Chapter 11 #2
“You’d be lost.” The words were quiet, almost flat. “Sidney Lowell would stop existing.”
“The entity that emerged would have my memories, maybe even some of my personality traits.” I picked up the water glass again, just to give my hands something to do.
“But it wouldn’t be me, not really. It would be something else.
Something that used to be human and used to be phoenix, merged into a new form that was neither. ”
The chances of my coming out of such a terrible process still myself were not good.
My great-great-grandmother had nearly died anchoring a phoenix that was less than a third corrupted.
Even as she healed, she realized that her abilities had changed permanently.
She’d gained new sensitivities she never fully controlled, but lost other abilities.
The experience had altered her forever, even though she’d maintained her identity throughout.
What I was attempting was so far beyond what she’d done, I didn’t even have a frame of reference to fully describe it.
“There has to be another way,” Ben said, echoing my earlier words to the phoenix. His hand moved down my arm so he could twine his fingers with mine. Again, with that touch came a soothing warmth, although nothing about our situation was remotely comforting.
“There isn’t. Not with the phoenix so horribly contaminated and less than eight hours to go before cascade failure.
” I had to force out the rest of the words because even though they needed to be said, I hated to utter them out loud.
“The phoenix is dying, Ben, and the portal network is collapsing. Every supernatural site on Earth is being affected by Rosenthal’s artificial gateway.
I’m the only person who can anchor this rebirth because I’m the only one we know of who has both the electromagnetic abilities and the connection to the phoenix’s consciousness. ”
“At what cost?” His voice had turned hard, and I sensed the way his electromagnetic signature spiked with emotion — anger, fear, frustration, all tangled together. “You’re asking me to watch you die and hope that what comes back is still you.”
“I’m not asking. I’m telling you what has to happen.
” I pulled away from his touch, needing to put some distance between us, even though it hurt the second his fingers were no longer tangled with mine.
“My mother and grandmother are on the other side of that portal. If the network collapses, they’ll be trapped forever. I don’t have any other choice.”
He made a frustrated gesture, but he didn’t try to touch me again, as if he knew I’d put that distance between us for a reason. “It’s always about duty with you. What about what you want? What about choosing to survive? What about us?”
That last word hit harder than I wanted to admit.
Us. The relationship we’d been building toward since he’d arrived in Silver Hollow, even though I’d spent way too long keeping him in the friend zone.
Our partnership that had turned into something much deeper, something I’d never thought I’d share with someone else.
“I want to survive. I want to come out of this still myself, still the person you fell in love with.” My voice cracked despite my best efforts to remain calm, and I had to swallow hard before I could continue.
“But wanting doesn’t change what has to be done.
This is the only way to save the phoenix and the portal network and my family. ”
Before he could reply, I moved to the window and gazed out at the forest that surrounded the cabin.
Dawn had just begun to break, a tentative pale light peeking over the foggy horizon.
Somewhere beyond these woods was the forest that sheltered the original portal, the one that connected Silver Hollow to the dimensional realm where my family was stranded.
My electromagnetic senses could feel the disturbance, the way the power out there flowed wrong, pulled toward DAPI’s facility instead of moving naturally through the network. Every minute that the artificial portal stayed active, the damage to the natural system got worse.
If the cascade failure happened, it wouldn’t just be Silver Hollow’s portal that collapsed.
It would be all of them. Every supernatural site on Earth would go dark at once, cutting off the dimensional realms completely.
Thousands of creatures would be trapped on the wrong side, and hundreds of guardians would lose their connection to the very thing they were meant to protect.
My mother and grandmother would die on the other side, cut off from any help and unable to return.
“I’m terrified,” I said. The admission felt like pulling teeth.
I was supposed to be tough, right? Ready to face anything that came my way, because that was what the women of my family had been doing for generations.
But I couldn’t pretend anymore. Not with Ben.
“I’m so scared I can barely think straight. But I don’t know what else to do.”
