The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “Roman?”

  There was a burst of cold air as the door was thrown open, Felix dragging my body out. But I didn’t go with it. I sat up, Bryn looking from me in the front seat to my body on the road next to Felix.

  “What the…?”

  “Don’t move,” she said.

  “Am I—?”

  “You’re dreaming.”

  My body was limp and bleeding, my face already swollen. The dashboard was littered with glass, the front of the truck twisted around a tree that had sprung up out of nowhere. I stared at the bark, at the low hanging branches, and it was a monster. A monster I knew. The same monster I’d let devour me the night I’d let go of the wheel.

  I thought I was going to vomit but then I noticed my body stirring and realized I was just waking up.

  Bryn caught my arm. “Fight it.”

  “What?”

  “Do you trust me?” she asked.

  I hesitated, my cells in a frenzy, on the verge of collapse.

  “Take his body back,” Bryn said to Felix. “Find Vogle and the others and keep an eye on my father. Don’t let him out of your sight.”

  Felix stood. “But Bryn, where are you going?”

  Bryn faced the road. “We’re going to find my body.”

  I laced my fingers with hers and we woke into something even stranger than my nightmares. I was out of my body, the flesh and bone I was wearing nothing but a mirage. I was a thought, a dream, a passenger, Bryn carrying me through time and space.

  When I came to, even the air smelled different, whatever was in it hooking like anchors into my lungs. We stood in vines, black three-pronged stars climbing trellises for miles, something about them nightmarish and wrong. And familiar. They swayed without a breeze, the tall grass tangled in them. I remembered their sharp silhouettes dancing behind Anso the night he’d tried to take Cole.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Bryn swayed, dizzy. “Celia said all the women in our family have the ability to find things that are lost. I wasn’t sure it would work.” She took a few steps, trying not to get caught in the petals. “I’m still not sure it has.”

  I spotted the mountains then, the clouds around them thinning. But there were no power lines, no signs or even a road. I plucked one of the flowers, examining it more closely. The petals retreated, wilting and turning to ash in my hand.

  “Tire tracks.” Bryn pointed up ahead, the flowers pressed flat, but the truck was nowhere to be seen.

  The wind picked up, a breeze whistling between us that almost made my knees buckle. The flowers stretched, ripping from the ground and climbing over our heads, stems twisting and locking in place. The lattice thickened and we ducked, trying to crawl out of the vine’s reach.

  The flowers nipped at our clothes and we tumbled, rolling out of the way as a wall of black snapped shut behind us. We hurdled trellises, stomping out stars, the flowers screeching like sirens as they ripped from the soil. I tripped, almost losing my hold on Bryn, and when I looked back one of the vines was coiled around her leg.

  I ripped it off, the black petals burning blue just as another vine snapped around her arm. She wrestled with it, the walls growing higher as I tried to ward them off with my flames. Another flower took aim, slicing open her palm. I ripped it down with a flaming hand, turning it to ash. But the flame didn’t travel, the other stems still knotting themselves until the walls were too dense to see through. Until there was no way out.

  I pulled Bryn to my chest, letting the heat travel from my skin to hers until we were both glowing. The flowers danced around us, striking and setting themselves alight, more growing in their place.

  Bryn looked up, the vines weaving a night sky over our heads. “He likes mazes.”

  “Who?”

  “Anso. The prison walls were always shifting.”

  “He’s here,” I said.

  “He knows I am too.”

  The ground quaked, flowers sprouting like landmines and slithering towards us.

  “The only way out is through,” she said.

  I stared at the wall of vines but Bryn caught my hand before I could hurl my light towards them. She held onto me, her eyes closed as she took long deep breaths. The breeze tossed her hair, growing stronger before disappearing altogether. Bryn’s eyes flashed open and then she pointed straight down.

  She led my hands to the soil, both of us pressing and digging, trying to push through. A tremor ignited beneath Bryn’s hands, the earth stirring beneath the heat of my own. We locked eyes, sinking. The ground gave way, stones and clods of dirt crashing down around us as we slammed into something hard and flat.

