Page 111 of Rebirth

Just like Sophie saved him.

It’s selfish to ask more from someone who has given their all. Yet, here I am. We need him. We can’t fight this scourge without him. He’s the Vullan’s greatest mind.

He can’t give up. Not when we still need him. Not when Sophie needs him.

My hands curl into fists. “Sophie wouldn’t want this, He’rox. She saw the good in you. She wouldn’t want you to live like this.”

Still nothing.

I release a slow breath. Perhaps it’s too late. He’s too far gone in his grief. But we have to do something. The Corrupted are a threat as long as they remain unmoving in the center of the camp. More than that, if there’s a chance, any chance at all that Sophie is alive...

We have to take it.

My gaze slides to her, watching her float in the still liquid.

Something deep within me is telling me I’m right. That she’s still in there, somewhere. That part of me the Gryken gave me, the only blessing in this madness, might be right.

I have to stall the others. Prevent them from striking and cutting down the Corrupted. Get them to wait.

Because they are just the first of a wave that will come against us. And this can’t be how it ends.

A world like this, an insidious threat eating right through it, is not the Earth we all risked our lives for.

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

SOPHIE

Do you know what happens when you die?

For a moment, there is nothing.

No thoughts, no sensations, no sense of self.

Nothing.

When the Gryken tentacle pierced my body, I felt life slipping away. I saw He’rox’s anguished face as he held me in his arms. Then darkness swallowed me.

Now, I feel as if I’m floating, surrounded by a warm light. The pain and fear that consumed me in my final moments are distant memories now.

This place of light is a place of peace. So different from the new world as I know it. Not destroyed and desolate. Not dangerous and filled with terror. Here it is safe.

Is this what people call the afterlife?

A part of me longs to stay here. It would be so easy to just…remain.

But another part tugs at my spirit, calling me back. I see glimpses of the people I loved—my father and then…He’rox.

His pained cry as I faded comes back to me like a dagger to my chest.

This light may comfort me, but my place is with those still fighting in the darkness.

Reluctantly, I turn away from the warm glow and my eyes flutter open.

Liquid.

I’m underwater. Only this time, panic doesn’t set in.

I’ve been here before. In this tank. Only this time, my body isn’t fighting for me to exit.

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