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I trip. Actually fucking trip.

Malakai looks over his shoulder. Ezra stops walking and Sage looks delighted.

“Are you all right?” She asks with a sinister grin across her dirt streaked face.

“Perfectly.”

“Didn’t look like it.”

“Uneven ground.”

“Uh-huh.”

Malakai’s mouth twitches.

I hate him again.

Ezra resumes walking. “We’re almost there.”

Sage mutters, “Thank God.”

The house appears through the trees.

I should feel relieved. Instead, every step away from the field makes something inside me restless.

The Reaper.

He’s fully awake now. I haven’t felt him this strongly since… I don’t remember. Maybe I don’t want to. There were years when I fought it. Decades even. Then I learned something Ezra still refuses to accept. The role isn’t another creature living inside me. There isn’t a Reaper crouched somewhere behind my ribs waiting to possess me.

It’s me. It’s always been me.

The Harvest simply took everything already there and made it permanent. My speed, instincts. My appetite for pursuit. My inability to leave well enough alone. My mother used to say I was born chasing trouble. She had no idea how right she was.

Sage stops and I nearly walk into her. “What?”

She turns toward the field.

Nothing moves.

Malakai notices. “What do you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

Ezra comes back. “Sage.”

She holds up a hand. “Wait.” Her head tilts.

I hear it then.

A whistle. Low. Distant. From the corn.

Sage looks at me.

My blood goes cold. Because I didn’t do it.

She knows the sound. The same whistle I used during the Hunt.

Her eyes meet mine. “Was that you?”