Pestilence by Laura Thalassa

Chapter 6

I’m still not sick.

And I’m still alive—albeit, I’m not exactly enthusiastic about it.

Everything hurts so much worse the next day. My wrists are one sharp, burning throb, my shoulders are stiff and sore from all the hours they’ve been stuck in this bound position, my stomach is actively trying to eat itself, and my legs are useless with pain.

Oh, and I’m still chained to this shithole railing.

The only silver lining has been the few glasses of water Pestilence brought to me (one of which I accidently poured all over myself rather than in my mouth because my hands are still bound and God legit hates me), and the fact that the horseman has been kind enough to take me to the bathroom again so that he doesn’t have to “smell my vile stink”.

I hate the pretty bastard.

“‘This above all: to thine own self be true,’” I mutter under my breath. The line from Hamlet comes to me from memory. The meaning of it has been worn down like river rocks from time and overuse, but the words still affect me all the same. “‘And it must follow, as the night the day—’” My voice cuts off when I see Pestilence.

Last night he wore jeans and a flannel shirt, but this morning he’s clad in a black ensemble that fits him like a glove. Both the fabric and cut of his clothes manage to look simultaneously archaic and futuristic, though I can’t say precisely why. Maybe it’s not even the clothes—maybe it’s his crown or the bow and quiver slung haphazardly over his shoulder. Whatever he is, he’s looking distinctly otherworldly.

“I am going to untie you from the railing, human,” he says by way of greeting, “but mark me: if you try to flee, I will shoot you, then drag you back here.”

I stare at the deep V of his dark shirt, catching just a glimpse of one of those glowing tattoos.

“Did you hear me?” he asks.

I blink, and my gaze moves to his face.

The last of the horseman’s wounds have healed—even his hair has fully regrown. Only took a day for him to completely regenerate. How disheartening.

“If I bolt, I’m dead meat. Got it.”

His brows furrow and he studies me for a second longer before grunting. With that, he pulls me along to the kitchen.

Using one of his booted feet, he kicks out a chair. “Sit.”

I grimace at him but do as he commands.

Pestilence strides away from me, opening cupboard doors seemingly at random before closing them and moving on. Eventually, he opens the home’s icebox and pulls out a loaf of bread (Who refrigerates their bread?) and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce from it.

“Here is your sustenance,” he says, tossing them to me. By some miracle I manage to catch the bottle of Worcestershire sauce in my bound hands. The bread beans me in the head.

“You’ll have to eat while you run,” he continues. “I’ll not be wasting time for human breaks today.”

I’m still stuck on the bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Does the horseman actually think I can drink this?

He gives a yank on my bindings, making for the door, and I have to scramble to grab the fallen bread loaf from the ground. While Pestilence ties me to the back of his saddle, I manage to stuff two thick slices of bread into my mouth and shove another few into my pockets. And then we’re off, and I’m forced to drop the rest of the bread so that I can focus my attention on keeping up.

Immediately, I’m aware that today will not be like yesterday. My legs are too sore and my energy too depleted. Each step is agonizing, and no amount of fear can force me to run as fast or as long as I need to.

I make it twenty, maybe twenty-five kilometers before I fall, hitting the road hard.

The horse jerks against my weight, and I let out a scream as my arms are violently jerked nearly out of their sockets. The rope digs into the flesh of my wrists and I shriek again at the blinding pain.

It doesn’t end. The pressure in my shoulders and wrists is nearly unendurable. I gasp out a breath, ready to scream some more, but it’s all so violent and sudden that it takes my breath away.

Pestilence must know I’ve fallen, he must feel the resistance, and I know he’s heard my screams, but he doesn’t so much as glance back at me.

I hated him before now, but there’s something about this cruelty that cuts more sharply than a knife.

He’s here to kill humankind, what else did you expect?

I have to lift my head as my body drags along behind the horse to prevent it from getting injured. Yesterday’s snow has mostly melted away, and the bare asphalt now acts like sandpaper against my back. I can almost feel the layers of my thick coat disintegrating under the force of it. Once it goes … I don’t know how long a human can last like this.

I never get the chance to find out.

Before I feel the bite of the road against my bare skin, Pestilence stops the horse in front of another house.

I lean my head against my arm, utterly exhausted by the pain. Dimly, I’m aware of the horseman untying my restraints from his mount.

His footfalls come to my side, then ominously stop.

“Up.”

I moan in response. Everything hurts so damn much.

A second later, he bends down and scoops me up.

I let out a whimper. Even his touch hurts. I close my eyes and lay a weary cheek against the golden armor of his chest as he carries me to the house’s stoop.

I don’t see Pestilence batter down the door; I simply hear it. Shouts ring out from inside the house.

“Oh my God,” a woman says. “Oh my God—oh my God.”

I force my eyes open. There’s a middle-aged lady staring at us with a look of abject horror.

Why hasn’t she evacuated? What was she thinking?

“We’re staying here,” the horseman says as he brushes past her.

Her head jerks back in surprise as she watches him invade her home.

“Not in my house!” she says shrilly.

“My prisoner will need to eat, sleep, and use your amenities,” he continues, as though she hadn’t spoken.

Behind us, I hear her choke on several words before she says, “You need to leave. Now.”

Her words fall on deaf ears. Pestilence heads up her staircase. Once he gets to the second floor, he begins kicking doors open, and there’s not a damn thing she can do about it. He muscles us into a sparsely furnished bedroom, kicking the door shut behind him.

He sets me on the bed, then backs away, folding his arms over his chest. “You’re slowing me down, human.”

