  He was quiet for a long time, my ragged breathing the only sound. He finally asked, “What is your name?”

  I knew I would have to give him something so I swallowed and said, “Bryn.”

  “That’s right, and the boy?”

  My body went rigid. I waited for Roman to step out of the shadows, for his face to hang over me instead of Anso’s. I waited for him to hurt me again. But Anso’s stare was the only sharp thing cutting me open and it felt so…dreadfully familiar. Like he’d been watching me. In the dream-state. In the nightmare as Roman tortured me. All my life.

  “The boy,” he repeated.

  I forced it out, eyes closed. “Roman.”

  “Good. That much is still intact.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He lifted a finger and I tasted those first drops of panic. I pressed my tongue to the roof of my mouth, fighting the pain. Don’t cry. Not yet.

  “Defiant,” he said. “You’re not broken enough.”

  I winced, eyes pinned shut as I waited for him to finish me. He didn’t.

  Anso orbited the table. “Now, Bryn, I want you to listen to what I’m about to say very carefully.” He leaned down, breathing into my ear. “I’m looking for someone very special. An abomination just like you.” He ran a finger across my throat. “And if I don’t find what I’m looking for…well, whatever nightmares have brought you here will be ash and dust and pleasant memories in comparison. The world will be an opened wound and no amount of dreaming or desire will be able to free you from it.” He met my eyes. “Now, are you going to answer my questions truthfully or will I have to discard you like all the others?”

  “Others…” I hadn’t meant to speak or even breathe.

  “Some are waiting their turn, some are indisposed, trapped in bodies that no longer work. As for the rest…” he scowled, “prove yourself useless and you’ll see where they’ve ended up.” Spontaneous anger struck his voice like a match. He leaned over me again. “What do you dream?”

  His face was paralyzed by an eerie stillness and I knew this was a man who had spent a long time asking these questions and probably even longer waiting for the answers. And I knew that he would wait for them from me. Even if it meant I had to lie on that table for eternity, even if he spent that eternity breaking me into pieces.

  I did not want to lie there for another eternity. I did not want to be broken for another minute. But then I remembered Stassi’s warning not to tell anyone about what I could do. He sensed me hesitating, calculating, but I couldn’t get the words out. Not the truth and not the lie. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to prove myself too useless but I also didn’t want to prove myself too useful.

  “Careful…” Behind his stoic gaze were sparks of rage. Fireworks. Flames. He snaked a hand around my throat as the other flexed and summoned something from the darkness.

  Shadows slunk to his side, the table beneath me frozen and filling with cracks. Their smoky outlines converged until they were one massive black hole and then Anso snapped his fingers, the shadow falling into shape. It hardened and paled until it was made of flesh. Roman’s flesh.

  “It was you,” I breathed.

  All along. All of those days and nights and years. An infinity of torture. It was never Roman. It was the shadows. It was Anso. He was the one who’d sent the shadows to find me, who’d planned for one to hijack Dani’s body and attack me when I was most vulnerable. He was the one who’d planted the nightmares. He was the one who’d driven me mad. That’s why I was here, because he’d cracked me in two.

  Roman’s face pinched into a smirk but it was Anso who spoke. “Who do you think has been orchestrating all of this?”

  “The shadows,” I croaked out, “you’re the one controlling them.”

  “I’m the one controlling everything.”

  Roman’s hands were flames again, pressing into me like branding irons until the flesh of my cheeks gave way to gum and jawbone.

  “And now I’m the one controlling you.”

  I screamed, the tremors so fierce I could see only black.

  “Tell me about the dreams.”

  The shadow let go of me, evaporating in a flash. I rolled, reeling from the pain, trying to catch my breath.

  I thought of Michael’s Dreamer, Darina, and finally choked out, “The weather.”

  Anso’s face darkened and he flicked his wrist, my body twisting against the restraints until I was on my stomach. My wrists popped, ankles ready to snap.

  He pressed my face to the cold table. “You’re lying.”

  I tried to speak, my lip splitting beneath his weight. “Please,” I coughed. “Stop.” My spine trembled, his hold on me tightening. I felt the burn of torn skin; saw blood around my ankles.

  “The truth,” he said.

  I nodded, my face slipping in tears. He led me onto my back again as I struggled to suck in air.

