Eyes broke out of the gloom in front of me, pale hands reaching. But they weren’t Carlisle’s. I kicked, trying to fight the current. But as the body approached, I realized that it was just that. I swam past the dead as they sunk all around me, blood trickling from their mouths, from gashes too deep for me to burn back together.
I choked, water fighting its way into my mouth as Andre yanked me towards the surface. I broke into the cold air and there was smoke everywhere, small fires clinging to debris that floated on top of the water. I fanned my arms, trying to stay afloat.
“You alright?” Andre asked.
I shook my head. “I lost him.” I kicked, scanning every direction. “Collin?” I coughed up salt. “Collin!”
There was a soft tick, metal bending, and then an explosion sent Andre and I both diving back underwater. I watched from just below the surface as ash littered the sky.
Andre lit up like a lantern and pointed back towards the debris, the plane starting to sink. I held the air tight in my lungs, drifting around the outskirts of the plane and searching for Collin while trying not to get sucked into the down current. My glow illuminated seat backs, plates, serving carts, and bags full of people’s belongings as they dropped like silent bombs to the bottom of the sea.
There were more bodies too, people wearing the scraps of vests that had been shredded by the explosion, silhouettes in the distance holding hands or clutching each other in a stiff embrace that turned my stomach.
I searched the surface for a pocket of clean air, lifting just my mouth out of the waves as I inhaled. I let my body sink deeper, examining the plane from a safe distance as water rushed into its carcass, splitting it open. But I didn’t see Collin.
I swam to the back of the plane, letting myself drift closer. Row numbers were exposed on the ceiling panels that were still intact and I counted them until I spotted our seats. Ripped clean out.
Something flickered in the corner of my eye, my light refracting off glass. The shards hovered like ornaments, my light passing through the jagged edges like a prism. They drifted down, down, pulling my gaze until another pair was staring back. In the darkness of the ocean, backlit by nothing but the glow of my skin, I saw my mother’s lips within the glass; her shoulder, the current stringing through her long hair.
The glass settled against my open palms. She was in pieces, the force of the water keeping them apart. I tried to melt the edges together, my fingertips pricked and bleeding. But she was whispering something and I had to know what it was.
She pressed her hands to the glass, trapped the same way she’d been behind Celia’s picture frames. My thumb barely grazed the barrier between us, afraid of smudging her out again. She braced herself, shaking as she forced out the same words—the message still undecipherable.
I can’t. I can’t hear you.
The anger bubbled behind my lips. I wanted to scream, my lungs fighting not to let go of the sound. All those years she’d been sick or haunted; all those years she’d been dying right in front of me. I’d fallen asleep to the sound of her crying but I’d never heard what was underneath. I’d never heard what she’d been hiding all that time.
And what if I had? Would she still be here?
If only I’d listened. Please, mom. If only I’d known. I can’t hear you. I’m so sorry. Mom…
She couldn’t hear me either.
Her ghost peeled apart, shrinking until she was out of reach. The current tossed the glass, my hands empty. But the darkness below me wasn’t. I angled my light, the lone beam catching something long and dark. Something human. I kicked, my mother’s hair barely parting to reveal her face. Her eyes were open, staring right at me, her fingers splayed and reaching.
My arms fought the current, fingertips finally catching a piece of her. I caught her dress, pulling her to my chest. She was stiff and so cold, as if she’d been buried here all this time. My shaking hands peeled her hair back and then I lurched, Carlisle’s corpse slipping from my grasp.
The water below me surged as a strong pulse flung me back. I tumbled, an invisible wall chasing me into deeper waters. I watched Carlisle sink and then a band of darkness snatched him out of sight.
My lungs contracted, reminding me that I was weak without air. I lit up, searching for the surface when something bumped me from behind. My arms swam in a circle as I examined the darkness for my mother or another body. There was nothing. My chest ached and I broke the surface for air before sinking back down again, still trying to get a clear view beyond the debris. I had to find Collin before whatever had snatched Carlisle away found him too.
