All Chapters of The Phoenix Before Doomsday : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

---"Aren't you supposed to be dead?" I ask. My voice comes out thin. Shaky. Not the voice of the Phoenix. The voice of the woman I used to be. "I watched you die. That very day. I watched you fall. I watched the light leave your eyes."Marcus just stands there.He doesn't move. He doesn't blink. He just stands in the spot where the seal used to be, in the spot where the stone shattered, in the spot where the fear screamed and died. His eyes are glowing—that soft, warm glow I used to love. The glow I used to look for in a crowded room. The glow that made me feel safe once, a lifetime ago.Damon is frozen beside me.I can feel him. I can feel the tension in his body, the way his hand is already on his gun, the way his breath has gone shallow and hard. He doesn't know what to do. He doesn't know whether to shoot or run or grab me and pull me behind him.Every member of the team is surprised.Zara has her bow raised but she hasn't drawn it back. Helena is staring with her mouth open. Cut

---The guardian screams and the world screams with her.Not a normal scream. Not a human scream. Something deeper. Something older. Something that rips through the chamber like a shockwave, that slams into my chest and knocks the air out of my lungs, that makes the walls shake and the ground crack and the symbols on the stone glow so bright I have to close my eyes.I feel it in my bones. I feel it in my blood. I feel it in the baby kicking inside me, harder than ever, like she's trying to tell me something.And then—Silence.---I open my eyes.The chamber is different. The tomb is gone. The stone slab where the guardian lay for thousands of years is shattered, broken, scattered across the floor like it was never there.And the guardian is standing.Not lying. Not dying. Not barely breathing. Standing.She's taller than I expected. Stronger. Her skin is still pale, still translucent, still covered in those faint blue veins. But her eyes are bright. Alive. Burning with something I ca

---The voice doesn't come from anywhere, it comes from everywhere, from the sky and the ground and the walls of the buildings around us and from inside my own head, and it's not a sound so much as a presence, a weight, a hunger that fills the air like poison."I AM FREE."I feel it before I see it. The cold spreads out from the plaza like a wave, like a tide, like something that's been waiting for this moment since before the world began. The shadows deepen, the light fades, and the buildings around us start to crumble, not from the shaking but from the sheer pressure of the thing that's waking up.Damon grabs my arm. His grip is tight. His eyes are wide open."We need to move," he says. "Now.""Where?""Anywhere. Away from here.""No." Lyra's voice cuts through the panic, sharp and commanding. "There's nowhere to run. The Devourer is everywhere. It's not a monster you can outrun. It's a force of nature. It's the end of everything.""Then what do we do?"She looks at me. Her ancient

---The sun rises and I'm still here.Still breathing. Still whole and alive. I lie in bed with Damon's arm wrapped across my waist and I listen to the sounds of the bunker waking up around us. Footsteps in the corridor. Voices in the main chamber. The clang of pots in the kitchen. The laughter of children playing somewhere they shouldn't be.It's the most beautiful thing I've ever heard.Damon stirs beside me. His grey eyes flutter open. He looks at me like he's seeing me for the first time."Morning," he says."Morning.""How are you feeling?""Tired.""The baby?""She's fine. She's been kicking all night."He puts his hand on my stomach. He closes his eyes. He smiles."I can feel her.""She's going to be a promising young powerful being.""Just like her mother."He laughs.---We stay in bed for a long time. Longer than we should. Longer than we've allowed ourselves in months. We just lie there, holding each other, listening to the world wake up around us.I think about everything.

---Damon doesn't move.He doesn't speak nor does he blink. He just stares at me like I've just told him the world is ending again. Which, technically, I have."Director Morley had a son," he repeats. His voice is flat and hollow. "The woman who tortured the Receptors. The woman who killed your grandmother. The woman who tried to destroy everything. She had a son?.""Yes.""And he's coming for us.""Yes.""For our daughter.""Yes."He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. When he opens them again, they're hard, cold and deadly."Then we kill him."---I don't argue.I don't have the strength to argue. I'm still bleeding, still weak and still barely holding on. But I know one thing for certain: if Adrian Morley wants my daughter, he's going to have to go through me first.And through Damon.And through everyone else who loves her."We need to tell the others," I say."Not yet.""Damon—""Not yet. You need to rest. You need to heal. You need to—""I need to warn them.""They'll find