Page 242 of Ripe
Screams erupt outside as the ground bucks hard enough to throw me sideways. The barn groans around us, walls bowing inward while broken beams rain splinters from above.
“SAGE!”
Rhett barrels through what’s left of the doorway.
His mask is gone. Blood streaks one side of his face, disappearing beneath his jaw, but he barely seems to notice. His eyes tear through the barn until they find me.
For half a second, everything in him changes.
His shoulders drop. His face breaks with relief.
Then he sees Mercy.
He stops dead in his tracks. “Holy fuck.”
“Rhett, help me!”
That snaps him out of it.
He crosses the distance between us and reaches for Mercy without another question, wrapping both hands around what remains of her waist.
His fingers sink straight through.
He jerks back. “What the fuck?”
He tries again, grabbing higher this time, but his hands pass through her body as though she’s made of smoke.
Mercy doesn’t move.
Rhett stares at his empty hands.
Then at her.
And whatever he was about to say dies on his tongue.
Malakai appears behind him. Black veins cover both arms now. His red mark glows. “Move.”
Rhett moves and Malakai drops beside Mercy. The second he touches her roots, his entire body locks and he screams.
“KAI!”
His eyes turn black and the ground answers him. Roots loosen. Not all. Enough.
Mercy gasps. “How?”
Malakai looks at her. “Tiller.”
For the first time, Mercy smiles at him. “Hello, Malakai.”
His face breaks. “Mercy.”
One word.
Two hundred years inside it.
She reaches for him and touches his cheek. “You got old.”
Rhett laughs through tears. “He absolutely did not.”
