The Girl In Between series: Books 1-4

by Laekan Zea Kemp

  I pulled Dani in close, my arms covering her arms, my hands gripping her hands. The light seeped from my skin, filling the holes and patching her wounds, gold sutures covering her like lace. The faintest moan escaped from her lips, tufts of smoke matching the strain of each breath. They were coming too fast, as if her lungs were filling with blood too.

  “Dani…” Felix leaned over her. “Dani?”

  “She’s lost too much blood,” Nina said.

  I let my temperature rise, trying to chase the chill from Dani’s skin. For so long she’d been the last link to Bryn’s past, the only relic that had ever forced her to stop and remember who she’d been, who she was. Bryn still needed her. I still needed her.

  “Dani,” I whispered, using my voice to stoke the heat instead.

  But she was fading…

  “Dani, listen to me.” Felix held her face in his hands. “Look at me, Dani. Open your eyes.”

  She blinked, eyelids already bruised. “Felix…?”

  He choked, tears dripping onto her collarbone. “Dani, you have to hold on.”

  “Felix…” Her neck strained, lips barely brushing his chin. “I love you.” Her eyes fluttered closed again.

  “No, Dani…” Felix slid his fingers into her hair, pulling her from my arms. “Dani. Dani…” He looked to me, frantic. “She can’t. Roman.” He lost his breath. “She can’t die.”

  “She won’t.” Rodrigo was already on his hands and knees, blood dripping from the old scars on his back and sending a trail beneath Dani.

  Valentina sunk next to him, pressing a piece of her shirt to the wounds. I wasn’t sure if they’d been carved by one of Sebastían’s monsters or if Rodrigo had ripped the scars open to ignite his own tears.

  “Careful,” she pleaded.

  He crawled forward, eyes watering from the pain. He leaned over Dani, the tears slipping down his face and mixing with the ones that had fallen from Felix.

  The moment they struck her skin, it brightened, the color returning to her cheeks. I took one of her hands, hoping the heat would fuel whatever elixir Rodrigo had filled her with. She gasped and I traced her wrist, her pulse quickening.

  “Dani…” Felix almost fell on top of her.

  She reached up, arms circling him. “I’m okay.”

  Valentina tossed the rag from Rodrigo’s wounds, her hands burning them closed. He gritted his teeth, Charles and Callum appearing and trying to brace him against the heat. They were both wounded too, Callum’s arm wrapped just above the elbow as a deep gash on Charles’ forehead bubbled and burned itself closed.

  “What happened to all of you?” I asked.

  “We were attacked,” Charles grunted, the last bit of skin on his forehead fusing.

  “Nightmares,” Felix clarified.

  Callum nodded. “The monster plucked the fears right out of our heads.”

  Charles’ flames simmered. “But then the bastard needed more fuel and he took Callum’s dreams.”

  “I’m glad,” Callum said. “It’s the only thing that finally woke us out of that hell.”

  “I’m sorry.” Nina’s voice was small, her eyes pinned to the forest where we’d left Bryn and Sebastían behind.

  She stood, her back to her lover’s handiwork. Her apology didn’t warrant a response. Even if it had, I wasn’t sure how to give her one. At this point, we’d all done horrible things. Death was the only guarantee that we wouldn’t repeat the same mistakes.

  “What happened to Rodrigo?” Charles asked Valentina.

  Valentina shook her head, the memory tightening its grip. I’d never seen her so afraid. I’d never seen her afraid, period. She finally regained control of her body and looked back at the house. It was crumbling, one of the walls peeled back and revealing the stairs.

  Bryn.

  I jumped to my feet.

  “Be careful,” Valentina warned. “It might still be awake.”

  The floor was full of cracks, each one sending up a biting breeze. I stepped over open mouths, waiting for a set of snapping teeth to catch my ankle, for something hungry to swallow me whole. I followed the creak of wood, searching for safe footing. A soft whimper escaped from down the hall and I followed that instead.

  The door to Celia’s bedroom was off its hinges, shards of wood scattered across the room. I shifted the mess out of the way, Celia’s body in just as many pieces. Rafael lay beside her. My fingers trembled, daring to graze his neck. Nothing. I checked Celia for a pulse. She was just as silent.

