The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “Maybe saying goodbye will give him some kind of closure,” I offered.

  “Closure,” Andre grumbled. “There’s no such thing as closure. Not when you’ve spent the past hundred years searching for your soul mate.” He gripped his coffee mug, igniting the tiniest crack, so small only steam poked through. “No…there’s torture and then there’s death. That’s all he has waiting for him.” Andre stared up at the ceiling, grief and a long gulp of coffee turning his throat red. “I’m worried about him, Roman. I’m worried about all of them.”

  “All of who?” I asked.

  “The other Rogues,” he said, setting down his cup again. “What’s going to happen to them after Bryn wakes the Dreamers and takes their dreams?”

  I glanced at the bathroom light again. “You mean what’s going to happen to us?”

  Andre shook his head. “I’m not worried about what’s going to happen to me. I’ve lived, I’ve loved Olivia. I’m lucky. I’m talking about the Rogues who’ve never met their Dreamers, at least not in the real world.”

  I was quiet, considering for the first time where Devyn’s Rogue might be. Who he or she might be. Could he sense it when it happened? Did she feel her death?

  “Do you remember what it felt like before you met Bryn? That…” Andre gritted his teeth, “ache?”

  It was hard to remember my life before I met Bryn. Everything was drowning under the slosh and syrup of alcohol, masked by the smell of smoke and the taste of my mother’s sleeping pills. I’d been so desperate to make myself numb, not just because my mother hated me or even because I hated myself. But because I hurt. Sometimes I didn’t even know why. Sometimes it was just this…ache. To feel something, anything. Someone.

  “Yes,” I finally said.

  He narrowed his gaze. “Do you think they’ll feel that forever?”

  My pulse stuttered. I couldn’t imagine anything worse than to be caught in the anticipation of Bryn but never actually knowing her. Never knowing that freedom, that forgiveness. That kind of love. If the Rogues lived, if we all lived, would loving anyone else even be possible?

  Domingo leaned against the fridge, phone gripped in his fist. “Valentina just called.”

  “Shit…” Andre took another chug of his coffee before sliding the mug to Dani for a refill. I couldn’t tell if he was relieved or worried.

  “Cream?” she asked, getting to her feet.

  Andre let out a belch as he wiped the sweat from his bald head. “Vodka.” He looked to Domingo. “What’s the news?”

  “She and Charles were en route but I told them to hang tight, that we’d all be leaving soon and we’d be sending coordinates their way.” He tried to meet Andre’s eyes. “They’re safe.”

  “That’s good news,” I said.

  For weeks no one had known if Valentina and Charles had been possessed by the shadows or if they’d just fallen off the face of the earth. The Rogues had lost track of each other in their effort to find Michael while at the same time avoiding the unfortunate mistake of him finding them first.

  I dreaded coming face to face with Valentina more than I dreaded hurting another one of the innocent Dreamers still waiting their turn on Celia’s porch. Her husband’s body was dead. I tried not to imagine what she’d do to his captors once she found them. I wondered what she might try to do to Bryn when we finally had to force him inside his corpse.

  Charles’ Dreamer, Callum, had been badly burned down the right side of his body but he was still alive. Despite the pain he’d be in once he finally woke up, I could only imagine the relief he’d feel to know that Charles had never stopped looking for him. Charles would feel more than that but I knew he wouldn’t indulge in anything, much less gratitude, after finding out that Lathan, the man who’d saved him, would never feel the same kind of joy.

  “It is good news,” Andre finally said.

  “Then what’s that look for?” I asked.

  He sighed. “Shit’s about to hit the fan, that’s all.” He leaned back. “When we started all of this we were just this ragtag group of suicidal superheroes trying to find the ones we’d lost. Once we became a family it wasn’t just about Olivia anymore. It was about all of them. All or nothing. We were in this thing together.” He stared at his hands. “We were going to find our Dreamers. Together.”

  “We will,” Domingo said.

