Famine by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 3

I’ve never been inside the mayor’s house, which is a weird thought, considering he’s been inside me many, many times.

My eyes sweep over everything, taking in delicate porcelain vases full of withered blooms to the cut glass chandelier. There’s a huge painting of Antonio and his family hanging in the living room. It was clearly commissioned a few years ago because his children are younger versions of themselves.

Sitting right beneath that painting, his scythe draped across his lap, is the horseman.

My breath catches. Once again I’m overtaken by the sight of him, with his wavy hair and glittering green eyes. He looks cut from stone, distant and untouchable.

I try to resolve this hardened thing with the very first memory I have of him.

His neck is a mess of blood and sinew. His face and head are covered in mud and blood, his hair matted to his cheeks—

“And what have we here?” His voice is like honeyed-wine, and it snaps me back to the present.

I stare and stare and stare. My whip-sharp tongue fails me now.

When neither Elvita nor I speaks, Famine’s gaze rakes over me. He pauses a little when he gets to my eyes, but there’s no recognition there.

There’s no recognition there.

All that guilt and shame I pent up for years and Famine doesn’t even recognize me.

I hide the crushing disappointment I feel. Not once in the last five years that I worked for Elvita had I mentioned that I’d met the Reaper before. I only agreed to this stupid plan of hers because I had unfinished business with the horseman.

Unfortunately, that business hinged on the horseman remembering me.

Elvita steps forward. “I brought you a gift,” the madam says smoothly.

The horseman looks between the two of us, his expression bored. “And where is it? Your hands are empty.”

Elvita looks over at me, willing me to speak. Normally, I have a decent amount of confidence, and what I lack in confidence, I make up for in posturing. But right now, all I want to do is sink into the ground.

Do you remember me?

I nearly ask it. The two of us are like an unfinished conversation hanging in the air.

“I’m the gift,” I say instead, falling back to Plan B.

“You?” He raises his eyebrows, his mouth curving into a mocking smile. His gaze flicks over me again. “What could I possibly want with you?”

“Maybe I could warm that cold, cold heart of yours.” There’s my cutting mouth.

Now the Reaper looks halfway intrigued. He lifts his scythe and stands.

Famine steps up to me, his boots clicking against the ground. “What even are you under all that paint?” he says, coming in close. “A cow? A pig?”

I feel my cheeks heat. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt the burn of humiliation. I’m suddenly aware of how many other people are in the room—not just Famine and Elvita, but half a dozen guards—all of them witnessing this.

The horseman sneers at me. “You thought I’d want your body? Is that it?” His voice is cruel.

Yes. That’s exactly it.

“You pathetic creature,” Famine continues, scrutinizing me. “Have you heard nothing of me? I don’t want your putrid flesh.” His eyes flash as they move between me and Elvita. “You two were better off when you hadn’t caught my attention.”

I feel the energy in the room shift then, and I remember the way the mayor’s family was dragged away not an hour ago. And now that I’m thinking about it, I realize with alarm that though offerings line the nearby wall, the people who brought them are notably absent.

We have drifted into dangerous waters.

Next to me, Elvita looks undeterred. “Have you ever bedded a mortal?” she asks, ever the saleswoman.

Famine’s gaze moves to her, and he cracks a sly smile, like he’s enjoying himself for the first time today. His eyes, however, are as cold as I’ve ever seen them. Sex and flesh seem like the very last thing on his mind.

“And what if I haven’t? Do you really think a few pumps into this bag of flesh would change anything?”

I raise my eyebrows. I’m used to vulgar, degrading comments; I’m not used to … I’m not even sure what sort of insult that was.

Bag of flesh? Bitch please. I know I look good.

“You clearly haven’t been inside one of my women,” Elvita continues, clinging to this idiotic plan.

“Your women?” Famine’s attention returns to me.

Squaring my jaw, I meet his gaze.

Does he recognize me? Does he know?

His unsettling green eyes take me in, and they’re so shrewd. There’s no spark of familiarity. If he remembers me, he doesn’t show it.

“How terrible it must feel,” Famine says, “to be owned and used like property.”

