Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1)(13)

Still, Pestilence drives us onwards.

At first his horse moves slow, though I don’t think it’s to show me any mercy. Rather, I assume it’s to draw out my agony for as long as possible. Slowly the steed begins to pick up speed, until his trot becomes a canter and then his canter eventually becomes a gallop.

I keep up for a while. That much I can say. Despite everything, I somehow do keep up.

But no one except this dastardly immortal creature can go on forever. The lack of sleep, the thin meals, the cold, my wounds and my exhaustion—it’s all worn me down.

I trip, falling onto the snow-covered road, and I don’t get up. My wrists jerk over my head, the force of it yanking at least one arm out of its socket.

Now I scream. Now I lose it.

My body is on fire and a person could go mad from this sort of pain.

I didn’t even know I could hurt this much and oh God oh God oh God make it stop please make it stop I’m sorry I shot your beloved horseman just make it stop.

But it doesn’t stop. If God has any mercy, it’s not spared on me.

I’m dragged through the snow, and the cold hurts so bad it burns. Whatever protection my clothes afford me, it doesn’t last long. I can feel the icy road against my back, and I don’t know where my agony ends and I begin. All I know is that I haven’t endured worse than this.

I scream until my throat is ragged from use. My arms are going to be ripped from my body. There’s no other way this ends. And I’m in so much pain that I hope they’ll cleave away from me so I can bleed out and die quicker than this.

It doesn’t happen.

There’s pain and pain and pain, so much goddamned pain. I’m burning up with it even though there’s no fire I’m burning up and make it stop, please make it stop, please, please, please—





Chapter 9


I wake briefly to an intense flare of pain in one of my shoulders. I cry out as hands release me and some of the agony abates.

The world around me is out of focus, just swathes of colors, and my body throbs in the most horrible way. Why does everything hurt?

Around me, the colors begin to sharpen enough for me to make out a face. An angel looms over me, his face still somewhat blurry.

Am I in heaven?

Should I feel pain if I’m in heaven?

I reach out and cup the angel’s face with a shaky hand, my wrists bloody and my fingers purple. He flinches, moving out of my reach.

“Am I dead?” I think I ask, but the angel doesn’t respond.

“Stay with me,” I murmur. I grope for a hand. When I find what I’m looking for, I lace my fingers through it. “Please.”

Not supposed to say that word.

Why am I not supposed to say that word?

Something about begging, but now I can’t quite remember …

Everything is drifting farther and farther from me.

I squeeze the hand I hold tightly. “Stay with me,” I say again.

But the angel and the rest of the world melts away.

I blink my eyes open, staring at the popcorn ceiling above me. For a moment, my life is normal, my mind is wiped free of memory.

Someone squeezes my hand, and I turn my head, bewildered. And then I see him.

I scream.

There’s nothing—nothing—more monstrous than that beguiling face Pestilence wears, his golden crown resting proudly on his head.

It’s only once he drops my hand like it burned that I realize the fucker was holding my hand. It takes another second for me to process why exactly that fills me with blinding fury.

Fleeing the horseman. Arrows to the back. Tied to his steed and forced to run. Falling. Dragging. Pain. Dying.

I gasp at the memory, and now the full force of my agony surfaces.

“I’m … alive.”

It seems impossible in light of everything I went through. It felt as though I was being torn apart.

“Suffering is for the living,” Pestilence replies from where he sits. I glance around at the room we’re in. It’s another guestroom, presumably in another house Pestilence has decided to invade.

My hands delve into the worn sheets beneath me. He brought me to this room and laid me on the bed, and presumably I’ve been here ever since.

I can’t tell whether this scenario utterly terrifies me, or whether it takes the edge off my fear.

He didn’t let me die. He intends to let me heal—

Only so that I can suffer more.

I push myself up in bed, biting back a yelp at the intense pain that flares across my back.

“Why am I here?” I ask.

“I won’t let you die.”

Again, I don’t know whether him saving me is a kindness or a curse.

It’s obviously a curse, you dumb bimbo. He ain’t saving you to romance your ass.

“You shot me, then tied me up and dragged me through the snow.” Just saying those words forces a shiver through me.

His blue eyes are steady on me. “I did.”

I roll a shoulder, the joint achingly sore.

“My arm was pulled out of its socket,” I say, remembering the excruciating sensation.

He gazes at me for a long moment, looking every inch the damnable angel, then nods.

I glance down at myself. My shirt is gone, replaced by some stranger’s—a large woman with an outdated wardrobe, judging by the garish floral print of it.