Fucking Famine.
So the horseman really doesn’t intend to kill me. For whatever reason, he actually wants to keep me around. So much so that he’ll punish escape attempts.
I scrutinize the man. He hates humans but he won’t kill me, and he hates flesh, yet he’s stuck around to watch me bathe. I can’t pin this guy down, and it’s going to eat away at me. So to speak. But on the topic of food—
“Let me get this straight:” I say, “if I stay inside this nice-ass house, you’ll feed me?” Where is the catch?
Again, the horseman’s eyes narrow. “You won’t starve.”
Free room and board? How delightful. My toes practically curl.
“Well then, it’s settled. You have yourself a new and very willing captive.”
Chapter 12
Despite my words, I do try to escape. Several times, in fact. Mostly because I’m fatalistically curious. I’m also bored. There’s only so much to do in a stranger’s room. Oh, and then there’s the fact that going hungry doesn’t scare me all that much.
Needless to say, I get caught—over and over again. I hadn’t really planned on actually leaving this place—not when I still intend to carry out my revenge—but I was hoping that, while on the lam, I might find a sharp object to skewer the horseman with at some point.
We are enemies, after all.
Unfortunately, if there are weapons lying around, I don’t find them.
After my fourth attempt, the horseman simply says, “Flee again and I’ll use my plants to keep you in place.”
Now that is an effective threat. I’m surprised it took him this long to truly intimidate me. My captor is the infamous Famine, after all.
So, I relegate myself to the reality of my situation: that I’ll be stuck inside this room until Famine decides it’s time for us to leave.
Bored and alone once again, I raid the closet, changing into an outfit more suited to my taste. The cotton dress I settle on is brightly patterned and flowy. I opt to keep my old boots, however; my feet are bigger than this room’s former occupant.
I poke around at a few more of the girl’s items, flipping through a few books stacked on her bookcase before I move on to a series of diaries that occupy a whole shelf. I can only assume they were written by the girl who lived here. The entries are just as entitled and inane as you might expect from a rich, sheltered teenage girl, each one signed off “Eternally Yours, Andressa.”
I strive for such drama in my own life. Alas, even amidst the apocalypse, I haven’t managed to attain it.
What I don’t expect are the salacious love letters I find hidden under the mattress, each one from Maria, a mysterious woman who, by the sounds of it, knew her way around a vagina. I mean, she really seemed to know her way around a vagina.
I need to get myself a Maria.
Those letters entertain me for a while. But there are only so many of them.
After that … boredom. Hours and hours of boredom. So much boredom that somewhere along the way I fall asleep, sprawled across Andressa’s bed, her most intimate letters and writings spread out around me.
I wake to the sound of my stomach growling. Outside the first rays of sun have lightened the sky. I can hear the low murmuring of voices, and for one second it all feels so terribly normal that I almost forget that I’m trapped in a house with a horseman of the apocalypse, and those voices belong to some of the last humans alive in this city.
My stomach growls again, and withholding food was most definitely a brilliant threat on Famine’s part, damn him.
It takes another hour for me to hear the confident footfalls of what can only be the Reaper. No one else dares to walk around this place with that much confidence. They head towards my room, only stopping once they’re outside my door.
Clearing my voice, I call out, “Unless you have coffee or food, I don’t want to talk to you.”
A moment later, the doorknob turns and Famine walks in with a glass of water and a slice of fruit in his hand.
He holds the items up to me. “Because you managed to go a whole twelve hours without trying to run,” he says.
I think I’m supposed to be grateful.
But, as the poet’s might put it, fuck that shit.
“A papaya?” I say, recognizing the fruit. It’s not even a full papaya either; just an itsy bitsy sliver. “I’m a full-bodied woman, not a bird.”
“Perhaps you forgot who I am—Famine,” he stresses. “Feel fortunate that I’m feeding you at all.”
“I want coffee. Then I’ll feel fortunate. Maybe. Some cake would definitely make me feel grateful.”
“You are a human-shaped headache,” he mutters.
“What a compliment to headaches everywhere.”
“Do you ever stop talking?”
“Only if you put something in my mouth,” I say. “I’m partial to food, but dicks work too.”
He glances heavenward.
Ah, blessed reaction.
“This is what you get, Ana,” he says, setting the items on the ground. “Eat it or go hungry. I really don’t care which.” He backs away from the room, a scowl on his face. “Meet me in the stables. You have five minutes.”
I use those five minutes to raid the house’s pantry. I do manage to find some cake, along with a few other treats. No brewed coffee, unfortunately. I do find a knife, but there’s literally nowhere to store it while traveling, except maybe my boot. But again with my luck, I’d probably end up jabbing myself with it. So I leave the knife behind.
When I finally meet Famine just outside the stables, he’s frowning at me again. I think this is becoming a thing for him, where I’m concerned.
His ferocious black horse is saddled and waiting, and his men linger nearby, readying their own horses.
Not for the first time, my situation feels surreal. Forget that I’ve survived through the destruction of two separate cities, or that I live in biblical times. Simply the fact that I went from nursing this man to health to attacking him to being his semi-willing prisoner is strange enough as is.