I dove deep, shoving large pieces of metal out of the way as my hand shone like a torch below me. Bodies hung suspended, still yet to reach the bottom, and as I stared past them I wondered if there was such a thing. The ocean felt endless and other-worldly as if it was made of dreams now too, each drop of water dangerous.
The current behind me changed abruptly and I turned, my arm knocking into something hard and cold and giant. I choked down saltwater as the beast circled me, tighter and tighter until its teeth nicked my arm. I kicked; trying to remember every stupid documentary I’d ever seen about sharks, about how to thwart them, about how to survive an attack. But in the dull red glint of a ghoulish moon, the ocean heaving like something living, I realized that these sharks were anything but.
My fists clenched, the heat scalding the shark as it charged me from behind. I swam back towards the surface but it wasn’t empty like it had been before. I guided the light up and down, revealing sharks above me and below. My heart slammed against my ribs, even the space inside me shrinking.
Teeth grazed my calf as a fin knocked the top of my head. The water around me bubbled, the heat keeping them at a safe distance. A few of the sharks turned their attention to the other bodies floating nearby. Their mouths opened wide, drinking in the blood-laced water before tearing the bodies apart. My limbs buckled, vomit trying to force my mouth open.
Bubbles trailed after me as I tried to push past the sharks still circling me from above. They jerked and then they dove straight down, one snapping its jaws around my arm before swimming off, mouth blistered and burnt.
It didn’t matter. Blood trickled up from the wounds, more sharks drawing near. One inched closer and I swung at it with enough force to send it racing for the ocean floor. But the others smelled my blood too, taking turns charging me as I held out every fire-charged limb. The moon shone red above me, my hands reaching for it. Air ruffled my hair as my head broke the surface. But then salt flooded my nose as I was yanked back down, teeth around my calf.
The shark caught fire for only a second before the saltwater put it out again. Their bodies knocked into me, trying to drag me back down. My hand broke free of the water and something fastened around it, my body ripping from the waves. One of the sharks leapt out after me, taking a mouthful of debris instead. Andre gave it one good shock to the nose and it slithered off beneath the waves.
I rolled onto my back, Collin hanging over me. He and Andre were both puffed up like silver balloons, the harnesses Andre had strapped to us inflated around them both. They pulled me towards the center of the plane’s wing, the only piece of it left.
“I thought you were…” I coughed, grasping at the air.
“I’m already dead,” Collin said, “remember?”
It was true. Collin had known long before we’d found him shivering behind a dumpster in Staten Island and for whatever reason he was already at peace with the thought.
Collin was only in his mid-forties but whatever had happened to him in Anso’s prison, whatever had happened to him on those cold city streets as he waited for rescue, was enough to make him ready. Not just for death but for what came after. Nothing could be worse than where he’d already been. Not to mention the fact that in a world on the verge of ending, being guaranteed a quiet death by sleeping was like having a golden ticket.
A light flickered in the corner of my eye, Andre pulsating like a lightho
use as he deflated his harness. He flexed and dimmed, casting his glow east.
I followed it to a row of lights dotting a harbor, one of the strobes in the center pulsing the same way Andre was. Andre laughed, lifting a hand.
“What is it?” I asked. “Where are we?”
Andre started paddling. “Ireland.”
I stared into the horizon. “Shay?”
Then to the rhythm of his rowing Andre started singing.
37
Bryn
Alive.
Until we can put you back in it alive.
My knees found the floor, hands afraid to touch or be touched by anything. I’d never felt more ephemeral, more fragile. But whatever was flooding me—hope, fear—made me feel more breakable than ever.
For so long my memories had been my prison and my safe haven and learning to control them had been the first step in becoming who I was meant to be. Now Stassi was manipulating them the same way I used to, breathing the memory of life back into my skin and bones and heart.
