Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 18

“I’ll stop three times per day,” the horseman says hours later, when he’s pulled his steed off to the side of the road. “You’ll have to do all your humanly business then.”

“What if I need to go to the bathroom more often than that?” I say.

“That’s not my problem,” he says, leaning back against a nearby tree.

All around us are thickly forested mountains, the terrain broken up by the occasional homestead.

“I hope you know that I will pee on you in the saddle if I have to,” I say. “I have no problem with that. You may even like it too … if that’s your kink.”

But let’s be real, bathing in the blood of innocents is Famine’s real kink.

The horseman glowers at me. “I’m hauling you onto this horse in the next few minutes, whether you’ve relieved yourself or not; I’d suggest you stop wasting your time.”

Fun as it would be to make good on my own threat, I’m not that petty. I mean, if I had a change of clothes, then I might be, but for now … that scenario will have to remain hypothetical.

I begin to walk away from the horseman, looking for a secluded place to do my humanly business, but then I pause.

“Do you not have to go to the bathroom?” I ask over my shoulder.

Now that I think about it, have I ever seen him relieve himself?

“I’m not talking about this with you,” he says, fiddling with one of the saddle bags.

“But you eat and drink.” That must come out.

“Not talking about it.”

Fine.

With a sigh, I wander away to go to the bathroom. When I return, Famine is stroking his horse, his back to me. I pause for a moment, just watching him being gentle with his steed.

Just when I was certain the man was wholly evil, he goes and pets his horse like he cares about something.

“Does he have a name?”

I see the horseman subtly jolt; I guess he hadn’t realized I was there.

“Does what have a name?” His voice drips with disdain, his back still to me.

“Your horse.”

Famine turns to face me. “Are you ready to go?”

I sit down on the ground. “I mean I’m not unready, but I’m in no rush either.” It’s a lovely day, now that the sky isn’t filled with locusts or the screams of the dying. I could linger.

“I don’t really give a rat’s ass about your concerns.”

“You know,” I say, tipping my head back to get a better look at his annoyingly handsome features, “it’s bad enough that you’re a mass murderer, but I was at least hoping that you wouldn’t be such a dick when you weren’t killing people.”

“Up.”

“I’ll get up—but first, you have to tell me one redeeming quality about myself.”

“There’s nothing redeeming about you.”

I huff. “Well, sure there is. I have a banging body, for one thing.” I mean, that’s undisputed. Just ask my clients. “I’m also easy to talk to.”

“Up.”

“It’s okay if you’re a little shy about opening up—lots of men are. It’s really endemic to our culture—okay, my culture. Anyway, I’ll go first: I think you’re obscenely handsome, and your smile lights up your whole face.”

Of course, that smile usually precedes violence, but … it’s still a nice smile, and there’s not much else left to compliment. The man’s got a shitty personality.

The Reaper approaches me, and before I can say anything else, he heaves me up over his shoulder.

“Whoa. Hey, wait—we’re not leaving yet, are we? What about your neat food trick?” As if on cue, my stomach growls. “I’m hungry.”

“You get two more stops,” Famine says, dropping me onto the horse.

I frown at him. “I do need to eat, you know.”

“I know what limits the human body is capable of when it comes to food,” Famine says, pulling himself into the saddle. “You’ll survive a few more hours of fasting.”

He steers us onto the dirt road, and we resume our travels.

“So,” I say as we pass a tiny farm, “you can control swarms of bugs.” My tone is light, but I have to swallow down my alarm.

“I don’t control the bugs, I just call to them.”

Because that is just so much clearer …

“How do you call to bugs?” I ask as the farm’s small orchard withers away.

Famine sighs.

“I’m sorry,” I say, “but do you have something better to do right now?”

“If I give you one of your damned compliments,” he growls, “will you stop questioning me?”

My eyebrows hike up with surprise. He’s actually going to try complimenting me? This I have to hear.

“Sure,” I say.

But in the silence that follows, I brace myself for some stinging barb.

“You have a lovely voice.”

I feel an unexpected flush of warmth at his words.

