The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “You can’t hide either. Please, Roman, just let me deal with this. Come home and I’ll deal with it.” His lie was even more unconvincing than mine.

  “I can’t. Bryn needs me.”

  His voice was charged again, desperate. “She’s just a girl, Roman. You’re both still children. Goddamnit, if this is the reason—”

  I crept just close enough to catch sight of Bryn through the open window, her cheeks flushed in the deepest sleep she’d had since waking out of the coma. It was a false peace but that didn’t make her any less beautiful.

  “She’s not just a girl,” I said and then I hung up.

  I gripped the phone, fingers itching to make one more call. I knew I couldn’t go home but that didn’t mean I couldn’t try to make at least one thing right again. I dialed Adham’s number without thinking, praying that Cole was somewhere nearby. Surprisingly, it was Cole who answered.

  “Why do you have Adham’s phone?” I asked.

  “None of your business,” Cole said, “and seeing as you’re the fugitive, I think it should be me asking the questions. What the hell is this I hear about you breaking out of jail? I mean, what the fuck, dude?”

  “Bryn woke out of her coma.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Listen, Cole, has Chelsea tried to—?”

  “No, not since that night.”

  “Good, and you’re okay?”

  “For now.” His voice cracked. “Is there something I need to know?”

  “One of the Dreamers who was in a coma…she passed away yesterday.”

  “Shit, do I need to go into hiding? And what about going to sleep? Should I avoid that too? What if I get trapped in a nightmare or something? What if they fucking find me, dude?”

  “A lot of shit’s gone down in the past few days and it’s getting dangerous. But as long as you stick close to Adham you’ll be fine.”

  “Got it.”

  “And Cole?”

  “What?”

  “I need to ask you for a favor.”

  “I guess I owe you one. Shoot.”

  “You know how you can alter memories?”

  “Whoa, hold on a minute. Roman, this better be important.”

  “It is. Look, I don’t know what’s going to happen to me but I do know that I left a big fucking mess in Albuquerque. And my dad, I know he hates me. I just…I don’t want him to be in pain anymore.”

  Cole let out a deep breath. “What do you need me to do?”

  After I hung up with Cole I leaned against the house, my hands steaming against the cold brick. I heard footsteps, something grazing glass. I crept around and saw a pair of hands pressed to Bryn’s bedroom window.

  Drew.

  The sight of him stung, but when I saw his reflection in the sheen of the glass, his eyes no longer blue, the flame in me churned to rage. Every ounce of hate I’d ever felt compounded on itself. And I didn’t try to stop it. I didn’t try to breathe or think. In that thoughtlessness, I hurled myself at him, his body writhing against the heat of my own. I spun him onto his back, leading the light to his face.

  “It’s all over you.” The shadow in him smiled, taunting me. “Like a stain. You’re covered in his blood.”

  He pushed me back and we were both on our feet again, Drew’s eyes black. They followed me, wild, before finding the window again.

  “Does she know?” He cocked his head. “Does she know that you’re a murderer?”

  He charged for the glass and I caught him in my flames. The shadow thrashed inside him as I clutched his throat, his veins straining and ready to burst. It was beautiful—the rush of blood to his face, his eyes glassy and ready to rip from his skull. I tightened my grip, igniting cracks and coughs and winces, all rioting with his pulse like some kind of flesh and bone symphony.

  “Do it,” he groaned. “This flesh is worthless.”

  I slammed him against the trunk of a tree but the sound wasn’t satisfying enough and neither was his stillness. I wanted him to fight, to attack, to give me something to destroy. I drove a fist into his gut and he doubled over, clutching his knees as I kicked him in the chest. Blood dripped from his gums, from his nose. But there wasn’t enough.

  His smile was stained red. “It feels good, doesn’t it? It feels good to let it out. To be who you were always meant to be.”

  He crawled towards the window and I swung, burning him. “You’re not going to touch her!” I hit him over and over again, a different kind of pain striking inside me every time I stopped. I didn’t want to stop. I never wanted to stop.