I dust off the last of the cake from my fingers.
He notices the action, his frown deepening. “You’re late.”
A mistake I intend on repeating so long as the two of us are together.
“Just be happy I didn’t run again,” I say. Not that I really, truly would. Stabbing him requires close proximity.
He studies me with those unsettling eyes for a moment. Then, the corner of his mouth curves up.
Uh oh.
“If you are so determined to escape me,” he says, “then perhaps I need to treat you as a proper prisoner.”
I give him a perplexed look even as the Reaper moves over to his horse. “You have been treating me like a prisoner.” What does he think he’s been doing with me over the last twenty-four hours?
Famine reaches into one of his saddlebags. I hear the clang of something heavy right before he pulls out a pair of iron manacles.
Iron. Manacles.
Because of course this freak would just have a spare pair tucked away.
Crossing back over to me, he catches my wrist.
“Hey—”
I try to jerk out of his grip, but it’s useless. A moment later, Famine begins clamping the heavy shackles on.
“What are you doing?” A note of panic has entered my voice.
The horseman finishes one wrist and grabs my other. “Now, if only there was something for your mouth …”
I take a steadying breath. “Don’t you think this is a bit overdone?” I say.
I mean, I haven’t run. This is all just bluster.
My skin pricks as I feel the stares of Famine’s men.
Rather than responding, the Reaper leads me towards a dark bay horse. Grabbing me under the arms, he hoists me onto the beast.
“Really?” I deadpan, looking down at him. “I’m supposed to wear cuffs while riding a horse? Now this is most definitely overkill.”
“Not my problem,” the Re
aper says, walking back towards his steed.
I scowl at my horse. “You do realize that I could simply …” I was going to say ride away, but before I finish the sentence I realize that the horse isn’t wearing any reins; instead, the creature is bound by a length of rope to one of Famine’s mounted men.
“So, does this mean we’re going to another town?” I call out to Famine.
He ignores me completely.
“Are we?” I ask a man passing by.
He ignores me too.
“Anyone?” I say. “Anyone at all? Do any of you useless sacks of shit know where we’re going?”
“Shut the fuck up,” someone says.
“Don’t talk to her,” Famine warns his men.
I can’t tell if he’s saying it in a how dare you talk to my lady that way or a don’t instigate her kind of way. Probably the latter because he’s a maniacal jerk. But you never know.
It takes a little longer for the rest of the group to finish gathering up whatever supplies they need, but soon enough, the small gang of us begin to move.
The moment Famine prods his horse into action, the beast takes off like he’s been unleashed. The two of them gallop ahead of us, moving farther and farther away before the Reaper doubles back, returning to us.
For a moment both man and horse look as though they’re free. The horseman’s bronze armor catches the light as he closes in on us. That sun seems to love him, the rays highlighting his toffee colored hair and making his mossy eyes glitter. He looks like a prince ripped out of a fairytale.
When he reaches us, he stops up short, causing his men to, in turn, halt their steeds too. Famine’s ruthless gaze moves over the group of them. These are the men who helped execute innocent people—who stabbed me and killed the mayor and his family. They’re the ones who have been doing this same thing to the people of every rotting city they passed through.
“Did you forget something?” one of them calls out.
Famine’s eyes land on the man for a moment before taking the rest of the group in again.
“You all have been so very helpful to me,” the Reaper says.
A knot of unease forms in the pit of my stomach.
“But,” the horseman continues, that wicked gleam entering his eyes, “just as flowers wither away, so too does your use.”
In an instant, plants break through the ground, their stalks growing impossibly fast.
I suck in a sharp breath as the first plant wraps itself around one man’s ankle. Another snakes its way up a calf.
The men panic. One of them reaches for a weapon holstered at his side. Another tries to lift his legs out of the way. None of it is any use. The vines reach out like limbs, dragging Famine’s guards off their frightened steeds.
“Please!” one man begs.
“Oh God!”
And the screams, the bloodcurdling screams.
I sit there, terrified at the sight.
A few of the horses rear up, spooked. Famine shushes the beasts, and this, oddly enough, seems to calm them down. They resettle, shuffling about only a little as their riders are attacked.
The man who first reached for his weapon now lays on his back, trying to hack away at the burgeoning thing wrapping itself around him. If anything, it seems to make the plant grow faster and more aggressively.
“Why?” one of the men gasps, his eyes beseeching the Reaper.
The horseman’s expression is downright chilling. “Because you are human, and you were meant to die.”
I hear the snap of bones and the strangled cries as the men fight for air. It seems like an eternity before they all go still. And I guess it’s a small mercy that they do go still; they could’ve clung to life like the old man I met when I first entered Curitiba.
I make a noise as I gasp in a breath. I’m surrounded on all sides by the dead.
The rider who my horse was hitched to lays a meter away from my horse, his mouth parted in a silent scream.
I stare at the Reaper, beginning to tremble. He enjoyed killing these men. I saw it with my own eyes.
Famine hops off his horse and moves over to the other steeds, systematically removing their saddles and harnesses, humming under his breath as he does so. One by one, he releases the horses, letting them wander off down the desolate streets.
