Reaping by K. Makansi Read Free Book Online Page B

berries are distinctive enough that everyone knows to avoid them.
    The woman shakes her head. “Long enough.”
    “Why?”
    “Didn’t want—” she rasps, shuddering, her words slurring. “Didn’t want to see—the Dragon—”
    Evander Sun-Zi? The director of the Farms?  I never had much to do with Farm Operations, so I never worked with Evander, but he was close with both of my parents. He was a closed, impassive man, with a reputation for ruthlessness, but he was never as frightening to me as Aulion.
    “Why?” I ask again, confused. I stare at her, trying to understand, as her eyes lose focus and her breathing grows shallow. “What about him?”
    She closes her eyes for a moment as if gathering strength, and then looks up, and this time there’s more power in her voice.
    “Before the Resistance, I worked the Farms, a Dietician. Got pregnant by one of the workers. A good man.” Her eyes focus on me, intense. “Evander transferred him and took my son,” she says. “My son. Samuel. He took my boy and he gave me this.”
    Her head rolls to the side, and she releases my collar from her grip to gesture weakly at her neck. I follow her hand to the side of her neck, where I can see thin lines of white, scarred flesh. It looks like a brand. I lean over her to look at the pattern more closely and realize it’s the stylized image of a dragon.
    Evander Sun-Zi. The Dragon.
    “I will not give him the pleasure,” she says, her voice barely more than a breath. Her eyes are rimmed with red, but clear as she stares blankly up at me. Her hand goes limp and falls against her shoulder. I press my fingers against her neck, checking her pulse. It’s there, but barely. She hasn’t got long. I glance around. I don’t have much time left before the soldiers come back, unless Jahnu has somehow taken them all out. But it’s better not to count on that.
    “What’s your name?” I ask.
    “Lila.”
    “Which Farm?
    “Doesn’t matter now,” she whispers.
    “We could try to find them. Tell them.”
    “Too dangerous. Best to let them be....”
    “Lila,” Kenzie says, “we have to go.”
    She nods weakly.
    I take her hand and squeeze against her slack fingers. But her eyes are already closed. I stand, reluctant to leave her to die here, alone. But she’s made her choice, there’s nothing more we can do.
    Kenzie turns to run back to the trees, and I follow, listening for sounds of conflict in the distance.  Who shot that soldier? Who put an arrow through the heart of a highly trained Sector soldier and then disappeared?
    An arm shoots out from behind a tree to grab mine, and my heart skyrockets. I whirl and pull my Bolt up, squeezing the trigger to fire—and then I see Firestone’s matted curls, his narrow eyes.
    “What happened? Why didn’t you bring her back?”
    “She ate doll’s eyes. She’ll be dead in minutes.” I cast my eyes back towards the clearing, now invisible through the smoke and trees. “Her name was Lila.”
    “We need to move,” Kenzie says. “We have no idea how long the soldiers will be distracted.”
    “Don’t want to join the growing body count,” Firestone says, with rare urgency in his drawl. “We head to Normandy. Put as much distance between them and us as possible.”
    Firestone leads us at a jog through the woods, though his steps are clearly laden with pain. We reclaim our packs and set off at a run, our feet heavy and tired in the dead leaves, no doubt leaving a trail bold enough for a child to follow.
    “Who shot that arrow?” Jahnu asks, wondering aloud as we jog.
    “Maybe it’s better we don’t know,” Kenzie says.
    “You don’t think it was someone from the Resistance?” I ask.
    Kenzie shoots me a withering look. “You think we use bows, Vale? Technology from before the Great Wars? Our weapons may not be Sector-issue, but they’re functional.”
    “We use bows to hunt,” Jahnu interjects, ever the peacekeeper, “but they’re bulky, and we’ve never trained