“Sebastían…” I choked out his name but he couldn’t hear me.
My legs burned and when I glanced back, thorns were ripping straight through my jeans. I pushed with everything I had, lifting my head enough to see Sebastían out of breath, his face pale, the rest of him ready to collapse. The wall was still intact, still a mile thick with no way through.
I kicked at the vines, clawing and tearing my way towards him. I thought about that day in Germany when the shadow had attacked Dani, dozens of them swarming the destroyed antiques shop. I’d grabbed Roman’s arm just as he’d unleashed whatever power was inside him and he’d ignited at my touch.
Sebastían saw me reaching and he reached back. My fingers scraped air, just missing him. But then he took my wrist, his fingers over my pulse, and the wave that had collapsed inside me earlier turned into a tsunami. His essence was a ticking time bomb, the brush of my skin a lit fuse. Every cell in his body turned to cogs and moving parts, puzzle pieces that I rearranged until he was no longer a boy or even a Dreamer. He was a storm.
The force was so great it threw him back, both of us tumbling down the steps. I tried to grab hold of something, gritting my teeth against every bump and sharp edge, but then the harsh surface beneath us disappeared. The vines were gone and so were the stairs, wide-open cracks left behind. And then we were falling.
The void was endless, the rush of air making it impossible to even scream. Sebastían fumbled for a piece of me and I caught his left ankle as we tumbled end over end. Time seemed to slow and so did gravity. Then it stopped altogether and so did we, landing on our stomachs in an explosion of pain.
“Bryn,” Sebastían choked. I couldn’t respond. “Bryn—”
I coughed, rolling, checking for broken bones. “I’m…”
Sebastían sat up, the sudden movement almost sending him back down again.
“I’m okay.” I coughed again, my lungs like dead weights.
“How did you do that?” Sebastían limped to his feet, never taking his eyes off my face.
I tried to catch my breath. “I don’t know.”
And I didn’t. Not the mechanics of it or even the reason why. All I knew was that I could somehow make strange things stranger—something I’d always known—and strong things stronger—something I’d never been more grateful for than in that moment.
But the second I’d touched Sebastían’s skin, the force pouring from him so charged and wild, I knew that he was just as strange.
“You’re different from the others,” I said. “Stronger.”
It came out accusatory and maybe it was, but the instant Sebastían led me out of that cell, I knew he’d been hiding something.
Sebastían didn’t startle. He turned to me, slow. “So are you.”
“What are you?” I asked again, hoping this time he’d tell the truth.
“I’m not sure this is the place to try and figure it out.” He stared at the stalled raindrops above our heads, glinting like sinister stars from the way we’d just come. “I think it’s safer if we don’t know.”
Sebastían didn’t say another word and instead led us straight into the cold draft. The gloom we’d been trudging through since leaving the cell began to lighten shade by shade. The stone turned to oxblood, then amber, and I could see shapes moving up ahead.
A soft clanking sounded and we both slowed, walking on the balls of our feet. Sebastían gravitated toward the wall and I leaned against it for support, trying not to bump or brush his skin again. I wasn’t just dizzy from the fall or the crash down. I felt the same lightheadedness I’d felt after touching Roman and I worried another jolt would send me spiraling out of this time and place altogether.
Sebastían came to a stop and I almost grazed his neck. “Do you hear that?”
I staggered back, listening. The clanking was more rhythmic this close, like knuckles on metal bars. Beneath that there was a soft moaning, breathing, a voice. Or maybe more than one.
Sebastían took a few steps forward, stopped short by a wall. He peered around the corner, jolting the moment he saw what was on the other side. He retreated, shaken.
“Wha—?”
He hushed me with one look and then he whispered, “I found the bodies.”
18
Roman
It turned out pity was not only the key to landing a job in this economy but it was also the best way to expedite the entire hiring process. Just a few days after I applied at Moretti’s, Chelsea called and asked me to come in for training.
I spent an hour following one of the waiters around the restaurant while Chelsea waited for Cole to finally show up. Apparently it was the third time this week he’d been late. It wasn’t until the waiter who’d been babysitting me was explaining the best and most shameful ways to score big tips in this place, that Cole finally made an appearance.
“Are you Roman?” He rushed to tie on his apron before Chelsea could realize he’d just snuck in through the back door.
“Yeah, you’re Chelsea’s brother?”
He nodded, shook my hand. “Yeah, have you seen her around?”
“She should be clocking out soon,” the waiter said.
“Good.” Cole leaned against the counter, wiping sweat from his forehead. “I did not need her shit today.”
The waiter went back to his tables as Cole stuffed his Broncos jacket into one of the small lockers lining the walkway. I remembered that burnt orange brazen under the moonlight, the shadow grazing the fabric. But this was Albuquerque, just six hours from Denver. Lots of people had those jackets.
“You a Broncos fan?” Cole asked, noticing my attention on his coat.
“Oh, uh, no. Green Bay.”
“Go Pack go!” His hands shook as he tried to snap on the lock and it took a few tries. “That’s cool. Ever been to a game?”
“Once.”
Cole made his way over to the stovetops, nodding to the other cook. “I’ve got it from here.”