  “Roman?” Bryn was leaning out of her window, her body stiff the moment she saw Drew. “Roman, stop!”

  Her voice only made the temperature spike. Drew caught sight of Bryn and for the first time he fought back harder. But so did I. I slammed him to the ground, the force sending more blood trickling out of his mouth.

  “Roman, listen to me!”

  I snapped to Bryn, the chaos inside me quelled the moment our eyes locked. My grip loosened but I didn’t let go.

  “Roman.” She climbed over the window, careful. “You have to let go of him.”

  “No.” My voice wasn’t my own but I still believed it spoke the truth. “I have to…”

  She crept towards me, reaching to unhinge my fingers. Our skin touched, one brush, one moment. The heat rushed from my body and I couldn’t let go of Drew fast enough. He slipped from my hands and I doubled over, gagging, sick with myself. I heaved, retching, trembling. Crying. I cried into my bloody hands while Bryn just watched.

  Drew rolled, moaning and quaking but still alive. He coughed, drowning in his own blood, but as he opened his mouth for air, the shadow slithered out. I threw myself on top of Bryn, shielding her just as I caught the shadow in my grasp. It struggled, shrieking as it burned into nothing.

  Bryn crawled over to Drew’s dazed body again, turning her back on me.

  “He was trying to kill you.” The words were shaking. All of me was shaking.

  “You know it wasn’t him,” she said, just as rattled.

  But Bryn was wrong. The shadow was only as strong as its host let it be. I’d seen the way it had forced Carlisle to submit even after he’d refused. Because he was weak; because he was already ruined. I knew there was darkness in Drew too. I’d read about it in Bryn’s diary and I’d seen it that day at the hospital.

  “It was him,” I said. “It was part of him.”

  Drew rolled, trying to sit up. Bryn helped him. “And you were going to kill him.”

  “He was trying to kill you.”

  Bryn shook her head, exasperated. “This isn’t a game, Roman. He’s a person.”

  “A person I thought you hated.”

  “That doesn’t matter.”

  “It does matter. You save his fucking life after he tried to kill you and you expect me not to think it’s because you have feelings for him?”

  Bryn shoved me. “What the hell is wrong with you?” She forced me to the wall, so close I could see the tears in her eyes. “I wasn’t trying to save Drew. I was trying to save you.”

  “Me?” I stilled. “From what?”

  “From yourself.” She spun, her back to me. “If you’d killed him it would have ruined you. Don’t you get that?” She faced me again. “The parts of you I love, the parts of you that matter, it would have ruined them.”

  Drew stood, still disoriented. “Bryn?” His hands trembled as he spotted the blood. “What happened?”

  Bryn’s voice was empty. “You’re drunk, Drew. You need to take yourself to the hospital.”

  He wavered, surprise and shame painting his skin. He registered my face, remembering, fear forcing him into a run. After Drew disappeared down the street I followed Bryn back to her room. She was silent, angry, ashamed. Of me.

  My heart sat on pins and when she said the words, “I can’t do this,” it sat on only one, the sharp point cutting straight through me. “I need time…some space.” Her lip trembled. “Please.”


  Time. All we’d had was time apart. But I didn’t want to be apart. I wanted to be whole. I wanted to be good. Because the Roman who’d had his hands around Drew’s throat, the Roman who’d liked the way his pulse felt as it weakened, was not good. And now that Bryn had seen him I knew there was no going back.

  So I gave her what she wanted. I climbed back outside and then I sat against her window, guiding my light in through the glass, the only part of me that could still reach her.

  51

  Bryn

  I woke to an explosion in my skull—bells and banging. Sirens. I blinked, red and blue streaked across my bedroom wall. I shot out of bed, the floor next to me empty, the window closed. I threw back the curtain and saw Roman on his knees, a police officer wrenching his arms while another kicked him in the stomach.

  There were footsteps, lights flipping on in the hallway. I pushed open the window and crawled out just as my uncle burst through the front door.

  “What the hell is going on here?” When my uncle saw Roman covered in blood, he stopped, looking from the cuffs around his wrists to the officers who were holding him down.

