Famine (The Four Horsemen #3) - Laura Thalassa Page 0,53
he whispers into my ear. “I spared a family who was kind to me.” As he speaks, his fingers stroke my hip, his touch menacing. “They didn’t save my life—not like you—but they welcomed me into their home. They fed me, let me sleep in their bed even knowing what I was.
“Foolishly I enjoyed their hospitality, lingering a little longer than I should in one place. They didn’t mind my killing so much—or at least they never complained of it. And that whole time I assumed I was above harm.
“But word eventually got out that a human family was housing me.
I left their house to lay waste to the crops surrounding a nearby village. When I returned, the family—husband, wife, and three young children—were butchered.
“There I was captured and killed. The next time I awoke, I was in an abandoned building that had been turned into a makeshift prison. And that’s when the true horror began.
“There aren’t words to describe what happened to me—the inflicted agonies, the twisted violations. And even if there were, I doubt a human mind could understand the depth of what I suffered. You have never had your head kicked in, your teeth ripped from your gums, your eyes gouged out, or your fingernails pried off. You’ve never been staked, burned, disemboweled, or dismembered—sometimes at the same time. You have never been killed, only to return to life and bear it all again and again and again.” His lips are soft against my ear, even as his words fill me with second-hand dread.
“I saw the true extent of the pain and suffering humans can inflict on each other, and I endured every conceivable manner of torture.” As he speaks, his voice rises.
I swallow.
“I believed in my task before I was captured, but after what I went through, it’s become personal. Each death is reparation for the atrocities committed against me.”
No wonder Famine savors our misery, lapping it up like cream.
“I’m sorry,” I say, “that they did that to you.”
Again his grip on me tightens, but he doesn’t respond.
We’re both quiet for some time, his words lingering in the air between us.
“So,” I eventually say, deciding to lighten the conversation. “Where have you been for the last five years?”
“You mean since we first parted ways?”
I make an affirmative noise.
Famine leans back in the saddle, exhaling. “A better question is where haven’t I been.”
That has my breath catching.
Five years ago Famine left a trail of dead from Montevideo to Santiago before disappearing from South America altogether. Foolishly I had assumed … I don’t know what I had assumed. Clearly something far too optimistic.
“Just how much of the world is gone?” I’m almost afraid to ask.
“Much of Europe and Asia is gone, as well as some of Africa, Australia, and the Americas.”
For a moment, I can’t breathe. While I went about living my life, whole continents were getting decimated. I don’t know how to put in words the thought of so much of the world just … gone. So I don’t.
We go over an hour in silence, and during that time I make peace with this frightening reality of mine. We’re really all going to the grave. It makes my earlier attempt to run from the Reaper all the more ridiculous. The man was right, where would I even go? Eventually he’ll kill us all.
But if that’s true, what happened to his brothers? I know at least one of them had ridden the earth before Famine—perhaps two, though the reports were a bit unclear on this second one. If they were successful, why did they disappear—or did they not? And why did they leave so many humans alive?
“How is it?” Famine asks, interrupting my thoughts.
“What?” I have zero idea what the horseman is talking about.
He touches my upper arm, near my injury. I glance at it, only to realize I’ve been cradling the arm. At some point, the constant movement in the saddle started to make the cut throb in a funny, tearing way.
And he noticed.
I frown. “It hurts, but I’ll be fine.”
The Reaper says nothing, and we continue on for another minute. But then I hear Famine mutter something under his breath. Abruptly, he stops his horse.
“Has my oh-so-benevolent captor decided to give me a bonus pee break?” I say as he swings himself off his steed.
The Reaper ignores me, striding away. Without meaning to, my eyes drink in his wide shoulders and tapered waist. His bronze armor gleams under the sun.