I tried to see it, to sense my cells remembering. The body in front of me looked alive but the memories had only woken an illusion. Not the girl I used to be. I stared at my chest beneath the blankets, imagining what was stirring underneath. I didn’t know if the memories were only potent enough to change the color of my skin or if they were quietly reminding my lungs how to breathe. If they were coaxing the blood back to my heart. Was it beating? If I closed my eyes and listened, could I hear it?
I waited for the slight rise and fall of my chest. Nothing stirred. I inched closer, trying to hear the air passing through my nose. My hands stopped at the edge of the bed, clutching the blankets as I leaned over my face. I was afraid of slipping and falling too close. But even worse, I was afraid of wanting to.
Every weary thought I’d been wrestling with was like a chain around my neck, dragging me towards my own lips.
I’m tired. I’m scared. I’m angry. I’m empty. I’m numb.
I’m done. I’m done. I’m done.
My skin prickled at the memory of every fire I’d set, of every body I’d broken, of every heart I’d stopped. Including Roman’s. I remembered the look on his face just before I’d disappeared, my words cutting him in places no blade could ever reach. Because I was a different kind of weapon, my thoughts turning bullets into bombs and men into ghosts. Part of me was still waiting for them to find me. Maybe they were all lying in wait on the other side. Maybe that was why Anso’s daughter kept trying to drag me there.
Sleep, Bryn.
How many times had she told me to sleep?
How many times had she told me to hurt and kill and make the world red?
Sleep, Bryn.
How many people would still be alive if I’d just listened? If I’d just crawled back into my body and slept. Forever.
Sleep, Bryn.
This time it wasn’t Anso’s daughter I heard, the whisper spilling from my own lips instead. I stared down at them, the tiny crack like an open door. All I wanted was for it to widen and beckon me inside. My grip on the blankets loosened. I eased closer. Ready.
Nothing moved.
Give him…your life.
Yolotli’s voice cut through my thoughts, burning inside my memory. The blanket fell, my hands retreating and gripping the hardwood instead. I didn’t know what he’d meant but in his madness, his message had been crystal clear. Give him your life. But who was him? Anso? Roman? And what life did I have left to give?
I stared down at my grand exit, wanting death to chase me inside the way it had been chasing me from continent to continent. Because I could either rip Yolotli from the only peaceful sleep he’d had in months and beg him to mold his message to my desire for self-destruction. Or I could pretend that’s what he’d meant all along.
Perched just a few inches from my lips, I begged for the voice again. Yolotli’s. Mine.
Please, just take me. Just let me in.
I waited for the rush of slipping back inside my body. For the darkness of being dead. For the quiet.
And then I heard it.
Faint. Firm. The memory of my heart was weak and muffled and it only beat once. But it was there.
I stared at my body, imagining the blood crawling slow, my heart straining to make a sound. It wasn’t the voice I’d begged for. But it was an answer.
Tears slipped down my chin and I fell back, realizing how close I’d been to disappearing. To abandoning the world and everyone in it. I’d been so desperate for the easy way. For a way out that meant I didn’t have to think about the repercussions or even about the choice itself.
But it was a choice.
Death was a choice.
And it was a choice I couldn’t make.
“Bryn!” Dani wrenched me away from my body. “You can’t!”
The loveseat broke my fall, Dani’s body a barrier between me and my corpse.
“Bryn…” She fell at my feet, clutching my hands. “What were you doing?” Her cheeks flushed, angry. “You could have…”
“I know.” The tears fell in a rush; dread flooding the rest of me until I could hardly move. “I’m…I’m sorry.”
She gripped me with both hands, waiting for me to look, to listen. “You don’t know.”
My chest squeezed, sensing that something was wrong and not just with me. “What do you mean?”
Dani stared at the wall, stoic. I waited for her to find the words and then she said, “Something is happening to the Rogues. The curse…”
And then I remembered. Michael. Roman.
The words barely made it past my lips. “I broke it.”
