Inbetween

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.”

Chapter 13

Emma I didn’t want to be that girl, but Finn made me feel like I was. I’d never had a guy look at me the way he was looking at me. Like the world would shatter if I didn’t exist. I cradled my hot chocolate in my mug and glanced at the clock. Two in the morning. I needed to go to sleep, but I didn’t want to wake up and realize all of this was just another dream.

Finn sat on my bed. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I ran my fingertip along the warm lip of the mug. “This is just a lot to take in. When I woke up today, I didn’t exactly think I’d meet a dead guy and find out I had a whole life before this one.”

“Can I ask you something?”

I looked up at Finn’s curious expression and nodded. I think I would have told him anything.

Anything to get to keep looking at him. He was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. It made me wish he’d actually show up in a picture.

“What did you expect to happen when you pulled out that board?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. Not this.”

“Are you disappointed?”

The fear in his voice made my gaze drift up to meet his. Was I disappointed to find out there was someone trying to kill me? Yeah. Was I disappointed in meeting him? Finally having someone make sense of my life and tell me the truth?

“Of course not.” I paused. “You know, I don’t even know your last name.”

“Carter. My name is Finn Carter.” He smiled and watched me settle back into my pillows and take a sip of hot chocolate. “Do you have any idea how torturous it is to watch you drink that?”

I licked some marshmallow cream off of my bottom lip and lowered my cup. I expected him to look at the cup like he’d give anything for a taste, but his gaze never left my mouth. “How long has it been since you’ve tasted…anything?”