Infinity Reaper by Adam Silvera (best new books to read txt) 📗

the baby on her forehead. “You hear that, Maribelle? Your parents are making a better world for you.”

“I pray to the stars the potion isn’t used against our kind,” Sera says. “We have to be selective about who we introduce it to. Maybe only the other Walkers so it stays in the family. I wouldn’t even trust the government right now. They could use it on Maribelle whenever she comes into her powers.”

“If she does,” Bautista says. “My blood may have ruined that for her.”

“I know she will.”

“You’re the seer. I’m sure she’ll take after her powerful mother.”

“She would be lucky to have your fire, my sunray.”

“Once these streets are mine, I’m putting my fire out. Full-time dad,” Bautista says with a smile as he kisses baby Maribelle’s forehead again.

What would my life have looked like if they weren’t killed? Would the Blackout have ever happened with Sera around to predict the catastrophe clearly instead of my nagging gut feeling that I couldn’t make sense of? Would we have all transformed the world for the better by now so we could’ve had our own home after the streets were cleansed of violent specters?

Sera’s eyes glow like one full moon bouncing between her left and right eye. We’re being warned of a danger so intense that we feel it in our bones, picking at our skin; this is what my power should feel like. Even though I can’t see what she’s seeing, I have history to define the moment she’s dreading. Terror squeezes at her throat and she can’t speak their fates. One moment she was imagining a hopeful future, the next she was seeing that none of it would ever happen. Death may move quickly, but there’s solace in knowing she can prepare.

If only I could’ve braced myself for Atlas.

“Sera, what did you see?” Bautista has never been more frightened either.

“Our end,” Sera whispers. “But only mine and yours. There’s still hope for Maribelle. My mother can never know she’s my daughter. She’ll hunt her down and use her powers like she used me.”

Bautista is trying to stay strong, whereas Emil is crying like this is his own family. In a way, it is.

“What do we do?” Bautista asks as his own tears break through. “It was hard enough hiding your pregnancy this year.”

“I have a plan,” Sera says. She’s sobbing, her lips quivering as she plants a long kiss on baby Maribelle’s cheek. “I’m sorry I won’t be around, my sunflower.”

This is the apology I heard during my first attempt at retrocycling.

“How much time do we have?” Bautista asks.

Sera almost doesn’t want to answer, but time isn’t on their side. “Minutes. My mother and her forces will be breaking in as we speak.”

Rage takes over Bautista as his eyes burn like an eclipse and gray flames burst around his fist. “She isn’t coming anywhere near our daughter. Not unless Luna wants to die with us.”

Even though I can’t feel Emil’s shock, I know we’re the only two people in the room feeling it.

Luna is Sera’s mother—and my grandmother.

Forty-FourHistory

BRIGHTON

Emil and Maribelle are glowing like rays of sun. They’re sweating within their gold and gray and dark yellow flames and while words occasionally slip out, I have no idea what’s actually happening. All I know is they must have successfully retrocycled.

I can’t believe this. Emil is meeting my hero, his past life, while Maribelle is with her biological mother. How does it work? Have they become them? Do they have any control? No one thought they would, but we didn’t know any of this was possible before we came along. The rules for a phoenix don’t have to be the same rules for specters with phoenix powers.

Thirty minutes in, Prudencia asks, “What if they’re stuck?”

“It hasn’t even been an hour,” Tala says. “Phoenixes don’t go in and out.”

Wyatt nods. “The only gray sun on record for retrocycling returned from hibernation after two days.”

“I’m not sitting here for two days,” I say.

“Then let’s hope Emil and Maribelle can find their way back sooner,” Wyatt says.

“By trusting their instincts?”

“It’s gotten them this far.”

But how far is that? Truly. They’re limited by what they could do, even someone as special as Maribelle, a celestial-specter hybrid. I’m the Infinity Savior, and the reason I must not be able to retrocycle is because I don’t have all the powers my Reaper’s Blood has promised me. Even if the ghost powers don’t have much to do with my phoenix ones, everything is packaged together within me and is sure to affect each other, just like how Maribelle couldn’t fully fly until she activated her fire too.

I might be left out now, but once I have all my powers, I’ll make their retrocycling and everything else they can do look like child’s play.

Count on it.

An hour passes, then another, and I spend the next three replying to my YouTube comments and answering a few questions on Instagram, but by the eighth hour of waiting around, I’m beginning to wonder if my brother and Maribelle will find their way back to our time.

Forty-FiveSera Córdova

MARIBELLE

I’m the granddaughter of the woman who has taken everything from me.

This is some cursed darkness I’ve been born into. I’ve always loved being a celestial, but I’ve never wanted these powers less than I do right now. I crave family drama more along the lines of my mother not speaking to my grandmother because she doesn’t approve of my father or arguments over how best to raise me. Instead there have been hidden pregnancies, secret parents, and a villainous grandmother like some awful fairy tale.

I share blood with the most feared gang leader who is behind the deaths of Mama, Papa, Sera, Bautista, and Atlas. I want to rage-cry, but Luna’s made sure there’s no one to hold me anymore.

Emil tries approaching me, but I hold out my hand. I don’t want his comfort.

“Are Konrad and Finola back?” Sera asks.

“I don’t think so,” Bautista says. “Iris’s appointment with the savant should