When I woke this morning to a nurse doing the rounds, the horseman was gone and Ben was back in his crib.
Now I glance down at Ben, who’s once again in my arms.
I stroke his small cheek. “I love you,” I whisper. I’ve shed all my tears. My heart is still breaking, but it’s left me hollow. “Always, always, always,” I promise. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do better. You deserved so much more.”
I keep stroking his cheek, feeling lost, my lonely future unspooling before me. I’ve always wondered how long I’d get to live if nothing could kill me. Now the thought of it is punishing. There’s no one else out there like me, no one besides the horsemen.
My fingers pause as a thought comes to me, a desperate, hopeful thought.
The horsemen.
Death isn’t the only one with power. The others once had it—maybe they still do.
Famine must. Maybe they can help my son.
I choke on that toxic, hopeful feeling in my chest, and a part of me wants to push it away. But the idea I have … it has claws, and it sinks them into me.
Before I can think better of it, I place my son in the crib and call for a nurse.
Need to get this IV out.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t happen right away. The nurses don’t want to remove it yet even though it’s painfully clear my son is beyond the help of antibiotics and fluids.
It’s while I’m arguing with the nurse that I realize an astounding detail I missed until now: everyone is alive. The hospital staff, the patients, the people meandering about outside the hospital’s windows. Death gave more than just my son an extra day.
The thought steals my breath. Along with it comes the memory of Death’s arms around me, holding me as I cried. A lump forms in my throat at his strange bits of kindness.
I refocus on the nurse. “My son is dying,” I say, and I resent the hell out of her for making me say those words. “I want to take him home and let him leave this world surrounded by the things he loves.”
I have no intention of letting him leave this world.
The nurse presses her lips together, but reluctantly, she nods. “I’ll have to okay it with the doctor first,” she warns.
She brings a doctor back. They sign off on some forms. Remove Ben’s IV line. Murmur a few stilted platitudes.
I clench my jaw against it all.
After what feels like an eternity, I exit the front doors of the hospital, blinking against the glare of the morning sun. My bike is where I left it yesterday, and it’s a shock to see it there. It feels like I left it eons ago.
I buckle Ben into his seat, cringing at how limp his body is and how little light is left in his eyes.
I stroke his cheek. “I’m going to save you, Ben,” I swear to him with a conviction I shouldn’t feel.
Hopping onto the bike, I peddle for home, stopping only long enough to grab a map I bought a week ago and the note Pestilence left for me. I spend a moment locating the road the horseman spoke of, then I trace the route needed to get there.
I fold the papers up, tuck them in my pocket, and Ben and I are out the door once more. I peddle like a mad woman, desperate to get to the address. The jostling causes Ben to stir a little, and I even hear him let out a weak cry.
Something dangerous like optimism surges through my veins. I’m going to save him. I am.
As soon as I turn onto Road 3247, I begin looking for the house Pestilence had mentioned—I can’t remember if he said it was blue or gray, only that it had a red door with a star on it.
I panic several times, sure I missed it, but eventually, I find the home. It’s blue, not gray, the paint peeling from the wood siding, the windows boarded up. The red front door is faded and the lone star fitted to it has rusted over.
I ride right up to it, then fumble getting Ben out of his seat, my nerves nearly getting the better of me. Facing the door, I pound my fist against the weathered wood.
I can hear murmuring inside, but when no one immediately answers, I pound against the wood again.
Just as I’m about to grab the handle, the door opens. Pestilence’s eyes meet mine for a split second, then they drop to Ben.
“I need your help,” I rush out.
Before he can respond, I push my way into the dilapidated house. War is in the kitchen, fists on the laminate countertop, leaning over what looks like a map.
“Is this about your son?” Pestilence asks behind me.
War glances up. “Lazarus!” he calls. “I didn’t realize you were pregnant the last we met.” When his eyes fall to my listless son, his jovial mood seeps away.
“I wasn’t pregnant,” I say, “but he’s my son all the same.” I turn my attention to Pestilence. “The antibiotics didn’t help. He’s … he’s dying.” My voice wavers, and I have to stop and draw in a stabilizing breath, even as a tear slips out. “Death intends to take him tonight unless—”
“Unless he can be healed,” Pestilence finishes for me, understanding flooding his eyes. He frowns, his gaze remorseful. “I can’t help you,” he says. “Nor can War. It’s true that we’ve kept some of our former powers, but,” He shakes his head, “I no longer have the power to reverse such sickness.”
“But you once did?” I press, holding my breath.
Pestilence stares at me for a moment, then nods his head. “We all have the ability to harm and heal …”
He hasn’t even finished speaking when I swivel around, searching the house for the one horseman who isn’t mortal. The one who can, perhaps, help.
My gaze lands on him lounging back against the wall, a brow arched as he coaxes a sapling in front of him to rise from the splintered floorboards, the tree unfurling before my eyes.
“Famine,” I breathe.
“No.”
I’m too desperate to be so easily discouraged. I stride up to the horseman, Ben in my arms, and gaze down at the pitiless Reaper.
“Death’s going to take my son from me,” I say. My body trembles as I speak.
“And?” Famine says, unbothered.
“Help me,” I plead. “Save his life.”
The horseman leans his head back against the wall. “Like I said—no.”
War mutters behind us, “And to think you tried to give up your purpose for humanity.”
The Reaper’s attention shifts over my shoulder, and I know he’s getting ready to say something scathing.
I kneel in front of Famine so that we’re at eye-level. There’s only one thought filling my head.
Save my son.
I stare deeply into the horseman’s green eyes until they slide back from War and focus on me again. This is not a man who has much empathy—not for me or my son anyway. But that doesn’t mean I can’t persuade him. I just need to figure out what he wants.
“I will do anything,” I vow. “Anything.”
God help me, but there is nothing I won’t do.
The Reaper’s gaze narrows. After a moment, his eyes—reluctantly—dip to my son, who has fallen back asleep.
He shakes his head. “He is too far gone.”
No.
Horror fills me.
No.
No. I refuse to believe it.
I won’t.
“You have torn down cities, crushed thousands in an instant,” I say, my voice strong. “Your power is nearly limitless. Do not tell me you are suddenly too weak to help one tiny baby.”
Famine’s jaw tightens. “Taunting me will get you nowhere, mortal.”
“Please,” I say slowly. “Death—that insufferable brother of yours—cannot be the only horseman with the ability to heal.”
The Reaper stares at me with those reptilian eyes of his, and I cannot tell what is going on behind that face of his.
“I will do anything you want,” I swear again.
I’m not scared anymore. Just resolute.
“Anything?” War says from behind me.
I turn to face him just as he walks over.
“Anything.”
War stares down at me, his own dark eyes full of machinations. “Seduce Death.”
My gaze widens, my heart tripping over itself.
“War,” Pestilence cautions, entering the room behind us.
War’s gaze remains locked on mine. “She said anything.”
My mind flashes to the naked desire I’ve seen in Thanatos’s eyes.
Come with me, Lazarus. Let me know what it is like to hold you instead of fighting you.