He came over and wrapped his arms around me, and that friendly warmth flowed around me again. I let myself lean back against him, let myself take comfort in his presence, even though it made the fear sharper.
Because if I didn’t survive the merge, this might be one of the last times I got to feel his arms around me. One of the last times I got to be just Sidney, not Sidney-phoenix or some hybrid entity that wore my face but wasn’t me.
“Tell me,” he said, his breath warm against my ear. “What specifically frightens you?”
That he was asking instead of trying to fix the problem meant everything. He was giving me the space I needed to examine my fear instead of dismissing it or telling me everything would be fine.
Sometimes you needed to acknowledge the terror before you could move past it.
“I’m afraid I’ll lose myself in the merge.
” My voice shook a little, but I forced myself to continue.
“That I’ll dissolve into the phoenix’s consciousness and won’t be able to find my way back.
Its mind is so different from a human being’s — so vast and ancient and built around concepts I don’t even really understand.
What if I merge with that and can’t remember how to be Sidney?
What if my human consciousness just gets overwhelmed? ”
Ben’s arms tightened slightly, and something in that embrace encouraged me to continue.
“I’m afraid that something calling itself Sidney will emerge, but it won’t really be me.
Just an entity wearing my memories like a costume.
It’ll remember owning the pet shop and loving you and eating massive amounts of junk food during a Gilmore Girls binge, but those will be facts it knows rather than experiences it actually remembers.
Like reading someone else’s diary instead of living your own life. ”
His lips brushed against the top of my head, and the gentleness in that caress made me want to weep. “What else?”
“I’m afraid of what I might become even if I do survive with my identity intact.
My great-great-grandmother changed after anchoring a corrupted rebirth.
” My voice dropped to almost a whisper. “And this is way beyond what she attempted. If I come back, what if I’m not human anymore?
What if the person who loves you and remembers our first kiss and knows you like your coffee black is just gone, replaced by something that only looks like Sidney? ”
Understanding seemed to pulse in his electromagnetic field, and he pressed his lips against my hair again. “You’re afraid of changing so much that you’ll lose what makes you yourself.”
“Yes.” The word was barely audible, and I tried to speak a little louder. “I’m afraid of looking at you and feeling nothing because the part of me that fell in love with you was burned away in dimensional fire. Of being alive but not really being Sidney.”
The cabin was silent except for the crackling of the fire in the woodstove and the soft breathing of the dying phoenix. Outside, birds began to sing their morning songs, oblivious to the fate I might be facing.
“And you’re still going to do this.”
It wasn’t a question, because he already knew the answer. He could probably feel it through our electromagnetic connection, the way my determination sat alongside my fear.
“I have to. If I don’t, the phoenix dies, the network collapses, and my family is trapped forever.
That’s not something I can live with.” I turned in his arms and made myself meet his gaze.
“But I need you to understand something. If I come out of that merge and I’m not myself anymore — if I’m some half-phoenix entity that doesn’t remember what it means to be Sidney Lowell — you are not responsible for that thing.
You don’t owe it anything. You can walk away. ”
“No.”
The word was flat, absolute. His hands came up to frame my face, careful and deliberate, his fingers resting against my cheekbones.
“Whatever you become,” he said, hazel eyes fixed on me, “whatever changes, whatever gets transformed in that fire — you’re still you.
The core of who you are doesn’t live in your abilities or this electromagnetic gift you inherited, or even in your memories.
It lives in the choices you make. The way you protect others, even when it costs you.
The way you keep going when anyone else would give up. ”
His voice was steady, each word deliberate. I stood there in silence as he continued.
“You think some dimensional fire is going to burn away what makes you Sidney? You’re wrong.
I’ve watched you push past every limit, break every rule, sacrifice everything you had to protect people you barely knew.
That’s who you are. That’s what makes you Sidney Lowell.
And no rebirth ritual is going to change that because that’s not something you can burn away.
It’s fundamental to how you exist in the world. ”