Eventually, he makes his way to me. I still haven’t moved, hemmed in by the dead as I am.
“Come, flower,” Famine says, his voice deceptively gentle. He steps over to my side and reaches for me.
The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I had almost convinced myself that this man was a pushover, and pushovers can’t be scary, right?
But fuck, I don’t think he’s a pushover, and no matter how disarming he is to talk to, all these bodies around me are a reminder that he’s still a wretched monster.
When Famine sees my expression, he raises his eyebrows. “If you didn’t have the stomach for my killing, you shouldn’t have sought me out.”
He’s right, of course. I could’ve stayed far away. Besides, the men he killed might’ve been the few that actually deserved death.
Still.
I take in Famine’s disarming, devilish face.
This is a creature that needs to be vanquished.
“You can either lift your arms and cooperate, or I can drag you off this horse,” he says. “I can tell you which one you’ll enjoy better.”
Reluctantly, I lift my shackled hands, and the horseman helps pull me off the horse.
He whistles, and his own steed walks over.
I can’t look at him. Not as he lifts me onto his own mount, not while he removes my former horse’s trappings and sets this last steed free. Not even once he swings himself into the saddle behind me.
Famine’s bronze armor digs into my back as he settles against me, and one of his massive arms drapes itself casually over my leg. His closeness only makes me tremble worse.
The Reaper clicks his tongue and his horse starts forward, picking its way past the bodies.
We’ve gone less than a block when he murmurs, “You’re shaking like a leaf.” His breath is warm against my ear. “I’ve told you before: you don’t need to fear me—not now, anyway.” The Reaper’s voice is gentle, but somehow that makes it all worse.
“Why did you do that?” My voice comes out like a croak.
There’s a long pause, and I genuinely think it takes him a moment to figure out what I’m referring to.
His fingers tap against my thigh. “They would’ve turned on me soon enough,” he finally says.
“You let them pack their things and ready their horses,” I whisper. “You had them ready a horse for me. Why?” My voice hitches. “Why do that if you were just going to kill them all?”
“You assume my mind works like yours. It doesn’t.”
Thank fuck for that.
The two of us are quiet for several beats, the only sound the tread of his horse’s footfalls and the slight jangle of my manacles. We pass by several rotting bodies, their forms caught within the grasp of more plants and trees.
“Is there any horror you are unwilling to commit?” I eventually ask.
“When it comes to you creatures?” he replies. “No.”
My thoughts spin round and round. I feel untethered; my entire life is gone and now I’m here, riding alongside the horseman rather than meting out my revenge. This is … not how I imagined events unfolding.
I wiggle my feet in my heavy boots. There aren’t any stirrups for my feet, and gravity seems to be trying to pull my shoes off of me. I roll my ankles, trying to readjust my footwear to make them more comfortable. It works … for a few minutes. But then I’m uncomfortable again.
I can’t have been on the horse for more than thirty minutes or so when I draw the line. Stupid boots.
“Hold me,” I say over my shoulder.
There’s a beat of silence. Then, “If this is another one of your sex-starved ploys—”
Before the Reaper can finish
the thought, I swing a booted foot up and into the saddle. As predicted, the effort throws my body off balance.
Reflexively, Famine catches me, his arm tightening around my waist.
“What the devil are you doing, Ana?”
My shackles clank as I unlace the leather boot. Once I’m finished, I grab the thick rubber heel and begin tugging.
“Taking off these damn boots.”
I pull the shoe off, along with the sweaty sock beneath it. Setting them on my lap, I begin working on my other shoe. The Reaper doesn’t say anything, but I sense his deep annoyance. Deep, deep annoyance. I’m pretty sure he finds every decision I make irritating.
Once both boots are off, I manage to open one of Famine’s saddlebags—which is massively hard when you’re handcuffed. But I manage it, huzzah!
At my back, I can practically feel Famine’s disapproval. He doesn’t stop me, however, so I press on.
Grabbing the boots, I attempt to shove the tips of both into the saddlebag, but then the manacles catch on the heel of one boot, jerking it out of the bag. I try to catch it as it falls, the action dislodging the other boot. Both tumble down the side of the horse before hitting the ground.
There’s a beat of silence.
Then—
“Not my problem,” Famine says.
I glance over my shoulder at him. “You cannot be serious,” I say.
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Damn him, he doesn’t.
“I need those shoes,” I say. They’re my only pair.
“I’m not stopping.”
“Wow.” I face forward in my seat, settling myself back against him. “Wow.”
Chapter 13
As we ride, the fields wilt.
At first, I don’t notice it because Curitiba stretches on for so long, block after city block filled with buildings that cannot wither away. But eventually we do leave the city, and at some point, the structures are replaced with farmland.
But the longer I sit in the saddle with the guy, the more I realize that the land is changing before my very eyes.
Fields of corn and soybeans, rice and sugarcane—and everything in between—all wither away, the stalks blackening, the leaves curling. The color seems to drain away in mere seconds. By the time I glance over my shoulder at the crops we’ve passed, it’s a sea of dead foliage.
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