Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,4
Elvita, dragging us away.
“Get your hands off of me!” my madam commands.
The men ignore her.
I fight against their grip as well. I only have eyes for the horseman, who resettles himself on the plush chair we found him on, his scythe laid once more across his lap.
“Don’t you remember me?” The words finally rip free.
But Famine’s no longer paying attention to us—the ridiculed whore and her desperate madam. His eyes have drifted to the front door, where the next supplicant will be entering.
“I saved you!” I shout at him as I’m dragged away. The men that hold me and Elvita haul us towards a door that leads out to the back of the mayor’s estate.
Famine doesn’t so much as look at me. I assumed that once I said something on this subject, he would stop and listen. I hadn’t anticipated that he both wouldn’t recognize me and wouldn’t hear me out.
Old hurt and indignation bubbles to the surface. If it weren’t for me, neither of us would be here right now.
“No one else would help you!” I call out to him. I trip a little as one of his guards tows me outside. “No one but me. You were hurt and—” The door slams shut.
I—I missed my chance.
I’m still staring at the door when I hear Elvita’s sharp inhale. Then—
“Jesus fucking Christ.” Her voice is shrill, the pitch of it too high.
I tear my gaze away from the door, turning to where—
Holy mother of God.
Ahead of us is a huge pit, the steep earthen walls of it smooth. Antonio had mentioned once, months and months ago, that he was going to install a pool for his daughters. I remember the conversation only because a pool sounded like a nightmare to upkeep.
Rich people and their toys.
Now … now I’m staring at the beginnings of that pool. Only, there are splatters of blood on the stone pavement around it, and inside the earthen pit—
At first my eyes don’t want to make sense of what I’m seeing. The strangely bent limbs, the blood-soaked bodies, the glassy eyes. Over a dozen people lay in that pit.
Dear God. No, please, no.
My nausea rises, and I begin struggling in earnest.
I hadn’t survived this long to have it all end like this.
Elvita is cursing as she fights like a wildcat against her captors.
One of the guards holding Elvita now releases her, and for an instant I think she actually managed to partially free herself. But then the man withdraws a dagger from his hip holster.
“Please,” she begins to cry. “I will do anyth—”
He runs her through, stabbing her over and over again before she can even finish begging for her life. I scream as her blood sprays, and I jerk against the men who hold me, feeling like a fish on a hook.
They kill her. Right in front of me they do it. I scream and scream as she bleeds out.
That’s when the first knife enters my body—while I’m still watching my friend die. For a moment, my cries cut off, the action taking me by surprise. But then it’s my body the men are stabbing over and over again.
I can’t catch my breath around the pain. My legs fold as warm liquid trickles down my body.
Fuck, it hurts. Worse than anything I’ve ever felt. I want to scream, but the sharp agony of it closes up my windpipe.
I go limp in the men’s arms. They grab me by the legs, hoisting me off the ground. The world tilts, and I finally manage to release a low, tortured moan as my body sways back and forth, back and forth.
“One … two … three.”
The men release me, and for a single second, I’m weightless.
And then I hit the bottom of the pit.
I think I pass out from the pain, but I can’t be sure. I’m slipping down a hole of agony and delirium. I’m too weak to focus on much of anything else, otherwise I might have noticed the particular hue of the sky above me or the shape of the dead around me. I might have even tried to focus on the arc of my sad, brief life or that I might finally be reunited with my family.
But the pain crowds my thoughts, and all I really notice over it is how cold I am and how hard it is to breathe.
My mind drifts and my eyes close.
This is the end.
I feel death creeping into my bones. This is where people rally and fight for their lives.