Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 19

“I’m tired.”

“Not this again.”

For the second day in a row, the two of us have been riding late into the night.

“Newsflash—” I say, “I’m going to want to sleep every day. Just like eating, it’s not really an optional activity for me.” Even though it clearly seems to be an optional one for him.

I shit you not, the man growls in response.

“Also, I’m hungry,” I add.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“Listen, asshole,” I say, my irritation spiking, “if you’re so determined to keep me alive, you need to fight your stupid base nature and actually help me meet my needs.”

He snarls again at my words. Abruptly, he seems to alter course, directing his horse through a nearby field. We trample over some nameless crop.

“What are you doing?” I ask, shaking off my sleepiness.

“Fulfilling your needs,” he bites out. “I can only take so much of your pestering.”

Convincing him was … easy enough. I feel a spark of apprehension. Maybe it was too easy.

The crops we pass whack our arms and legs as we pass them. I can’t see anything beyond them, not until the field falls away. Ahead of us I catch sight of a small, dark structure. We ride right up to it at full speed.

At the last second, Famine pulls on the reins, and his horse comes to a sudden halt, its front hooves lifting off the ground and pawing the air.

Everything this guy does has to be so damn dramatic.

Once the horse has dropped his feet back to the ground, the Reaper reaches down, unfastening the scythe he had strapped to his horse.

Weapon in hand, Famine swings off the horse and stalks towards the house. Only then, when I see his big-ass blade glinting ominously in the moonlight, does his awful little plan come together.

Aw fuck.

This is how he means to meet my needs. By killing off someone else so that we can freely use their home.

Goddamnit.

I hop off the horse and rush after him. “Famine, please, let’s not do anything too drastic—”

The horseman lifts a foot and unceremoniously kicks the door in, the blow so intense I hear the metal rip from its hinges.

Inside, a woman screams.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

The horseman strides inside, looking massive and lethal, a sinister frown on his face. On the opposite side of the room an old woman cowers behind an ancient couch. I see a book on the ground, and one small oil lamp giving off weak, watery light.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she says, her voice wobbly.

As soon as Famine sees the woman, he stalks towards her, and it’s obvious what he intends.

The elderly woman crosses herself, despite the uselessness of the gesture. The only divine intervention she’s going to get tonight is closing in on her, and he doesn’t give a shit about her life.

“Famine!” I rush after him, feeling panicked and useless.

He ignores me completely, his gaze glued to his next victim. She’s still crouched on the ground, babbling something now—maybe a prayer—but I can’t make out the words.

I grab the wooden staff of the Reaper’s scythe, but he shakes off my hold easily enough.

“Step away, Ana,” Famine commands, not casting me a glance.

Yeah, uh, fuck that.

He looms over the woman and pulls the scythe back, getting ready to strike.

Without thinking, I throw myself in the way, knocking the old lady aside. My eyes go big when I see the tip of that terrible scythe descending down on me.

When he realizes he’s about to strike me and not the other woman, Famine jerks his arm back—

He just doesn’t do it quickly enough.

The tip of the scythe sinks into my shoulder, and it’s sickening just how easily it cuts through sinew.

Like a knife through butter.

For a moment, I feel like a fish caught on a hook. But then just as swiftly as the blade descended, it’s gone, more flesh tearing in its wake.

It takes a second for the pain to register, but once it does, I gasp, my legs buckling.

“Ana,” Famine says, aghast, dropping the blade.

The woman shrieks again. Then, while the horseman is distracted, she bolts through her front door, lost to the night.

The Reaper doesn’t even notice.

“You foolish woman!” he bellows at me.

He drops to his knees, reaching for me. Maybe it’s my imagination, but I swear his hands tremble a little when they touch my skin.

I cry out as he probes at the wound. I can’t see his face, but I swear he recoils a little.

“Take off your dress,” he demands.

“Oh, now you try to get in my pants,” I gasp out.

“Ana.”

“I’m kidding,” I breathe. “Geez.”

