Free Reap (The Harvest Saga Book 1) by Casey L. Bond

could and he stumbled but didn’t fall. He and Crew laughed as they walked off toward the Preston house. If I had been paying attention, I might have noticed Crew looking back at me as I fled. I seethed toward home, knowing now I would find it empty.
     

 
     
     
     
     
    Sitting in the dark, the old rocking chair creaked and groaned with every motion. Back and forth. Back and forth. Creak, squall. Creak, groan. I was on the porch when Kyan came running toward the house. Somehow, he saw me. Maybe it was the motion of the rocking chair that caught his eye. He scooped me up and held me tight. Tears had been flowing from my eyes all afternoon, but when Kyan showed me that he loved me, in whatever capacity this was, the real crying began in earnest.
    “They took her,” I sobbed and knotted the fabric of his shirt, dragging him even closer.
    “I heard she had to leave and wanted to see if you were okay.”
    I shook my head. “They made her leave. Sent her away.”
    “Who?” He pushed me back, just enough to look at my eyes.
    “The Preston’s. They want me to agree to accept Zander or they won’t bring her back. I’m not even sure if they’ll bring her back even if I do accept his hand.”
    “You’re not marrying Zander Preston.”
    “I don’t want to. But, what am I supposed to do? Lulu is in Olympus. I can’t just leave her there.”
    “Has she ever been sent to the city before?”
    “Yes.”
    “Maybe this is one of those times. Maybe Preston’s capitalizing on her trip to trick you into agreeing to marry Zander?”
    I shrugged. It didn’t matter. Lulu was all I had. And they took her. I needed to get her back. Kyan didn’t leave me. He guided me inside, lit all of the candles and fixed dinner for us. I could barely eat, and though he noticed, he kept silent on the matter.
    He went to the creek for water so that I could wash up before bed and then took Lulu’s bed for himself. Though a wall separated us, I felt like we could see right through it, see each other. Right into one another’s eyes—one another’s souls.
     
    ∞
     
    The next morning, the sun was working overtime. The air was hot and dry. Apples were baking on the branches and falling to the ground. They were rotting faster than we could pick them. The children were busy. Running in and out of the trees, they plucked the rotten fruit from the ground and placed them in buckets. Some squealed happily until scolded by their caretakers or parents. Their buckets were filled quickly and by the day’s end a huge pile of rotten apples lay at the end of the orchard.
    Kyan grinned and nodded his head at the pyramid of steamy, spongy fruit. Gnats and bees were busy buzzing around the pyramid of rot, making the most of the feast. Laney grabbed my hand and I told Crew to hang back with us for a while if he had nothing better to do. He did.
    When the adults and supervisors were gone, and dusk had settled into the valley, we paired off into teams. Kyan and me versus Crew and Laney. “What do we do exactly?” Crew asked nervously. I decided a demonstration was the best explanation. I picked up a browning, wilted apple and chucked it at him. It was so hot and gross that it exploded when it hit his thigh.
    For a moment, he looked stunned, but that only lasted a minute before he narrowed his eyes and grabbed an apple of his own. I tried to run but was too slow. His apple hit me directly in the calf. It was on. Apples flew everywhere. Their sweet smell and our laughter floated into the evening air.  Laney tried to hide behind the pile, so I knocked the whole thing over onto her. She squealed and laughed, running away from the apple-anch.
    Crew and Kyan exchanged blows. Kyan had perfected his strategy over the years. He launched multiple apples at once. But, Crew’s aim was more precise. I ducked behind a nearby tree and barely avoided one of his stinging blows. We laughed and threw until we ran out of breath and collapsed on the ground in gasping