I tilt my head in confusion. “But I thought you wanted me to stop talking,” I say.

“About me. Talk your ass off about anything else.”

“I’m sitting here with a man who says he’s not actually a man, riding a horse that might not actually be a horse—”

“He’s a horse.”

“—and I’m supposed to not talk about any of it.”

“Precisely.”

There’s a long pause.

“Fine. I guess that leaves me to talk about sex. Moist, thick, wet sex.”

Another beat of silence passes, then—

“Would you like another compliment?”

The stars are out and the night has turned chilly and I’ve long since lost feeling in my ass and yet we’re somehow still on this godforsaken horse.

“Eventually, I’m going to need to sleep,” I say.

“I’m not stopping,” Famine says.

“And you wonder why I didn’t join you years ago.”

He says nothing to that.

“I’m cold.”

Silence.

“And hungry.”

More silence.

“And tired.”

“Deal with it, Ana.”

I purse my lips. “You’re really not going to stop?”

“No.”

“Such a dick,” I whisper under my breath.

It must be the early hours of the morning when my eyelids start to close. Then my head lowers. It knocks into my chest, startling me awake.

I thought it would’ve been impossible to get tired while sitting on a horse, but now I can’t seem to keep my eyes open. My chin bumps my chest a couple more times, jostling me awake again and again. Without thinking much about it, I twist a little in the saddle and lean my cheek against Famine’s chilly armor.

And then I drift off.

I feel myself falling when suddenly, Famine catches me, jolting me awake.

“Stay on the horse,” he orders me. He sounds painfully alert, the jerk.

“You stay on the horse,” I mutter, my eyes already closing.

Famine mutters something about no-good humans, but I’m already slipping back into sleep.

I wake again when I fall against the Reaper’s arm.

“Are you trying to hurt yourself?” he demands, and I notice now what I didn’t before—he sounds angry, indignant.

“I’m trying to sleep. This would all be easier with a bed.”

“I’m not stopping,” he says obstinately.

“Trust me, I’m aware of that.”

I resettle, nestling my face close to the crook of his neck. It’s an awkward angle and it puts me closer to the horseman than I care to be, but it’s one of the more comfortable positions.

“What are you doing?” Famine demands. Now he definitely sounds perturbed.

“Sleeping,” I say, my eyes already closing.

I can sense his deep, disapproving frown, but I’m hours and hours beyond caring. Gradually, I feel him relax against me.

I think my body slides a couple more times, but eventually the Reaper’s solid arm comes around me, holding me to him. And then I drift off, and I don’t wake.

When I open my eyes, I’m lying in a bed.

Where the hell am I … ?

I push myself up and glance around, trying to get my bearings.

All at once, the previous evening comes back to me. Riding on Famine’s horse, falling asleep over and over again only to be jostled awake. But at some point I fell asleep and stayed asleep.

And by the looks of it, we must’ve arrived at wherever we were supposed to during that time.

Just as I’m taking in the room, which has a couple cowboy hats hanging on the wall and a bull’s skull mounted above the bed, I hear the sure stride of a familiar set of feet. A moment later Famine enters.

“Did you put me here?” I say by way of greeting.

He gives me a look. “No, my horse did.”

God, he’s so testy. This is why it’s important to get a good night’s sleep. Or laid. Preferably both.

“So you carried me inside this house, to this bedroom, just so I could sleep?”

Famine frowns. “Better the bed than me. You drooled on my armor.”

I vaguely remember how I used him as my own personal pillow.

“Trust me,” I say, “I wasn’t too thrilled about the situation either.”

I glance down at the blankets pooled around my waist, and I raise my eyebrows as a whole new thought hits me. “You tucked me in,” I say, shocked.

“Is that supposed to mean something?” Again with that gruff, angry voice.

My eyes rise to his, and I see it in his own gaze.

Reaper-boy fucked up. He was kind to me, and he knows it.

I break out into a sly smile. “Aww, you don’t really hate me, do you?”

His gaze drops to my mouth, and a muscle in his jaw jumps.

