The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Bryn

  I was led to the bathroom, the sound of running water muffled behind the door. I pushed it open and my mom stood over the sink, trying to crack open the medicine cabinet with a nail file. But this wasn’t my grandparent’s bathroom, and as the woman turned to face me, I realized that this wasn’t my mom. Instinct forced me to snatch the file out of her hand.

  She clawed at me, trying to take it back. “You’re useless.”

  I held the file out of reach and she gripped the sink with both hands, her mascara dripping into the porcelain bottom. She faced the mirror, finding my reflection. “I used to think it was a dream.”

  I didn’t speak. I didn’t move.

  “It’s not a dream.” She spun on me. “No matter what they tell you, it’s not a dream and you can’t wake up.” Her voice carved into a whisper. “You will never wake up.”

  Water spilled over the sides of the bathtub. My mom suddenly appeared next to it, raking a finger across its steaming surface. She sighed, slipped in, and then she traced something across her wrists, letting herself sink.

  While I watched. While I killed her. This nightmare had haunted me since I was first diagnosed and it was the worst of them all because it was the one I couldn’t believe hadn’t happened yet. Because it was the one where my mom finally gave up. On this life. On my disease. On me.

  Every time I woke out of an episode to her clothes hanging looser and the weak rasp in her voice that told me she hadn’t slept in days, I knew it was only a matter of time. My disease was killing both of us.

  My mom had spent the last five years running on empty, struggling to keep everything together, and she just couldn’t do it anymore. She shouldn’t have to. And I dreaded the day when she came to realize it, that she was trapped and there was only one way out.

  I heard the warble of the tub, my mom’s last exhale breaking the surface of the water. I slid to my knees, paralyzed by more than just the fear of watching her go. I clutched my chest, sobbing, but I wasn’t empty enough. I spotted the razor on the floor, glinting and pleading with me to touch it. I took it in my hand, my mom’s blood still warm, and then I just stared at it. Until it hurt too much. Until it was inching toward my vein.

  “You can’t.” The woman reached for me. “It’s not a dream.”

  I closed the blade in my fist, the sharp edge ripping me open.

  There is no such thing as just a dream, Bryn.

  She pulled apart my fingers, and for the first time I saw what was inside her brown eyes, so dark they were almost black—Roman.

  Roman’s mother.

  “You left him.” I shook her. “You broke him.”

  She peered out at me from between her fingers. “They took me.”

  “Who?”

  “The whispers.” Her head rolled, pained. “The shouts. The cold hands and teeth. Don’t let them take you.”

  I leaned closer. “Tell me what to do. How do I stop them?”

  Her gaze flicked to the tub, the sight making her squirm. “Drag her out. Save her or she’ll die.”

  Her words knocked me back, my body pinned to the floor. “What?”

  Her teeth chattered. “Save her or we’ll all die.”

  I crawled to the edge of the tub, my legs suddenly my own again, but when I peered into the water I didn’t see my mom. I didn’t see Roman’s mother. I saw myself. My hair swirled around my face, the water rising. It spilled over the edge, lapping against my feet until I was ankle deep. I peered down as my reflection stirred, eyes flashing open. Hands reached out and took my arms, the tile so slick I stumbled forward, my chin catching the marble edge.

  Nails dug into my skin, drawing more blood until it was all I could see. I grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled. And then I screamed. I felt every tug and every rip, my own scalp burning. I let go, searching for hands, trying to peel the fingers away. I kicked against the tub, trying to wrench myself free, to breathe.

  I pictured the beach, the forest. I waited to open my eyes, dry and somewhere else, but I was trapped. I dug my feet into the ground, trying to claw my way out. Those black eyes stared straight through me, awful and empty. I fought against whatever evil thing she was trying to summon inside me, pushing, pushing.

  Let. Go.

  I was thrown, the water letting go of me all at once. My back hit the ground, knocking the last bit of air from my lungs. I struggled to my elbows and all around me there was nothing but sand.

