The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I lie as flat and still as I possibly could, letting the sweat drip from my skin and soak into the blankets. Eventually I ripped them off, letting the ceiling fan wake me instead.

  You’re awake.

  That was all that mattered. I was awake. I was alive.

  That’s all that matters. You’re okay. That’s all that matters.

  I reached to scratch at the gauze but I forced myself to reach for the laptop instead. The last thing I needed to do was touch it. To remember.

  So, I’d lost an eye. My fucking eye. I didn’t need both to keep my promise to Roman about finding the other Rogues. I didn’t need both to be useful.

  I opened the tabs and files I’d been working on earlier and tapped the mic on my cellphone against my lips. “Testing. Testing.” The sound waves spiked and I cleared my throat. “Okay, so, first Rogue. Franco Aros. Twenty-two. Married to Zandra Aros. Currently picking her up at terminal G at the Buenos Aires airport. Both Alive.”

  I clicked to the next tab on my browser window and scrolled through the dummy email I’d been using to contact some of the Rogues. Dani thought antibodysnatcher@gmail.com was too terrifying to warrant any responses. I thought it was trustworthy. The Rogues who’d already met their Dreamers probably knew they were missing and I figured stating outright that I was not the person who took them would be a good way to open the conversation.

  “Next Rogue: Ana Ennes. Twenty-six. Lives with Claudio Muniz but not married (she doesn’t believe in marriage and she blogs about it a lot). Currently sending me death threats while she waits for Claudio’s train to pull into the station. Which should be happening in…five…four…three…two…”

  Ana sent me what was more than likely another death threat and I clicked on the fresh link to read the message.

  I see him exiting the train but I still think you brainwashed him or did some other freaky shit to him and I will find you and make you pay for it so sleep with one eye open or pray that the world really does come to an end because that’s the only way you will ever escape me.

  I typed back: Don’t worry. I will run as long and far as that run-on sentence.

  I leaned back, staring at her blog photo and picturing those big red lips twisting into a snarl. Hopefully she’d get the humor once Claudio explained to her how the Rogues saved his life. Maybe then she’d be more inclined to spare mine too.

  Another email popped up and I clicked on it.

  “Catherine Dixon. Seventeen. Not allowed to date (father’s a Baptist preacher). Currently driving her older sister’s (stolen) car from Boise, Idaho to Salt Lake City, Utah, where Mitchell Hanson was abandoned roadside after the bus driver bailed…along with every other bus driver in the country. Catherine is definitely alive—I have thirteen emails from her to prove it. Mitchell…I’m not so sure about.”

  Public transportation was slowly but surely coming to a standstill and I wasn’t sure how many more Dreamers we’d able to toss onto a bus or a plane or a train before the entire world issued a state of emergency. Lots of places already had: Spain, South Africa, Egypt, Afghanistan. Some were places Bryn had already been. Others were close neighbors, close enough for whatever nightmares Bryn was spreading like a plague to find a foothold and explode.

  I cleared my throat again. “Rogue número quatro…”

  “Felix.” Dani slumped down on the bed. “What is this?”

  “Literally or existentially?”

  She sighed. “Literally. What are you doing?”

  “Well, literally, what does it look like I’m doing?”

  She slammed the laptop closed. On my fingers. “You’re supposed to be resting.” Her face softened. “You need to try to get some sleep.”

  “I took a two-hour power nap.” I shrugged. “Besides, Celia says I need to drink that stuff she gave me every couple of hours.”

  Dani grabbed the mug from the nightstand. “We don’t even know what this shit is.” She tried to take a whiff but the smell almost knocked her back. “God, it’s strong.”

  “Yeah, and much better than a power nap.” I took the mug from her and chugged it. “It burns.” I punched my chest. “So good.”

  She fell into my lap, laughing. “Felix…”

  I looked down at her. “How many times do I have to say it?”

