Inbetween

Chapter 12

Finn Emma didn’t say anything right away. I watched her bite her bottom lip, no doubt contemplating whether this was a good idea.

She raised her hand uncertainly. “Don’t move. I’ll scream if you move. My mom has a gun and lives by the ’shoot first ask questions later’ motto, just so you know.”

I smiled. “Wouldn’t hurt me anyway.”

Her fingers brushed my chest. Dove deeper until her palm was stirring the space in between my lungs. Warmth whispered through me. I closed my eyes and suppressed a groan. This feeling. This was what I’d been missing.

Emma jerked her hand back. “You—You’re breathing.”

I looked down at my chest, pumping like I’d run a marathon. “Yeah.”

“You weren’t breathing a minute ago. D-d-do you need to breathe if you’re…”

I watched the steady rise and fall of my chest. “No, but sometimes I can’t help it.”

It took about five seconds for the color to drain from Emma’s face and two more for her to register this as a nightmare rather than reality. She made a choking sound in the back of her throat and edged around me, backing away. Her back hit the refrigerator and she froze.

“I would never hurt you. Don’t be scared.”

“Oh my God…you…you’re a ghost. I’m talking to a ghost. I really am crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. I swear.” She looked up at me, eyes flooded with moisture and hope. “I’ve been protecting you for two years. Since your dad’s accident. You just couldn’t see me before.”

“My dad?” Her voice broke. “You know my dad?”

“No,” I said. “Not exactly. I only met him once.”

“But you said—”

“I met him when he crossed.” I lowered my voice as if it might make the words easier to hear. “I met him when he died.” I couldn’t stop the disappointment from washing over me. Even with me talking to her, she didn’t remember me from that day.

“Can I talk to him, too?” She sounded hopeful. “I can get the board. Maybe if you helped—”

“You can’t talk to him,” I cut her off. “He’s not here. He’s somewhere so much better than this.”

And she could have been with him if it wasn’t for me.

Emma sank down onto the floor and I followed her. A tear wore a track through the flour on her cheek. I could almost feel her fracturing inside all over again.

“Did he say anything?” she finally whispered. “When he died?”

“He was worried about you,” I said. “He wanted to make sure you were okay. That’s all that mattered to him.”

“Was he afraid?”

“For himself?” I raised a brow. “No. And he shouldn’t have been. Some of us would give anything to get to go where he went.”

Emma wiped the tear from her cheek, quickly, like she didn’t want me to see it. So I pretended I didn’t.

“So, he’s in Heaven?” she asked. “There really is a Heaven?”

“Yeah.” I leaned my head against the refrigerator beside hers. “And a Hell. And an Inbetween. And other places you really don’t want to know about.”

She sat up and looked at me. “Which one do you go to…when you’re not here?”

I looked away. “I go to a lot of places. But I guess if you were going to pin me to one, then the Inbetween.”

“What’s that?”

I tried to figure out a good way to explain it to her. There wasn’t one. “It’s…it’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s kind of like a sorting ground for souls in between Heaven and Hell. It’s where I met you…”

I stopped, floundering for the right words. Who was I kidding? There weren’t any right words. I’d loved her. And I’d pushed her into a life where we could never be together. I’d unleashed an evil soul on her for something she didn’t even choose. Would she have chosen it if I’d have given her the chance? No. She never would have chosen to sacrifice someone else for herself.

“What do you mean where you met me?”

“I knew you when you were a girl named Allison,” I said carefully.

“Allison? Like the name on my mirror?” Fear ignited like a flame behind her eyes and her entire body tensed. “Like the girl in my dreams?”

“You haven’t always been Emma. You had another life before this one. That girl might have died, but you share the same soul.”

“What, like reincarnation?” she said. “You’re saying I was reincarnated?”

“Yes.”

Emma stared at her hands, letting her flour-coated palms slip across each other. I wanted to reach out and wrap my fingers around hers to steady them. Instead, I scooted back an inch to give her some space. Space to accept this. To accept me.

“The dreams,” she whispered. “The voices. It’s all real?”

I sighed. “Yes.”

Emma took a deep breath. Another. “I don’t understand why you’re… Why are you here?”

Tell her. The words were right there, but I…I couldn’t. She would hate me. And even if she didn’t, she might do something stupid like try to sacrifice herself for Maeve. Because that’s the kind of person she was. Someone who would die to right a wrong. I couldn’t let that happen. Not when it was my mistake. Not after everything I’d done to keep her alive.

“I made a promise to your dad to keep you safe,” I finally said. It wasn’t a complete lie. “I don’t intend to break that promise.”

Emma squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “Protect me from what? From who?”

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see her reaction. “A soul named Maeve followed me here. She used me to find you two years ago. She knows who you are. And she wants to hurt you.”

When she didn’t say anything, I rested my hand between us on the tile. “Your accidents… They aren’t accidents.”

She seemed very far away in that moment. “So, you’re saying this soul has been trying to hurt me?

All of the accidents—it’s been her every time? B-because she thinks I’m this Allison girl?”

“Yes.”

“But…I didn’t do anything to her!”

“It’s not about you,” I said, feeling the guilt flare to life inside of me all over again. “It’s about me.

She wants to hurt me. So she’s trying to hurt you.”

“Why would her hurting me hurt you?” Emma looked at me expectantly. “You barely even know me.”

A thousand memories of this girl bombarded me. Each one making my chest swell and ache. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye. “I know you better than you think.”

“You mean you knew Allison.”

Knew, loved, pined for… “Yes. And I cared about her very much. Which is why Maeve targeted you.”

“Why?” Emma sounded horrified. “What did you do to her to make her hate you so much?”

I looked at the floor. I couldn’t look at her. Not when I was lying like this. “Some people just don’t know anything other than hate.”

Emma twisted the bottom of her shirt around her fist. “Why are you letting me see you now? Why let me think I was crazy for two years? Why…why leave me in a freaking mental institution for three months doubting my own sanity when you had the ability to tell me what was going on the whole time?”

“I wasn’t allowed to let you see me before.”

She cocked her head to side. “Then why are you allowed to now?”

I thought about the hell Balthazar would put me through if he found out about the minuscule moment we were sharing now and shook my head. “I’m still not allowed to.”

“So that means you could get into trouble for this. You’re breaking some kind of cosmic rule here, right? Because you think I’m Allison?”

I nodded.

“Y-you have the wrong girl.” Emma stood, knees wobbly, eyes full of fear. “There’s been some kind of mistake. I’m not that girl you knew. I-I-I’m just not her. I can’t be.”

I stepped into Emma, feeling her warmth draw me in. She looked up, eyes wide, her peppermint breath fanning across my face.

“What are you doing?” she gasped, unable to catch her breath.

I ran an iridescent finger down her arm to her wrist, watched it scatter like stars across her skin. Her breath hitched in her throat. Her heart beat so hard the sound rippled through me like a shock wave.

When her eyes met mine, the amount of want in them nearly brought me to my knees. Even through the fear and anger she had to be feeling, I knew she felt what I felt. The connection. The warmth. The rightness of this moment.

“Tell me you feel it,” I whispered.

“I-I—”

“Do you?”

She released the breath she’d been holding. “Yes.”

I let my thumbs brush down her arms and she gasped. Fireworks ignited across the places that I touched. Emma’s eyes opened. Glistening with wonder. Wide with fear.

“Trust me,” I said. “You’re that girl.”