The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  “The look on Bryn’s face…” I tried to shake off the memory. “She looked like she’d done something horrible.”

  “It was an accident,” Vogle said. “She has to know that.”

  “She’ll never see it that way. Especially not after what happened to Felix and now Malin. For Bryn, failure isn’t an option.”

  Vogle sighed. “Especially not when failure means someone is dead.”

  Dead. Bryn knew the dead. Not just because her body lay with them and not just because she’d dug this grave with her bare hands. But because of what she’d done to Dr. Lombard and the people who’d taken Ian and all of the others who’d been caught in the chaos we’d left behind.

  When I’d seen her dragging Malin through the water, the look on Bryn’s face telling me she was dead, I was only surprised by the fact that Bryn seemed surprised. And I hated myself for thinking it, but even as Bryn apologized, even as she shook, wrecked by what had happened, I’d wondered for a split second if she’d given into her own darkness.

  “What’s happening out there?” Vogle asked.

  I was quiet, not sure if telling Vogle the truth would help the situation or only make it worse.

  “What’s happening to her?” He sounded afraid, maybe even a little angry. But not as afraid or as angry as I was. Because he wasn’t as helpless as I was.

  “She’s…” I wasn’t willing to call it murder just yet. But just because our hands were clean didn’t mean it wasn’t. And when you kill, when you steal, when you take something that doesn’t belong to you there are always consequences.

  “She’s killing people.” Vogle’s words cut like a knife. “That’s how she sees it, anyway. She’s delivering the Dreamers to their dead bodies as if she was the murderer.”

  She is one, I almost said. We both are.

  A few months earlier and the thought may have brought me some kind of twisted relief. I was still sick from what I’d done to Carlisle but watching Bryn tread so closely to contracting the same disease—the kind you can only catch when you’re close, when you can see the light dimming behind someone’s eyes as you blow out the flame—only made me sicker.

  How could I save her if I couldn’t even save myself? It struck me that I’d been asking myself that question for the past year. Maybe I’d never find an answer. Or maybe I’d die trying. Maybe we both would.

  Back inside, I expected to find Bryn isolated somewhere upstairs, maybe staring at her body, wanting to climb back into it. But she was sitting next to Felix on the couch, his feet propped up, an IV in his arm, gauze covering his left eye. He scratched at it, drowsy as Dani tried to get him to drink something.

  “How is he?” I asked Vogle.

  “Better than I would be.” He lowered his voice. “It’s gone. Completely. I finally stopped the worst of the bleeding but he needs to rest.”

  “Morphine drip hasn’t knocked him out yet?”

  “It did for a couple of hours. Dani even managed to sleep a little too. But Celia’s been giving him some kind of ‘supernatural cocktail’ that smells like coffee. Ever since he woke up he’s been asking Dani to refresh the webpages open on his laptop and give him an update on the news.”

  “Bryn’s not really helping, either,” Cole whispered as he slid next to me.

  Stassi was still clutching his arm, her other hand holding a clear jar. Something white rolled near the bottom of the glass.

  I jumped. “What the hell is that?”

  A strain of blood twisted, the murky water shifting as Felix’s eye rolled to stare right at me.

  Stassi held up the jar. “It’s healing.” She furrowed her brow, nose almost to the glass. “I think…”

  Cole waved a hand. “It’s like her pet or something. Anyway,” he lowered his voice again, “Bryn came in, didn’t say a word to Felix about his eye, and just started asking all these crazy questions.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, she’s in serious denial and so is he.”

  I trained my ear on Bryn and Felix’s conversation, Dani trying to mediate as Felix answered with mostly yawns.

  “Anything about him being a missing person?” Bryn asked.

  “There’s nothing new since the press conference outside the hospital.”

  “What about on social media? Has he posted anything recently?”

  “Not for almost a year,” Dani cut in, the laptop on her knees. “The account’s cold.”

  “And the girl’s?” Bryn asked.

  Dani clicked the mouse. “Same.”