“Yeah, you better. I’m tired of covering your ass.” The cook stepped to Cole but then he just laughed and shoved him on his way out the door.
“So, uh, how do you like it so far?”
Cole’s cheeks were still stung red from the snow outside, but as I looked closer, I realized that so was the rest of him. He seemed out of breath too, like he’d been running. Probably because he was already an hour late. But there was something else, an undercurrent of almost…fear. Or maybe I was just imaging it. Maybe I was trying too hard to make a connection between the guy I’d seen leaving Parker’s party and this one who seemed almost too frazzled to function.
“Shit!” Cole dropped the knife he was holding, blood bubbling up from a tear in his latex glove. He slammed his fist, almost catching himself on a burner.
“Are you okay, man?”
“I just…” He headed for the door. “I just need some air.”
I stood in front of the cooktop, turning things over, trying not to let them burn. I had no idea what was I doing, and after twenty minutes and two waitresses yelling at me for their orders, I finally pushed through the back entrance and into the alley.
At first it looked empty but when I stepped around the dumpster I saw Cole crouched there in the dark. He was rocking and clutching his knees, his nose burned red and practically glowing.
“Cole?”
“I’ll be there in a minute,” he snapped.
I almost headed for the door but I knew that if he didn’t come inside soon he was going to freeze his fucking ass off.
“You want me to grab your coat?”
“No.” He scratched at his arms until I thought they were going to bleed. “Shit, I just…” He rocked on his heels. “I just want one minute. I just want to be left alone for one goddamn minute.” His voice slipped to a whisper. “I just want them to leave me alone.”
The back door was thrown open, Chelsea stomping out. Apparently she hadn’t gone home after all.
“Come inside,” she said.
He wouldn�
��t look at her but eventually he nodded, following her into the light. After Chelsea convinced Cole to snap out of his stupor she found me in the break room.
“He’s not always like that. And he’s not on drugs if that’s what you’re thinking.” She sounded defensive and desperate and I wondered how many times she’d given this speech in an attempt to explain her brother’s behavior.
“I wasn’t thinking anything,” I said.
“He just gets overwhelmed, that’s all.”
“Okay.”
“Okay.” She sighed, slumped into a chair. “Do you want to know why I hired you?”
I rubbed my palms against my knees, not sure if I really wanted the answer to that question.
“I thought you might be good for him. I thought that if he found out about all of the shit you went through last year and how you got over it then maybe he could get over his shit too.”
“His being overwhelmed…” I said.
“Right…and all of his other shit.”
“I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but I’m no role model, trust me on that one.”
“Okay, so maybe you’re not, but that doesn’t mean what you’ve been through isn’t inspiring. You learned how to walk again for Christ’s sake. And Cole, if he could just get past this…” She stopped, pressed a finger to her temple. “He thinks he’s sick but he’s not. It’s just a mental thing with him, I know it.”
The door pushed open, a pair of tongs peeking around the corner. I couldn’t tell if Cole had overheard what his sister had just said but the slight frown was enough to say he suspected as much.
“You ready to get started?” he asked me.
“Yeah, right behind you.”
The screen was suspended in the clearing just like it had been when we’d watched Bryn’s favorite movies in the dream-state. That same campfire flickered in front of us.
Bryn shoved a handful of popcorn in her mouth. “Want some?”
She was another younger version of herself, maybe fifteen or sixteen. Or maybe this was just some blissful version of Bryn who wasn’t sick, who never had been.
“No, thanks,” I said.
She shrugged, leading the popcorn to the creature curled up next to her. A small lanky deer. Its ears twitched as she patted its neck and then it was staring right at me, eyes so familiar they were almost human. It twitched again, looking away, its bones exposed through bloodless wounds. Bryn brushed a hand down its ribcage and my stomach turned.
“She’s about to find out he’s evil again,” Bryn said, her eyes on the screen, her head resting against my shoulder. “I always hate this part.”
The trees bent and bowed, wild sounds tangled with the wind.
“Bryn…”
She sat up, looking from me to the screen. “Yeah?”
“Why am I here?”
She wrinkled her nose. “I’m not sure.”
“Why do I keep dreaming of you?”
She smiled. “Because you miss me.”
I tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “I do.”
“Did you try to wake me up?” Her words were lead, a speeding bullet.
“I did. I tried…” Everything. I stopped, afraid she already knew that I hadn’t.
Bryn stretched across her grandmother’s quilt. “I wasn’t in there.”
“I know.” I sunk next to her, trying to keep her eyes from straying. “Where are you? Where did you go?”
“I’m dreaming.” She furrowed her brow. “And…you were there too.”
My throat tightened. “Me? But where?” I sifted through Bryn’s memories. “Which dream?”
Bryn shook her head. “Not a dream.”
“Then what?”
She scanned the trees. “A nightmare.”
19
Bryn
It wasn’t the bars I saw first, rows and rows of them stretching down the corridor. It wasn’t the bloodstained floor or the guards. The first thing I saw were limbs, tangled and twisted and reaching for where we stood.