  I backpedaled, dizzy. The whimper sounded again, pulling me towards the bathroom. I clutched the wall. It felt like they were closing in, dark blotches staining my vision. My fingers grazed the door, hesitant, afraid of pushing it open and finding another body. The hinges groaned as I eased inside, making someone gasp.

  Cole.

  Adham was in his lap. Red. Limp.

  Cole was soaked, the blood already starting to dry against his skin.

  I fell back into the hallway, retching into my hands. I braced myself between the walls, trying to catch my breath. Every inhale burned, every exhale trying to force out more bile.

  Adham. Not Adham. Adham…

  I squeezed my eyes shut. There wasn’t supposed to be a monster alive that could kill a Rogue. We were supposed to be trapped. Cursed. I couldn’t ask Cole what had happened. But I could still see it. Adham. Calm, strong, certain. Getting in the way. Protecting Cole. Saving him the way he’d saved me.

  Adham…

  My muscles gave out, a sob sending me to the floor.

  When my ears finally stopped ringing I realized that Cole was wheezing, his lungs grasping at air while his panic forced it back out again. I crawled over to him, my grip slipping. I held my breath, dragging him out of Adham’s blood.

  “Cole, you have to calm down.” I boiled, hating myself for demanding something so ridiculous, hating Cole for being weak, hating myself for hating Cole. “Cole, please. Try to breathe.”

  He shook, anger the only thing strong enough to finally get him to inhale.

  “Cole…” I waited for him to look at me. “Do you remember who else was in the house?”

  He shuddered. “No.”

  I gripped his shoulders, trying to ground him. “Was anyone upstairs with Bryn’s body?”

  He paused, thinking.

  “Cole!”

  “Stassi…” He pinched his eyes shut, memories returning and making him frantic. “Stassi was with her.”

  I led the way upstairs, the railing gone, Cole’s knees quaking as we scaled the missing steps. The door to the guest room where I’d laid Bryn’s body was closed. The door to the room across from hers wasn’t.

  Andre sat on the edge of the bed. He stared at the floor, not moving, not even blinking as we stepped over the threshold.

  “Roman…”

  I followed Cole’s voice. Another body lay near the closet. Lathan. He was wrapped around Cora, her back bent, mouth open in a silent scream. Olivia knelt next to them both, her hand on Lathan’s shoulder and her cheeks flushed red as if she’d been trying to resuscitate him.

  “How did Sebastían do this?” My voice scratched out, the doorframe almost buckling beneath the heat. “First Adham. Now Lathan.”

  “He didn’t.” Felix’s voice rounded the corner before he did, Charles helping him up the stairs. He clutched one of Celia’s dishtowels, the ends damp and frayed from scrubbing Dani’s blood from his arms.

  I faced him. “What do you mean, he didn’t?”

  Charles barreled past us, falling next to Lathan. “Lathan…” He brushed the hair from Cora’s cheek, Olivia grabbing his hand as if to say they’d already tried everything. Charles turned to Andre. Neither could speak.

  “Felix…”

  “The curse…” His face fell. “Bryn broke it. When she killed Michael.”

  “What?” My stomach knotted. “How is that even—? What are you saying, Felix?”

  “I’m saying that the Rogues aren’t immortal anymore. Latha
n’s life was tied to Cora’s. When she woke back into her body…”

  “Back into her dead body.”

  “Right,” Felix said. “Her dead body.”

  “But Adham…” My eyes scaled Cole.

  “I gave the dreams to Bryn.” He shook his head, confused. “I’m awake.”

  I faced Felix again, knuckles burning, fists snuffing out the flames. “How long have you known?”

  He was quiet and then, “I made the discovery right after I started searching for the other Rogues.”

  “And then you kept it a secret. From me.”

  He clutched the doorway, keeping his distance. “I’m sorry, Roman.”

  I slammed him against the wall, my forearm singeing his jaw. Instead of pushing me away, he held me there, Andre yanking me back just as Felix started smoking.