  My voice was playful but ignoring the fact that I’d just lost my fucking eye was starting to feel less like a game and more like a war. I was already fighting with myself not to look in the mirror. Not to let Dani see me sad or hurting. I didn’t want to fight with Dani’s sadness too.

  “I’m fine.” I pulled Dani into the crook of my shoulder before opening the laptop again. “I’m working.”

  “Having any luck?”

  I scrolled through my sent folder. “Shit tons.”

  Dani counted the emails. “Wow.” She nestled into the pillows. “Well, don’t let me interrupt.”

  The laptop screen flashed, one of my programs finished cross-checking photos of Devyn from her social media profile with any other images of her on the web. There were hardly any photos of her with someone else and I figured there was probably some kind of secret boyfriend or girlfriend situation going on.

  It was funny, this was the same program I’d sent Bryn when she was looking for Roman and still trying to prove that he wasn’t just some figment of her imagination. Now I was using it to find others like him, trying to connect them with their Dreamers the same way.

  “Gotcha.”

  On the third results page there was a slew of pictures of Devyn and some guy, his arm around her shoulder, her lips pressed to his cheek.

  “Looks like he wasn’t exactly shy about their relationship,” Dani said.

  I dragged the photo into the same program I’d used to scan Devyn’s and kicked off the search. “I guess being made of fire means not even over-protective fathers are much of a threat.”

  My head throbbed, Vogle’s morphine losing its grip on me. I reached for the coffee mug before I realized it was empty.

  “Need a refill?” Dani asked.

  I nodded. “Some more juice from Vogle too if he’s not busy.”

  I scratched at the gauze, the sweat almost instantaneous. I took a deep breath, trying not to focus on the pain. It was scary how fast it set in again once the meds wore off. I didn’t like that jolt back to reality, that throbbing reminder of why I was laid up in bed in the first place. It was easy to forget about it when I was numb and inches from my computer screen. But every couple of hours my skull absorbed the shock again and so did my heart.

  I slid the laptop off my legs and kicked off the blankets, trying to get cool. The screen flashed just as Dani and Vogle’s voices drifted down the hall. The first link that pulled up was a newspaper article. I opened it. And then I froze.

  “How are you feeling?” I heard Vogle’s voice but I couldn’t make myself look at him.

  Brandon Hartfield.

  “Felix?” Dani sat next to me. “Vogle’s here.” She waved a hand.

  Vogle crouched too. “Felix…?”

  I scanned the date on Brandon’s obituary.

  Two days ago.

  “Th-t c-n’t b…possible.” My voice came out low and scrambled.

  Dani leaned in. “What did you find?”

  I turned the screen to face them both. They both grew still.

  “Is that one of the Rogues?” Dani asked.

  I nodded.

  “And he’s…” She gripped my knee. “He’s dead…?”

  I couldn’t look away from the screen. “Looks like it.”

  Dani turned to Vogle. “I thought the shadows or Anso had somehow cursed all of the Rogues so that they couldn’t die.”

  “But before that curse…” My throat was pocked with shards of glass, “weren’t you all cursed so that you couldn’t die until the Dreamers did?”

  Vogle nodded, slow. “According to the origin story the Rogues told me and Roman, we were created to protect the Dreamers until there was nothing left
to protect, until they were delivered to a peaceful and natural death.”

  Dani looked from the screen to Vogle. “Do you think whatever the shadows or Anso did to change that has somehow been undone?”

  I shook my head. “But…Lathan. He’s still alive and we all know his Dreamer’s, well, you know…”

  “And Roman,” Dani said. “Bryn’s…and he’s still—”

  Vogle’s eyebrows drew together. “Who was his Dreamer? This Brandon Hartfield.”

  I scrolled down the obituary to a collage of family photos.

  Vogle’s forearms met the mattress. The sight of her almost sunk him all the way to the floor. “Devyn.”

  Dani sat back. “They died on the same day.”

  I felt lightheaded again, cold sweat returning. “But how?”