  I took hard deep breaths, searching for Sam. But she was gone. Just like my grandfather. Just like everyone else. They’d been taken, forced to fight the last of their fears alone. I thought they’d woken up, that I could too. I thought this was the end but what if it wasn’t?

  “Bryn?”

  The threads holding me together suddenly snapped. I turned and Sam was behind me, her cheeks flushed and covered in ash.

  “Sam? I thought you…Where were you?”

  She frowned. “It’s time for me to go.”

  “But...no…it’s over. I saved us.” I was out of resolve, of hope, and the words fell limp from my lips.

  Sam shook her head. “You have to.”

  “I have to what?”

  She held out her hand but I was hesitant to take it, afraid that touching her would undo everything; that if my touch made her disappear like all the others, it would undo me.

  “It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She raised her palm, fingers splayed. I did the same, leaving a small breeze between us.

  “You touched Kira and Sebastían and you made them strong but they made you strong too.” Sam looked up, something greater instructing her words. “When you touch me I’ll do the same thing, except what’s inside me will be inside you now.”

  “What’s inside you…”

  “The things I can see and hear. The things I can find.”

  “The dreams,” I said. “I’ll take them from you?”

  “It’s supposed to be this way. When you find the other Dreamers, you’ll take their dreams too.”

  My head was spinning, this moment too fragile. “What do you mean when I find them? How? Why?”

  “It’s the only way to keep them safe.”

  “Safe from what?” I asked. “From Anso?”

  “From everyone.”

  “Everyone…”

  Sam nodded, reaching. I pulled away.

  “Please,” I pleaded, “don’t go. I still don’t understand what I’m supposed to do.”

  Her face twisted. “I’m sorry, Bryn, but I’m not supposed to be here.”

  She pressed her hand to mine, not even a footprint left behind in the sand. I folded, trying to keep the sobs close to me. I didn’t like the sound of my voice floating out there alone.

  I’m alone.

  Sam was gone and I knew it wasn’t because she’d finally woken up. I’d watched her die. I’d watched them take her body away. It was the last thing I remembered, and despite all of the awful things I’d seen, I knew that one was real. Sam was really gone. She always had been.

  I spotted the horizon line burning beneath the fog, the waves tumbling like flames onto the beach. I watched the tide surge, carrying something in with it. Something long and twisted. The waves flung it there, a shadow reaching for me across the sand.

  I took a step closer, my pulse turned to static. Because it wasn’t something. It was not a thing at all.

  It was a boy.

  40

  Roman

  I woke to a swarm of bees in my chest, all of them taking flight. I threw the blankets off, slipping down the stairs and out the front door without a sound. Those first few steps had been involuntary, my brain and body half-awake, but when I found myself heading for the bridge over the quarry, I knew what had really woken me. Not the nightmare. Not my pulse like a propeller engine. But the shadow.

  When I reached the quarry Carlisle was already there, turning to face me before I’d even stepped onto the bridge.
>
  “Who bailed you out?” I said.

  “I have my ways. Don’t worry, I kept the cell warm for you.”

  I pushed him against the railing and he squirmed, his feet coming off the ground. He stared down at my arms as the skin burned a strange color. I couldn’t tell if he was more surprised by the appearance or my strength, something he’d never thought I had all that much of.

  “What’s the matter, Roman?” He eased back. “We used to do everything together. I thought if I told the cops we both started the fire it might be like old times. Maybe they’d even let us share a cell.” A laugh hissed between his teeth and I tightened my grip. “I’ll even let you be the big spoon.”

  I felt that familiar pull, the one that liked the sound of Carlisle’s bones against the hood of his car. I wanted to hurt him, and whether or not the darkness inside me was the same as the darkness in him, all it wanted was to hurt him too. I took a deep breath, letting it slowly rise to the surface. Just the smallest spike, the heat scraping at me like steam trying to leave a kettle.

  I glared down at him and said the only words that mattered. “This ends now.”

  “You want to get even?” Carlisle’s voice was a siren song. “You want to hurt me?”