  “Nothing…” Bryn cupped her face in her hands, elbows on her knees. “I don’t understand.”

  “Don’t understand what?” I asked.

  Everyone looked to Bryn. She stared at the floor.

  “Sebastían,” she finally said. “He was there…” She looked up. “He got to Malin before I did. He touched her…”

  Sebastían. I sifted through memories, trying to match his face with the dark form I’d seen crash into the waves. Had he been following us? Had he been the one who’d pulled me out of the water?

  “He took her dreams?” Vogle asked.

  Bryn nodded. “I don’t know how. But it was just like Alma’s vision. Anso’s sending Sebastían after the Dreamers.”

  “Are they trying to take them back to his prison?” Dani asked.

  “No,” Bryn said. “They’re taking the dreams. And then leaving whatever’s left. Malin…” Bryn paused. “I was too late. Sebastían let go of her and she panicked. She drowned.”

  “Twin moons.” Celia’s voice sent a chill down my spine. “One light, one dark.”

  Bryn stared straight ahead. “That’s what Anso’s daughter said the first time she came to me in my dreams. She’d told me to find him. But her brother was never part of the original story, was he?”

  It felt like we’d heard so many different versions of Bryn’s origin story. But the most terrifying version, and the version that was probably closest to the truth, was the one Celia had told the night we finally found her. It started with Bryn being the reincarnated version of Anso’s psychotic daughter and ended with Bryn losing her mind while nightmares crawled out of the bowels of hell and destroyed the world. Unless Bryn found every single Dreamer, took their dreams, and somehow made herself whole again before time ran out.

  Celia was quiet now, hands wringing her apron. She looked to Rafael and then to the floor.

  Bryn gripped the couch. “Celia.”

  “He could have been any one of the names on your list, Bryn.” Celia finally looked at her. “But if you knew who he was or that he existed at all, you might not have been able to do what you needed to. I didn’t speak of him…for your sake. You have to believe that.”

  “What are you talking about?” Bryn stood. “You lied to me about my father. And now this…what else is there?” She was toe to toe with Celia, cheeks burned red. “Are the Dreamers even safe here?”

  I tried to step between them but Bryn thrust me back.

  “We can’t trust you. We never could.”

  “You can trust me,” Celia said.

  Bryn’s shoulders heaved and I tried to imagine what she was wrestling with, what kind of monster was thrashing inside her and trying to tear its way out. “Then prove it.”

  “Anso’s daughter was supposed to be the only one,” Celia spoke in a rush, “the moon carving a place in her mother’s womb for a single child that was both light and dark. Symmetry is a part of nature. Without balance things can…go wrong.”

  “Where did things go wrong, exactly?” I asked, prompting Celia before Bryn could speak. I needed her to stay calm and just listen.

  “The mother became ill. She had a very difficult pregnancy. She died during childbirth and from her corpse they pulled two infants. Twins. The girl was pulled out first.”

  “So, technically she was the First Dreamer,” Dani clarified. “But what happened to the other one?”

  “He died too,” Bryn said. “The whole family was
killed.”

  “And reincarnated,” Celia said. “Every Dreamer alive today is a living remnant of that slaughter.”

  “And Sebastían?” Bryn asked.

  “If he’s the reincarnation of Anso’s son, then he’s your mirror reflection in every way. When you go left, he goes right, and it’s this divergence that is so dangerous.”

  “But dangerous to who?” I said, watching Bryn’s every move.

  “Sebastían may not have been strong enough to break Anso’s curse…”

  “You mean to kill him,” Bryn said.

  “Right. But he may share in your ability to find the Dreamers and take their dreams. If he can harvest enough, maybe he could even end Anso’s life.”

  “Anso’s obviously using him for something,” Bryn said. “And since he didn’t try to attack me, maybe it’s not me they’re after.”

  “Not yet,” Celia said. “But you’re the key to ending the curse, Bryn.”

  “By finding the Dreamers and putting the pieces back together,” Bryn said.

  “That’s the first step.”