  “We’ve come too far to lose our fucking minds now.” Andre’s shoulders heaved. “If one of you has got a death wish I just so happen to be in the kind of destructive mood to be happy to oblige. But if there is even an ounce of self-preservation left in your scrawny arses then you better start acting like it.”

  For a long time Felix and I just stared at each other. Then he slammed into me, knocking the air and anger from my lungs.

  “I’m sorry, Roman.”

  The bandage over his eye grazed my cheek.

  “Me too.”

  Andre placed a hand on my shoulder, the gravel gone from his voice. It was wary, right by my ear. “I haven’t checked the other rooms.”

  Felix’s arms fell away, my own numb; legs too. I stepped into the hall again. The door to Bryn’s room was barely cracked and I tried not to imagine what had tried to slip inside. Or what had tried to escape.

  “We’re right behind you,” Andre said.

  I wasn’t sure if what was behind me would matter much. All that mattered was what was behind this door. It determined whether I lived or died. Whether or not I wanted to.

  I pushed it open and the first thing I saw was Domingo.

  He was slumped against the loveseat, a dark bruise around his neck.

  “Where’s Stassi?” Cole asked.

  I stared at the stars in Bryn’s cheeks, her skin barely glowing.

  “Stassi must have woken herself up.” Andre shook his head. “But if Domingo’s…” he ran a hand down his face, pale, “that would mean—”

  “She was dead.” Cole hung his head.

  I leaned in close and his eyes strayed, a thin layer of sweat turning him red.

  I pressed a finger to his chest. His heart raced. “You knew.”

  His breath caught. “I saw it. When I read her memories.”

  My skin flamed. “When Domingo asked you to help him find her body.” I shoved him the same way I’d shoved Felix. This time Andre let me. “When he was desperate and hurting and ready to give up. You knew. You knew there was no body to find.” I turned to Felix. “Did she know what would happen to Domingo?”

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “I’m sorry,” Cole croaked out.

  “And what about erasing me from my father’s memories? Are you sorry for that too?”

  When my dad hadn’t recognized me, I’d told myself he was better off. That Cole had done more than just remove his pain, that he’d given him a fresh start. Now all I could remember was the look of disgust on my dad’s face when he’d asked if I was his son. Because the only version he knew was the one everyone feared. And that’s how he would remember me. When Bryn woke into her body and I was gone. When the world put itself back together and carved my face into every history book. He would see it and wonder; worry that he’d had some part in all of this. He’d blame himself and then it would be like Cole had erased nothing at all.

  Cole crumbled, quiet. I turned my back to him, staring down at Bryn’s body again. Stassi’s dreams still hummed just below the surface.

  Cole dared to step to my side. “All you’ve ever done is save my life. And I ruined yours. I…” his voice scraped out, “killed Adham.”

  I gripped his shoulders. “You didn’t kill Adham.”

  The tears strangled him. “I did.”

  “You didn’t kill Adham, Cole.” My face fell. “And you didn’t ruin my life. All you did was exactly what I’d asked. You took away my father’s pain.”

  “By erasing you from his memories.”

  My eyes strayed back to Bryn’s stillness. “It’s done, Cole. And when Bryn wakes back into her body it won’t matter how my father remembers me or if he remembers me at all.” My face fell. “Because I’ll be dead.”

  89

  Bryn

  I was the arrow and Sebastían’s memories were the bow. I didn’t have to know where Anso was hiding. All I had to do was aim for his heart, Sebastían’s dreams exploding like a grenade and filling the clearing with vines.

  They dragged him right to me.

  When he smiled, I realized that he hadn’t been hiding.

  He’d been waiting.

  He watched with a strange wonder as the vines slithered up his arms, leaves nodding like the flat heads of snakes. Anso grazed one with his finger, the vines tightening. The breath he should have been straining for came out in a long disappointed sigh and then the vines shriveled, ashes falling at his feet.

  “You still haven’t found it.”

  I inched back, trying to hide the sound of my racing heart. “Found—?”

  “A way to kill me.”

