Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,131
townspeople.
He glares at the onlookers. “Leave us, or die,” he says.
Within moments, the curious townspeople are gone.
I think I’m feeling better. Still feverish, still exhausted, but at least I’m aware enough to not wet myself.
Famine carries me past the surrounding homes and into the wilds that border the neighborhood, not stopping until we’re alone.
I’ve gone to the bathroom many times while traveling with Famine. During every one of them he’s given me some modicum of privacy. But now he doesn’t fully let me go as he lifts my dress.
A few seconds pass. “You can let me go,” I say.
I made it my business to have sex with strangers, but I can’t seem to find it in me to pee in front of Famine.
“You’ve barely moved since I set you in that bed,” he says. “I’d rather not.”
I feel myself getting weepy, though I’m too dehydrated to actually cry. “I don’t want you to … see me like—”
Before I can finish, he kisses my lips once, softly, to silence me. “You’re being ridiculous, Ana. I don’t mind.”
That’s all the fight I have left in me. And so I go to the bathroom right there in front of Famine as he helps hold me up.
I’m shaking—from embarrassment, fatigue, and fever—and now I begin to sob, my dehydrated body managing to squeeze out a couple precious tears. My emotions are all twisted up.
When I’m done Famine helps clean me up and I’m caught between utter mortification and exhausted gratitude.
Why are you being like this? I want to ask him. You’re brash and mean and capricious.
But he’s not. Not when you get down to the heart of him.
The horseman carries me back into the house and resettles me on the bed. Pulling a chair up next to the mattress, he grabs a nearby pitcher and pours me a glass of water.
I watch him while he works, feeling tired and achy and just generally unwell.
“Drink,” he says, handing it to me.
“So demanding …” My voice is nothing more than a whisper. I take the water from him anyway and swallow it down. It doesn’t sit well in my stomach—to be honest, my stomach doesn’t feel like it’s sitting well in my stomach—and I have to swallow several times to keep it down.
The longer I’m awake and aware, the more I realize that I’m not actually feeling better at all, just more alert. And even that is tenuous because all I want to do is go back to sleep and escape all the pain I’m in. It reminds me of the last time I fought off an infection, when the town around me had all gone to their graves.
I thought I was a goner then, too. I swear I came so close to Death I could touch him.
I set the water on the bedside table next to me. That’s when I notice the small sculpture of Our Lady of Aparecida resting just behind the pitcher.
I draw in a breath. I’m not sure the horseman believes in signs, but I think I might.
“Famine,” I say, and my voice sounds all wrong.
There are things I need to tell him. Now, before I lose the chance.
His back stiffens. “Don’t,” he says, his eyes flashing. “Don’t,” he repeats. “I already told you, you’re not dying.”
Maybe I am, maybe I’m not. It feels like I might be.
I take a deep breath and finally admit to him what I haven’t even fully admitted to myself.
“I love you.” My heart is hammering away. “I don’t know when I began to, and I’m really, really upset that I do—”
“Stop, Ana,” Famine says fiercely. There are unshed tears in his eyes.
“But I love you. So much. And I always will. I want you to know that,” I say, “in case—”
“Stop.” Famine looks angry that he can’t make words wither away like he can plants. “I will kill the whole goddamn world if you don’t stop.”
I press my chapped lips together.
Once he sees that I’m not going to continue, the Reaper exhales, leaning his head back against his chair to stare up at the ceiling, one of his legs jiggling.
“When I told you I liked stories,” he says out of nowhere, “there was one in particular that I never told you.”
I give him a confused look. Fever and exhaustion are tugging me towards sleep, but I force my eyes to stay open.
“The night you saved me,” Famine says, looking back down at me, “when you fell asleep, you spoke.