  Andre glanced in his direction. “I’m sorry.” His face flushed and I knew he was thinking about the dozens of bodies we’d carried upstairs. I knew he was thinking about how Stassi’s wasn’t one of them.

  I remembered the day Domingo had cornered me in the parking lot of the hospital in Germany. He’d slammed me against the hood of a car, demanding answers about the Dreamer Michael had been looking for. Michael had thought that Stassi’s ability to revisit the past was the key to finding Darina, to finding all of their Dreamers, and he’d had us searching all over the city for her. Domingo had been the one tracking her but only because he was desperate to find her first. Because she was his sister.

  Back then, Domingo and Stassi were the only other pair Bryn and I had ever met, their connection putting our own in context. For the first time I was able to witness the invincible threads we were bound by, and even though they’d taken on a different shape, the gravity of that love was the same. It was just as real. It was just as powerful. And now it was just as heartbreaking.

  “We’ll find them,” Domingo said. “Just like we always said we would.” But he wasn’t looking at Andre. He was watching Stassi’s silhouette through the window where she stood with Shay on the front porch. She was holding Shay’s arm, trying to ground herself in the present in order to ward off the ghosts. Ghosts that would soon outnumber us all.

  I watched Shay just as intently as Domingo watched Stassi, reading her shadow for even an ounce of the maddening grief that had Lathan locked away upstairs. We hadn’t found her Dreamer Calvin’s body with the others and it was the sounds of her fellow Rogues reunited or finally grieving that had forced her to guard the Dreamers outside. She’d barely said a word but every time I’d caught her eye I knew she was replaying the last memory she had of him. She’d woken into Calvin’s dreams just as something awful was dragging him out. He’d been injured and bleeding, barely alive. And then he’d disappeared.

  She’d shared with me in secret her theories about the Dreamers’ disappearances and how she didn’t think the shadows were killing the Dreamers on purpose. She was right. Anso was never intent on killing the Dreamers, only on torturing them until he found Bryn. He knew he couldn’t truly destroy the Dreamers without finding her first. And he had. He’d drained her body and she’d broken him into pieces. Now he was weakened and waiting. Maybe even watching.

  Andre stood, not just finally making eye contact with Domingo but reaching for him. “We’ll find them.” He pulled Domingo into a hug, fist pounding twice against his back. They gripped each other’s shoulders, let go. “I’m going to get some things packed,” Andre said. “It’s time.”

  Domingo nodded. “I’m going to check on Stassi.”

  “You should check on Bryn.” Dani stared at the faint bar of light beneath the bathroom door between sips of her coffee. “I’m…worried about her.”

  “Worried” was an understatement. If I was being honest, part of me felt the same way about Dani. I wondered how many cups of coffee she’d had since yesterday. After Celia had exorcised the shadow from Dani she’d slept for hours. Felix too. But that was before Bryn’s body was kidnapped. Before we’d found Anso’s prison in the middle of a Colombian mountain range. Before we’d gotten separated and Bryn had faced Anso alone. Before she died.

  Dani and Celia had been taking silent shifts, checking on Bryn’s body when she wasn’t looking. That was the real reason Dani’s hands were trembling from all the caffeine. She wanted to be there for Bryn. Maybe to be there when she woke up. I wanted to ask Dani if she believed she would. I needed to know that someone else was hoping as hard as I was.

 
; Instead I said, “You guys must be exhausted.” I avoided her eyes the same way I was avoiding her advice to check on Bryn. I was too afraid of rejection to knock on that bathroom door just yet. “Why don’t you get some rest?”

  “Where?” Felix scratched at the chip on his coffee mug. “Every bed’s sort of already taken.”

  “I don’t want to sleep,” Dani said.

  I lowered my voice. “She would want you to.”

  “Well, this is my sixth cup.” Felix held up his mug, the porcelain stamped with Caffeine Queen in bright pink letters. “And as Queen, I hereby declare the entire world in a State of Emergency, which means that all bedtimes will be henceforth eradicated. Besides…” he paused, “what Andre said about the Rogues who are still out there…maybe that’s where I can help.”

