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Resolve.

He looks past me. At the Harvest. At the field. At everything that has owned him since 1791. “No.” The word is quiet.

The ground trembles.

Ezra looks at the roots around his wrists. “No.”

One snaps. Then another. His arm comes free. He tears the remaining roots from his body.

The Harvest screams.

Ezra stands. For the first time tonight, he isn’t running. He takes my hand. Not because the field told him. Because he decides to.

Then he looks at me. “Take me to Mercy.”

My heart pounds. “Why?”

His fingers tighten around mine. “Because I’m ending what I started.” Behind us, the Harvest rises through the smoke.

And this time...all four of us turn to face it.

14

Sown

Sage

All four of us turn to face it as the Harvest towers above the smoke.

For one stupid second, nobody moves.

Maybe because there is nowhere left to run. Maybe because I’m tired or maybe because at some point tonight, I reached my lifetime limit for being chased by fucking agriculture.

The thing unfolds from the burning corn.

Its head brushes the smoke as branches rise from its skull like antlers with corn husks hanging from them in strips.

What the fuck?

Rhett steps in front of me and Malakai moves to my other side but Ezra doesn’t. He stays beside me with his hand still holding mine.

The Harvest notices and every mouth closes.

Suddenly, the silence is deafening and Ezra’s fingers tighten.

“Don’t let go.”

I glance over at him. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

Something flickers across his face then the dinner bell rings.

The sound rolls through Ward Farm and everything stops. The screaming. The running. The instruments. Even the fire seems to freeze.

Rhett turns. “What the fuck?”

Another bell.

Movement begins beyond the smoke.