Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1)(66)

I don’t hear any more than that. Like a coward, I flee the room. Their kindness was already too much, but this is something else altogether.

I can’t do this. Even as they’re asking their god for strength, I’m breaking because I can’t fucking do this. I can’t eat their food and sleep under their roof and watch them die horrifying deaths while they pray for me and Pestilence.

I want to laugh at that last one. They’re praying for the one man impervious to God’s wrath.

But is he? It’s a quiet thought, and an easy enough one to push away.

In the distance, I hear the door open, and then the heavy footsteps of the horseman. Of all the moments for Pestilence to come back, it has to be now.

He enters the guestroom silently, finding me sitting on the edge of the bed. A hand covers my eyes as my shoulders shake.

“Sara?” he says hesitantly.

I drop my hand from my eyes and instead stare down at it.

“Don’t let them die,” I say, my voice cracking. I can’t look at him.

He steps into the room, closing the door behind him. “What is this?” he asks.

“They’re good people,” I say, the words catching as they come out. “They don’t deserve to die this way.”

“Life doesn’t take fairness into account,” Pestilence says. “I assumed you of all people knew that.”

“Damnit, Pestilence, you saved me!” I say, my temper flaring. “You can save them too!”

There’s a long pause. Then, “I will not.”

I force myself to look up at him. I have to ignore the agonized look in his eyes.

“Please.”

He glances away. “That damnable word.”

I forgot how much he dislikes it until that moment. Guilt and heartache rush in. He’s going to kill them now simply because I said it. He’s going to enjoy it too.

But for once, that doesn’t happen. Instead, maybe for the first time ever, he appears torn.

I can physically see him pulling himself together.

“No,” he says, resolute. “Do not ask me this again.”

I stand up, my despair transforming into something hotter, meaner, as I stare down the sentient thing that could take away their illness.

“Or else what?” I ask, stepping up to him. I push at his torso. “Will you tie me up again? Drag me behind your horse until I’m within an inch of death? Expose me to the elements until I get hypothermia?”

He narrows his eyes. “All great suggestions.”

“Why save me but not them?”

“I intend to make you—”

“Suffer. I know. God, do I know.” I back away from him and sit down wearily once more on the bed.

He stares at me for a long moment, then he takes a step forward. I tense, and he must notice because he stops. Then, defiantly, he closes the rest of the distance between us.

Pestilence sits down beside me, his body dwarfing mine. I’m about to get up when he puts an arm around my shoulders.

I should be pushing him away. I should be yelling at him or storming out of the room. I should be doing a hundred different things. Instead I lean into his embrace and bury my head in his shoulder. My body shakes as I begin to cry great, heaving sobs. His other arm comes around me, and he pulls me onto his lap, cradling me against his massive torso. I take perverse comfort from him, even though he’s the very thing responsible for my grief.

He presses his cheek to my temple, holding me so tightly that I wonder whether he too is taking comfort from the embrace.

“Don’t be sad,” he says, his lips brushing against my skin.

I shake my head against his chest. What he’s asking is impossible. And yet, the longer he holds me, the better I feel.

I breathe him in. “I’m not going to be able to survive this.” I whisper my greatest fear to him.

Pestilence’s body locks up.

“You will,” he insists, “because you must.”

I pull away long enough to stare him in the eye. “I won’t,” I say again. “I’m going to die before you’re finished with this world.”

And then Pestilence will be the only one left to suffer.





Chapter 33


You can feel the end coming, like a wave rushing in. It moves over you, makes itself at home beneath your skin. It settles into your lungs and slips into your heart and eventually inserts itself into your mind. This terrible, awful thing called death goes from being a distant eventuality to a sudden certainty.

As the evening stretches on, Ruth and Rob need more and more care, and it’s somewhere during that time that I feel Death join our little party, lingering in the shadows, waiting for the right moment to collect these souls. The elderly couple must feel it too because even though they’re weak and in increasing amounts of pain, they manage to move into each other’s arms.

Pestilence stares at them curiously, as though he’s never seen anything like this before.

Their skin is old, their bones are old, their hearts are old. And they’ve loved each other for a long, long time. And yet it’s clear that even after all the years they’ve had together, this parting is too soon.

Far too soon.

My throat clogs. This is … personal. Really, really personal. And heartbreaking—and not for my eyes. I bow my head and eventually slip out of the room.