“You nursed me to health once,” he says, “yet still you hate me. Don’t think too much on my small kindnesses.”

Kindnesses. Even he’s aware of what they are.

“Get up,” he says gruffly, “it’s time to go.”

“Wait,” I say. “So we’re not even here?” Wherever here actually is.

He doesn’t answer me.

Famine stopped at some random house and tucked me into bed. All, presumably, so that I could sleep.

I follow Famine out of the room and through the house, the tile floor chilly against my bare feet. I should’ve realized sooner that this wasn’t our final destination. The floorplan is far too small.

I’m so focused on the cozy layout that I don’t notice the blood until I slip in it. I lose my bearings completely and go down. My elbow bangs hard against the floor, and the liquid soaks into my dress.

Just as I’m pushing myself up, my gaze connects with a set of glassy eyes. I barely have time to register that I’m staring at a dead man before I start screaming.

Famine’s arms go around my waist, and he sets me back on my feet. I begin to move, then slip again, and only the Reaper’s hold on me keeps me from going down once more.

Near the dead man is a second corpse—another man, I think, though I can’t be sure. The sight is too gruesome for my mind to process.

Famine steers me outside, where his dark horse is waiting, and I’m trying not to focus on the fact that blood is dripping from my dress and snaking down my skin.

We stop in front of his steed, and he nods to the beast. “Get on.”

Already the horseman’s scythe—the same one that must’ve cut those people apart inside—is strapped to the creature.

Slowly my eyes move to Famine’s.

I can’t do this.

“Ana—” he cautions.

I bolt.

My arms and legs pump as I make a beeline for a field lined with rows and rows of wheat that are somehow, inexplicably, still alive.

I don’t quite know what I’m doing, and I don’t especially care.

Run-run-run-run-run.

I weave through the plants, their stalks slapping at me. Over my heavy breath, I hear Famine’s pounding footfalls behind me, and Satan’s balls, the fucker is coming for me.

I strain my muscles, pushing them to their limits.

The problem is, I’ve spent the last few years being a soft, pliant thing that men can fall into. My muscles are nonexistent, and they’re tiring fast.

It takes Famine a laughably short amount of time to close in on me. He catches me around the waist and the two of us go tumbling into the dirt.

I cough, the heavy press of the Reaper at my back making it hard to breathe. After a moment, he flips me over.

“You foolish little flower, don’t you know?” he scolds me. “I kill everything. If you leave my side, you will die.”

I push uselessly at his shoulders. “Then let me die, damn you!”

“No.”

Famine looks at me, gobsmacked; his response seems to shock him more than it does me. He searches my face, like it holds some answers.

Gentler, he says, “You saved me once. I am going to return the favor, even if it means forcing you to stay with me.”

My mind flashes back to the way Famine looked at me all those years ago when he realized I had saved him. Like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

I think maybe he believed in humanity in that moment. Even though he shouldn’t have. Even though he doesn’t now.

Still, I can tell he believes in something when he looks at me. His cruel expression is gone, and his eyes are alight with … well, whatever it is, it’s not anger.

The horseman pushes himself off me, rising to his feet.

I lay in the dirt a moment longer, just staring up at him.

Famine dusts himself off. After a moment, he reaches out a hand to me. When I don’t immediately take it, his green eyes flash.

“We can either do this the easy way—and you can willingly come with me—” he says, “or we can do it the hard way.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what the hard way is, but I’m not interested in finding out. I feel defeated all of a sudden. Resisting him doesn’t seem to get me anywhere.

“I think your definition and my definition of hard are two very different things,” I say, taking his hand.

He doesn’t get the joke—or if he does, he doesn’t react.

Famine pulls me back to my feet. Even once I’m standing, however, he doesn’t let my hand go. It’s not until the two of us are in the saddle and his horse begins to move that he relaxes his hold on me. But then, the arm that held me fast last night is back around my waist, pinning me against his armor. I don’t think the Reaper is afraid of me diving off his horse or falling asleep.

I think, despite all the horseman’s hate and anger, he doesn’t half mind touching me after all.