Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,118
lit wick peeking out of it. He lowers himself to the ground next to the blanket, setting the lamp down beside him.
I pat the blanket. “You can sit here you know.”
“That’s your bed,” the Reaper says.
Calling this blanket a bed is giving it far too much credit, but that’s cute of him anyway.
“I’m used to sharing,” I reply.
In the lamplight, our eyes meet, and last night silently plays itself out in our minds. Famine still hasn’t moved.
“Don’t make this weird,” I say. “Nothing’s changed between us.”
The horseman gives me a sharp look, one that makes my stomach dip, but he does move onto the blanket, sitting across from me.
Seconds pass and that gravity is still in his gaze, like he is swimming in deep, deep water and he wants to drag me under with him.
I turn my attention to the house around us, listening to the steady drip of rain.
“Sleepovers in derelict buildings are kind of our thing,” I say, softly.
“Mmm.”
I drop my gaze back to Famine, and damnit, he’s still looking at me like that.
“Stop it,” I whisper.
“Stop what?” he says, not looking away from me.
Stop making me feel lighter than air and heavier than iron. Stop sucking me under.
“Nothing’s changed between us,” I insist. I don’t know how I manage to say that lie in a normal voice.
The Reaper smiles at me then, his expression wry, like I’m the naïve one and he’s the one with the worldly experience.
I glance away, unable to hold his gaze. I’m desperate for a distraction. Anything that might make me forget I’m incurably attracted to him.
My eyes land on the oil lamp. It’s nothing more than a shallow bowl with a little pinched lip for the wick. That’s all the light we have to talk by tonight.
“Can I ask you something?” I say.
Rather than responding, the Reaper waits for me to continue.
“Why did everything fail?”
I can tell that’s not the question he was expecting. He was expecting a question about us, but hell no am I going to ask him something that will force me to confront my feelings for him.
“You mean human technology?” he asks.
I nod.
There are junkyards full of rusted automobiles and appliances and televisions and computers and those cute little cellphones people used to carry. There are landfills full of other things too—things that I don’t even have proper names for, things that once worked but no longer do. I’m too young to have seen cars drive and planes fly and machines wash clothes and chill food. It all sounds like witchcraft.
Maybe that’s why it all failed—I don’t think God is a big fan of witchcraft.
“It all failed because humans got carried away,” the horseman replies. “You were all naughty children who didn’t listen when God told you in His quiet way to stop,” Famine says idly. “So now He’s being loud about it.”
“Is that why is God punishing us?” I ask. “Because we were too … innovative?” I’ve heard of a lot of sins; I didn’t realize curiosity was one of them.
“God isn’t punishing you,” Famine replies smoothly. “I am. God is merely balancing the scales—so to speak.”
“Because we invented too many things?” I ask.
“Because the world fell out of balance,” he says. “And humans are to blame for that.”
There’s that word again—balance. The Reaper has mentioned it a couple of times now. Immediately, my eyes move to the kitchen, where I last caught a glimpse of his scales. He brought them in with the rest of our things, though he didn’t properly unpack them.
“There are some good things about humans,” Famine adds. “If there weren’t, this would’ve happened long ago.”
I take that in, trying to process the fact that the horseman is admitting that people have some goodness to them.
I don’t say anything, caught between shock and a fragile sort of hope that maybe, maybe were aren’t totally and completely screwed.
Famine’s eyes move to mine again, and that look is back. He leans forward and reaches out, his fingers skimming my cheeks.
At his touch, I still.
“You said everything was going to go back to the way it was before,” I accuse, my voice a whisper.
“I lied.” There’s no remorse in his tone. “I cannot forget how you saved me and all you have admitted to me since. And I cannot forget how your skin felt against mine and the look in your eyes when I touched you. But most of all, Ana, I cannot ignore the way you draw me in, again and again.”