Between This One and the Next (When Souls Collide Book 1) Page 2

  They’re everywhere, and I’m a tiny spark among the vast galaxy. My weightless body hovers in the glittering void, light dancing off my skin. I’m everywhere and nowhere all at once, and I don’t ever want to leave.

  “Skye,” the familiar masculine voice calls. It’s my name. I know it is. I can feel it deep inside me, embracing me in the peace from memories too far to grasp but so close I can feel them wanting to break free. Memories that remain lost to me. Ones I want so desperately to push away the one of my death.

  I smile, joy erupting in my heart.

  “Skye, you have to follow me. You can’t stay here,” the voice says.

  “You know my name,” I say.

  “Of course I do. Don’t you—”

  “Who are you? What is this place?”

  A deep groan echoes from my right. “Oh, no. No. No. What did they do?”

  “Who?”

  Something touches my hand, but I can’t remember how to move in this world of stars.

  “Please, we don’t have time.”

  “But I don’t want to go,” I say, letting my arms dangle at my sides, shifting from the strange feeling consuming my hand. My hair drapes down as I’m suspended in the beautiful, endless galaxy.

  “Listen to me,” the voice says. Desperation lines his words, stealing some of my happiness away. “We have to go back, and I’m not leaving you behind. I’m afraid you don’t remember the way.”

  The way? I ignore the boy’s pleas. A familiar-feeling presence rises just to my right, but I don’t move or look. I remain suspended among the beauty of the galaxy that promises nothing and everything. The world feels like home, like I’ve visited this place hundreds of times before yet I can only remember one instance.

  “Skye, I can’t lose you.” It’s not only the world that feels familiar, but I’m afraid to look at the boy next to me. I’m afraid of what he’s saying.

  “I’m already dead.”

  “It’s never stopped us before. We’re in the in between—between this life and the next one.”

  “But I like it here,” I say.

  “I know, but we made a promise to each other, and I don’t intend to break it,” the boy says. I search my mind for any memory, any little tiny moment I can grasp onto to explain the sudden tingles blossoming from my chest at the meaning of his words.

  The world around me shakes, and something warm slithers over the coolness of my hand, lifting my arm up so it’s no longer dangling behind me as I float on my back. A shock runs from my fingertips to my elbow, and then straight up my shoulder and neck and into my head.

  It stirs something within me, something unexplainable. “What’s happening?”

  “I told you, we have to go,” the boy says.

  I shake my head. “No, I can’t. Everything’s so confusing. I don’t know you.”

  “You do. It’s me, Luka. Please, try to remember.”

  But I can’t remember. I don’t want to. Because every time I try to remember, something dark stirs within me, flashing my death over and over again. The bloody snow. The figure behind me. The stars through the trees.

  “I—” The image of a man flashes into my mind. His ice-blue eyes crinkle in the corners, and he smiles. The image expands, taking over the view of the stars, and I’m now standing in a room with a view of a fountain cascading sunlit water in the center of a garden.

  “Skye, my girl. Are you ready?”

  “I’m really sorry, Skye,” Luka says, pulling me from my memory.

  “What for?”

  “Please, forgive me.”

  “I don’t understand.” Like a jolt of electricity, a shock rushes through me, sending the world around me spinning. The stars dart through the air like a lightshow of fireworks, and pain explodes in my chest and head, stealing away the sweet peace the galaxy world brought me.

  Five.

  I hear the sound of humming lights.

  Four.

  A warm sensation slithers up my legs.

  Three.

  My heart beats.

  Two.

  I gasp.

  “Time of life: Twelve forty-three P.M.,” a familiar, feminine voice says.

  Snapping my eyes open, I glare at the unfamiliar reflection of a girl in the shiny plastic lenses of Caretaker Sienna’s protective glasses. Wide, steel-gray eyes blink at me, but they’re not the caretaker’s. They’re mine. My reflection.

  “Subject four, please state your name, age, and place of birth,” Caretaker Sienna says, lifting a small penlight to shine in my eyes.

  It sends a wave of dizziness through me, and I jerk my hands up to shield my vision. “Where am I?” I ask instead of answering her questions.