  “What’s the final step?” I asked.

  Celia looked right at Bryn. “Dying yourself…”

  Bryn looked away, indifferent. “Anso’s already taken care of that part.”

  “Your body was nothing,” Celia said. “Once you’ve found the rest of the Dreamers and taken their dreams, Anso will need a weapon just as powerful to rid you of yours too. Especially if…”

  “If what?” I asked.

  Bryn sighed. “If I become chaos in the meantime. If I lose my mind and start killing everyone.”

  “Could you…” Celia stopped.

  “Could I what?” Bryn asked.

  I waited to see the guilt on Bryn’s face or to hear it in her voice. But she was no longer paralyzed by the things she’d done. She was vacant and numb, and compared to the memory of her heaving and shaking in Dani’s lap after touching Olivia, I wasn’t sure what scared me more.

  “Could you do something you know is wrong? If every cell in your body was warning you that you were making a mistake, could you still go through with it?”

  “You mean could I destroy Sebastían?” Bryn asked.

  “Yes,” Celia said. “But more importantly, could you destroy yourself?”

  I boiled. “Stop it.”

  Everyone stared at the floor or the walls, anything but my face. Except for Bryn. She stared right at me, right through me.

  “Stop it,” I breathed. “Not now. Not yet.”

  Bryn practically growled. “Then when?”

  My legs fought to break into a run while my eyes stayed pinned to Bryn’s face. I needed her to see what she’d done, what she was doing to me every time her voice betrayed how much she was looking forward to the end.

  When she looked away I almost fell straight down, my knees buckling before my flaming muscles carried me through the kitchen and into the hallway. I fell against the wall, flowered wallpaper behind me smoking. I took a step back, watching the heat wilt the paper petals.

  “Don’t do this yet.” Adham pressed his hand over the smoke until it stopped slipping through his fingers.

  “Then when?” I mirrored the self-righteousness that had been in Bryn’s voice.

  Adham lowered his. “She wants nothing more than to do the rest of this alone. Don’t let her get what she wants.”

  I pressed my hands against the wall, holding myself up. I peered at Adham over my shoulder “She doesn’t want me.”

  “And do you think that’s ever stopped me from protecting Cole?” Adham twisted my shoulder, turning me to face him. “You have a job to do, Roman. Bryn may not believe that. She may not want your protection. She may not even think she needs it. But the greater the distance between the two of you, the greater the risk.”

  “She’s stronger than me in every way,” I said. “And she’s already…” I pinched my eyes shut, bracing myself for the words I hadn’t said out loud yet. “She’s already dead.”

  “She still needs protecting,” Adham said.

  My face fell. “From what?”

  He leaned in, forcing me to look. “Herself.”

  I didn’t hear anything Adham said after that. As he disappeared back into the living room not even his footsteps made a sound. The silence only amplified my thoughts. My fears. How could I save Bryn when I didn’t know how? How could I even try when she wouldn’t let me?

  What would happen to her if I didn’t?

  The quiet swelled like a magnetic force, pulling my focus to the picture frames that lined the hall. My vision blurred, unable to see the faces past the glass. I blinked and saw her reflection instead.

  My mother looked back, speaking slow as if she wasn’t sure I was real.

  “Mom—?”

  I moved closer and her expression changed, finally registering my stare on the other side of the glass. Her neck strained with a shout, frantic as she repeated the same words over and over.

  “Mom…”

  I traced her lips but there was nothing. She pressed her hands to the glass, trying to force the sound through. I reached back, listening as hard as I could, trying to decipher every word. Silence.

  “Mom, please.”

  My finger touched the glass and it filled with smoke. It bled across my mother’s face and then she vanished, swallowed up in swirls of grey.

  I stared at my hands, trying to find the force that had pushed her away. That was pushing Bryn away too. What was wrong with me?

  Adham was right. Of course Adham was right.

  I remembered the shattered mirror at the bottom of the bathroom sink, my mother’s hand across my face, her wrists in my fists as I tried to hold her still. The memory unraveled in reverse until I was tangled in steam and sharp edges and blood.