  I jumped to my feet, fanning the dust. There were bars all around us, a maze of cells. Bryn gripped them, panting, but the bars barely bent. I took one in each fist, the metal melting and snapping clean.

  We cut our way through two more sets of bars before we reached a corridor. It was made of stone, long and winding, and I wondered if it was carrying us deep into the mountain. The sound of grinding stone made my ears ring, the walls ahead of us shifting just like Bryn had said they would. Even the floor churned like a wave, new corridors carved straight from the darkness as the way ahead twisted and narrowed.

  “I can feel it here,” she whispered. “It’s close.”

  Bryn pressed a hand to the wall, reading the stone, but she was weakening, whatever dream she was trying to summon barely sparking to life. I took her arm, and skin to skin there was an explosion, the walls standing still as we were hurled somewhere new.

  Whatever invisible track we were on stopped short and I slammed into Bryn, both of us flat against a wall next to an opened doorway. She caught her breath, a faint smile on her face as she realized she’d moved us a second time. When her smile disappeared I could tell she sensed something down the steps to our left. She peered down into the darkness, the look on her face telling me she’d found what she was looking for and that it wasn’t alone.

  I heard voices, footsteps. A shadow bled up the landing. I was about to pull her back, to take her place and lead the way, but the shadow was the last thing I saw before I lurched forward. Gravity let go, Bryn’s possession of me severed, and I fell straight down into nothing. When I opened my eyes I was sprawled out on Celia’s couch, back in my body.

  I rocked forward, trying to sit up as a pair of hands held me down. Andre.

  “Careful.”

  “Shit, get off. We have to go.”

  Vogle stood over me. “Go where?”

  “I…” I was dizzy again. Celia handed me a glass of water, the cold seeping into my fingers, waking me up. “They went south. There were… Shit!”

  “What is it?” Vogle asked.

  All I remembered were the flowers. They were all I’d seen and what if they weren’t even real? Bryn and I had been dreaming, the flowers possessed by more than just the wind. But the tire tracks…and the bodies. Anso wasn’t just taking the Dreamers anymore; he was taking their bodies, their flesh and blood. And the only way he would be able to hold them hostage was if the prison itself was real. So maybe the flowers weren’t real, maybe nothing above ground had been either. But the prison was underground. And so was Bryn.

  “Where did they go?” Lathan asked.

  “Somewhere rural. There were flowers everywhere like some kind of farm, miles of them on small trellises. The prison was underground.”

  Everyone mulled over what I’d just said. Underground practically meant invisible. How the hell would we be able to find them in time?

  “Flowers…” Vogle turned to Celia. “Do you have a piece of paper and a pen?”

  She dug the supplies out of a drawer and handed them to me. I immediately started drawing what I’d seen. When I finished I held up the crude sketch, Vogle’s eyes widening.

  “They don’t grow here,” Vogle said.

  “Here as in where?” I asked.

  “The States.”

  “Then where do they grow?”

  Vogle wrung his h
ands. “South America.”

  “Where exactly in South America?” Andre asked.

  El Dorado. “Colombia,” I said.

  Andre eyed me. “How…?”

  “He’s right,” Vogle said. “They’re native to the mountains there.”

  “And Bryn?” Dani said. “She’s still there? What if they find her and force her back into her body? What if she can’t wake herself up?”

  “I’ll find her.” I paced the room. “We’ll find her we just have to…”

  “Figure out how to send you back there,” Lathan said.

  I stopped short, anxious. “How?”

  “You were dreaming.”

  “So?”

  “So, maybe if you fell asleep again you could find your way back to her.”

  “I don’t dream. Not like that.”

  “But this wasn’t a normal dream,” Lathan said. “You were separated from your body by trauma. The car crash.”

  “And then Bryn took my hand.” I hung my head. “She’s the key to all of this. I’m not a Dreamer. Without her I’m…” Nothing at all.