  “We want to help,” Dani added.

  “We can help,” Felix clarified. “You should let us.”

  “You think you can find them?” I asked, considering the possibility of returning the Dreamers where they belonged—not just to their bodies but to their Rogues.

  He nodded. “We’ll funnel the names through every social media platform in existence. It’s amateur-level sleuthing but if that’s all the danger you’ll let us get into I’ll take it.”

  “It is,” I said, remembering the last time Felix had gotten too close to danger.

  The shadow had dragged Dani onto a rooftop near the hospital in Germany. It had lured Felix in under the guise of Dani’s pain and then she’d stabbed him in the hand with the metal wire she’d been using to carve into her skin. And yet, here they were, still side by side. By Bryn’s side. By mine. I didn’t want Felix or Dani getting involved in this any more than was necessary. Not because I didn’t trust them but because they were Bryn’s family. They were my friends.

  “I’ll approve your amateur-level sleuthing as long as it stays on the amateur level,” I said.

  Felix saluted. “I won’t let you down, Captain.” He downed the last of his coffee and raised an eyebrow at the cup I hadn’t touched yet. “You gonna drink that?”

  I slid it in his direction. “Whose going to be the queen’s successor after you have a massive heart attack from all of this caffeine?”

  “I’ve got the heart of an ox.” Felix slapped his chest. Then he coughed.

  “Too hard?”

  He rubbed out the sting. “Sometimes I don’t know my own strength.”

  Dani rolled her eyes. “I would obviously be his successor. In fact, in his weakened condition I should probably just take over now.” She looked right at me. “And my first order of decree is for you to rescue Bryn from her own reflection.” Her voice fell. “Beneath the door I could see her feet in front of the sink and I could hear the water barely trickling out. She’s looking for something in there. Answers. A way out.”

  I glanced back at the bar of light across the floor. “I know you’ve seen the way she looks at me.” My throat burned. “You’ve seen it, Dani.”

  She softened but what I hoped was her finally warming up to me was really just pity. “She’s angry. Wouldn’t you be?”

  “I am angry,” I said. “And confused and…” Don’t. Don’t name it.

  “Me too,” Dani said. “But not as angry or confused as she must be.” She pinched her lips into a thin line, straining against the sting of tears. She let out a tight breath, as if she was surprised there were any left at all. “Please, Roman. Don’t give up.” She reached across the table, hand quaking as she gripped my fist. “Please.”

  My heart lodged in my throat and I swallowed it back down. “I won’t.”

  5

  Bryn

  I stood over the bathroom sink, hands hanging under the scalding water. I scrubbed at my thumbnail; shivering and trying not to rip it clean off. Devyn’s blood was lodged deep and swimming against my skin, trying to become a part of it. Just like every other piece of her.

  When I’d touched Devyn I’d seen it all: her sneaking out of her bunk at summer camp, the pile of speeding tickets stuffed inside the glove compartment in her car, the boy she used to make out with in the backseat. I saw her grandmother die of cancer, and Devyn’s older sister convincing her to get a tattoo on the inside of her lower lip, and their father yelling at Devyn at the kitchen table most mornings before she went to school.

  I saw Devyn going through the motions, nodding and smiling at people who weren’t supposed to still be strangers. I heard every thought she’d ever had about them and about herself. She didn’t like herself very much. I felt that too. Until the night she woke into her dreams different, the scales not just a new skin but a new start and a new way of being in the world.

  She liked being untouchable. I saw her testing her armor against flames and steel and falling. I saw her try to destroy herself and I saw the terrible thing that filled her when she realized she couldn’t. I saw Devyn’s life from start to finish but all I could remember now was the pain. Pain I’d inflicted without hesitating.