Sebastían took my hand, forcing us out of our skin just as the first guard approached. He knocked against the bars, taunting the people trapped behind them. It was almost inaccurate to call them that, the man in the cell to our left unblinking as blood trailed from his torso. There was a woman to our right who looked just as dead, her mouth agape as she clutched the floor.
She blinked, startling me forward just as the guard disappeared behind us. I fell to my knees in front of her cell. The moment I came into focus she shivered, trying to retreat even though she could barely move.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” I whispered.
This close, her blue eyes revealed that she wasn’t dead at all; she wasn’t even a woman. She was just a girl, probably a few years younger than I was.
“Is he dead yet?” The words barely made it past her lips.
I glanced at the other cell, assuming she meant the man who was slowly bleeding out.
“No,” I said, “not yet.”
“Am I?” she whispered.
“No…” I moved to grip the bars, to shake them and wrench them free. The moment my skin met the surface it burned, blistered and smoking, and I scrambled back, fighting tears.
“Are you okay?” Sebastían crouched, examining the wounds.
Before I could answer, the girl in the cell was writhing on her stomach as if she was drowning. The panic struck her all at once and she clawed at her face until she was just as bloody as the man across from us. He moaned, one long sound that made my eyes water, both of them as mad as they were broken.
“What is this place?” I choked.
“Hell.” The voice came from down the corridor, the same answer the guards had given.
Sebastían and I followed the row of cells, more sounds swirling around us—breathing, coughing, someone screaming. A young man sat against the wall, his arms limp at his sides, a thick trail of blood running down each one. From the flux of his eyes when he saw us, I knew he was the one who’d spoken.
“What have they done to you?” I asked.
“Locked me in a concrete room until I couldn’t remember my own fucking name, dragged me out, strung me up, cut me open.” He wrestled between a sob and a smile, just as mad as the others. “They forced the dreams until there were only nightmares. Until I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t…” His head rolled. “Then they left me in here to bleed. To fucking die.” His voice changed, suddenly angry. “How the hell did you two get out?” We didn’t answer but I knew he didn’t expect us to. He looked away, losing energy. “Why the hell didn’t you keep going?”
“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “A little girl.”
He glanced down the corridor. “Well, if she’s down there, you’re too late.”
“What’s down there?” I asked.
His gaze fell to his lap, empty, exhausted. “Fucking cattle call. I wouldn’t take another step if I were you.”
Sebastían pressed me to the wall just as a guard rounded the corner.
He kicked at the cell in front of us. “Who the hell are you talking to?”
The man inside kept his mouth shut, Sebastían and I doing the same. I tried to shift, concentrating our contact to just our hands, but Sebastían’s knee was brushing mine, his elbow tucked into the crook of my torso. I tried to focus on breathing instead of the chemical explosion teaming between and all around us but it was impossible.
I absorbed his fear and I knew he could sense mine, not just because we were within inches of the guard, but because we were within inches of each other. And because for the first time, in this long-forced stillness, I could feel what was beneath the spark every time I touched his skin or stared too long in his eyes. Beneath the storm and the power was misery.
Pain.
Our proximity was painful in the familiar way that old memories can still sting like new. He felt it too, the look on his face betraying that his thoughts were the same as mine.
Who are you?
Who am I?
“All of a sudden you’re deaf?” The guard kicked at the bars again, forcing my focus back to the present.
The man behind them gritted his teeth but it wasn’t the sound that had startled him. It was the blood, the new wounds blooming on his chest. I looked from him to the guard and realized why the first two prisoners we’d passed were slowly bleeding to death. The guard was a Dreamer and he only dreamed in one color—red.
The man in the cell screamed, fighting against the pain as he tried to claw towards the guard and…what? He was trapped. Helpless.
But I wasn’t.
I unhinged myself from Sebastían and lunged for the guard. We both slammed against the bars of the cell, his head slipping through before he could turn on me. The man in the cell leapt forward, crazed, covered in blood, and then he pressed his hand to the guard’s temple, turning him the color of ash.
I fell back, scrambling as far away from the corpse as possible. A strangled scream escaped from beyond the cells we couldn’t see.
Sebastían tensed in the center of the walkway and then he said, “Victor.”
The cells seemed endless and so did the blood. It ran along the cracks beneath our feet, slick and turning my stomach. I stared straight ahead, avoiding the bars that would burn my skin, avoiding the eyes of the dead we were leaving behind. They thrashed and tore at themselves, stained silhouettes in the corner of my vision that could do nothing but cry or scream. I didn’t have to look to see their madness. I could feel it like a storm cloud hanging over us, ready to strike. And even though I wanted to stop, to turn back, to run, my feet kept moving forward. Towards Victor’s screams. Towards Sam.
The corridor ended, breaking down like a waterfall as we slammed into our worst fears headfirst. From the precipice I spotted Victor—two of him—the body and the one that belonged in the body, separated by more than just a dream now. Anso raised it off the ground with just his gaze while all Victor’s dream-self could do was watch.
But he wasn’t alone. There were two others chained to the floor next to him. I went down the row, searching for Sam, but I didn’t recognize the woman with cropped hair or the guy covered in tattoos. Anso towered over them, hurling words and questions and accusations I couldn’t make out. I knew he was testing them.
The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4 Page 71