I open my mouth to tell him he’s wrong, to tell him to fuck off, to tell him that if only I could be alone with him for a moment, I might just jog his memory. Maybe then I can finish that old business between us. When it comes to him, my hope and my hate are old.

For a second, the horseman hesitates. I think he almost feels it. But then his expression sharpens.

Famine’s eyes move over our heads. He whistles, gesturing to a few nearby men.

“Get rid of them with the others.”

This was a mistake.

That much is clear when Famine’s men roughly grab me and Elvita, dragging us away.

“Get your hands off of me!” my madam commands.

The men ignore her.

I fight against their grip as well. I only have eyes for the horseman, who resettles himself on the plush chair we found him on, his scythe laid once more across his lap.

“Don’t you remember me?” The words finally rip free.

But Famine’s no longer paying attention to us—the ridiculed whore and her desperate madam. His eyes have drifted to the front door, where the next supplicant will be entering.

“I saved you!” I shout at him as I’m dragged away. The men that hold me and Elvita haul us towards a door that leads out to the back of the mayor’s estate.

Famine doesn’t so much as look at me. I assumed that once I said something on this subject, he would stop and listen. I hadn’t anticipated that he both wouldn’t recognize me and wouldn’t hear me out.

Old hurt and indignation bubbles to the surface. If it weren’t for me, neither of us would be here right now.

“No one else would help you!” I call out to him. I trip a little as one of his guards tows me outside. “No one but me. You were hurt and—” The door slams shut.

I—I missed my chance.

I’m still staring at the door when I hear Elvita’s sharp inhale. Then—

“Jesus fucking Christ.” Her voice is shrill, the pitch of it too high.

I tear my gaze away from the door, turning to where—

Holy mother of God.

Ahead of us is a huge pit, the steep earthen walls of it smooth. Antonio had mentioned once, months and months ago, that he was going to install a pool for his daughters. I remember the conversation only because a pool sounded like a nightmare to upkeep.

Rich people and their toys.

Now … now I’m staring at the beginnings of that pool. Only, there are splatters of blood on the stone pavement around it, and inside the earthen pit—

At first my eyes don’t want to make sense of what I’m seeing. The strangely bent limbs, the blood-soaked bodies, the glassy eyes. Over a dozen people lay in that pit.

Dear God. No, please, no.

My nausea rises, and I begin struggling in earnest.

I hadn’t survived this long to have it all end like this.

Elvita is cursing as she fights like a wildcat against her captors.

One of the guards holding Elvita now releases her, and for an instant I think she actually managed to partially free herself. But then the man withdraws a dagger from his hip holster.

“Please,” she begins to cry. “I will do anyth—”

He runs her through, stabbing her over and over again before she can even finish begging for her life. I scream as her blood sprays, and I jerk against the men who hold me, feeling like a fish on a hook.

They kill her. Right in front of me they do it. I scream and scream as she bleeds out.

That’s when the first knife enters my body—while I’m still watching my friend die. For a moment, my cries cut off, the action taking me by surprise. But then it’s my body the men are stabbing over and over again.

I can’t catch my breath around the pain. My legs fold as warm liquid trickles down my body.

Fuck, it hurts. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt. I want to scream, but the sharp agony of it closes up my windpipe.

I go limp in the men’s arms. They grab me by the legs, hoisting me off the ground. The world tilts, and I finally manage to release a low, tortured moan as my body sways back and forth, back and forth.

“One … two … three.”

The men release me, and for a single second, I’m weightless.

And then I hit the bottom of the pit.

I think I pass out from the pain, but I can’t be sure. I’m slipping down a hole of agony and delirium. I’m too weak to focus on much of anything else, otherwise I might have noticed the particular hue of the sky above me or the shape of the dead around me. I might have even tried to focus on the arc of my sad, brief life or that I might finally be reunited with my family.

But the pain crowds my thoughts, and all I really notice over it is how cold I am and how hard it is to breathe.

My mind drifts and my eyes close.

This is the end.

I feel death creeping into my bones. This is where people rally and fight for their lives.

I don’t.

I give in.