Page 24 of Claiming Sarah

I recognized it immediately. It was Portend. The conduit Mother I had killed.

I turned around to face her. She looked as old as I remembered—gray robes to the floor, a crinkled face with a wry smile. But unlike before, she was solid. No longer a ghost.I had killed her with a bone knife, so why the hell is she alive?

“I am not alive, Contra. I am not Portend, either. Not really. I am something else.” The vision seemed to struggle to find the right words. “I am a manifestation of your imagination. A representative of the ether which brings all grace and power to those who earn it. I have Portend’s memories because she has returned to me to be reborn one day.”

“Are you here to kill me? Get revenge?” I asked defensively.

She cackled like Portend, whoever she was. “She did not say you are funny. Let us begin. Follow me.”

So it begins.I steadied my breath and followed her through the hallway. “Where are we going?”

“To see if you are worthy of the title of Mother.” A door ahead was marked “Infirmary,” in English, and she stopped there. “Enter and remember—everything you see here is real.”

As I stepped forward, the door slid open. Inside, there were two humans hooked up to a bunch of life support machines. I saw their bare white forearms between the machines, so I knew it wasn’t Jac and Deacon. I was grateful for that.

Heartbeats beeped, the whoosh sound of lungs being artificially filled with air…it all brought back too many bad memories.Just like Mom, before she passed.

I hated the sights and sounds and smells of hospitals, ever since losing my mom in one. I couldn’t stand it and being inside the infirmary brought it all back. My worst memories come to life. I had expected to be tested, but not like this.

I closed the distance between myself and the two people on life support—obviously, Portend wanted me to see them. When I realized who they were, tears sprang from my eyes.

Elizabeth and Jenny. My sisters.

I screamed, “What the fuck!”

Portend entered, and the ship shook, knocking me back against a shiny medical table. I lurched forward and grabbed her shoulders, shaking her. “They are not part of this!”

“They are part ofyou. To be a Mother means to sacrifice oneself, Contra.”

Terror for my sisters gripped me, and I backhanded her with all my might. “The fuck it does! You leave them out of it!”

She smiled when she licked the blood at her split lip. “You can assault me all you like, but your sisters are not going anywhere. Like the rest of us on the ship.”

“What?” I shook my head, trying to make sense of it all. “What are you talking about?”

“The power on this ship is dying to keep them both alive on these machines. Your crew, all twelve of them, plus Jac and Deacon, are all going to die—”

The ship shook once more, sending me tumbling away from Portend. I crashed against Jenny’s bed, before I pulled myself to my feet.

Ether-Portend continued, “You, both your sisters, your crew, and your companions will all die, if you do not choose between them.”

I shook my head frantically. “That can’t be right!”

“It is. A Mother must be willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Hard choices come with the job. There is no time for you to confirm the status of your ship. You must act. Choose now.”

Omen said everything in the test was a simulation and if I die in it, I die for real…Ether-Portend says all of this is real…who is lying?

My mind snapped. I stood between my sisters, taking their hands in mine. “We die together.”

Portend frowned, and the ship swayed so hard, I thought I would throw up. She barked, "You will let everyone on this ship die? Your companions die,bothof your sisters—”

“I will not choose between Elizabeth and Jenny,” I yelled back at her. “If we cannot all live, then we all die. Nothing will make me choose between them.”

“And so nothing has.” She smiled and clapped her hands.

The ship disintegrated, along with my sisters. Everything faded away, like dust in the wind. It was replaced by the battlefield in front of Valor’s home, where I had killed Portend not so long ago. It seemed as though no one saw us watching them—fighters ran through us across the field.

In this scene, we were near the end of the battle with the conduits, when Portend had taken me hostage. She had knocked into the side of my head, making me bleed down half of my face. She had me on my knees in front of her, with a bone knife to my throat as Deacon ran toward us.

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