Resist (The Harvest Saga Book 2) (3 page)

After we had strolled through
the dark evening toward her house, Marian and I decided that she would postpone her procedure until after the wedding. She would be sore and did not want to ruin her wedding day. It would be rescheduled a few weeks later, providing she still wished to have the procedure at that time. I understood her need, her want of a child, the one thing she could not have.

I was seated at my desk combing through messages that my father or his cronies insisted that I be involved with when a light knock sounded at my door. “You may enter.”

Gretchen stepped inside. “Are you sure about this, Crew?”

“Yes. I am sure. I am ready.” I pulled my coat on.

Gretchen shook with nerves. She was brave, but bravery did not remove all of the fearful feelings one wrestled with internally. I had a feeling we would all need a heavy dose of bravery to face the future that lay ahead of us. We made our way down the servants’ hallways, low-lit back staircases and out into the dark night. Slipping beneath the palace into the cellar and then into the tunnels was easy. It would be the return journey that would prove more difficult.

We emerged into an alleyway, slipping quietly from shadow to shadow. The outskirts of the city, the Lesser section, was appalling. Trash and dirt littered the ground. Shacks made of any material they could find dotted the shantytown, which smelled of feces, decay, and squalor. It was almost officially winter. I could not imagine how horrific it smelled after being baked in the hot summer sun.

Gretchen made her way to a small, wooden shack and knocked on the door. Shadows and light danced from behind the warped wooden door. Gretchen spoke quietly with someone beyond the door and motioned me forward. I stepped onto the porch, its boards creaking underfoot.

Disappearing into the tiny hut, Gretchen held the door for me to enter as well. Laney was seated at a small table. Gretchen held hands with a girl I recognized as being from Wheat Village.

Laney looked horrible. Her blonde curls were loose and dirty, dark rings floated beneath her once vibrant eyes. She looked up at me and the defeat I saw in her entire person disappeared, instantly replaced by fierce anger.

She stood so quickly that her chair overturned, but even the sound of it crashing against the plywood floor did not even make her flinch. She marched over, stopping directly in front of me. I did not even see her hand move. The crack sounded like that of lightning before the flesh of my cheek caught fire. “You. How can you even show your face here? You’re the reason that we are here, that they’ve taken everything from us!”

“I─”

“No. I get to speak. It’s my turn. You lied to everyone. You pretended to be one of us and then had them drag us away for your harvest.” It sounded like the very word was poison on her tongue.

Tears spilled out of her eyes and streaked slowly down her face. Her fists beat my chest, hard and frantic at first, then slower and slower until they stopped. I held her while she cried. “Shh. I am sorry. I am so sorry. I know now that it was wrong. I was wrong. But I will make it right. I promise.”

“How can you possibly make this right?”

Gretchen’s voice filled the room. “By joining the resistance.”

Gray paced the floor in
front of the fireplace. He never paced. Something was wrong. “Gray?” He paused and looked at me before continuing to wear a path into the floorboards. “Gray, please. What is it?”

Gray blew out a breath and then sat down on the couch and patted the seat beside him. “Come here. You should know something. I didn’t want to be the one to have to tell you, but I’d rather it come from me than from someone else, like one of the Olympian guards.”

I smiled slightly. “You are an Olympian guard.”

He elbowed me gently and handed me his comm. On it was my worst nightmare. It wasn’t Norris or the Preston’s. It was Crew. He was dressed in a fine, white suit, a golden crown upon his head, waving in the camera’s direction. His other arm was busy. It was wrapped around the slender waist of another girl. It was an engagement announcement. Crew was engaged to be married. It promised more details in the very near future.

I read the article again and again. It just wouldn’t stick. Or, maybe it was the fact that I didn’t want it to stick, didn’t want to admit that it was real, that kept me from absorbing the facts contained therein.