  23

  Emir

  Our tracks turn to ice behind us as my father measures the bark of each tree. Ten paces north, thirty paces east. We cross the forest, checking our traps for flesh and fur. Most hunting trips he lets me carry the squirrels and rabbits in my satchel and I give them names they’ll never know. Today my satchel is empty and so are our stomachs.

  “Be careful in these snow drifts, Emir. You could fall straight through.”

  The forest is full of holes and I place each foot in my father’s prints, looking out for mice or any sign of something living. The summer brought a drought that turned to ice, luring us farther into the forest than we’ve ever had to go before. But the animals are just as scarce as the rain and the only way to find them is to walk where they walk and sleep where they sleep. As night falls with still no sign of life, the more afraid I am of finding their ghosts.

  My father finds us a seam between two rocks and we make a fire that finally wakes my skin. Porridge heats over the flame in a tin can, my father spooning it into a bowl for each of us. It’s stiff by the time it hits my lips, but even though it tastes like mud, the smell of it cooking reminds me of my mother. I finish my porridge in three big bites and when my stomach is still growling my father gives me his.

  Then he leans against his pack and turns the cracks in the stone into words, the words weaving themselves into stories about warriors and talking beasts and witches who lure men deep into the forest.

  “They whisper through the leaves,” my father says. “When those whispers become a song, then they’ve got you.”

  “I don’t hear anything,” I say, straining to catch something past the crackle of flames.

  All my father says is, “Good.”

  Then I hear it. My father hums, each note a phantom in the wind. He starts to sing the song my mother used to love and I imagine their voices dancing together. I imagine that she’s still alive.

  The heat of the fire makes my eyes burn, sleep and my father’s song trying to tug them closed. I almost let them when I hear something else. I sit up, leaves rustling, but then I notice that the fire’s nothing but a ghost of smoke. I don’t know how long I’ve been sleeping but when I blink I see more ghosts. From where I lay, their white bodies are as bright as the snow and as wide as mountains. Then I see their teeth.

  “Emir, don’t move.” My father slowly rises to his knees, reaching for his bow.

  I try to do as he says but I’ve never heard a train this wild, the wolves’ growls pinging from stone to stone until I’m dizzy. There is nothing between me and their bared teeth but my father and his arrow.

  “Be still,” my father breathes.

  I am still. I am frozen, watching the first snout inch towards my father; it’s growl simmering to a thick steam. The wolf snaps and my father lets go of the arrow. The alpha falls and then a tide of sharp claws and teeth crashes in like a flood.

  My father screams, made of paper.

  I scream too, back pressed to the cave wall.

  No, no, no, no. Stop. Stop. Stop.

  Stop.

  Stop.

  The scrape of nails on stone is gone. So are the growls. So is my father’s voice.

  The wolves are backed down to their bellies, lit up red but perfectly still. I scramble for a matchstick, light it with a trembling hand. I see their eyes, all trained on me, ears perked up. Listening.

  I scrape forward an inch, washing the light over my father’s face. His head hangs, lips sputtering blood as he tries to breathe. I steal another inch, waiting for the wolves to pounce, for one swipe to rip me open. But they are still. Still.

  One of the wolves shifts and I freeze. But as he rolls into the body next to him, smearing my father’s blood, I realize it’s not an attack…but an invitation. I crawl to my father’s side. He is colder than anything raging outside these walls and I coax the fire back to life to keep him warm.

  “Em-ir…” My name is cut in half and I know my father is drowning.

  I search his wounds, trying to decide which to patch first, where to apply pressure, how to dress him up and make him whole again. But he is in pieces. I am in pieces.

  The warmth of the fire does nothing. I do nothing. I shudder against the cold and then I feel their bodies move again. The wolves pad forward in unison, surrounding my father and me. They turn in circles, making a bed of their own flesh, their fur blocking the wind. They lay, my father’s shields. I lay too, burying my face in my father’s neck.

  “Emir…”

  I stare into his eyes and wait for death to sweep his gaze, to steal him and leave me here alone.

  “Emir.”

  “Yes? I’m listening.”

