Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,10

over the wood. There’s a small wooden jewelry box next to a jar of lotion and my oil lamp.

All of it is so impersonal. The closest I get to any meaningful belongings is in a box pushed to the back of my closet, but even that holds nothing much of value. Just a small, carved horse I bought with my first paycheck, a stack of letters several different admirers wrote to me, a bracelet Izabel once braided for me and a couple other knickknacks.

None of it is particularly sentimental, and I find that I don’t want to take any part of this past of mine with me. Not the makeup, not the clothing, not any of the mementos. These things are reminders of who I have been forced to be. But I don’t intend to stay that woman. Not any longer.

On a whim I blow the room a kiss and walk out of there, shedding the past like a second skin.

I leave the city and get out just far enough to leave the stench of death behind. Then I stop and pitch the tent, and I stay put for well over a week, letting my wounds heal. I keep my weapons close—highwaymen are infamous for committing all sorts of crimes against travelers—but my fear is unnecessary in the end. I don’t see or hear a soul.

Once my wounds are healed enough, I begin traveling. And traveling and traveling. The days blur together, one bleeding into the next until the days become weeks. My progress is slow, both because of my injuries, and because I have to stop to scavenge for food—which is a pretty way of saying that I have to enter more cities full of the rotting dead, and I have to break into more homes and steal food from those who no longer need it.

There’s also the issue of following in Famine’s wake. There’s no one to ask for directions, so I have to use my intuition when tracking the horseman. To be honest, it’s not too difficult. The man kills off crops wherever he goes, so it’s a simple matter of following the dead fields and orchards.

And everywhere I go, there are bodies. In trees, next to fields, strewn across the road, outside of homes and outposts, and everywhere in between—all of them caught up in those awful plants. The sound of flies buzzing has become almost constant. I was foolish to think that leaving Laguna would somehow insulate me from the sight of so much death. That’s all that’s left of these towns and cities.

But even though the journey is full of horrors, there’s beauty too. I see kilometer after kilometer of the Serra do Mar, the mountain range that stretches like a reclining woman along the coast. I hear the call of birds and insects that I never heard so crisply while living in the city. And sometimes, when the night is clear, I forgo the tent altogether and sleep under the stars, staring up at those distant lights.

So it’s not all bad.

Not to mention that living through the end of the world means no more sex work for me, and that means I don’t have to give a shit what my face or body looks like. Which is nice. Also, I don’t have to have a horny, heavy body bearing down on me. That’s nice too.

Fuck it, even after everything, I’m still an optimist.

The entire time I ride, I only end up seeing one other soul. I happen across him while passing through the coastal town of Barra Velha. I don’t know who he is or why he was spared, but my best guess is that he was a fisherman out at sea when Famine struck his town. It makes me wonder if during that first feverish week after the horseman’s attack some other local fishermen docked back in Laguna, coming ashore only to find a city full of death. The thought has the hairs along my arms standing on end.

I don’t approach the weeping man—though I do wave at him when he glances up at me, his eyes going wide. A month ago I might’ve stopped to talk to him and make sure he was okay, but a month ago I had a little more heart and a little less vengeance.

The trail I follow turns inland, and the bodies I pass seem … fresher. That’s when I know I’ve just about caught up to Famine. By then, it’s been roughly a month since