Gray was patient. He sat beside me. He didn’t push me to speak, didn’t ask if I was okay. He knew. He knew that I didn’t want to speak and that I was anything but okay. I was devastated, torn in two, and stomped into the ground. He sat with me until I handed his comm back and quietly told him to go home because he had to work the next morning. He wouldn’t get enough sleep as it was.

Gray didn’t protest. He gathered his things, shrugged his coat on, gave me one more lingering, concern-filled look, and then disappeared into the darkness outside the front door.

So many emotions rolled through me; anger, denial, sadness, envy, and more anger. I couldn’t believe it. If I hadn’t read the words and seen the picture on Gray’s comm, I wouldn’t have believed it. I should have known this would happen. His father was dead set on controlling his every move, every aspect of his life. When he sent me to the Lesser section of Olympus, told me I was infertile and therefore, not a suitable match for his son, the Crown Prince, I should have known.

I sat on the edge of my bed and clutched my chest while I remembered the bolded words. I only wished I had been caught up in a dream. Reality was always more brutal.

Crew was engaged to be married. He would be getting married to a beautiful woman who was a much more beautiful version of me. Our hair was a similar shade of dark auburn. Her smile was stunning. Standing beside her, Crew looked smitten. He’d looked at me like that.

How could he move on so fast? If his father did orchestrate the union, why did he look so happy in the picture? Did he ever really love me? Did he even know the difference between love and infatuation? Did I?

Either way, Crew was engaged to someone else. In the near future, Crew would be joined with this woman. They would be a pair for the remainder of their natural lives. I looked at the smooth silver encircling her slender throat and wondered if he had engraved her ring with the symbol of infinity, the symbol of forever, the symbol he had given me.

My stomach rolled. I had to make something for Kyan to eat when he got home. I paced the floor, cried, and slammed cabinet doors shut. I cried some more and talked to myself as I slammed a pan onto the stove to start dinner. This whole thing was crappy and I couldn’t believe he would do this to me. He promised me forever. Infinity. And infinity doesn’t end.

I had trouble sleeping the rest of the night, and no matter what I tried to think about to get my mind off of it, I couldn’t get the image of Crew out of my mind, no matter how hard I tried. In the morning, I was dragging. Pulling on layer after layer, I prepared for the worst. A cold wind was already rattling the windows of the cabin. I pulled on a thick wool sweater and laced the boots that would later be caked in mud.

I braided my hair down my back and then wound it into a bun and tied a small piece of fabric around it. When Kyan walked in, I was pulling the biscuits out of the Dutch oven. He looked ragged.

“Hungry?”

“Starved.” He sunk down into a chair at the small wooden table. “Do you have any coffee?”

“Sure.” I poured him a cup. Ky rubbed his eyes with one hand and brought the cup to his lips with the other.

He looked up at me. “You’re in South today. You’ll be climbing. Pruning.”

I nodded. “I’m ready. They do know that the trees shouldn’t be pruned this late. Right?”

He pulled a pair of fingerless woolen gloves out of his pocket. “They don’t care. It’s just to keep us busy. You can use mine.”

“Thanks. I don’t know where mine are.”

I sat down beside him, happy to see him for a few minutes before I had to report. We sat quietly together, eating biscuits and sipping coffee. Well, I gulped it. I needed all the help I could get today.

“Listen, there’s something you should probably know.”

“If it’s about Crew’s engagement, I already know.”

“How’d you find out?” He lowered his coffee mug, his blue eyes clouded with concern.

“Gray stopped by and showed me. He didn’t want me to be caught off guard either.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m sorry, Abby Blue.”

“I should have expected it. It just sucks when the one you love looks so happy with someone else.”

His eyes met mine. “Yeah. It really does.”

Insert foot in mouth.

∞

Frost covered the branches of
the trees like a delicate lace. Actually, it covered everything. Blades of grass, piles of dried leaves, everything was draped in it. A cold wind blew from the north. The southern orchard was the largest. It was also the most exposed to the elements. Nestled into a valley and set onto rolling hills above it, the wind all but screamed through the orchard.

