I flip over so that I might for five seconds pretend that he doesn’t exist and today doesn’t exist and that none of this exists.
I lay there for some time. Long enough to wonder if any of my teammates survived the Fever. Long enough to once again fret about my parents. I force myself to imagine them holed up in my grandfather’s rickety hunting lodge, playing poker by the fire like we used to when I was young.
They think I’m dead.
I remember my dad’s tears earlier this week. How shocking they were. He’d been so proud when I joined the fire department. He never wanted me to go to college; it didn’t matter that I’d been obsessed with English literature since I was little, that I went so far as dressing as Edgar Allan Poe for Halloween one year (yeah, I was what wet dreams were made of), or that I spent long weekends writing poems. Once the horseman arrived, college was a beautiful reverie and nothing more.
Too impractical, my Dad had told me. What are you going to use a degree for anyway?
I wonder what he’d say to that now …
“Horseman,” I call out.
Silence.
“I know you can hear me.”
He doesn’t respond.
I sigh. “Really? You’re just going to ignore me?”
He heaves out a breath. Yes.
I pick at a loose thread of my borrowed bedspread. “We drew lots,” I begin. “To decide who’d kill you.”
Pestilence is still quiet, but now I swear I can feel his eyes on my back.
“There were four of us left,” I continue. “Me, Luke, Briggs, and Felix. We worked together at the fire station, and for the last several days before you came we helped the Mounties warn residents that they needed to evacuate. We weren’t positive, of course, that you’d ride through our city. Whistler isn’t all that big, but it lays right on Highway 99, the same highway the news had previously spotted you on.
“By the time we drew lots, all the other firefighters had already left with their families. Those of us without families of our own, we stayed behind.” My father’s face floats through my mind.
You had a family, just like Felix and Briggs and Luke did. You just didn’t have a husband and kids. And in the end, that’s why you all took the final shift.
Fewer people to miss us.
“There were four of us left,” I continue, “and we thought maybe—”
“Why are you telling me this?” Pestilence interrupts.
I pause. “Don’t you want to know why I shot you?” I ask.
“I already know why you shot me, human.” The horseman’s voice is sharp. “You wanted to stop me from spreading plague. All these justifications you’re spewing aren’t for my benefit, they’re for yours.”
That shuts me up.
I was trying to save the world. I’m not evil like you think I am, I want to say. But somehow, his words burn those explanations away like acid.
The room is quiet for a long moment.
“You’re right,” I finally say, flipping over to face him. “They are.”
My reasons make no difference to him; they don’t change the fact that I shot and burned him. That I didn’t listen when he begged me to stop.
The horseman has his forearms resting on his bent knees, his penetrating gaze on me. “What do you hope to gain by agreeing with me?” he asks.
“You’re the one everyone calls Pestilence the Conqueror,” I say. “Can’t you even tell when you’ve won an argument?”
Pestilence frowns.
I pull at that loose string again. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“Killing you—or attempting to, anyway.” Twice, technically, since Pestilence probably only lived through the gunshot wound because he was undying.
He lets out a hollow laugh. “Lies. You’re only telling me this now because you’re my prisoner and you fear what I mean to do with you.”
It’s true that I’m afraid of whatever terrifying punishments Pestilence wants to exact on me, but—
“No,” I say. “I don’t regret trying to kill you. I absolutely hated what I did to you, and I’ll never be the same because of it, but I don’t regret my choices when I made them. Still, I am sorry.”
The horseman is silent for a long time as he scrutinizes me.
“Go to sleep,” he eventually says.
And I do.
Chapter 7
I wake in the middle of the night, ripped from sleep by the sound of crying.
I blink, looking around.
Thought the neighbors had all evacuated …
I grope for my bedside oil lamp before I realize there is no bedside oil lamp.
Not my room. Not my apartment.
Then the last few days wash over me like a cold shower.
Drawing matches, shooting Pestilence, the brutal runs I’d been forced to endure until I could no longer. As the memories flood in, so do all my lingering pains.
You made this shit sandwich, Burns, now you got to eat it.
The sound of crying cuts through my thoughts, and I remember the homeowner. How many hours has it been since we showed up on her doorstep?
Twelve? More? Less?
I grope around again for an oil lamp; now that power is spotty, people keep lamps and lanterns around. My fingers slide over a bedside table, but what they bump into isn’t a lamp. I feel around the glass of water and the pitcher next to it.
Did Pestilence leave this here?
I balk at the thought. That would be far too kind for the likes of him.
Pulling off my blankets, I get out of bed and slip down the hall, ready to head towards the sound of the crying, which seems to be coming from a room at the back of the house. But then I hesitate.
What are you going to do, Sara? Comfort her? You’re a stranger playing Goldilocks in her house. You think she wants anything to do with you?
I stand there, second-guessing myself, when finally my head catches up to me.
My eyes pass over the dark hallway once, twice, looking for Pestilence. I prowl back to my room and peek inside. The darkness obscures a lot, but it can’t hide a horseman, and there isn’t one in my room.
He’s gone.
