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Fuck it.

I take it.

Ezra reaches the front. “DON’T!”

Too late.

I drink. It’s sweet. Warm and thick.

Not alcohol. Or not only alcohol. Something earthy under it. Something metallic.

I swallow… and the entire farm goes silent.

Not gradually—instantly.

For one impossible second, I hear nothing.

Then… Thump.

I look down.

Thump.

The stage vibrates beneath my boots and my smile disappears.

A pulse… from under ground.

The crowd erupts. Music blasts and everyone starts dancing again.

The announcer laughs and raises my hand.

I stare at the wooden stage.

Did anyone else feel that?

I look for Ezra. He’s standing directly below me. Pale. Rhett is beside him with no smile. Then I see someone behind them. A man I’ve never met. Tall. Dark hair falling around his face. Black shirt with dirt on his hands. He isn’t watching the stage. He’s watching the ground as if he’s waiting for something. Then his head lifts and his eyes find mine.

The noise around me seems to dull as he looks at the red ribbon then at my face and smiles. Not warmly. Not cruelly… like he’s just received confirmation of something.

He mouths two words that I can’t hear but I understand them anyway.

YOU’RE HERE.

The ground pulses again, hard enough that this time my knees bend.

Nobody screams. Nobody stops dancing. Nobody seems to notice except for the three men staring at me.

Ezra. Rhett and the stranger with dirt beneath his fingernails.

For the first time all night… I stop having fun.

5

The Tiller

Malakai

She drank.