The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  Felix lay with her, afraid to sleep but too exhausted not to. When they were both snoring Roman and I joined Celia and Rafael in the living room.

  “You look like her.” I only said it to keep myself from reaching for her. Despite the resemblance, Celia was still a stranger, and I was still angry with her.

  “We look like our mother,” she said.

  I felt a twinge, my heart snagged on a thorn. I wasn’t sure if I should tell Celia about the dream, about what I’d done and what I couldn’t do. I didn’t want her to hate me for letting Anso take her mother not just once but twice.

  “How is she?” Celia asked.

  “She’s…she passed,” I said.

  Celia didn’t need to know how or when. I couldn’t tell her any of those things without breaking into a million pieces and tonight was not for breaking. Tonight was for answers, for a different kind of truth.

  I pulled out the letter and handed it to her. “You sent her this.”

  “Did she—?”

  “She did her best,” I said. “She protected me.”

  Her voice was flat. “They killed her, didn’t they?”

  I couldn’t answer.

  “I should have gone. I should have known this wouldn’t be enough. I’m so…” She looked at me. “I’m so sorry. You have to know that.”

  “You didn’t speak to her for years,” I said. “Why? How could you do that?”

  Celia pressed a hand to her cheek, still staring at the letter. “I needed her to hate me, to think that I hated her too. It was the only way to make sure she stayed away.”

  “But why? She’s not…she wasn’t like you.”

  “That didn’t mean they wouldn’t have tried to come for her. The women in our family aren’t all Dreamers but they are all special.”

  “How?”

  “There’s something strange in our blood,” Celia said. “Something that makes us more sensitive to things.”

  I sat forward. “Like intuition?”

  Celia nodded. “When it’s mild, yes. We sense things or feel things. For most of the women in our family it’s nothing extraordinary but for others…” She sighed. “You and I are just two links in a long never-ending chain. It’s genetic, one Dreamer from each generation.”

  “What can you do?” I asked.

  “All of the women in our family have the very practical and profitable ability to find things that are lost.”

  Sam. Anso had wanted her to find a body but not just one. All of them. Was that why he’d taken my great-grandmother all those years ago? Was that why I’d felt such a strong connection to Sam? I remembered Anso’s daughter, clutching her stomach, cradling that hollow space. If I was her awakening then who was her daughter’s? Who was her brother’s?

  “Bryn can do more than that,” Roman said.

  Celia stared into me, stripping me down layer by layer. “Because you’re the last one.”

  Wind rattled against the windows, the echo of her words sending chills down my arms. “You knew?”

  “I had a dream,” she said. “It’s why I sent the letter.” There was a moment of quiet and I knew that somehow Celia could read my thoughts, her sadness only proving how much she wished she couldn’t. “She’s shown herself to you, hasn’t she?”

  I nodded. “They broke her into pieces.”

  “Pieces that couldn’t be destroyed, pieces that found their way into the wombs of women all over the world. According to the story, the pieces were re-born in the girl’s attempt to put herself back together. But soon they’d spread too far over time.”

  “And now she’s sent me to find them.”

  “I’m sorry,” Celia said.

  “I don’t want this.”

  “I know,” she said, “but it’s done. Once you turn eighteen, the age the girl was when her father buried her alive, it will unleash something awful and the only way to put a stop to it will be to find every Dreamer.”

  “And take something from them…” I met Celia’s eyes. “The dreams.”

  My gaze fell to my hands, the last thing Sam had touched before she’d disappeared. I remembered the dampness of her palms, how my own were trembling. I’d fought the pull to touch her, to say goodbye, even though Sam had said it was time. She’d said that once I touched her, everything inside of her would be inside of me. The way it was supposed to be.

  “And if I fail?” I said.

  “Then every nightmare will be unleashed onto the world.”

