Page 155 of Heartbeats & Highways

I shoved back from the table, somehow got the door open in time, and retched onto the grass. When my stomach was empty, I wiped my mouth. Trembling, I went back inside and took my chair. There was a bottle of water waiting for me, the lid already unscrewed. Savage nudged it toward me. I picked it up and took a long drink.

My insides were shaky.

“It’s time to tell us the truth, Evie. We need to have all the facts,” Colt commanded. “And don’t leaveanythingout.”

“It’s ugly,” I murmured. “And I haven’t been honest with you. With any of you.”

I looked at Savage when I made the pronouncement.

He took my hand in a show of support. Even though what I was about to tell them was horrible, it was time for honesty.

“I should start at the beginning, then. And tell you the full story.” I took a deep breath and looked at Savage. “I’m originallyfrom Texas. Northern Texas. But when I was fourteen, my parents moved us to a place called The Farm in Oklahoma. The closest city is Broken Arrow.”

Savage frowned, but he remained silent, nodding at me to continue.

“It’s five hundred acres of private farmland. My parents and nineteen other families lived on the land. We’re called . . . the Seed Reapers.”

“Seed Reapers?” Savage repeated.

I swallowed. “It’s a cult. I was raised in a cult, Savage.”

No one said anything, so I blazed on.

“When I was sixteen, I got engaged to the Grand Patriarch’s son. When I was seventeen, I was bound to Randall, Jr. and married,” I clarified.

“The Grand Patriarch . . . That’s the leader?” Colt asked.

I nodded.

“You were married at seventeen?” Savage croaked. “You never told me that.”

“If I told you the truth, it would’ve raised a red flag.”

Savage clenched his jaw. “Babe, you being evasive about your past was the biggest red flag of all. I knew something was up, I just didn’t know what. Go on. We have to hear it all now.”

My shoulders slumped. “Randall was two years older than me. After we were married, we moved in together on the other side of The Farm. Far from everyone. He was the Grand Patriarch’s son, so we had a private spot just outside the community. The beatings started a few months after we were married—because I kept getting my period . . .”

I took another sip of water.

“Sow, grow, harvest, rest,” I murmured, almost to myself.

“What?” Savage asked.

“We had four seasons. Sow, grow, harvest, rest. Not only did they correspond with the planting of crops, but our relationshipsmirrored them too. The name. The Seed Reapers, that’s where it came from.”

“I don’t understand,” Colt said.

“We . . . all of us—the girls . . . we were bred for sowing. In the sowing season, we got married. The growing season, we were pregnant. The harvest season, we gave birth. The rest season was for recovery, so we could have more babies the next year. The whole purpose of the cult is to grow in size. That’s how they found me and my parents. When I was fourteen, we were visiting Broken Arrow, and my dad met the Grand Patriarch . . . The cult looks for people they can convert, and the women who join become the breeders . . . it’s usually their daughters. My parents were already hyper-religious. It was easy for the Grand Patriarch to convince them to move to The Farm.”

Savage frowned. “But you told me?—”

“Let her talk, Savage,” Colt commanded.

Savage nodded and clamped his mouth shut.

“After a year together,” I said quietly. “I still wasn’t pregnant. He blamed me for his family not growing. A week after my eighteenth birthday, my parents committed joint suicide in a grand sacrifice to God in the hopes it would make me fertile. I didn’t find that out until months later—that the Grand Patriarch had convinced them that if they sacrificed themselves that my womb would finally take seed.”

My stomach turned when I thought about it. “Ironic, isn’t it? Both my parents died so I could have children, and now I’m pregnant with twins.”

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