  Even the wind was charged with something foul. And I liked it. I liked the thought of coring him, of making him empty. But the fear of that feeling gnawed at me too.

  Don’t go there. Don’t lose control.

  I took a step back, those few inches of space making me feel drunk. I swayed, caught myself.

  “Do it, then.” His voice crawled inside me like an insect, an itch I couldn’t scratch this far away. “What are you waiting for you fucking coward?”

  I held back, tried not to let it crawl too deep.

  “Fucking do it!”

  He shoved me and the heat was a geyser. The shadow crept down every nerve, filling me up, and I let it. I took one step and he swung, catching me in the gut before thrusting me toward the railing. The wood snapped, the seam hidden beneath Carlisle’s arm. He’d rigged it before I got here, waiting to push me over.

  The boards were slick and I tripped, clinging to the part of the railing that hadn’t snapped. Something glinted in the moonlight and a blade ripped straight through my knuckles, pinning my hand to the wood. I screamed.

  Carlisle’s pupils were slick as oil. I pulled him over the side and he scrambled, trying to hold on. The rest of the railing snapped, the knife slicing up through bone until I couldn’t see past the tears. I looked down at the weight of him strung around my legs, and then at the water, already reaching for both of us. I tried to shake him off but he raked something sharp down my ribs. My hands slipped and then we were both falling.

  My body hit the water and I could feel the shadow thrashing against my insides. Carlisle dove for me from behind a wall of bubbles and I held out my arms, trying to push him back. He caught me in the cheek, the blade in his fist as he swiped at my ear.

  I kicked back, trying to dodge him, trying to ignore the ache for air. But he lunged for me again, our bodies twisting, my hands clutching his wrists. I finally got behind him, my arms wrapped around his throat. I tried to kick toward the surface but he swung back, the blade burying itself in my thigh.

  He kicked, swimming out from my grip. The current sent me tumbling and I snatched up a stone just as he found my legs. He pinned them down and then I swung, the stone carving into his forehead.

  The current tugged him forward and I couldn’t tell if he was fighting it. I couldn’t tell if he still could. But then it let go of him, the mud settling, and as my body convulsed, desperate for air, all I could see was his silhouette. I blinked, the darkness bleeding into my vision, into every part of me. I strained to open my eyes one last time and then I watched him sink.

  I hung there, staring into a night sky full of stars, and there she was. It wasn’t Carlisle suspended in front of me, but Bryn, her irises glistening against the black all around us. She reached out, touched me, kissed me, and then I let myself sink too.

  41

  Bryn

  The waves rocked him from side to side, wet hair curled around his lips. And I couldn’t touch him. Even though I wanted to. I sat there, perfectly still, waiting for him to open his eyes and grab me. For him to try to take me back to Anso.

  I led a hand to his mouth, testing the air. It was still and cold and so was he. I knelt, hoping my presence was enough to make him stir. He didn’t. I forced myself to peel back a strand of his hair, a blue vein in its place. But there was no pulse, no life, no good or evil. There was just a body. Roman’s body.

  I inched closer, my knee brushing his torso. I felt his rib cage, saw it beneath his soaked shirt. I reached for his face again and pressed a finger to his cheek until there was the slightest give, the slightest warmth. My finger traced down to his lips, following the seam, the stubble under his nose. He didn’t feel like the Roman who’d tortured me. He just felt like a boy. Like the boy I’d found, the boy who’d found me.

  “Roman?”

  A wave tipped him onto his side and I pretended he was breathing. I pretended I could make him. I leaned down, shivering from the cold and from the wind and from the sight of him. I took his face in my hands and then I kissed him.

  I felt the moment his eyes opened, wet lashes brushing my cheeks. I expected him to fight for air or to be afraid. I didn’t expect his hands on my waist, climbing me, holding me. I didn’t expect him to know.

  He pulled away, just far enough to see my face. “Is it you this time?”