  In the quiet, the empty air was electric, just waiting for a fuse. Celia’s grandfather clock struck midnight, the sound echoing inside me, growing louder with every passing moment. I wondered how loud it would be tomorrow, if I would be able to sense the moment it happened, if the tear between the real world and the dream-world would be audible and dreadful or as silent as this moment of waiting.

  Celia let out a long breath. “Do you know why they took her, Bryn? My mother.”

  My hand slipped from my knee, already sweating as the conversation started to tread somewhere even more dangerous. I shook my head, afraid to make eye contact, the memory of her being taken too close to the surface.

  “She wasn’t the first woman from our family to be taken. They’ve been looking for you for centuries, which means they've been coming for us for centuries too. It’s only by divine intervention that you were born into this family. My mother knew you were coming, and because of that, she was able to hide you for so long.”

  “She’s the one who's been hiding the Dreamers?”

  Celia made her way to a large oak desk that sat in the corner. She freed a key from a chain around her neck, unlocking the center drawer before pulling out a letter just like the one she’d sent.

  “It’s all here,” Celia said, clutching it to her chest. “When I first started having the dreams my mother would tell me the story in pieces, our family history so intertwined with the fairytale that I thought it was one too.”

  “The Children of the Moon,” I said, remembering my grandmother's vague version of the story.

  “The night the first Dreamer was killed was just the start of the slaughter. The other Dreamers, still just children, were summoned to an altar in the center of the village. Some of the families refused, some fought back, and some tried to escape. Under the cover of night they were led into the forest by a family of women known to have mystical powers. They performed rituals over the children, trying to supernaturally mature their abilities so they could protect themselves. Unfortunately, they were found soon after and killed just like the others.”

  “What happened to the women who tried to help them?” I asked.

  “They were killed too,” Celia said. “All but one. The youngest girl managed to escape, and as the next centuries unfolded, it turned out that whatever enchantment the women had performed wasn’t for naught. They hadn’t been able to save the Dreamers as they were but they were able to reincarnate them.”

  “The girl was related to us,” I said, putting the pieces together. “How did Anso find her?”

  “I’m not sure,” Celia said. “But once he discovered our bloodline he started kidnapping the woman from each generation with the most powerful sight, forcing her to locate the Dreamers.”

  “All this time he’s been going after them one by one…”

  “No wonder he’s out of his mind,” Roman huffed.

  “I’m sure it was maddening work,” Celia said, “especially after he discovered that every time a Dreamer died one was born in his or her place.”

  “That’s why he’s turning the Dreamers he has no use for into slaves instead of just killing them," I said. "Not because he wants power but because he wants them to suffer for what they are. At least until he can destroy me himself. Then it'll all be over."

  “Doesn’t he understand that the entire world will end if he goes through with it?” Roman said. “That Bryn is the only thing keeping people’s nightmares from becoming reality?”

  “There’s another part to the st
ory,” Celia said. “When Anso had his daughter killed, the sin of that act stained him. He was cursed and as his punishment he was made immortal, not on earth but in the dream world.”

  “He became a Dreamer?" Roman asked.

  “Yes,” Celia said, “and his ability, the thing he dreams about is—”

  “Pain.” I shivered, thinking of Anso’s death wish; his daughter’s revelation that I was his only hope. “That’s why he doesn’t care if the world ends. He wants it to."

  “Bryn…" Celia lowered her voice, tentative, "there’s something else you need to know. Once you reach your full potential you won’t just be powerful, you’ll be dangerous. The first Dreamer...all that power drove her mad.”

  The girl’s madness had been as palpable as her grief. I wondered if I was stained with it the same way Anso was, if her blood running through my veins would drive me mad too.

  “Will the same thing happen to me?” I asked.

  “Her dreams are your birthright but…”

  “You mean my curse.”

  Celia’s face softened. “Not if you don’t believe it.”

  “And if I do? What happens if I inherit her madness along with everything else?”

  She stared right through me. “Then you won’t be a girl anymore, you won’t be a Dreamer. You’ll just be chaos.”