Her brow wrinkled. “How did—?”
“God…” My heart sunk. “I almost…” I gripped my scalp, feeling dizzy. “That’s how. That’s how it happens. I almost killed him. I could have.”
Dani pulled my hands away. “But you didn’t.” She held my fists, her voice stern. “And you can’t.”
The last time Dani had restrained my despair we’d been sitting on my bed, me trying to hide the scars on my hands while she refused to let me. She’d made me promise not to hurt myself again, and because I loved her, I’d relented. But then I’d failed—not just to keep myself safe but her too.
For a second I let myself imagine a future in which I succeeded to do something even worse. And for a second I let myself wonder what would happen to Dani. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reconcile the face in front of me with the girl I was so worried about hurting. Because, just like I wasn’t the same girl I used to be, she wasn’t either. And I needed to know why.
I examined Dani more closely. There was a sadness in her eyes—the kind that comes from keeping secrets. “How do you know about the curse?” I steadied my voice. “What do you know?”
She hesitated.
“Dani…”
She finally let go of me, letting me brace myself for whatever she was about to say. “Felix and I have been tracking down the Rogues to make sure that the Dreamers who are still alive have a safe escort home. We found a few and they’re on their way. But then we found Brandon Hartfield.”
“A Rogue…”
“Devyn’s.”
I stared at the floor. “She’s dead…”
Dani looked down too. “And so is he. Bryn…” She looked up again, waiting for me to face her. “We found his obituary. He died on the same day as Devyn.”
My fingers twitched, forcing me to remember Devyn’s blood lodged beneath my fingernails, pieces of her sticking to my skin. I imagined Brandon’s sticking to me too, stains slowly rising to the surface.
My voice was dry. “You mean on the same day I killed her.”
“Don’t go there.” Dani moved to sit next to me on the loveseat. “Stop blaming yourself. We don’t have time for that.”
The surprise from her bluntness lasted half a second before I realized that she was right. We didn’t have time for me to feel sorry for myself. We didn’t have time to think about the past and what had alr
eady been done.
A long moment passed before I finally made myself stop counting them and just ask, “How many others?”
“We’re still looking…”
I knew she knew the answer. Somehow. She was just afraid to tell me.
“How many?” I pushed.
Dani let out a deep breath. “Of the Rogues belonging to the Dreamers we’ve already buried…all of them.”
I knew she was telling the truth but I needed to know: “How did you find them?”
Dani pulled her hair back but I couldn’t tell if it was exhaustion or confusion that flashed across her face. “There’s…so much that’s happened since you left.” She was quiet and then, “Bryn, I have to tell you something.”
“What is it?” I asked, afraid she knew something else about Roman or the Rogues who were still living—that their fates would be worse than death.
“Celia…” she finally said. “She gave me her sight. Actually, it was more like she forced it into me. She saw her future and apparently it didn’t look so good. She used some kind of ritual and passed it onto me for safe keeping.”
I leaned back, my gaze scaling every inch of her as I tried to sense the shift: a piece of Celia’s essence, anything supernatural. “Are you alright?”
She shrugged. “I’m okay. I’ve just been having these strange visions and sometimes I can’t tell what’s real and what’s a nightmare.” She sighed. “Sometimes it’s scary but other times it’s useful.”
“That’s how you found the Rogues?”
She nodded. “But…” Then she hesitated again.
“What is it, Dani?”
She met my eyes. “They weren’t the only ones in the vision.”
My face burned, remembering whose blood had unlocked the curse. “You saw me, didn’t you?” I looked away. “And Michael.”
Dani was quiet for a long time, leaving me to drown in the memory. Had she seen me do it? Had she seen me rip him apart? Sometimes I felt like Dani was the only link I had to the girl I used to be. But if she’d seen what was inside me, the monster I’d been feeding with every kill, then I really would be dead. The parts of me that had ached to be normal, that had been good and brave and unbreakable. I would be dead.
The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4 Page 121