“You know the rules,” he says as he undoes the knots. “You run, and my kindness ends.”
My eyes flick to Pestilence’s quiver, where the feathered ends of a dozen golden arrows peek out from over his shoulder. I can still feel the points of those arrows in my flesh. My back begins to throb in response.
“You’ve really latched onto that word.”
Kindness.
Kindness is chopping firewood for the elderly couple who has neither the money nor the means to acquire it. Kindness is a warm hug or a soft smile.
Kindness is not this fuckery right here.
The rope falls away, and I eye Pestilence while I rub at the gauze bandages.
Giving the horseman a sullen last look, I head over to the fireplace. The owners have logs, matches, and scraps of old paper laid out. Grabbing them, I begin to stack the wood and place the kindling in a few choice locations. All the while I studiously ignore the horseman whose gaze I feel on my back.
“Are you done?” I call out.
There’s a pause. “With what, human?”
“Staring at my backside—have you looked your fill?” I ask, my voice dripping with disdain.
“Am I supposed to be insulted by that?” He sounds genuinely baffled.
If he’s going to make me spell it out, then … “Yes.”
He grunts. “I’ll try to remember that next time you cut me down with your scathing words.”
I can just about feel his pleasure at his little comeback.
Good one, horseman. You really got me by the tits this time …
I look over my shoulder at him. His armor and his crown gleam in the darkness. “You are such a creeper,” I note.
His brow pinches.
“In case it’s not obvious, that’s another insult,” I add. I turn back to the fire and focus my attention on it.
Pestilence lingers for a minute or so, and a part of me is curious what he’s doing back there. Hopefully dying of humiliation, though I doubt it.
A minute or so later, the horseman leaves the living room, the clink of his armor growing fainter and fainter. A door closes and then I hear the sound of bathwater running.
I could use a bath too. I smell like horse and sweat, and who knows how dirty my bandages are. But taking a bath means asking for help removing my bandages, and I’m just not ready to go groveling to Pestilence at the moment.
I light the paper shoved between the logs, then I sit down to watch the fire grow.
For the first time since I drew the burnt match, I have a moment to myself not fueled by adrenaline or fear or pain. I try not to think about what that means. It’s easier to understand where things stand between me and the horseman when he’s actively seeking to hurt me. It’s not so easy when he’s just irksome.
For a long time my thoughts are aimless. You’d think that I’d use the time wisely—to plot my escape or think of ways to incapacitate the horseman, but no. My mind is oddly empty.
There’s a collection of fine porcelain figurines lining the mantel above the fireplace. One by one I scrutinize the painted faces. It’s such a specific interest—to collect these little figurines—and it’s just another reminder of how many people are out there in the world. Right now, whole cities of them are fleeing for their lives.
I imagine all the lonely corners of Canada, each one now home to thousands of displaced individuals waiting for the horseman to pass through. We’re playing a lethal game of whack-a-mole, and we’re all the vermin.
I stare down at my mom jeans and outdated shirt. Amongst all those thousands of people are my parents.
My heart lurches. I don’t know why my mind keeps taking me back to them. Guilty conscience, I suppose.
The plan had been for us all to bunk down at my grandfather’s hunting lodge—a hole-in-the-wall cabin located dozens of kilometers northwest of Whistler.
Deep down, I knew I’d never make it there.
“You go on ahead,” I told my parents. “I need to finish evacuating the city.”
The memory still stings.
“Don’t be a hero,” my dad said. “Everyone is leaving their post.”
“I need to do my job.”
“If you do your job, you’ll die!” he shouted. He never shouted.
“You don’t know that.”
“Damnit Sara, I do. You do. What is the survival rate of this thing?”
There wasn’t a survival rate. People either avoided Messianic Fever, or they succumbed to it. I knew that, my dad knew that, the whole world knew that.
“Someone has to help those other families,” I said.
My father stopped listening at that point. That was one of the only times I’d ever seen him openly cry.
He already believes I’m dead, I remember thinking.
And now, to the best of his understanding, I am.
Absently, I touch my cheek, feeling moisture there.
“What a surprise. I half thought you’d try to escape again.”
Instinctively, my shoulders hike up at Pestilence’s voice.
I clear my throat, then swipe quickly at my eyes.
He doesn’t get the pleasure of seeing me upset.
“I get that you don’t think highly of people,” I say, swiveling to him, “but that’s just—Jesus!”
Standing on the other side of the room, his hair still dripping from the shower, is a very naked Pestilence.
Chapter 12
“Oh my God,” I shield my eyes, “put some clothes on! No one wants to see that!”
He frowns. “Your human sense of propriety is absolutely ridiculous.”
For all this dude’s knowledge, there are very obvious holes in his education—like, for instance, what makes humans as uncomfortable as fuck.
“It doesn’t change the fact that seeing you butt-ass naked is not on my shortlist of things to do during the apocalypse.”
Not that it’s a bad body or anything. I mean, if circumstances were different …
“Why you tell me these things when I want you to suffer is such a quandary,” he says.
“Can you just put some pants on?”
Really that’s all I ask.
He comes up to me, every inch—and I mean ev-er-ry inch—on display. I take in those glowing amber tattoos that are so foreign and beautiful. My eyes move to his massive shoulders and his tapering torso; my gaze dips lower, to his abs, then to …
Maybe it’s just sitting next to the fire, but suddenly, the urge to fan myself is overwhelming.
“Please,” I plead.
“When I begged you for mercy, did you grant it?”
This is so ridiculous.
“No, but—”
“No,” Pestilence agrees. “And for this reason, I too shall overlook your pleas.”
He’s not getting the fact that being shot in the face and staring at an impressive example of the male form are two entirely different tiers of suffering. No, scratch that, they’re not even tiers. They’re like homophones; they sound the same but the words mean two totally different things.
“You’re really all for this eye-for-eye justice,” I mutter.
An Old-Testament God is definitely running the show here.
“You’re seriously going to make me look at you naked?” I ask