  “Emir…sing.”

  I hum my mother’s song until I’m strong enough to take a breath. And then I sing. One by one the wolves hang their heads back, rolling and howling too. A she-wolf with black fur paces in the corner, finally curling on her side around my sleep sack. She nuzzles at the blankets, tugging the folds, and then I see myself still wrapped in them.

  24

  Roman

  The air was dank, filled with the musk of living things.

  Chickens chortled as we approached, the cages all around us filled with livestock. A long horn jutted out from between two bars, the big glistening eye of a steer peering out at me. It was forced down to its belly, the crate barely big enough for the beast.

  There were others cramped into crude cages made of old fence posting and chicken wire—cows, horses, pigs and goats. Rows and rows of animals I’d only ever seen on farms or in zoos. But there were other animals too. Strange ones I’d never seen before—exotic birds and a hairy mammal on all fours that looked like a cross between a bear cub and a lion.

  Up head there was a slit in the darkness. Tents. We were standing inside one, surrounded by them too. The shadows of people moved outside, shrinking and expanding against the walls. Flashlights glinted as people moved in the grass. But there was no urgency to their voices, their accents harsh and thick and reminding me of Germany.

  Bryn maneuvered us over feed buckets and hoses and I accidentally knocked against a large piece of metal, something tumbling onto the floor. Someone laughed and I realized they hadn’t heard the noise, their footsteps circling the tent but never venturing inside.

  Outside more voices clustered, people drawn together by the drone of music. The sound was like metal striking metal until someone added a bagpipe and a mandolin. I heard the clink of bottles as the dim glow of a fire danced along the tent wall.

  “Sounds like a party,” I whispered.

  “Too bad we’re not invited.”

  I brought my mouth to Bryn’s ear. “Where are we exactly?”

  She pursed her lips, listening for a frequency I couldn’t hear. “I’m not sure.”

  We reached the edge of the tent, the flaps peeling back to reveal a lighted path. We chose the darkness instead, walking adjacent to the trail until we reached another tent, this one larger and twinkling in lights. It was striped red and black, holes pocked in the plastic and patched with burlap. A line of people snaked through one of the entrances.

  Bryn scanned them, her senses on high alert. She pulled me
behind her. “This way.”

  I felt myself disappear from sight and then Bryn led us into the crowd. They jumped and jerked, startled by the invisible force pushing its way to the front of the line. We sidestepped the ticket-taker, his teeth rotted and grey; his shirt marked by a strange red stain that looked like blood.

  Inside the tent, the lights were dim and yellow, sparking the color of cough syrup instead of the color of stars. I counted the dim bulbs, shadows highlighting the patchwork we’d seen from outside. It didn’t look like any childhood carnival from my memories. It looked like the one from Bryn’s.

  She stopped, remembering too. “It’s not what it was.”

  I leaned into her as someone brushed past. “What?”

  “The carnival from my dream-state was never real.” She faced me. “The carnival my mom took me to when I was a kid, it wasn’t as scary as it seemed in the dream-state. I’ve looked back at pictures and it was bright and colorful and happy. But I never remembered it that way because…”

  I examined every dark corner. “Because of the shadows.”

  Without moving an inch, Bryn lifted my chin, breath hitching. “You were there.” She let go, easing back. “You saw me. You saw them.”

  “It was a dream.”

  She looked down. “A dream inside my memories.”

  “She sent me,” I said. “Your great-grandmother. She was trying to help me find a way to reach you when you were trapped in Anso’s prison.”

  Bryn grew still. “And you did.”

  The crowd spilled inside, spotlights sliding across the tent walls as people took their seats. The crowd was scant but boisterous, defiant as they took their seats instead of running. Instead of hiding from a world that was on the verge of tearing apart at the seams. Unless they just hadn’t realized it yet. I didn’t know how far we were from civilization and the news broadcasts that had churned everyone into a frenzy. Maybe these people hadn’t seen the headlines. Or maybe they had and they just didn’t care.