  “Subject four, answer my questions,” she repeats.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, my mind hazy. The answers stick to the tip of my tongue, but I can’t seem to remember how to turn the answers into words. The stars are the only thing I do want to remember. I wish I could close my eyes and return to the boy—Luka? Yes. Luka.

  I try anyway, refusing to look at or answer the caretaker.

  Something hard jabs my side, and I curl in on myself while releasing a scream.

  “Subject four, answer my question now,” she repeats.

  “Skye. Your name is Skye. You’re seventeen. You were born in California.” Luka’s voice sneaks into my head, revealing the answers that were in my memories all along. Like he’s the key to unlocking what’s hidden in my mind, his voice sends a few memories trickling to me. A bedroom with gray walls. A messy living room with clothes scattered across the floor. A swimming pool. Bright blue eyes. Hundreds of candles. A red door. Just small flashes of things that have no meaning to them, things Luka’s pulled from me without my permission. Where is he? Is he even real? Am I going crazy?

  I squeeze my eyes shut again, pressing my fingers to my temples. “My name is Skye. I was born in California, and I’m seventeen,” I say.

  “Death count number two appears to have triggered a memory response,” Caretaker Sienna says. “This is a good sign.”

  I have no idea who she’s talking to, and I open my eyes to peer around to see if I can see anything. It’s then that I notice a small, black box in her front pocket—not a black box—a cell phone. She’s wearing an earbud in one of her ears.

  “Will you tell me why I’m here?” I ask, remaining on the floor. I’m afraid of what she’ll do if I move even an inch.

  “Rise to your feet,” she says instead of answering my question. “You’ll return to your room for further evaluation.”

  “Evaluation?”

  She ignores me. “Subject four, rise to your feet or I’ll leave you here until the morning.”

  I turn my head and realize I’m lying in an all metal room with two doors, a tinted window, and a drain in the center of it. It’s long and narrow like a shipping container, but it’s ice-cold like a freezer. My breath puffs out in small clouds as I shift to my side to roll over to my knees. The icy, metal floor stings my hands when I press my palms flat against it and get to my feet.

  Caretaker Sienna aims the metallic canister at me but doesn’t attempt to spray. She knows I’m not going to try anything. Fear grips me as hard as I hug myself, still shivering. With a sweep of her hand, she motions me to head through the same door I originally entered in. The lights flick off the second I step into the polished concrete hallway, and I suck in a warm breath of stale air through my teeth.

  Every part of me aches with each small step forward. The gurney with Gemma’s body is no longer in sight, and I search around, trying to take in as much as possible, but there isn’t much to see. We step back into the area with the divided rooms where I last saw Avery, and I pause in place. All the rooms are identical, each with a sink and toilet, a privacy curtain to cover the chain-link barrier, a potted plant, bookcases with a variety of reading material, a small crate of necessities, and a thin, blue mat to sleep on.

  Avery hasn’t moved since I rolled the gurney with Gemma out of h
ere, and she doesn’t smile upon my return, and now the room between ours has someone in it. I can’t see what the girl looks like because she’s pulled down the curtain from the barrier to use as a blanket.

  Caretaker Sienna shoves me toward my section of the room, and I stand in front of it, staring at an information sheet attached to the door that I wouldn’t have been able to see from inside the room. It has the name Skye Stone scrawled across the top with detailed information I assume is about me including my age, birth place, hair color, eye color, height, weight, allergies, and then an empty log with a place to fill in the date, time of death, and time of life in, which has two times of death and one time of life. Caretaker Sienna fills in the newest time of life before swinging the door open and nudging me in.

  My eyes turn back to my name: Skye Stone. Something feels wrong about it. Skye feels like me. But Stone? No. I don’t think that’s right. I don’t mention my feeling, though. I don’t want to utter even a word more than I have to.

  The caretaker locks the door behind me, and I hover in place, just glancing around my plain room.

  “Aw, look who decided to stay,” an almost whiny voice says from my side.