  “The dreams.” I nodded again, more afraid than I’d been since losing Sam, since seeing Roman over and over and over again. But Stassi’s voice was still in my head, replacing my own, holding me back. I closed my eyes, trying to hide the lie as I told him that I dreamed about lightning, that sometimes I could touch it—something vague enough to keep him at a distance but mysterious enough to get him salivating.

  When I opened my eyes again, his face still inches from mine, I knew it hadn’t worked. I knew I’d made a mistake and that he was going to make me pay for it.

  He touched my chin, finger leading me off the table, this time slow. I sat up, trembling.

  Then he said, “Show me.”

  My heart raced. The urge to move things, to make and destroy them, was like a caged bird between my ribs, frantic and wild. And he sensed it.

  “Show me!”

  With just one look he tore me out of my restraints, my body flung toward the ceiling. I came crashing back down, a searing pain in my skull. He wrenched my face up and I stared straight ahead, focusing my rage and pain and fear. There was a rumble, a spark, the storm igniting with a crack like an atomic bomb.

  He turned at the sound, at the rush of wind, the hot flash of lightning. Then he smiled. Rain fell in a torrent over everything until all I could see beneath the grey were his eyes. They stilled me until the storm folded in on itself, leaving behind a silence just as thick.

  He turned his back to me, examining the puddles and the cracks in the ceiling. “This one’s yet to transition.”

  Two men appeared from an invisible corridor, heading straight for me.

  “Be very careful with her.”

  I tried to move, to run, but the moment I stood I tipped forward, gravity spinning me like a top. I blinked away the nausea, hands tucking themselves under my arms, and then the two men dragged me into the darkness from which they’d just come.

  12

  Roman

  I woke to a knock on my door and pictured my dad on the other side. After what I’d almost…what had happened last night he hadn’t said a word but now that it was morning, the hole I’d left in the wall unable to hide in the daylight, I knew he probably hated me. And not like every other time I’d disappointed him. This was different and the thought of opening my door and facing him forced me under the blankets.

  I held my breath, praying he’d go away. He knocked again, cleared his throat, and I realized it wasn’t my dad at all. When I yanked the door open Jimmy was standing on the landing, blonde hair a mess under his baseball cap, a wad of blue bubble gum visible behind his goofy smile.

  “Heard you were back,” he said.

  I didn’t feel like dealing with Jimmy’s questions, let alone his presence. I ran a hand down my face, trying to look like I was still exhausted from the trip. “Yeah, I got in a few days ago.”

  “Heard you’ve been hiding out since then.”

  “From who?”

  “Your dad may
have mentioned it.”

  I tensed. “Is he still here?”

  “I think he was on his way out.” Jimmy rocked back on his heels. “I was just on my way to grab some food.”

  “Oh, well see ya.”

  “You could come with me.”

  I wasn’t sure what I was expecting, that maybe time had erased whatever friendship we’d salvaged in those first few months I’d been awake. Maybe I’d secretly hoped it had. As much as I’d liked hanging out with Jimmy, he was a constant reminder of who I’d been, and the Roman I’d been would have told him to kick rocks.

  I eased back from the doorway. “Just let me, you know, get dressed.”

  After I changed clothes I found Jimmy in the garage, my dad already pulling out and heading to work. Even though I was relieved I wouldn’t have to face him that morning, facing that shell of a car was just as bad.

  “I was gone a while,” I said, trying to explain.

  “Months,” Jimmy said, ducking under the garage door before it slid closed. “Heard you were in Germany. That’s crazy, man.”

  “Yeah.” I gripped my neck. “Pretty crazy.”

  “And for what?” He eyed me as we crossed over to the next block.

  I chewed on a smile, ears burning. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  Jimmy only knew the Roman who hooked up with girls he couldn’t remember, girls he didn’t want to remember. The Roman who’d slept with Cassie Thompson just because she was Carlisle’s and because he was angry. And because he knew he could.

  “Try me,” Jimmy said.

  “Okay.” I dug my hands in my pockets, staring straight ahead. “A girl.”

  His face scrunched. “Since when do you like girls?” I shoved him and he laughed. “Seriously, dude. Just doesn’t sound like you.”

  “I know.”

  “Shit.” He kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. “Guess that coma must have changed you more than I thought. Where’d you meet her?”

  I felt this strange ache to tell him the truth just for the sake of remembering. I shook it off. “At a concert.”