  I looked up at the picture frame again, steam peeling back beneath the glass until I could see my mother’s arm hanging over the side of the tub and slipping into the water, her hair swirling around her face as her body eased beneath the surface. The water turned to rust and then I could barely see her outline beneath the blood.

  I pushed away from the wall, falling against the flowered wallpaper again. My head spun and I breathed slow, trying not to wake up. But as my thoughts churned, tumbling end over end until I thought I was going to be sick, I couldn’t stop seeing her—her body in that bathtub; her face behind the glass. I replayed every twitch of her mouth, imagining Adham’s words on her lips. Save her, Roman. Save her.

  I’d tried to save my mother from herself once. But you can’t save someone else when you’re just as broken as they are. Which meant that I couldn’t let Bryn break me. I couldn’t let her distance, her coldness, her emptiness break me. I couldn’t let her break my heart.

  When I found my way back to the living room she ignored me, staring at the old grandfather clock, the numbers meaningless without the possibility of daylight.

  She looked at Celia as she spoke. “Maybe Sebastían’s connected to me somehow but that doesn’t mean he can do everything I can do. There’s a reason he was never part of the original story. He’s not as powerful as I am.”

  Or maybe he’s been hidden in the folds of history because he is, I thought, because he’s the only thing more powerful.

  When Bryn finally looked away from the clock I thought that she’d heard me, my thoughts amplified by fear.

  “I want to try something,” she said. “Somehow I was able to get to Kira, Alma, and Ian before Sebastían, which means that he’s not following me in real time. Now that I’ve seen the order in Alma’s vision we’ve got a small lead on him. If I can somehow make that lead greater we may be able to keep our paths from crossing until…they absolutely have to.”

  “You mean manipulate time?” Vogle asked.

  Bryn nodded. “I’ve done it before.” She finally looked at me. “You remember when I slowed that bullet that was headed straight for Alma’s sister. And when I stopped them in their tracks when they were trying to lose us.
”

  “Stopping a person or an object isn’t the same as stopping time,” Vogle said.

  Bryn kept her eyes on me, waiting for me to tell everyone that she was right; that she could do this. But what if she couldn’t? What if manipulating time set off some kind of ripple effect that only made everything more dangerous?

  “I already travelled back in time that night I dreamt of my grandmother’s childhood home. And then again when I went back to make things right. I know how risky it can be but it’s the only way.”

  “She’s right.” I spoke without thinking. I could see that Bryn was on the verge of disappearing again and all I wanted was to go with her. To be trapped with her in a place where her touch was safety, where her hand in mine was as necessary as it used to be. “She slowed time when we were escaping with Ian…” I added, “just long enough to avoid the explosion.”

  Bryn was quiet, our most convincing argument the one she was most ashamed of. Or maybe that look on her face was all in my head.

  When she looked at Vogle and said, “I know what I’m doing,” I realized that it must have been.

  Bryn didn’t hesitate before pulling the list of Dreamers from her pocket, the paper a soggy warped mess. The ink dripped down her wrist and she gripped it in her fist, a slight tremor racing up her arm as she turned it over. She grimaced; the names carved black into her skin one letter at a time. She let out a breath. “The hours we’re gone will be nothing but minutes. We finish this tonight.”

  22

  Felix

  The sound of static drags me under. I’m swimming in wings and teeth and rain that smells like blood. I want to open my eyes and see, to match the smell with the slickness of my skin, to match the teeth with something I can fight. I want to fight but I can barely breathe.

  The first prick makes me jump and then I’m covered in moving monsters, so small I’m afraid of inhaling. I pinch my lips shut. I cover my nose. I bury my face. They find me anyway.

  I’m ripped open, one clawing at my jaw, reaching for my lips. I gnash my teeth, a few locusts crawling inside while others dig new holes. In my cheek. In my neck. One plucks at my eyelashes like strings, ripping, ripping until the skin is gone.