  My brows furrow, and I look at Gemma’s room, my heart racing when I meet her vivid green eyes. She sits cross-legged in the corner with her blue mat folded a few times to create a thicker cushion beneath her.

  “God, you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” she says, smirking.

  Turning my head, I peer over my shoulder, but Caretaker Sienna is already gone. Instead of answering Gemma, I drag my feet forward, ignoring her, and lie down on my mat with my back toward her. The figure next to me is so close to the barrier between us that the chain-link fence bulges into my room and over a sliver of my mat so I can’t adjust it.

  Long fingers hook through the links, gripping onto it, and if I couldn’t still feel Gemma’s eyes on my back, I’d roll over in her direction.

  “What? Are you too good to respond to me?” Gemma asks. The chain-link barrier rattles behind me.

  I still don’t answer.

  “Gemma, leave her alone. She just replaced your sorry ass in the freezer,” Avery says. I can’t see her over the lump of a body in front of me, but I’m thankful she says something.

  “She should’ve resisted like me. Made things quick. But damn do I have a headache now.” Gemma doesn’t sound like the frightened girl I heard before Caretaker Sienna killed her with whatever poison she sprayed in her face.

  I scowl without turning. “Why did you come back?” I ask, interrupting.

  “What an idiot. She says that like we have a choice.” The foreign thought invades my mind, and the chain-link rattles again. “Whoa! She speaks.”

  I cringe, staring at the long fingers of the girl under the curtain squeezing the links tighter. Something about her seems so familiar, I consider running my fingers over hers to get her attention but stop myself when she relaxes, though she never lets go of the barrier. I don’t know if it’s because she’s in my space, but something about her calls to me.

  “Tell me, new girl. What’s your name?” Gemma asks, ignoring my original question.

  The lights flicker, and I suck in a breath. I should’ve just kept ignoring her until she left me alone. But I couldn’t help myself. “Why did you come back?” I ask again. “You prayed—”

  “Skye, stop!” The voice comes sharp and fast into my mind, causing me to snap my mouth shut. My head pounds at the familiar intrusion, sending a dark haze dancing in my vision. It’s the same voice that counted down to my death. The same voice that pleaded with me among the stars.

  My whole body trembles. Tears slip from my eyes and pelt the mat I press my cheek against. Just remembering the stars makes the fact that I’m lying here, cold and afraid with no idea of what’s going on, a million times worse. I shouldn’t be here. I should be there where it’s safe. I should be there where I have everything and nothing. Where I am everything and nothing.

  “Hello? New girl?” Gemma’s voice cuts through my racing thoughts. “Death mess up your head or something? I asked you your name.” It’s like my question to her went right over her head. She either purposely ignored me or maybe I imagined asking her. I don’t know.

  Confusion washes over me. I wonder if she’s right and death did mess me up more than stealing my memories away. “It’s Skye Sto—” Knezha. The name hits me hard and fast, drawing a memory of a wrought iron gate with a strange emblem welded onto it. KF. What does it stand for?

  “You’re not a Knezha,” the masculine voice thinks to me, intruding in my mind. “You’re Skye Stone.”

  “Stone,” I answer, repeating the name the voice thinks to me, the name scrawled on my information sheet. I’m blond with blue-gray eyes, five and a half feet tall, a hundred and thirty-five pounds. I’m seventeen years old, born on New Year’s Day in Los Angeles, California, and have no known allergies. It’s like if I say them to myself, I can almost remember. Almost. But it still feels like a fact sheet about a girl I wouldn’t be able to pick out in a crowd. If I saw my picture, I’m not sure I could even recognize myself.

  The sound of sneakers squeaking on the floor cuts off the conversation between us, and I wedge myself closer to the chain-link barrier. Fear prevents me from looking, and I hold my breath, hoping if I hold it long enough I’ll somehow transport myself out of here.

  Fingers slide over mine, and it’s not until I feel their warmth that I realize I’m gripping the barrier for dear life. I inhale a quiet gasp, forcing myself to stay frozen in my spot as I hear the chain clank outside my door.

  Something scrapes across the polished concrete floor next to me, and I bite down on my bottom lip, terrified my ragged breathing will give me away.