  I shivered, the breeze unnatural and born from somewhere inside him. I’d thought that I was the weapon, that the dreams I’d stolen would somehow make me stronger than Anso’s nightmares. Alma had seen his death, and when the vision had passed between us, I’d felt a piece of the future locking in place. I was supposed to end this. The world’s destruction. Anso’s madness. My own.

  “I can see what’s inside you,” Anso said. “And there is not a deathtrap, not a poison, not a curse I have not already tested.”

  The nightmare I’d set loose was still swelling, feeding off Anso’s memories and shifting the landscape. The air thickened until it was teeming with the crack of lightning and then, line-by-line, the soil ripped itself in rows. Two mounds rose up next to the Dreamers’ grave. The first drops of rain carved shapes in the dust, the storm sweeping the mud from the bones.

  Anso stared down at what was left of his children. “Kings should not be fathers.”

  The anger slowly trickled back into my veins. “That’s all you have to say?” Anso spoke of his children’s murders as if they were an inconvenience of his occupation. Not as if they were actual human beings. His own flesh and blood. “You made them.”

  “And then I looked upon what I had made and I laid them to rest. The world or my children.” Anso marveled at the scars covering his arms, some slithering like the vines, others merging with the dark veins under his skin. But they weren’t just remnants of old wounds. They were roads. “I chose the world.”

  “And now you’re going to let it be destroyed.”

  A tremor raced to Anso’s fists. He clenched his right hand, fingers twisting and snapping. Bones broke through the skin, mangled, but there was no blood.

  “I am not the only one who has to die to break the curse. The world crumbles because we are both awake. Because I dreamed its demise.” He searched my eyes, manic again. “And you dreamed me…” Anso grabbed me by the throat, the broken bones sharp and trying to slice me open too.

  I thrust him back, bristling at the sting his touch had left behind. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

  He stared down at his trembling hands. “It doesn’t stop.” He held them out, forcing me to look. “Can’t you see it? The dreams are a parasite. Hungry. Starving for pain.” He froze, feeling it inside him. “So I feed it. I feed it or else it feeds on me.” He sunk to his knees. “Make it stop. Please. Please, make it stop.”

  We were bound by our helplessness. All I wanted was to sink to my knees in front of him, to share my death like an old blanket. It
was too cold being in between.

  “I thought I could control the dreams.” Rain chased the tears down my face. “But I can’t change what matters… I can’t control life and death.”

  Anso’s gaze shot up. “You are not supposed to control death.” His thoughts snatched hold of my wrists and ankles. “You are supposed to unleash it!” His eyebrows knitted together, wicked. “And I can make you.”

  He dragged me across the dirt, flinging me onto his daughter’s corpse. The bones were slowly piecing themselves together, rotted flesh taking form.

  I retched, trying to scramble from the mess. Dirt spilled over my face, choking me.

  No.

  The cold space closed in and then I felt the slick sting of her blood. It warmed, slowly, the body beneath me groaning as it stitched itself back together.

  The earth pressed down on my chest, dragging us deeper.

  No. No. No.

  I gripped the soil, my mind grasping at rocks and roots, trying to whisper to them through my skin. They weren’t listening.

  I slowed my breath, reading the granules like braille. They whispered back and then they screamed, finally revealing what had seized them. Pain. Anso drove it into the ground, the earth quaking and crumbling.

  A hand grazed my arm, trailing down to my fingers. I lit up, her face right next to mine. She was not the ghost that had been haunting me. She was the girl who’d fallen from the stars. Anso’s daughter pressed a silent finger to her lips, a warning, and then she kissed me. I swallowed the sharp tips of constellations, her dreams, her memories filling me like fire.

  The flames forced back the sediment and I reached through mud and rust, clawing my way towards the surface. I ripped out of the soil, someone latching onto my hand and yanking me out.

  Roman pulled me against his chest as I choked up dirt and stardust. Light pocked the clearing, fires burning everywhere I looked. The Rogues who’d survived had circled Anso, Andre trying to douse him in flames.

  “He can’t…” I coughed. “He can’t die.”

  Roman searched my eyes. “What do we do?”