Kyan tried to give me his coat, but I refused. He needed it. It was hard to tell what the guards who’d taken over my home had done with mine. They’d probably used it for kindling. Half of the village was working in South. The other half was pruning North. When we were finished with these, we would split up and cover East and West as well.

We’d never pruned in the winter. It seemed wrong to prune when the trees were enjoying the respite they’d worked so hard all year to earn.

“You,” barked a guard. “You’re small, so you’re climbing. Get up there and we’ll hand you the pruners.”

I nodded, and my fingertips found purchase on the bark of a strong limb. I pulled myself up and then eased carefully from branch to branch until I was as high as I felt comfortable going. Steadying my feet, I looked down, nodding to the guard, who handed me long-handled pruning shears. I went straight to work. If they wanted to ruin the trees and any chance of harvesting fruit by pruning off-season, then fine.

The freezing temperatures were the only thing that abated my sweat. The wind burned my cheeks and lips. The tips of my fingers turned red and numbness set in. By noon, I was shivering so hard my teeth were chattering.

Climbing out of a tree, I dropped to the ground. Pins and needles shot through my feet. “Where’s your coat, Lesser?” Crap. It was Ardis, the jerk guard from the trail. I looked at my boots before answering.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know. You should keep track of your things.”

“When I came back, you guards had taken over my house. My coat had been in it. So I have no idea where it is now. It was you who didn’t keep track of my things.”

His polished black boots stepped up to mine. Toe to toe. Again. He did not understand the concept of personal space. At all. “We’re in your cabin?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, sir.”

I gritted my teeth. “Yes, sir.”

“That’s perfect. It burns you up, doesn’t it, Lesser.”

“I don’t like it.”

“You don’t like what? Look at me.”

I raised my eyes to his. “I don’t like you in my house.”

“Greaters allowed your village to build the house, so shouldn’t we be given use of it when we need it?”

“No.”

“Why is that?” He cocked his head to the side, studying me.

“Lesser hands built it. We cut the timbers, mortared the cracks, and hammered the nails. These were built with the strength of our backs and the sweat off our brows. It’s not yours. It’s ours. This entire village is ours. These orchards are ours.”

His breath came out in visible puffs of smoke that filtered right into my face. “And why would you think the orchards are yours?”

He was daring me. “We plowed the land, fertilize it, grow the trees, prune them then harvest their fruit. This is Lesser land. These are the fruits of OUR labors. Greaters...you do nothing.”

“You’ve been given a gift from someone very high up. I’m not supposed to... Never mind. But listen to me, Lesser bitch. If you ever say anything like that again, to anyone, I will see to it that you disappear.” He snapped his finger near my eye. “Like that.”

Oh, darn. I was beginning to think he didn’t like me.

My mother and father watched
as the tailor adjusted the suit jacket. The man tugged and pulled one sleeve down and then the other before worrying about the lapel. “You will be such a lovely groom, Crew,” Mother cooed.

She swiped a tear from her eyes. It was probably as fake as her eyelashes, or my parents’ marriage.

“Of course he will be handsome. Nothing but the best for the future King of Olympus.” My father was forever reminding me of my duty.

Marian was across town, being fitted for her dress today. I imagined Mother had it designed to catch the attention of the entire city. Subtlety was lost on my mother. Bigger was better, and the more outrageous, the better. It would garner more attention.

After dinner last night, Marian and I strolled through the streets and then changed into dark clothing in an alleyway before making our way to Laney in the Lesser section. Gretchen met us there as well.

The underground resistance in Olympus was enormous and very well organized. I expected all of the Lessers to be involved, and they were. What I had not expected was how many Greaters had joined the cause. It was not as if the supporters of the resistance met on Tuesdays at sundown. We were organized into small teams. Each team was led by a member of the resistance council.