Pestilence (The Four Horsemen #1)(64)

“Your natures are corrupted,” Pestilence says. “Your hearts are hard and your minds are set on a selfish, destructive course. You have killed off countless creatures, you’ve made a mockery of nature, you’ve turned your backs on one another. Unless your ways change, you will be eliminated.”

Rob runs a hand over his close-cropped white hair. “That’s a tall order for our lot,” he says sadly.

“That is why humankind will perish.” Pestilence says this with such certainty that I have to tamp down a shiver.

He doesn’t believe we are capable of changing.

Rob leans forward. “But there is a chance we won’t?”

Pestilence hesitates. “Yes,” he finally says. “There is a chance. Until Death has ridden through the land and deemed it unworthy—until God Himself has called us back—there is a chance.”

I lay awake for a long time that night, my mind slow to turn off. Even once it does, my sleep is fairly light. A peel of laughter or a gruff word from the other end of the house is enough to rouse me.

Pestilence stays up late with the elderly couple, talking about things that I can’t quite make out. Bits and pieces of conversation drift in, and it’s just enough for me to figure out that they’re talking about God and religion. I get the impression that the horseman is far freer with his words around them than he is with me.

Startlingly, I feel a spark of jealousy. I don’t even want to talk to Pestilence about God, so I don’t know why it bothers me.

You want him to share his most private thoughts with you, and you alone.

To think that he’s telling this couple things that he won’t utter in front of me … beneath the jealousy and annoyance is hurt.

You’re his prisoner, something you seem to forget over and over again.

After what feels like an eternity of restless sleep, I hear chairs scrape back, then the shuffle of soft footfalls as Ruth and Rob make their way to the back of their house. I strain to hear anything else, each passing second waking me further, but there’s nothing.

Is Pestilence sitting alone in the darkness?

It’s not until sometime later, when the sound of a chair sliding back wakes me for the five millionth time, that I hear the horseman’s signature footfalls. He heads down the hall, towards my room.

My heart begins to patter as he nears.

Is he coming for me?

The thought that once filled me with revulsion now fills me with excitement.

I hear him pause outside my door, the silence stretching on and on.

What’s he doing?

The doorknob turns and he steps inside. I can barely make him out in the darkness. He’s just one larger shadow amongst the rest of them, his form looking staggering as it fills up the doorway.

He moves to the right of the bed, taking a seat on the floor and resting his back against the wall.

I don’t know what to do with myself—I’m supposed to be asleep, but I’m not, and that feels like such a big lie. Pestilence must realize I’m awake, right? I’m sure I’m breathing too loudly or laying too still.

“Amongst my growing list of flaws is cowardice,” Pestilence says in the darkness. “I come to you now like a thief in the night, for I fear you’ll never listen to me under the light of day,” his voice is whisper soft, “and I must confess all the things in my heart.”

Allllright. This should be interesting. And now I’m fucking wide awake.

“I find you beautiful, dear Sara, so beautiful. But it’s such a sharp, scathing beauty—like the edge of my arrowheads—because I remember you are not like me. One day, you will die, and I am growing anxious of that fact.”

I have to force myself to breathe and to hold back the awkward, choking sound that really wants to escape my lungs. No one has ever spoken to me like this.

“I admit,” he continues, “I have no idea what’s come over me. Never in my long existence have I felt this way. Not until I came to your world in this form could I feel. And before I met you, even that was limited to the vitriol that burned thick in my belly. All I once wanted was to raze civilization to the ground.

“It was not until I met you, hated though you were, that I understood the meaning of God’s words. Of mercy.” He says this as though it’s of paramount importance. “And now I understand why there is hope yet for your kind. Because along with the bad, there is this.”

Okay, I’m pretty sure this dude has no effing clue I’m awake.

“And I cannot figure out what this is,” he continues, “only that I feel it when I see you and when I think of you. When we ride together and I hold you, I feel as though all is right. And when you laugh, I think I might truly die. This is an agonizing sort of pleasure, and it’s ever so perplexing. I don’t understand how pain and affection can coexist alongside one another.”

He sighs, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling.

“When you ignore me, I burn with restlessness; it feels as though the sun has turned its back on the world. And when you smile at me—when you gaze at me like you can see my soul—I feel … I feel like I am lit on fire, like you have been called by God to raze my world.”

He is breaking me wide open. No one has ever spoken to me like this—no one has ever even thought of me like this—and I have no defense against it.