  I remembered Sebastian and I pressed to the stone overhang as we watched Victor’s body being tortured by Anso, Victor watching it too. Anso had been testing him, trying to force him to show his abilities. And in his helplessness he’d shown Anso everything, maneuvering the girl next to him like a doll until she’d plunged her finger into her own eye. Victor had been controlling the girl and Anso had been controlling Victor. But as I’d stood over Devyn…as I’d carved her open…who had been controlling me?

  There was a light knock on the door, Roman stepping inside before I could tell him not to. His skin had cooled, drained of more than just the heat. I searched for a flash of horror on his face, his shaking hands betraying everything. But it didn’t stop him from coming closer.

  “Here.” He handed me a fresh towel, trying to read my eyes through the reflection in the mirror.

  I stared at the blood disappearing down the drain. “Thanks.”

  “Are you alright?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know how to.

  He stood beside me, wilting the longer I didn’t look back. “That was a stupid question. I’m sorry.”

  I cleared my throat. “I’m fine.”

  He stared at the side of my face. “Sometimes I forget how good you are at that.”

  “At what?”

  He sighed. “Lying.”

  I didn’t have the energy to argue. The memory of the ocean in Devyn’s eyes turning red played on a loop. I remembered Roman beneath her, a death grip around each arm. Then she’d collapsed and he’d slid out from under her. He’d stared at her body like it was something familiar. He gave me the same look now.

  “So are you,” I said, finally meeting his eyes in the mirror, recognizing the darkness in him too.

  “I’m good at pretending,” he said. “It’s different.”

  It was different. Roman’s lies were more a product of fear than necessity. His fears followed him everywhere, the shadows feeding off them like sharks drawn to a drop of blood. Even now they hung on his limbs, in his voice—every fear he had about being inadequate, about being evil, about being alone; every fear he had about the future and the past pressing in on us between those bathroom walls. They booby-trapped us both, each touch treading too close to trip wire, our lips full of dynamite. Even standing this close to him felt like a betrayal, because I knew that after tonight there’d be no quelling his deepest fears. No more pretending that they didn’t exist. Because I would be one of them.

  He looked down. “I don’t want to pretend right now, Bryn. I don’t want to lie or bottle this up inside.”

  I retreated again, wishing he’d stop trying to lure out the truth.

  “You just had to do something horrible,” he said.

  “We both did. We had to.”

  “Maybe. But that doesn’t mean it was right. That doesn’t mean it didn’t ruin some part of you.”

  Ruined. Was I? Had I done the same to Roman? The night he’d almost killed Drew I’d seen him on the verge of losing
himself and I’d fought to drag him away from the edge. I thought I’d saved him. As if being a killer was the worst thing that could ever happen to him. But now I was the one standing out on that ledge, and instead of trying to drag me back, to save me, Roman was willing to make that leap too.

  “I don’t want to talk about what we’re doing. I can’t talk about it.” I ground my teeth, the faint sting of tears only making me angrier.

  “You need to talk about it.”

  “How many more?” I shook my head. “How many more people will I have to hurt? If I stop to think…to count them…I’ll never get through this.” I hung my head, my fingernails sparkling and silver. Devyn’s armor climbed to my wrists and I lifted my hand, Roman mesmerized by his reflection within the sheen. “I know what I’ve done. I don’t need to hide in here with you to talk about my feelings.”

  Roman leaned over me. “You can’t lock them away and let them fester. Please…”

  His chin grazed my shoulder and I recoiled, our bodies shrinking right before our eyes, somehow still refusing to become the weapons we knew they really were. I wondered what would happen if we kept dissolving like this but the thought was too comforting and I swatted it away.

  “Please, just…don’t shut me out. Talk to me. Talk to me and everything will—”

  “Stay exactly the same.” I faced him. “You don’t get it, Roman. There’s nothing festering. There’s nothing…I feel…nothing.”

  He took a step back, the shock I’d expected earlier burning in his cheeks. He looked sick. “Is that why you won’t touch me?”

  The door rattled, Domingo clearing his throat on the other side. “I don’t mean to interrupt…”

  I pulled the door open, restless and ready to get as far away from Roman as possible. “What’s wrong?”