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“Yes. Later… after we end this shit preferably.”

Rhett laughs and Ezra glares at him.

“She learned that from you.”

“I’m proud.”

I face the creature.

It reaches with its hands. So many fucking hands.

I see Mercy in them.

Not literally.

Every woman buried here. Every person sacrificed because someone decided suffering was sacred.

“What grows?”

The creature screams.

I lift my marked wrist. “What grows?”

The crowned figure bows. The corn bends toward me. The creature reaches higher.

I feel the land.

Not like Malakai.

Different.

He hears roots. I hear possibilities.

Every seed. Every bud. Every living thing waiting for permission. And underneath… that thing.

Growing. Because nobody ever told it to stop.

I close my eyes. “Enough.”

The world stops.

And then Ward Farm dies.

The corn collapses first.

All of it.

Every stalk falls at once, thousands of dry bodies crashing against the Earth in a deafening wave that rolls across the field.

The apple trees shudder and dump their fruit. Apples strike the ground hard enough to split open, flesh spilling into the dirt. Pumpkins collapse into themselves. Flowers blacken where they bloom. Leaves tear free from branches and rain around us.

Beneath my boots, the grass turns brown.

Death races across Ward Farm in every direction.

Mariah screams from somewhere near the house.

Ezra grabs me.