  “Eat up, subject four,” Caretaker Sienna says from above me.

  “Hey, what about me? I missed dinner, too,” Gemma says from her room.

  Caretaker Sienna doesn’t respond. I listen for the clanking of a chain and then the squeaking of shoes and don’t open my eyes until I’m sure she’s left us alone. I meet the serious gaze of a blond boy with dark eyes. I had assumed he was a girl since the rest of us are. His nose and mouth remain hidden under the curtain he pulled from his side of the barrier that would’ve been between us.

  “This is all your fault, Gemma,” Avery says from in front of me, though I can’t see her past the boy. I don’t even try.

  We stare at each other without a word, our fingers still touching. I don’t know if it’s because we’re not alone, or if it’s because I can’t find the words, but either way, I can’t stop from blatantly staring at him with my mouth gaping, tear stains drying on my cheeks, and probably the reddest nose in existence. He doesn’t look away, though. Doesn’t even try, either.

  “How was I supposed to know the monster would do this? She still got her experiments done,” Gemma argues.

  “Yeah, right!” Avery yells.

  The chain-link rattles and the lights flicker. “Shut up!” Gemma screams.

  “No, you shut up!”

  A light bulb pops overhead, sending a shower of sparks through Avery’s room, dimming the light for all of us.

  “You’re so crazy, Gemma.” Avery smacks her hands against the chain-link. “I wish Caretaker Sienna would just take her away,” she thinks, forcing her thought into my mind.

  “Me? Look at you.”

  The boy lets go of the chain-link barrier and my fingers. He brings his index finger to his lips, motioning for me to not say anything, though I don’t think I would anyway. There’s no way I’m getting between Gemma and Avery. Their anger and frustration feels like it heats the already humid room.

  “I wish you wouldn’t come back,” Avery says. “Life would be more bearable if you didn’t.”

  “Don’t you think I haven’t tried?”

  Another flash of light blinks through the air, and all the chain-link walls rattle around us.

  “Don’t touch the barrier, Skye,” a familiar, masculine
voice says into my mind.

  I automatically pull my hands to my chest.

  Five. Four. Three. Two. One.

  Gemma and Avery both scream, their voices ripping through the air. The whole room buzzes, sending the hair around my face floating. The girls hit the ground hard. The thud of their bodies dropping resonates through the concrete room. A wisp of smoke swirls into the air from the part of my mat touching the metal barrier. Whoa.

  The hum suddenly stops, leaving me and the boy in silence. My eyes blur with more tears, and I’m afraid they won’t ever stop coming. And I hate them so much. They feel stupid coming from my eyes. Unfamiliar.

  “It’s okay to cry, Skye.” The boy’s voice trickles to me like he knows exactly what I’m feeling.

  It makes me cry harder.

  What have I done to deserve this? What have they? The sound of rubber soles on the smooth floors sends my heart racing. I squeeze my eyes shut, like if I can just keep them closed long enough, I can pretend I’m somewhere else altogether. That this monster of a woman didn’t turn the walls into an electric fence strong enough to kill anyone who touches it.

  “Time of death: Eleven thirteen P.M.,” the caretaker says.

  I listen without looking as she removes both Gemma and Avery from their rooms. She bangs on my door and says, “Eat up, subject four. You need your strength for tomorrow.” Tomorrow? I don’t ask what happens tomorrow. I have an unsettling feeling that it’ll be the same as today.

  Caretaker Sienna talks to herself, commenting on Gemma and Avery’s deaths. About their agitation. About how a breakthrough will be made. Her voice fades along with the squeak of her shoes, and I shiver.

  “It’s safe to open your eyes,” the boy says from next to me.

  I sit up and face him, curling my knees to my chest. “What is this place?”

  “Your worst nightmare,” he says without a smile. “Mine, too.”

  “How long have you been here?” I’m afraid if I don’t spit out all my questions, I might never get them answered.

  “For two hundred and twenty-three—I mean, twenty-four deaths.”

  I grimace, my heart sinking into my stomach. “Oh, God. Two was bad enough.”