  “You responsible for him?” one of the officers asked, still struggling to keep Roman on the ground.

  My uncle wiped his brow. “What’s…yes, yes I am. What’s going on?”

  “Kid’s a fugitive. His face has been all over the news for breaking out of a jail in Albuquerque.”

  My uncle was stunned, staring at Roman. “What are you talking about?”

  “We got a disturbance call half an hour ago and another from someone who claimed to have seen him trying to break into your residence.”

  “Break in?”

  Roman turned to me, his face streaked red as he mouthed the words, I’m sorry.

  I thought he meant for Drew, for everything that had happened between us, but then he leapt up, striking the officer on his left and spinning out of his grip. The cuffs melted off, Roman’s forearms blistered and hot. The other officer tried to take him down from behind but the moment he touched Roman’s skin he fell back.

  Headlights swelled at the end of the street, an engine roaring and drawing our eyes. The truck slammed into one of the police cruisers and Andre and Domingo jumped out, both of them beaming.

  I heard the cock of a gun, my uncle throwing himself in front of Roman just as the first shot was fired. Roman screamed, trying to tackle him out of the way, but when I saw my uncle’s face, twisted and turning blue, I knew he’d been hit.

  “Brian!” My mom was on the porch, her feet bare, nothing but a nightshirt on. I ran, stopping her before she could see the blood. “No,” she cried. “Let me see him. Brian. Brian!”

  Andre took the two officers by the scruff of their uniforms, singeing them as Domingo snagged their guns from their holsters. They cuffed them both, holding burning hands over their mouths until they’d stopped fighting.

  My mom crawled to my uncle. Roman already had his shirt ripped open, the wound over his shoulder bubbling and black.

  “Just clipped me,” my uncle groaned. “I’m alright, Elena. I’m alright.”

  She collapsed onto his chest and he winced, stroking her hair as she cried into his bloody shirt.

  “Hold still,” Roman said.

  My uncle took a deep breath. “Please, tell me you know what you’re doing.”

  Roman raised a glowing hand, panic flooding him, followed by a still moment of patience. My uncle was too mesmerized by the light to notice, and even as Roman melted the bullet and closed the artery, he couldn’t take his eyes off his glowing face. Roman pressed two fingers to the skin on either side of the wound, a small stream of smoke expanding as he sutured it closed.

  My uncle grimaced again, a half smile taking its place. “What the hell are you?”

  I knew it wasn’t the first time Roman had heard that question but it was the first time it had made him smile. Earlier that night I’d caught a glimpse of the Roman Anso had created, the Roman who wasn’t light but a burning fuse. And even though I couldn’t pretend like it had never happened, I also couldn’t pretend that Roman was right about being ruined.

  Roman was good. I could see it in his carefulness as he closed my uncle’s wounds, in the way he smiled. Roman was good. He is. He was just afraid, and after what happened with Drew, I had to admit I was too. But as Andre and Domingo approached, expressions urgent, I knew that I didn’t have time for fear, not mine or Roman’s. We had to start finding the Dreamers, the way I’d found myself, the way I still was, and we had to do it now.

  I turned to my mom, still awe-stricken and clutching my uncle. She looked just like my grandmother, her eyes greener, the longing in them so deep I thought I’d drown. How could I leave her right now? How could I not?

  The sound of sirens rose over the rooftops, another pair of dim headlights turning onto our street.

  Andre pushed Roman onto his feet. “Run!”

  “But what—?”

  “Go! Get to the hotel!”

  Roman looked at me one last time, his fingers brushing my arm, and then he took off toward a break in the fences, disappearing down the alley.

  Domingo ran for the patrol car where they’d tied up the other officers, one of them fumbling with a walkie-talkie. Domingo jumped into the driver’s seat, gunning the cruiser in the opposite direction of the oncoming patrol cars.

  “Uh…” Andre scratched his head as they skid to a stop in front of our house. “Just let me do the talking.”

