“Please.”
He strained to say the word, then he passed out again, his head hitting the floor with a thud. I stared at him, unblinking, unflinching, terrified that if I moved, something inside of me would break. It was him. He was the devil of Harrowgate… somehow. Sanchez said something, but I couldn’t hear her. She sounded distant; far, far away.
There was only the Horseman, and the devil.
And he was both.
Sanchez put her hand on my shoulder, jerking me out of the trance. “Six!” she yelled. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said, deciding in the moment to keep the truth of what I knew to myself. “He passed out. I need to get him onto his bed. Can you help me?”
She stared at him, then at me. “Wait, you want me to move that thing? The guy must weigh a ton.”
“We can do it.” I said, standing up. “You grab his legs, I’ll grab his arms.”
Sanchez rolled her eyes. “Dammit,” she grumbled, “Alright.”
It took a moment for the two of us to get into a comfortable position. I hooked my hands under the Horseman’s arms, and Sanchez placed herself in a kind of wheelbarrow position between his legs. On the count of three, we heaved him up and gingerly—but quickly—hurried him through the open door into his bedroom, and tossed him on his bed, only barely succeeding before exhausting ourselves.
Sanchez took a deep breath and exhaled. “I need to get more in shape,” she said. “That knocked it out of me.”
I wasn’t sure whether to approach the Horseman or not. Laying as he was on his bed, unconscious, he looked small; like a man in need of help. But if he really was the devil of Harrowgate, then he was also a monster that had killed many, many people. Maybe this was what Calder had tried to instill into me.
Maybe this was the side of him that warranted his death, I just hadn’t seen it yet.
“So, what now?” Sanchez asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “Is there a chance someone else heard all of this?”
“No. I told the guards on duty to take a break. Not that there were many guards to begin with.”
“I’m… I’m going to have to stay with him. When he wakes up, he’ll probably need food, and water. And I think I’ll need a med-kit.”
“A med-kit?”
“I think he injured himself when he fell. I want to check him over.”
“And you’re qualified to do that?”
I shot her an angry look. “Now isn’t the time to play guard and inmate. You called me up here to help him, so let me help him, okay?”
She put her hands up. “Alright, alright. Let me see what I can do. Just, don’t leave this room for a while.”
I nodded. “I won’t.”
Sanchez left me alone with the Horseman, disappearing out of his quarters and shutting the door as she left. I walked up to his bed, carefully, slowly. He was still unconscious and would probably remain so for a while. In the other room there were weapons—knives, swords. All I had to do was go out there, grab one, and drive it through his throat.
I doubted if he would even wake up before it was too late.
But I couldn’t do that. As soon as the idea entered my mind, I hated myself for even having it. He was the Horseman. The devil. I didn’t even know his name. But my heart hurt for him. If what I had felt in my dream was true, if the pain I had seen in that beast’s green eyes was real, then it was his pain, and I had to help him.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
I couldn’t be sure how long it had been since I left the cell, but it had to have been hours. All this time I’d wanted to deliberately reach out to Azlu so we could communicate, but I wasn’t sure how to trigger our psychic link. Still, I knew she was aware of what was going on up here, and I had to trust that they were continuing with what they were supposed to be doing down there.
It turned out there wasn’t much to do in the Horseman’s quarters. In the time I’d been here, I had inspected his library, his weapon rack, even his wardrobe—all purely so I could get a better measure of the man. I still couldn’t understand how a man as refined and as well composed as he could also be such a brutal, vicious animal, and while I knew there had to be a reason, I wasn’t going to find it resting on a rack between his suits.
At one point, the Horseman started tossing, and turning. I watched him from the chair I had pulled up and by his bedside. I saw the way the sweat formed on his chest, on his neck. It looked like he was having a bad dream, a nightmare like the rest of us were prone to having. Despite what I suspected he was, I couldn’t just let him suffer through it.
So, I grabbed a towel from his bathroom, I soaked it, and then I used it to gently pat him down. Forehead, neck, chest, I focused on the parts of him that were at their absolute hottest, migrating back to the bathroom every few minutes to cool the towel down again with fresh water before reapplying it.
When the Horseman finally did awaken, it was slowly, and gradually. I had expected his eyes to shoot open and for him to snatch my arm, or maybe even attack me out of surprise at finding someone sitting close to him.
None of that happened.
He opened his eyes, blinked back the dizziness, drowsiness. Then he looked at me, and I fell into his gaze like I was drawn to it. Green flecked with gold. Sharp. Vibrant. Shining from within as if possessed of their own light source. For the first time since I’d met him, I saw in him something I had never expected to see; something he would never had let anyone see.
Vulnerability.
“You stayed…” he sighed.
“I did,” I said, nodding. I brought the towel up to his forehead and dabbed it lightly against his skin. “How do you feel?”
“Like I was hit in the head with a sledge-hammer.”
“According to all the rumors I’ve heard, that would hardly even tickle you.”
“Three sledge-hammers, then.”
“Do you feel like you can tell me what happened to you?”
“I wish I could say, but my mind is blank.”
“Blank?”
The Horseman rolled his neck, letting his head fall back on the pillow after it clicked. “I fell asleep and…” he trailed off.
“You attacked me.”
His eyes met mine. “Attacked you?”
I frowned at him. “Now isn’t he time to pretend like we don’t both know.”
“Six—”
“—no, you listen. I’ve sat here for the past few hours, watching over you, helping you while you tossed and turned and twisted yourself through some kind of fever dream. But before that, I was in a fever dream of my own, being chased by the very same animal that has been killing inmates and guards left and right in here.” I pulled the towel back. “I need you to tell me the truth, now.”
The Horseman’s eyes narrowed, sharpening further. He was awake, his brain fully active and alert. I wasn’t about to let him feed me half-truths, or misdirect, or even gaslight his way out of this. I knew. He knew. The only way through this was honesty.
“Alright,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
I nodded and set the towel down at his side. Swallowing hard, I decided to rip the band-aid off and confirm my suspicions once and for all. “It’s you, isn’t it?” I asked.