I glare at him from where I lay. “Then let me go.” Or kill me. Honestly, death might be the kinder option at this point.

“Have you forgotten my words so quickly? I don’t intend to let you go, I intend to make you suffer.”

“You’re doing a good job of it,” I say quietly.

His disapproving look only deepens at my words. Strange, you’d think he’d be pleased by that.

He gestures to the bed where I lay. “Sleep,” he commands.

Oh, like it’s that simple.

Even feeling like I’ve been shitkicked to near death, I can’t just up and fall asleep, especially not when the sun is lancing through the window and I can hear the homeowner getting hysterical on the other side of the door.

“I need you to untie my hands first,” I say raising my bound arms to him.

His gaze narrows all distrustful-like, but he comes over to me and undoes the rope.

He leans in close. “No tricks, human.”

Because I’m so sneaky at the moment.

Once my wrists are free, blood flows through my hands, the sensation agonizing. A low groan escapes my throat.

“If you want my pity, expect to be disappointed,” Pestilence says, backing up to the door.

Honestly, this guy is insufferable—even if he is annoyingly handsome. Actually, that might be what’s making it worse. He’s like the most aggressive form of my already most hated male combo: the hot asshole.

My eyes move over Pestilence as he folds his arms, content to just watch me, a look of mild repulsion on his face.

Feeling’s mutual.

“I’m not going to fall asleep with you just staring at me,” I say.

“Too bad.”

So that’s how it’s going to be.

I sit up and stiffly peel off my outer clothes, which are mostly rags at this point anyway. Tossing them aside, I slide under the sheets and try not to shudder at the fact that I’m lying in the guest bedroom of a woman Pestilence’s plague will soon kill.

This is all so epically twisted.

Beneath the covers, I rub my wrists, and I have to bite down on my lower lip when I realize it’s too excruciating to touch. Even the soft flannel sheets are agony against the raw skin.

Pestilence sits on the ground, leaning his back against the door, and his unspoken message is clear: I’m not going anywhere.

I flip over so that I might for five seconds pretend that he doesn’t exist and today doesn’t exist and that none of this exists.

I lay there for some time. Long enough to wonder if any of my teammates survived the Fever. Long enough to once again fret about my parents. I force myself to imagine them holed up in my grandfather’s rickety hunting lodge, playing poker by the fire like we used to when I was young.

They think I’m dead.

I remember my dad’s tears earlier this week. How shocking they were. He’d been so proud when I joined the fire department. He never wanted me to go to college; it didn’t matter that I’d been obsessed with English literature since I was little, that I went so far as dressing as Edgar Allan Poe for Halloween one year (yeah, I was what wet dreams were made of), or that I spent long weekends writing poems. Once the horseman arrived, college was a beautiful reverie and nothing more.

Too impractical, my Dad had told me. What are you going to use a degree for anyway?

I wonder what he’d say to that now …

“Horseman,” I call out.

Silence.

“I know you can hear me.”

He doesn’t respond.

I sigh. “Really? You’re just going to ignore me?”

He heaves out a breath. Yes.

I pick at a loose thread of my borrowed bedspread. “We drew lots,” I begin. “To decide who’d kill you.”

Pestilence is still quiet, but now I swear I can feel his eyes on my back.

“There were four of us left,” I continue. “Me, Luke, Briggs, and Felix. We worked together at the fire station, and for the last several days before you came we helped the Mounties warn residents that they needed to evacuate. We weren’t positive, of course, that you’d ride through our city. Whistler isn’t all that big, but it lays right on Highway 99, the same highway the news had previously spotted you on.

“By the time we drew lots, all the other firefighters had already left with their families. Those of us without families of our own, we stayed behind.” My father’s face floats through my mind.

You had a family, just like Felix and Briggs and Luke did. You just didn’t have a husband and kids. And in the end, that’s why you all took the final shift.

Fewer people to miss us.

“There were four of us left,” I continue, “and we thought maybe—”

“Why are you telling me this?” Pestilence interrupts.

I pause. “Don’t you want to know why I shot you?” I ask.

“I already know why you shot me, human.” The horseman’s voice is sharp. “You wanted to stop me from spreading plague. All these justifications you’re spewing aren’t for my benefit, they’re for yours.”

That shuts me up.

I was trying to save the world. I’m not evil like you think I am, I want to say. But somehow, his words burn those explanations away like acid.

The room is quiet for a long moment.

“You’re right,” I finally say, flipping over to face him. “They are.”

My reasons make no difference to him; they don’t change the fact that I shot and burned him. That I didn’t listen when he begged me to stop.

The horseman has his forearms resting on his bent knees, his penetrating gaze on me. “What do you hope to gain by agreeing with me?” he asks.

“You’re the one everyone calls Pestilence the Conqueror,” I say. “Can’t you even tell when you’ve won an argument?”

Pestilence frowns.

I pull at that loose string again. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“About what?”

“Killing you—or attempting to, anyway.” Twice, technically, since Pestilence probably only lived through the gunshot wound because he was undying.

He lets out a hollow laugh. “Lies. You’re only telling me this now because you’re my prisoner and you fear what I mean to do with you.”

It’s true that I’m afraid of whatever terrifying punishments Pestilence wants to exact on me, but—

“No,” I say. “I don’t regret trying to kill you. I absolutely hated what I did to you, and I’ll never be the same because of it, but I don’t regret my choices when I made them. Still, I am sorry.”

The horseman is silent for a long time as he scrutinizes me.

“Go to sleep,” he eventually says.

And I do.