  I sat alone in one of Celia’s guest rooms but I could still hear Felix and Dani breathing on the other side of the wall, I could still hear Roman on his cellphone with Adham or Andre, giving them directions to the house, and I could still hear Celia and Rafael brewing coffee in the kitchen as they waited for everyone to arrive. They were safe sounds, easy sounds, but they lulled nothing and I’d never wanted to be more alone in my life.

  You’ll just be chaos.

  “She’s right.” Roman’s mother stood by the window, blood-stained and tracing shapes in the glass. “You’re full of whispers, aren’t you? They’ve already crept inside.”

  “He thought I couldn’t hear him, that my flesh was foreign and couldn’t feel a thing.” Anso’s daughter sat on the bed, tugging the blankets away from my chin. “All along he was mad. I was dying and he was mad.”

  Roman’s mother scratched a nail across the glass, making me wince. “Look at the stains on her.” She was watching Anso’s daughter. “We’re both covered in her blood.”

  “You’re both mad,” I whispered. “And I’m dreaming. It’s only a dream.”

  “I told you there was no such thing, Bryn.” My grandfather stood near the door, shadows hiding his face. “How much pain will it take for you to finally realize that? You can’t save anyone. You can’t even save yourself.”

  “You’re not my grandfather,” I said.

  “And you’re not my granddaughter. Not anymore.”

  “You’re a weapon.” My grandmother leaned over me, brushing my cheek. Her fingers were bone, sharp and drawing blood. “You destroyed my life.”

  My grandfather crept closer. “You almost destroyed Dani’s and your mother’s.”

  My grandmother kissed me on the forehead. “And now it’s time for you to destroy one more.”

  I wasn’t sure where I was going, my thoughts resolved to placing one foot in front of the other. The house receded behind me, the window I’d left open like a black hole. I walked for more than a mile before I was yanked to a stop, dazed but certain I was being led in the right direction. I looked down. Railroad tracks. I stepped onto the first rung, balancing on the balls of my feet as I followed the track past the trees. The moon bled over the rails and then they trembled.

  The vibration was slight, steeling my feet to the tracks. I knelt, pressing my hands to the metal until the buzz was inside me and I felt alive. But being alive was dangerous. I was dangerous. Because I was the end of everything. But that light in the distance, moving closer, beckoning me forward, was the end of me. It had to be.

  “Bryn.”

  I turned at the voice and saw my reflection, the Bryn standing in front of me covered in soot and mud, her clothes torn and her hair a mess. Dried blood caked her face but I knew it wasn’t all her own, the wound on her right knee too shallow. I waited for her to pin me down, to force me off the tracks, but this Bryn wasn’t the same girl who’d confronted me before. This Bryn was softer, more exhausted. This Bryn wasn’t fighting. She’d already won.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, in awe of the stranger she was to me.

  “You first,” she said.

  I looked away, the sight of her more unsettling than the train ahead of me. “I have a feeling you already know.” We were side by side, skin touching. She was warm. “Does it hurt?”

  Bryn took my hand, the light dancing closer. “You won’t feel a thing.”

  I faced her, my voice like a child’s. “Why not?”

  “Because this isn’t how it ends.”

  My knees quaked, the train rounding the bend. “I’m the end.”

  “No.” She pulled my wrist but I was frozen. “Bryn, please. They’re wrong about everything. You don’t have to do this.”

  Tears streamed down my face. Maybe I didn’t have to do it, not like this. But what I couldn’t tell her, what I couldn’t tell myself, was that I wanted to. The part of me that had been destroying things since the day I was born just wanted to end it.

  The light swelled in front of me, so bright it burned. I closed my eyes, feeling it on my face—the heat, the power.

  “I’m the end.”

  I waited for the impact.

  I waited for the pain.

  “No,” she said. “You’re just the beginning.”