I don’t give myself time to wonder where Pestilence slunk off to. I’ve got who knows how much time until he returns.
Not going to waste it.
I have to force myself to ignore the woman’s cries. Can’t help her now. She’ll die like the rest of them—like I should be dying—and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I tried, I want to tell her, I tried but the horseman can’t be killed, and I’m so sorry but I don’t think any of us are getting out of this alive.
Except that I am. Tonight. Right now.
I grab the pile of clothes I shed earlier from where they lay next to the bed. As silently as I dare, I slip them on, my hands fumbling with the buttons as they begin to shake.
Hurry, hurry. Before he comes back.
Grabbing my boots, I slip them on and pad softly to the window. I wiggle the pane open, wincing against the blast of frigid air that blows in, stinging my lungs and rustling my hair.
Damnit. Really don’t want to go out there on a night like this.
I hesitate. I could stay with Pestilence; he’s not trying to kill me after all.
He wants to make you suffer.
There will be more running, more bleeding wrists and more days like today where I can’t keep up. And that’s assuming Pestilence doesn’t decide I need to suffer more than I already am. I’d rather not stick around to see what creative punishments he comes up with.
Mind made up, I punch out the window screen. A moment later, I hear it thud softly as it hits the ground below.
Deep breath for courage.
I swing first one leg, then the other, out over the window ledge. Outside, it’s snowing again, a thin layer of it carpeting the ground. It’s that ground that has me nervous. Sitting two stories up as I am, the drop could break my legs. It wou
ld have to be a bad landing, but it could. Painstakingly I lower myself until I’m dangling out the window by my hands and thanking the fates that firefighting has given me good upper body strength.
And then I let go.
For one long moment, I’m weightless. Then the moment ends, and my feet slam against the ground. Slowly, I straighten. No rolled ankles, no broken bones—for once, luck’s with me.
I give the house a final, passing glance, and then I bolt.
I sprint for the road, even though my body is in no condition to run.
I’m free. Holy freaking shitballs, I’m free!
Behind me I hear a faint, slick hiss, a sound I mistake for the wind until what feels like a knife slams into my back, just below my right shoulder blade.
I choke against the pain, my feet stumbling as warmth spreads out from the wound.
Blood, my mind puts together. You’re bleeding because there’s an arrowhead embedded in your back.
I should’ve known better, but when I saw that empty bedroom, I couldn’t not act.
Hope is a damnable thing.
And now—Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, the burn of the wound seizes up my windpipe.
I don’t bother to glance behind me as I force my feet to continue moving. I know what I’ll see. Proud Pestilence, bow in hand, sighting me like a hunter.
If I stop now, he’s got me.
I fucking sprint, snow crunching under my boots as I make for the tree line ahead of me. If I make it to the forest, I might still be able to escape him.
With every pump of my arms and sway of my torso, the arrowhead cuts deeper into muscle.
You’ve endured worse, Burns. You’ve walked through fire, felt the flames sear your skin and cook your body. You will live through this.
I will live through it … so long as this arrowhead wasn’t tipped with poison … or plague. I try not to think about that latter one. I try not to imagine what will happen if I get away. How I might escape him only to die of the Fever.
I’m almost to the woods when the next arrow hits me, the tip of it driving into my lower back.
Again I stumble, nearly going to my knees. This one, this one feels like it hit more than just muscle. There’s a sick, tugging sensation that feels wrong every time I move.
Behind me I hear the gallop of hoof beats.
Move! I scream at myself as snow flurries swirl around me.
I stagger to my feet, forcing myself to keep going.
My energy is quickly flagging, and I can feel more blood soaking into my ripped clothes, the fabric quickly turning icy.
It takes the horseman less than a minute to reach me, his mount’s breath steaming in the night air.
I can feel Pestilence’s burning gaze on me, even though I don’t dare look at him. Escape is now futile, but I still won’t force myself to stop.
I hear the heavy clink of his armor as he dismounts, his boots crunching into the snow and dead underbrush.
In two long strides he’s upon me. His hand wraps around an arrow shaft.
“No—”
Mercilessly, he yanks it out. I scream as the blade of it cuts into more muscle and sinew as it’s removed.
He tosses it aside, never saying a word. I feel another sickening pull as he grabs the other arrow lodged into my back.
Please. It’s on the tip of my tongue to beg him, but I have a feeling that is exactly what he wants—for me to plead for my life the way he did his. I grind my teeth together. Damn him, I won’t give him what he wants.
When he yanks the second arrowhead out, the pain has my legs folding out from under me. I can feel rivulets of my blood dripping down my back, the sickening sensation setting my teeth on edge.
“Because you’ve proven yourself to be every bit as conniving as the rest of your brethren,” he says, his tone just as cutting as his weapons, “you will no longer sleep. It’s a luxury you can no longer afford.”
Roughly, he grabs my hands, pulling a rope loose from where it’s been secured at his hip.
I tug against his hands. “What are you doing?” I ask, beginning to panic in earnest.
Not the rope. Not again.
Oh God.