“Your dress,” the Reaper says, his voice angry.

I can only make out the dramatic cut of Famine’s high cheekbones and those cruel, full lips of his, and I’m thankful for that. I don’t really want to see whatever emotion lingers in those frightening eyes of his.

“I’m not moving my arm,” I say.

A moment later Famine’s warm hands grab the collar of my dress.

Riiiiiiiip.

He tears the fabric apart.

Famine avoids looking at my now exposed breasts as he removes the last of my dress from my shoulder.

He reaches for the wound again. I’m assuming he’s trying to help, but I’m also pretty fucking sure he has zero experience helping injured humans.

“Wait,” I say, taking shallow breaths through the pain.

Famine pauses.

“Alcohol.”

I feel his eyes on me. “You want to drink right now?”

I definitely wouldn’t mind.

“To disinfect the wound,” I say slowly.

Famine stares at me for a long, long moment. Finally, coming to some sort of decision, he gets up and heads to the kitchen. I can hear him rummaging around for an eternity.

When he returns, he’s holding a corked jug.

I make a face. It’s clearly something home-brewed and probably suspect.

Famine seems to agree. “This will sooner kill you than heal you,” he says.

“Just give it to me.” I go to swipe it from him, but the horseman moves the bottle out of my way.

“Hold still,” he says, uncorking the lid.

I give him a skeptical look. All I’ve seen of Famine is his ability to hurt and kill. I have little faith he knows how to tend to an injured person.

He grabs my wounded shoulder, careful not to touch the injury itself. Gently he tips the bottle of the mystery liquor, pouring a liberal amount onto the wound.

The moment the alcohol hits, the pain becomes blinding, and a gasped cry slips out.

“This was a stupid idea,” he says.

“Shut up,” I grit out.

Getting up from my side, Famine wanders through the house once more, returning a while later with a couple pieces of clothing. The first one he rips into strips then wraps around my shoulder. I bite back another cry as he jostles the wound.

Once he’s done, he shakes out the second garment, which looks like a shift dress.

“You don’t like looking at my tits, do you?” I guess.

I am, after all, still exposed to him.

“It’s cold.”

“Be honest,” I say, “you’re uncomfortable.”

“Fine, don’t wear the dress,” he says, backing away. “I don’t care.”

I do end up putting the thing on—or at least I try to. The problem is, my injured shoulder is bound up, making movement difficult.

In the darkness, I hear the Reaper exhale, then the sound of his ominous footfalls as he comes over once more. He kneels in front of me.

“What are you doing?” I ask, and now I catch a glimpse of those luminous eyes in the darkness.

Ignoring me, he grabs the material and helps thread my arms through the sleeves.

I give him a curious look as he helps me, ignoring the pain as he inevitably bumps my wound again.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask again.

He stares intently at the fabric, and I think maybe I’m imagining his troubled look.

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you,” he says gruffly.

You were trying to hurt someone, I want to say.

But I can tell that, oddly enough, he is troubled by the fact that he hurt me.

“I know,” I say instead. As violent and cruel as the Reaper has been, he’s made a point of not inflicting pain on me. Which is confusing as hell, considering that I nearly lost my life when I last met him.

With my good hand, I run my fingers over the dress I wear. Just the feel of the cloth is enough for me to know that this shirt—big and old-lady-ish as it may be—is a thing from the world before.

For an instant, I’m hopelessly sad, though I’m not even sure why. I never knew that world. My sense of loss is completely made up. But from the stories, it always sounded like paradise—or, at least, a step up from the shithole world we have now.

“Thank you,” I say, still rubbing my fingers over the material.

Famine grunts in response.

After a moment, he says, “You shouldn’t have jumped in front of her.”

I sigh. “Can’t you just take a compliment without ruining it?”

“I don’t need or want compliments.”

Fuck it all. “Then I take it back,” I say. “I’m not grateful you helped me.”

The silence is heavy, and the horseman’s frowns are becoming legendary enough that I can sense them in the darkness.

Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn’t. He’s annoyed all the same.

That’s good enough for me.

“Why did you do it?” he asks.

Jump in front of the woman, he means.

“She wouldn’t have done the same for you,” he adds.

“You don’t know that,” I say.

But … in my heart of hearts, do I really believe some stranger would’ve sacrificed herself for me?

No. Definitely not. People are selfish assholes.

I don’t, however, admit that to Famine.

“I helped you once too—even though you wouldn’t have done the same for me,” I say instead.

A long, painful silence follows that. I feel the Reaper’s searing look in the darkness.

My injury throbs, dragging my attention away from the conversation.

I try to get to my feet. After a moment, the Reaper takes my good arm and stands, pulling me up along with him.

“What now?” I ask.

“You need to sleep.”

Oh. Right. In between breaking into some old lady’s house and diverting her death, I somehow forgot Famine’s entire reason for stopping.

I let the horseman lead me to the back room. Usually I’m the one leading the opposite sex back to a bedroom. Usually I’m the one with a plan.

Famine stops at the threshold and lets me walk into this stranger’s bedroom. The air here is heavy with the smell of cloying perfume, and though it’s too dark to tell, I think the room is loaded with kitschy little trinkets, because twice I bump into furniture that sends several items rattling.

I have to feel around for the bed, and even once I find it, some combination of guilt and trepidation tightens my stomach because its rightful owner is somewhere out in the darkness.

You idiot, Ana. You should’ve known this situation would arise. It’s what happened last night, after all.

The Reaper is watching me, so mechanically, I pull the covers back and slide into the bed. The sheets are damp from the humidity, and they have an old, musty smell to them. I make a face, even as I settle in.

I mean, technically, it isn’t the worst bed I’ve ever slept in, and it’s better than the accommodations that old woman is going to get tonight.

Once I’m laying down, Famine retreats from the room.

I lie there in the darkness a long time, staring at the ceiling. I keep waiting for sleep to come, but my shoulder still throbs, and besides, I’m wired from the last hour.

In the room beyond mine, I can hear the horseman striding back and forth, back and forth. It should be lulling, but he sounds so damn agitated.

“Will you stop that?” I finally call out.

The footsteps pause.

“I should be on the road right now,” he says.

“I wasn’t the one who decided to stop,” I say.

Now those footsteps approach the bedroom. In the darkness I see his massive silhouette in the doorway, his scythe still in his hand.

“Ungrateful human.” His voice sends a shiver through me. “I should force you back onto my horse and continue riding.”

“You are so unnecessarily dramatic,” I say. I pat the mattress. “Just sit down for a second. I can’t sleep listening to your pacing.”

This may come as a shock, but Famine doesn’t, in fact, sit down. He just continues to loom in that doorway.

With a huff, I throw my blankets off and get up.

“What are you doing?” he demands.

Instead of answering him, I cross the room and grab the Reaper’s hand, pulling him forward, towards the bed. Much to my shock, he actually lets me lead him into the room.

When I get to the mattress, I push him down with my good arm. Now, however, he does resist.

“I am not interested in sex, little flower,” he says. There’s a note in his voice that raises my gooseflesh.

“I wasn’t offering anything, you big brute,” I say smoothly. “Now, sit.” I push against his armor again.

I can perfectly imagine his insolent frown. Reluctantly, he bends his knees and perches on the edge of the bed.

“Happy?” he growls.

“Stop pouting,” I say, getting on the bed as well. “Can you see me in the dark?” I ask after a moment, feeling oddly exposed.

“Would it matter?” he grumbles.

I wave my hand in front of his face.

“What are you doing?”

“You can’t see me,” I say, slightly triumphant.

“What is the point of me sitting here?” He begins to get up, but I catch his arm and pull him back down.

Before he can get up again, I begin tugging at his armor with my one good arm.

Something I’ve learned as a sex worker is the true nature of clothes. We wear our garments like masks. Take them off, and you strip a person of their pretenses. That’s what I want to do now—strip the horseman of his pretenses, whatever they might be.