  After Andre sent the police in the other direction, my mom and uncle left for the hospital and I tore through my mom’s bedroom closet, stuffing her clothes into every suitcase she owned. She’d been too stunned to ask questions, too afraid of losing my uncle the same way she’d lost her mother. But from the look she gave me as she climbed into the car I knew the questions would come later. Lots of them.

  There was a knock on the bedroom door. I peered out of the closet and saw Felix, a worried look on his face.

  “Your mom called Dani’s mom,” he said. “She was…distraught. Andre let us in and told us what happened.”

  “Is my uncle alright?” I asked.

  “He’s fine…” Felix lowered his voice. “Dani’s not.”

  I dropped the bag at my feet. “Is she out there?”

  Felix stopped me before I could leave the room. “Tell me you know how to help her.” His eyes burned red. “Just please, tell me you and the Rogues are going to find a way to get that thing out of her.”

  I took a step back. “How bad is it?”

  “She looks like she’s dying.” Felix stared at the floor. “She is dying.” He gripped me, shaking. “Don’t leave her like this, Bryn. Don’t leave right now when she needs you the most.”

  I’d been thinking about flight numbers and train tickets ever since Andre showed me the news article about Chloe but for the past week I’d been thinking about my grandmother too. All the time. About the last words she’d said to me, about the lavender she used to tie around my wrist at night—instructions from her sister Celia who’d suddenly resurfaced after thirty years of silence. I’d been thinking a lot about her too and I knew that before we could go after Michael, before we could rescue the Dreamers, we had to find my grandmother’s sister. I knew she was Dani’s only hope.

  “I’m not going to leave her.” I kneaded my hands, trying to sound certain. “My grandmother’s sister Celia might be able to help. We just have to find her first.”

  “Then you’re going to need this.” Roman stood in the doorway, his clothes a mess.

  “How did—?”

  “Your window was still open,” he said. “I waited around until the coast was clear.” He held out an envelope. From the ribbing I knew it was the letter Celia had sent to my grandmother.

  “Where did you get this?” I asked.

  “Your grandmother asked me to hold onto it. She said she was going to try to find her sister. I don’t know if she ever...” He moved closer, reaching but not touching.
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  My throat clenched, something sour wafting from his clothes. “Where did you say you were hiding?”

  Felix sniffed, nose wrinkled. “From the smell of things, I’d say the dumpster behind that strip club on Parkway.”

  Roman rolled his eyes. “It wasn’t behind a strip club.” He flicked something green off his shoulder that looked like old lettuce. “It was a supermarket.”

  I rummaged through my uncle’s suitcase, pulling out one of the shirts I’d already packed, and handed it to Roman. He spotted the other suitcases, my mom’s closet stripped bare.

  “They have to leave. They have to go somewhere safe—”

  He gave me a wary look.

  “You know I’m right.”

  “You might be right but it’s not that easy. The shock’s worn off and they’re going to start asking questions. You have to face your mother at some point. We both do.”

  “I wouldn’t leave without saying goodbye. Not again.”

  And not with knowing that I might not come back. “Just let me think of something, okay? Let me do this for her.”

  Roman and Felix left me to finish packing my mom’s things. When I joined them in the living room, two duffel bags sat on the floor by the door, but they weren’t as startling as the two strangers standing next to them—a boy in a Denver Broncos jacket, another with saffron eyes, his thumbs racing over his cell phone.

  I stopped short. “Who—?”

  Roman stepped between us. “Uh, Bryn, this is Adham and Cole. I called them last night, told them we might need some back up.” I knew he wasn’t telling the whole truth.

  Adham reached out to shake my hand. “I’m glad you’re feeling better, Bryn. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  “Yeah,” Cole said, his hands stiff at his sides, “congrats on the whole waking up thing.”

  Adham shot him a look, mumbled something under his breath. “We’ve had a long night.” I spotted a bandage wrapped around Cole’s hand. Adham glanced at it, then at Roman. “Something tried to attack Cole after the two of you got off the phone.”

  “Something…” Roman said. “Not the shadows?”