Live, Laugh, Kidnap - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gabby Noone is the author of the indie bestseller Layoverland. She grew up in Abington, PA and now lives in Brooklyn, NY.  Find her on Twitter and Instagram @twelveoclocke. 
 

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1

Genesis

G

enesis was having an out-­of-­body experience.

Again.

How else could she explain why she was hovering over her own bunk bed, watching herself make out with Sage, if not through the power of astral projection? It was physically impossible for her to be up this high, floating at the top of the ceiling of the tiny A-­frame cabin where she lived. Clearly, her spirit was soaring above her body to the beyond. It was as if she were a ball of light and energy floating in space.

Genesis felt a sense of complete peace wash over her, but that was quickly replaced by a sudden panic; if she was up here, then who was down there inside her actual body?

The figure in bed certainly looked like her: purple tie-­dyed T-­shirt and frizzy brown hair in a long French braid, freckles sprinkled across her face—­but Genesis was not controlling the legs that were now intertwined with Sage’s nor the fingers that were running through his glorious curls. She couldn’t feel his pillowy lips brushing against her own.

“You don’t know how long I’ve wanted this,” Sage murmured, breaking away from the kiss and staring into Genesis-­But-­Not-­Genesis’s eyes. “I’m in love with you. I love everything about you.”

“But that’s not me!” she yelled from the ceiling. Like a TV set to mute, though, no sound came out of her. “I’m up here! I’m up here!”

Genesis flailed her limbs, and then suddenly she was falling straight down. Just as she was about to collide with her alter ego, she woke with a start.

She rolled over on her lumpy mattress and squinted at the early morning light streaming in through the cabin’s tiny windows.

“I know you’re up there,” Ocean said, making her own bed on the bottom bunk. “But you’re gonna have to get your butt downhere because it’s our turn to milk the cows, baby!”

So Genesis hadn’t been astral projecting. She hadn’t even been lucid dreaming—­its easier-­to-­do cousin in which you are able to control your actions during a dream—­either.

Nope.

She’d just been having a garden-­variety sexy dream.

Or, really, sexy nightmare, when she considered the likely chance that Sage was her half brother. All the kids on the ranch were raised like one big family. Genesis wished the earlier generation had really thought through this whole communal parenting concept and how awkward it would get for everyone come puberty.

She took a deep breath and pressed her head against her pillow.

“I’ll be out there in a few minutes,” Genesis said, reaching below the covers for her phone. “I’m just going to, um, meditate first.”

“Wow, that’s so . . . dedicated of you,” Ocean said sarcastically, and went outside.

This was a running joke inside Astralia—­the poorly named community Genesis called home—­since nobody had actual time for spirituality anymore. They were too busy running a business. Milking the cows. Tending to the crops. Baking the bread. Not just to feed themselves but farmers market patrons across the state. It was all part of the community’s image rebrand that had been going on over the last decade.

The Astralians were no longer radicals who disavowed the ways of capitalism, religion, and nuclear family in favor of communal living and a shared belief in the power of meditation and hypnosis. It had been years since the townspeople of Violet, Montana, had last cowered in fear at the sight of the members or grabbed their hunting rifles and threatened to shoot the demons they believed possessed their souls. That era ended when their founder, Jimmy Joe James—­described as a “young Leonardo DiCaprio but in need of a shower” by the media, making women flock to the town in wwjjjd T-­shirts—­was arrested for money laundering and sentenced to thirty years in prison.

The early 2000s were an exhilarating, terrifying time, or at least that’s what Genesis had heard. When all the excitement was going on, she was no bigger than an heirloom tomato inside of hermother’s uterus. Sometimes Genesis was overcome with the nagging sense that she had arrived to her entire existence too late and would always feel like an outsider looking in.

This feeling intensified as she opened Instagram on her phone, her feed full of people she observed closely but had never met. As she scrolled, their posts seemed to blur together, one woman with long beachy waves clutching a latte in her hands followed by a Bible verse in a gold curly font followed by a smiling baby followed by the next woman with long beachy waves and so on. Her finger paused as the algorithm finally fed her the woman she had been looking for, the one who stood out from all the rest.

Ree Reaps

Lover of Life | Lover of Christ | Wife to @PastorJayReaps + Mama x5 | Bestselling Author of ACT LIKE A LADY, PRAY LIKE A BOSS!

Ree was the source of her spiritual awakening, something her own community didn’t seem to have the energy to provide her. By the time Genesis was born, the population of the commune had dropped from over two hundred to under thirty. Those who didn’t get convicted in conspiracy with Jimmy Joe James or flee after his sentencing quickly realized that keeping up acres of land required a lot more than just the ability to lead a chant or prepare a good lentil stew. Sure, they originally came here looking for the meaning of life, but at least surviving was something to do.

Genesis popped her earbuds in and pressed play on that day’s devotional vlog.

“Good morning, boss babes! It’s a new day. And in this moment, you get to choose how you want to show up in this beautiful world that God created,” Ree said, staring in awe out of the window of her car. “Now I want to talk to y’all about something that God has put in my heart today . . . a little thing called temptation.”

Genesis looked around the cabin to double-­check if anyone else was present. She adjusted her pillow and sat up straight.

“So, I had just stopped by our newly opened coffee shop at Hope Harvest Market—­­which, if y’all haven’t stopped by yet, you should! I was getting my second iced latte of the morning—­’cause, you know, Mama needs her coffee—­when I saw the yummiest-­looking donut behind the counter. I swear to you, this donut was screaming, ‘Ree. If you don’t put me in your mouth right this second . . .’ Look, I love to treat myself, but y’all know I am trying to be good. Temptation can lead us all day long. From that yummy-­looking donut at the coffee shop all the way to that cute guy at work who is definitely not your husband.”

Ree winked at the camera, and Genesis felt like it was directed at her. Cute guy who’s not your husband, cute guy who might be your brother . . . those were basically the same thing, right? Genesis thought.

“Look, we’re only human,” Ree went on. “It’s impossible to prevent ourselves from having these enticing thoughts. But, girls, we can choose how long we hold on to those thoughts. When we entertain temptation, we fantasize about ourselves eating that donut or reaching across the copy machine to kiss that guy in accounting . . . we take another step downward! One of the Devil’s greatest deceptions is to tell us that justimagining the pleasures of our sins really...