Let the wound in the portal network close.
Forty-four percent. Forty-three.
Ben’s warmth-pattern spiked with alarm again. Rosenthal’s electromagnetic weapon was charging, and I sensed its target signature aligning with my physical body’s location.
She was about to fire.
And Ben was standing between the weapon and me.
No, I tried to scream. Move. Get clear.
But I couldn’t make my body respond, couldn’t separate from the merge. I couldn’t do anything except burn corruption and hope Ben survived what was coming.
The warmth-pattern flared impossibly bright as Ben’s electromagnetic signature resonated with mine in ways it never had before. He was amplifying our connection, strengthening the bond between us, giving me something to hold on to.
Anchoring me with everything he had.
And then the weapon fired.
Chapter Fifteen
The electromagnetic weapon’s charge was all wrong.
Ben had sensed Sidney’s abilities enough over the past month to develop his own rudimentary electromagnetic sensitivity. It was nothing like her natural talent, of course, but still sufficient to detect strong signatures when they were close. And Rosenthal’s weapon was putting out a signal that made his skin crawl.
It had been designed to be deliberately harsh, meant to shatter rather than work with natural electromagnetic patterns. The frequencies were all peaks and valleys with no smooth transitions — white noise translated into energy that could disrupt living nervous systems.
The thing would smash into Sidney’s bioelectric field and fragment it, scatter her consciousness across multiple frequencies with no coherent pattern to coalesce around.
If it hit Sidney while she was this deep in the merge, it would kill her. Or worse — it would fragment her consciousness so completely that she could never re-form. She’d be trapped in phoenix fire forever, aware but unable to become anything resembling Sidney Lowell.
Ben positioned himself between the weapon and her kneeling form, his heart hammering so hard he could feel it in his throat. DAPI’s forces had formed a loose perimeter around the clearing, their weapons trained on him. Rebecca Morse had disappeared into the trees and eluded capture so far, but competent as she was, she was still one woman against at least twenty agents. All of them wore tactical gear…and all of them looked uncertain about what they were witnessing but were clearly trained to follow orders regardless.
Rosenthal stood a few yards away, her expression coldly triumphant as she held what looked like a modified EMF disruptor mounted on a rifle stock. The weapon must have been developed specifically for this moment. She’d been planning this, Ben realized — planning for exactly a scenario where Sidney would attempt the merge and Rosenthal could capture her mid-transformation.
“Mr. Sanders.” Her voice was professionally courteous, as if this was a reasonable negotiation rather than a threat to kill the woman he loved. “Step aside. This doesn’t concern you.”
“Like hell it doesn’t.” Ben kept his voice steady despite the fear coursing through him, despite the way his hands wanted to shake. “That weapon will kill her.”
Rosenthal didn’t blink. “The weapon will disrupt the merge, allowing us to capture Ms. Lowell before she completes whatever transformation she’s attempting.” She adjusted her grip on the device, her finger resting near the trigger. “We’ve been observing the ritual and documenting everything. The data we’ve gathered is invaluable on its own. But we need her alive for further study.”
Ben glanced down at Sidney. She still knelt beside the phoenix with both hands pressed to its chest, completely motionless except for the faint rise and fall of her breathing. Her face was pale, blood dried in tracks from her nose and the corners of her mouth. The dimensional burns on her arms had spread, the iridescent marks glowing faintly with residual phoenix fire.
Through their bond — weakened but still present — he could feel her consciousness burning somewhere far away, consumed in phoenix fire. She was at maybe forty-three percent corruption now, still clearing the shadow energy, still fighting to complete the transformation.
It was obvious that she had no idea he was about to be shot, no awareness that Rosenthal was targeting her physical form. She was too deep in the merge, too far gone into transformation to sense the physical world anymore.
“You don’t understand what you’re disrupting,” Ben said. He needed to buy time. Rebecca Morse was somewhere in the trees, probably trying to get into position for a shot. If he could keep Rosenthal talking, give Rebecca an opening —
“I understand perfectly.” Rosenthal’s finger moved closer to the trigger. “Ms. Lowell is attempting to anchor a corrupted phoenix through some form of psychic merger. The process may be fascinating, but it’s also extremely dangerous. The corruption percentage has been dropping steadily — we’ve documented it from ninety-three percent down to somewhere in the forty-percent range. We’re simply ensuring she survives to provide answers about how she’s accomplishing this.”
She’d been watching and recording the whole time, treating Sidney’s suffering like just another data set to analyze. Rage rushed through him, sharp and hot.
“You’re ensuring she dies fragmented and insane.” Ben took a step forward and positioned himself more directly in the weapon’s line of fire. “That device doesn’t just disrupt electromagnetic fields. It shatters them. I can feel how wrong it is. I know what it’ll do to human consciousness.”
Rosenthal’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he thought he saw a flicker of surprise in those cold, dark depths. “I need you to move.”
“No.”