  I stared into his eyes, wondering the exact same thing. But there was an ache in his voice, an old sadness that made me wonder if he’d been trapped too. If all this time someone who looked like me and sounded like me had been torturing him the same way he’d been torturing me.

  But it wasn’t him. Not really. It wasn’t.

  “Yes,” I finally said. “It’s really me this time.”

  He doubled over, his arms around me as he buried his face in my lap. I felt his hands, his skin, his warmth. I felt him, and even though it was from a distance, even though I knew it would be for a long time, it still felt like waking up in the best possible way.

  I waited for whatever had been separating us to finally crumble, for me to wake up in his arms somewhere, back in my body. I waited for the nightmare to be over. But minutes became hours and suddenly I blinked and the sky was full of stars. And Roman was still holding me. I was still letting him.

  There was a soft click across the sand. I turned and saw the deer, small and wild and staring right at me. Roman looked up too, his face swollen, and I knew he wouldn’t understand.

  “We have to follow it,” I said.

  “Where?”

  I stood, the deer heading for the trees. Moonlight flooded the canopy, my hand unfurling to touch it as it thickened into smoke.

  “Wait.” Roman held me back. “Let me.”

  The tip of his finger collided with the mist and it cracked with lightening, a storm trapped inside the light. It solidified, swelling until it was standing upright. Until it was a girl.

  Me.

  No. Not me. There was something about her face, the brokenness of it so familiar, but we weren’t the same. She was a stranger—ancient, dead, and full of darkness. The black hole started in her eyes, coaxing me forward.

  Roman gripped me tighter, the heat swarming both of us. I could feel whatever was fueling him as it drained out of me. But it wasn’t making me weak. It was making me strong.

  I approached the girl, my reflection warped in her black eyes. Roman’s pulse rioted in our clenched fists, but when the girl raised her hand, I did the same, a challenge in my touch as I waited for the next nightmare to reveal itself.

  I was tired of being tired, of being afraid. I wanted to go home. I wanted to see my mom and my family and my friends. I wanted to be in charge of my body again, and I knew with everything in me, this girl was the only way out.

  Her mouth twitched
up at the corners, her voice making my skin crawl. “You’re not like the others.”

  I steadied my own. “Then what am I?”

  “This.”

  She bound our hands, pain shooting through me. I wasn’t in the forest anymore. I wasn’t anywhere. I was just watching, trapped in some invisible consciousness where I could see and feel and hear everything.

  A small child sat up in bed, his hand raised to the sky like the tip of a paintbrush. His sleeping body lay beneath him, and as he flicked his wrist, the sky shifted. Stars dipped and fell, burning even brighter. He tugged the clouds this way and that, maneuvering the night sky until it spelled out his name.

  Darkness descended, carrying me somewhere new. Colors glinted from every corner of the room—jade, silver, copper, gold. A woman sat on an ornate throne, her eyes like the ocean. Sea foam.

  She looked like me. Like someone I’d been. Like someone I could be. She stepped through an archway leading out onto a balcony. Down below there were people walking and dancing and living. She raised a hand to the sky, lightning striking from the tips of her fingers. She cast it down and the entire city went up in flames.

  The scene shifted, the flames replaced by sand. I watched as a young boy was tied to the saddle of a camel, a whip coming down across his back. The man holding it examined the desert, eyes strained against the glare of the sun.

  He turned to the boy, yelling some kind of command. The boy refused, the whip coming down again and again, his clothes bloody and torn to shreds. The sun was at its highest, the desert one giant flame. The man pulled the boy onto his feet, spoke the same words one last time, and the boy just nodded.

  He held out his hands, pulling on some invisible rope, tugging the landscape closer until the endless horizon was replaced by a reservoir, by trees and buildings. The man raised his whip, catching the boy across the cheek, and then he led his beast into paradise.

  The sand suddenly became an empty field, the fence around it groaning in the wind. The chill deepened and I saw a girl sitting in the grass, a boy lying next to her, his head in her lap. He reached up to touch her lips, trying to entice a smile, but her face was hard, hurt.