  The air hit me like a wave, crashing down until I couldn’t breathe. But the quiet that followed was just as fierce. I opened my eyes and I was standing in the road in front of Celia’s house. I blinked against headlights, my body shaking and waiting for the train. Rocks skittered against my knees, tires crunching to a stop in front of me. I squinted past the light as my father jumped down from his truck.

  “Dad, what are—?”

  He looked strange, his face paler than the moon. “Did you read it?”

  “Read—?”

  “I left something for you inside the book. You have to read it. Bryn, you have to listen to me very carefully.” His eyes darted. “You can’t let them do this to you.”

  “Do what? Who—?”

  “They want you to find the Dreamers, but if you do, if you touch them and take their dreams, you’ll die.”

  The earth beneath me tilted, all of the blood rushing to my ears as I tried to digest every word, every sound, every silent plea behind my father’s eyes. My father …my father knew.

  “What are you saying?” I eased back, his grip on me tightening.

  “Find another way. Find your great-grandmother and find another way.”

  “How do you know any of this?” I said.

  “I’d explain but we don’t—”

  There were no headlights, only the squeal of brakes, of tires skirting against gravel. Another truck pulled to a stop right in front of me, two men climbing out, each taking one of my arms.

  “Let go of me!”

  I thrashed and my father lunged at them, striking one in the face and the other in the knee. The arms on my left loosened and I threw myself on the ground, twisting and clawing out of their reach. The man who’d let go of me tangled with my father, his hands around my father’s throat. But he wasn’t trying to kill him. The look in the stranger’s eye told me he was destroying something else.

  The shadow soared out of him, sharp like a bird. It tore at my father’s mouth, unhinging his jaw.

  “No!”

  My father fell limp, his eyes and mouth still open as the man yanked me up from the ground.

  I thrashed, trying to tear free. “No! Let go!”

  The man reared back a fist and the darkness came so fast that I didn’t even feel the impact. I stumbled, dizzy. And then I was back inside the house. Detached from my body. I rushed over to the windo
w, watching as they loaded it into the back of the truck.

  “Roman!”

  The door to the guest room was thrown open, Roman and Felix rushing inside.

  “Bryn, what’s wrong?”

  I led them to the window.

  Roman lowered his voice. “Is that…?”

  My throat clenched. “Me.”

  53

  Roman

  I led Bryn and Felix out of the house, the three of us concealed by the long hanging branches of the willow tree as we approached the road. I heard the back door of the truck slam shut, the engine revving. I lunged but Bryn held me back.

  “We follow them,” she whispered. “Felix, help my father inside. Tell Celia he was attacked by one of the shadows.”

  “Your father?” I spotted a silhouette in the road, still and unnatural.

  Bryn pushed Felix back toward the door. “Please, just hurry!”

  We ran for Bryn’s father’s truck, the headlights off as we tried to keep a safe distance.

  “Call Andre,” I said. “Tell them we need backup.”

  Bryn trembled, trying to dial the numbers. “Where do you think they’re taking me?”

  Something flickered up ahead. I thought it was another pair of headlights until I started to make out strange shapes and colors that didn’t belong on that county road. Lights flashed in the rearview mirror, Felix already catching up to us.

  “Tell him to hang back,” I said, “and turn off the lights.”

  Bryn texted Felix and a moment later the car was drifting and dark. But the truck ahead of us was gaining speed, heading straight for the…

  “It’s a vortex.” Bryn leaned forward. “They’re trying to lose us.”

  “Why didn’t they use one to escape in front of Celia’s house?”

  “Because…” she looked at me, “the truck…I’m not the only one in it.” Bryn gripped my knee. “Gun it.”

  I slammed on the gas and we bucked after the truck, the glittering vortex widening like a mouth.

  “We’re not gonna make it,” I said.

  “Just keep going.”

  The truck ahead of us was halfway through, the seams of the vortex shrinking. We plowed forward, tires screaming and kicking up dust. And then the vortex snapped shut, the empty night all around us as the truck slammed into something like stone. I hit the steering wheel, my vision black.