Beneath my touch, his body goes rigid.

“What are you doing?” Famine asks again, this time more alarmed.

“Calm your tits. I’m not trying to deflower you.”

At least, not tonight.

That last wayward thought steals my breath.

What the hell, Ana? Sex with the monster is off the table … or on it, depending on whether there are platters of food nearby …

No, no. No fucking the scary horseman.

“You shouldn’t be moving your shoulder,” he says gruffly, his body still rigid beneath my touch.

“It’s fine.” It’s not really fine, but whatever. “I’ve lived through worse.”

It’s quiet for a moment, and I know Famine’s thinking about the scabs and scars on my torso.

The silence stretches on, and this is where a normal, nice person might apologize for nearly killing me. They might at the very least beg for forgiveness.

“You never should’ve been there,” Famine says as I begin peeling away his armor.

“Where?” I say, thinking he’s referring to protecting the old woman.

“Visiting me with that woman—the one who tried to sell you.” His words drip with disdain.

“And where should I have been?” I ask, casting aside a bronze vambrace.

“With me.”

I shiver at the low pitch of his voice, and this time there’s no mistaking it, they are good shivers. Problematically good shivers.

My hands move to the armor covering his chest, my body brushing against his. I can feel his eyes on me, and even though there’s nothing sexual going on, this whole situation feels intimate.

“Tell me about yourself,” I say to distract myself as I work on unfastening his breastplate.

“I don’t have a self to share.”

My brows knit together. “Well of course you do.” My gaze ventures up, and even though the bedroom is steeped in shadows, I catch sight of the pools of his eyes.

He stares back at me, and after a moment, I sense that he might actually want me to elaborate on that.

The armor comes undone in my hands. “Since you’ve come to earth, you’ve been a man—”

“I’m not—”

“You are a man. Just because you can’t die and you can make shit spontaneously grow,”—not to mention the swarms of bugs and the not sleeping and peeing—“you have a body. You have a self.”

I toss his unfastened breastplate aside, the metal clattering on the ground.

“What do you want me to say?” he finally responds. “Do you want me to tell you something human about myself? Even if there were a part of me that was truly human—which there isn’t—your kind made sure to stamp it out long ago.”

I think he’s alluding to the torture he met at our hands. I almost ask him about it, but I know that conversation would put the malice back in his voice. I’m not interested in his wrathful side; I get plenty of exposure to it during the day.

“Fine, then tell me something inhuman about yourself.”

Another long silence follows. I think I might’ve shocked the Reaper, though I have no idea why.

“I feel … everything,” he finally says. “Every blade of grass, every drop of rain, every centimeter of sunbaked clay. I am the storm that rolls in, I am the wind that carries the bird and the butterfly.” As he speaks, he begins to gain confidence.

“The sensations are a bit muted now that I wear this form,” Lightly he touches his chest, “but still I feel it all.”

Forgetting about the last bit of armor that encases his arm, I inch closer to him, drawn in by his words. Say what you will about me, I like a good story.

“That’s the difference between me and my brothers,” he continues. “We are all meant to ravage the world, but we have our distinctions: War is the most human, Pestilence perhaps next. But even Thanatos—Death—is intimately connected to life.

“I am the one least truly alive. I have more in common with wildfires and clouds and mountains than I do anything else. So to be something that lives and breathes is a stifling, unpleasant experience. I am ... trapped in this flesh.”

I sit back a little, trying to process his admission.

He sighs. “I just want this to be over,” he confesses. “All I want is to return to what I once was.”

Famine has been staring at some point between the floor and the wall, but after several moments he turns to me, as if just realizing I’m next to him.

Abruptly, he stands. “We’re leaving at daybreak,” he says. “Rest while you can. You won’t get any tomorrow.”

With that, he heads out of the room. Just past the doorway, he pauses.

“One other inhuman thing about me, flower.” Famine turns his head slightly towards me. “I don’t simply exist, I hunger.”