It’s hitting me, that I tried to escape and I failed and now everything is going to be so much worse.
Kneeling in the snow, he begins to bind my wrists, his expression grim and angry.
If I don’t get away now, I am going to die.
I kick out at him, my boot landing heavily against his thigh. He doesn’t so much as sway.
He tightens the knots on my wrist and I cry out at the stabbing pain. His lips thin as he loops the other end through his saddle.
“No.” Please. “No-no-no.” I’m muttering almost senselessly, a couple tears squeezing out of my eyes.
I have two open wounds at my back, and the night air is so cold it rips through my clothing and burns my skin.
“Why are you doing this?” The question is almost a sob.
Pestilence glares at me. “Have you so recently forgotten what you did to me?” He gives a yank on the rope. “Up.”
I don’t get up. I don’t have it in me to get up.
The horseman doesn’t stick around to see whether or not I follow his orders. He mounts his horse and makes another clicking noise.
The steed begins to trot away, and I only have one swift second to get my feet properly under me before I’m forced to move.
And then we’re off again.
Chapter 8
I don’t know how long we travel in the dark, cold night, only that it feels endless. My hands are numb, my legs are stiff with chill, and my back throbs in strange, painful ways that make me think my injuries are more than just flesh wounds.
Still, Pestilence drives us onwards.
At first his horse moves slow, though I don’t think it’s to show me any mercy. Rather, I assume it’s to draw out my agony for as long as possible. Slowly the steed begins to pick up speed, until his trot becomes a canter and then his canter eventually becomes a gallop.
I keep up for a while. That much I can say. Despite everything, I somehow do keep up.
But no one except this dastardly immortal creature can go on forever. The lack of sleep, the thin meals, the cold, my wounds and my exhaustion—it’s all worn me down.
I trip, falling onto the snow-covered road, and I don’t get up. My wrists jerk over my head, the force of it yanking at least one arm out of its socket.
Now I scream. Now I lose it.
My body is on fire and a person could go mad from this sort of pain.
I didn’t even know I could hurt this much and oh God oh God oh God make it stop please make it stop I’m sorry I shot your beloved horseman just make it stop.
But it doesn’t stop. If God has any mercy, it’s not spared on me.
I’m dragged through the snow, and the cold hurts so bad it burns. Whatever protection my clothes afford me, it doesn’t last long. I can feel the icy road against my back, and I don’t know where my agony ends and I begin. All I know is that I haven’t endured worse than this.
I scream until my throat is ragged from use. My arms are going to be ripped from my body. There’s no other way this ends. And I’m in so much pain that I hope they’ll cleave away from me so I can bleed out and die quicker than this.
It doesn’t happen.
There’s pain and pain and pain, so much goddamned pain. I’m burning up with it even though there’s no fire I’m burning up and make it stop, please make it stop, please, please, please—
Chapter 9
I wake briefly to an intense flare of pain in one of my shoulders. I cry out as hands release me and some of the agony abates.
The world around me is out of focus, just swathes of colors, and my body throbs in the most horrible way. Why does everything hurt?
Around me, the colors begin to sharpen enough for me to make out a face. An angel looms over me, his face still somewhat blurry.
Am I in heaven?
Should I feel pain if I’m in heaven?
I reach out and cup the angel’s face with a shaky hand, my wrists bloody and my fingers purple. He flinches, moving out of my reach.
“Am I dead?” I think I ask, but the angel doesn’t respond.
“Stay with me,” I murmur. I grope for a hand. When I find what I’m looking for, I lace my fingers through it. “Please.”
Not supposed to say that word.
Why am I not supposed to say that word?
Something about begging, but now I can’t quite remember …
Everything is drifting farther and farther from me.
I squeeze the hand I hold tightly. “Stay with me,” I say again.
But the angel and the rest of the world melts away.
I blink my eyes open, staring at the popcorn ceiling above me. For a moment, my life is normal, my mind is wiped free of memory.
Someone squeezes my hand, and I turn my head, bewildered. And then I see him.
I scream.
There’s nothing—nothing—more monstrous than that beguiling face Pestilence wears, his golden crown resting proudly on his head.
It’s only once he drops my hand like it burned that I realize the fucker was holding my hand. It takes another second for me to process why exactly that fills me with blinding fury.
Fleeing the horseman. Arrows to the back. Tied to his steed and forced to run. Falling. Dragging. Pain. Dying.
I gasp at the memory, and now the full force of my agony surfaces.
“I’m … alive.”
It seems impossible in light of everything I went through. It felt as though I was being torn apart.
“Suffering is for the living,” Pestilence replies from where he sits. I glance around at the room we’re in. It’s another guestroom, presumably in another house Pestilence has decided to invade.
My hands delve into the worn sheets beneath me. He brought me to this room and laid me on the bed, and presumably I’ve been here ever since.
I can’t tell whether this scenario utterly terrifies me, or whether it takes the edge off my fear.
He didn’t let me die. He intends to let me heal—
Only so that I can suffer more.
I push myself up in bed, biting back a yelp at the intense pain that flares across my back.