  “But isn’t that how you two found each other in the first place?” Felix asked. “Your car accident. The first one.” He shrugged. “It worked then, maybe it’ll work now.”

  I rolled my eyes. “You just want to volunteer to be the one to punch me in the face.”

  “As the best friend I think it’s my duty.”

  My last two best friends had turned out to be total ass holes, one of them framing me for murder and the other practically handing me over to the cops. All Felix had ever done was make me laugh to the point of almost pissing myself. And he’d been there. When Bryn needed him and when Dani needed him. When I’d needed him too.

  “Fine,” I said, “you can punch me in the face.”

  Felix rubbed his palms together, his smile a little too wide.

  “Just take it easy, okay? I don’t need to end up as a vegetable again.”

  Felix nodded, reared back. I looked away, not wanting to see it coming. There was a crack and I stumbled. But not from the force, not even because it hurt, but because I couldn’t believe he’d actually done it.

  “Oh, give him here.” Andre stepped in front of Felix and this time I didn’t even feel the impact.

  I came to in a pile of dust, a hand swiping at me from between metal bars. I jumped out of reach, surrounded by more cells, more people slumped on the other side of them. When they saw me they cowered, a few testing their luck, begging me to let them out. Most of them couldn’t move, pools of blood dry on the floor beneath them.

  I knelt in front of the woman who’d reached for me. “Have you seen a girl with green eyes and curly hair? She’s not in a cell, she’s—”

  “She’s dead.”

  “What?”

  The woman coughed. “Just like the rest of us.”

  “Please, just tell me if you’ve seen her.”

  “Her body’s probably with the others.” She pointed straight at the wall. “On the other side, even deeper.” She twitched. “I can hear them sleeping down there.”

  I snapped the bars of her cell before racing up and down the corridor, freeing those that were trapped. Bodies knocked past me in a rush. I lost count of the cells after a while, of the people too. The awful truth was that I didn’t feel a thing as I let them out of their cells. Not one ounce of relief. Because Bryn was still in there somewhere, so was her body, and if she’d lost control of both we’d lose everything. So would the people I’d just freed. So would every person on the planet.

  But Bryn would not be the end. I’d seen us in a house by the ocean, her working in her studio, calling that home ours. Ours. That’s what the future was. Not an ending. Not impossible. It belonged to us and I belonged to Bryn and wherever she was I would find her.

  The corridors clipped each other in half, confusing me. Footsteps echoed and I followed the sound, hoping it would lead me to Bryn. I rounded the corner and stopped. It was black.

  Shadows marched towards me like soldiers, the cold like cuffs around my wrists and ankles. I lit up, the walls next to me charred black. And there she was again. My mother stood in front of me, whole, damning, her eyes urging me to turn back.

  It’s not real. It’s not real. Find Bryn. It’s not real.

  “But it is.” Her voice cut like a dull blade. She wrenched my face, cold fingers burning my skin. “Look,” she said. “Look at what you’ve done to me.”

  “You’re not real."

  “You killed me," she hissed.

  I shut my eyes, shaking. “I didn’t.”

  She clicked her tongue, tsk’ed. “You’re a killer.”

  The cold pressed down on me, ice crystals coating my skin until I could hardly move.

  “It should have been you, Roman.” I felt her circling me. “Not me. Not Bryn. You should have died that night.”

  She spoke every awful thing I'd ever needed to hear her say. The truth. About how she felt about me. About how she felt about herself. But I'd learned by now that there was no difference between the truth and a lie; no difference between dream and reality. Because there was no such thing.

  This version of my mother and the version of her who'd raised me, who'd hated me, they weren't real. In this time and place, I wasn't real either. I was a thought, an idea, a dream—Bryn's dream—and in her imagination I could be anything I wanted. Today I wanted to be free.

  I opened my eyes, faced my mother. "You're not real. You never were. My mother loved me. She loved me." My pulse spiked, melted ice dripping from my skin. “So does Bryn. And she is not dead.”

  The shadow smiled. “She will be soon.”

  I flexed, inflamed, ice shattering as I grabbed her throat. She slithered into smoke, joining the others. They skirted across my glowing skin, the heat sending them skittering like roaches into every crack and hole. The hallway cleared, the walls sweating and threatening to crumble under the heat too.

  I reached the gaping hole at the end of the corridor, steps carrying me down into a dungeon. They were slick, my shoes sticking as if I was trudging through a dead carcass. The floor leveled and I held out a hand, the light slowly blooming and turning the walls red. And there was Bryn, her body lying limp on the floor. And there was Anso, one flick of his wrist lifting her off the ground.

  I took one step and the nausea hit me, my flames working in reverse. I fought the pull of consciousness, the pull of my flesh, but it burned.

  “Bryn.”

  She couldn’t hear me. She was sleeping and I was waking. I opened my eyes and it was night, headlights tearing out in front of me. I sat up, straining against the light.

  “Where is she?” It was Vogle, my head in his lap.

  I rolled, igniting the clank of plastic. I looked down and saw empty syringes lining the floorboard.

  “How long?” I said.

  “You’ve been out for an entire day. I was afraid of giving you too much.”

  I groaned, feeling numb, and Andre sat me up. “Don’t lose it,” he said. “Not yet.”

  “But she’s—”

  “Not yet.”

  He handed me a wilted flower—a black three-pronged star.

  “How did you get this?” I asked.

  “Found it stuck to your shirt sleeve. Domingo worked his magic. We’re close.”

  “How close?”

  “Eighty miles. Lathan called in a favor and arranged a plane. You started to stir just as we landed and that’s when Vogle stuck you with the last syringe.”

  “The last one?”

  “I’m afraid so,” Vogle said.

  The trees stood like monsters along the road. There was no moonlight. No stars. Only Rogues, their light piercing the fog as we tore through the night. They were my brothers and sisters, now more than ever, our grief and hope intertwined. But as I stared at that horizon line, waiting for the flowers, for the gravesite where our Dreamers’ bodies were buried, I vowed that I’d never be one of them.

  54


  Bryn

  I steeled myself to the in-between, completely invisible as Anso stood over my body. He carved shapes in my skin with his eyes, trying to wake me. But the pain was weakened by distance, whatever was keeping me from being visible turning it to just a pinch.

  I wanted to run to my body, to climb inside and keep it safe. I stopped myself, knowing that waking would only make me weak. I had to stay in the dream and wait for the clock to tick down, for the veil to be lifted, for whatever power that belonged to me to finally awaken.

  I could tell I was already changing, every cell and every atom molting some old sense of being and turning me into something strong. I imagined using that power to destroy Anso but every time I took a step towards him I remembered the pain of being splayed out on that torture table.

  “She’s the one.” The moment Anso spoke I shuddered.

  “Restraints,” one of the guards said. “We’ll put her in a cell.”

  “Restraints?” Anso spun, anger trailing down the tips of his fingers. He flicked just one and the guard’s knees buckled. He screamed and I held my ears, trying not to look. “It burns,” Anso said, “doesn’t it?”

  All the guard could do was choke, tears turned to steam as his insides started to boil.

  Anso eyed the invisible tether between them. “This is just the heat from a summer’s day compared to what that girl can do. She’s the sun. She’s an atomic bomb.” He stood next to my hovering body, tracing a finger down my cheek. “And do you know how to snuff out a fuse that powerful?” He looked straight ahead, eyes boring into mine even though he couldn’t see me. “You start at the quick.”

  My breath hitched but something else drew Anso’s eyes toward the doorway. I looked and there was Roman, hunched over, fading. He disappeared and Anso twisted my arm, forcing me into view until I was just as exposed and vulnerable as my body.

  “Just like clockwork,” he said.

  The pain struck me and I hit the floor, the guards taking me in their arms. I thrashed, clawing towards my body. The pain stopped me again and I crumbled.