“Why?” he demands, those pretty eyes of his panicked. The universe really did make Death’s face just right. This truly is the sight I would most want to die to, his heroic face the final memory I take to my grave.
I reach for that face just as I hear more arrows cut through the air. One by one they sink into Death’s wings. Other than the tick in his cheek Thanatos doesn’t react.
But several seconds later, I think I hear the collective thump of a city’s worth of bodies hitting the ground, though I’m not sure if I imagined it. Everything feels so removed from me at the moment.
All there is, is Thanatos, his wings, and the sky far above us. I can feel myself slipping into that abyss that I’ve come to recognize as death. All while Death himself wants me to stay alive.
He reaches for the arrow sticking out of my chest, heedless of the ones that dot his wings. I know what he means to do. I can practically feel the rip of pain even now as I imagine him tearing the projectile out of me.
I place my hand over his. “Take it out … after,” I breathe.
After I die. It’ll hurt less that way. That’s all I can really ask for.
The horsemen’s expression morphs when he realizes what I mean.
“So then I must watch you die and do nothing?” he says. He sounds almost angry.
“I thought … that was … your kink,” I whisper, even as I feel the last of my life slipping … slipping …
Thanatos’s jaw clenches and unclenches, and oh, the terrible irony that he of all people doesn’t like watching me die. When did that become the case?
He gazes down at me, looking on helplessly. “Nothing can be normal with us, can it?” he says.
Death unable to save the undying girl.
I give him a small smile. “Not sure … I’d want it … any … other way.”
Chapter 45
Rosenberg, Texas
July, Year 27 of the Horsemen
I groan awake in Death’s arms.
“Lazarus.” He sounds relieved.
I move a little, then groan again, flopping back into the horseman’s arms. I feel like I’ve been trampled by a herd of wild horses.
Death’s eyes pinch a little at the sides, and I’m not sure if it’s from tension or humor.
“You protected me,” he says softly. His brows are drawn down in confusion, but his eyes are wondrous.
I took an arrow for him.
I reach for my chest, feeling where the material of my shirt has been frayed open. Beneath it, I can feel the slick blood that still coats my skin, but … the wound has healed over completely.
I heal faster than most humans, but for a mortal wound, it can take many, many hours to heal. I squint up at the sun—it hangs in the same place I last saw it—and Death is still holding me in the embrace he caught me in. My body didn’t mend this injury at all.
My gaze moves to Death’s. “You healed me.”
The horseman is still looking at me like he’s trying to see down to the very depths of my soul. The scrutiny makes me fidgety.
“Of course I healed you, kismet.” Said like he couldn’t imagine otherwise. Like the last two years of violence between us never existed.
I sit up more fully, Death’s wings still wrapped tightly around us. For a moment, the horseman’s hold on me tightens, but after another moment, he releases me.
As I straighten myself in his lap, something sharp pokes my arm. Turning, I take in the bloody arrowhead nestled among Thanatos’s dark feathers. It’s one of nearly a dozen that have punctured the horseman’s wings.
I suck in a sharp breath. “You’re still hurt.”
“It is nothing,” he says, brushing it off entirely.
“It is not nothing,” I say, giving Death a look. He focused all his energy on healing me while ignoring his own wounds.
I push myself onto my feet to get a better look at them.
“What are you doing?” the horseman asks, beginning to rise as well.
I place a hand on his shoulder to keep him sitting. “I’m looking at your injuries.” Lightly I trace around one arrow’s entry point, the surrounding feathers congealed with blood.
“Would you like me to remove these?” I ask.
Thanatos goes still at the offer. Finally, he glances over his shoulder at me. “Is that an honest offer?”
I hold his gaze. He’s so used to my tricks and the pain I inflict, that I can tell this throws him.
Slowly, I nod. “It is.”
Thanatos stares at me for a bit longer, then faces forward, draping his arms over his knees.
“Then yes,” he says. “I’d … like that.”
He stays still, his face turned away from me. I continue to study the arrows piercing his wings, feeling around them a little before I start. Death’s feathers make his wings look thicker than they really are, but the flesh itself is no more than a thin membrane.
Since that is the case, the easiest thing would simply be to pull the arrows all the way through. I grab the first arrowhead. Something about my grip has Death’s wings hiking up.
“Sorry,” I murmur.
“You have nothing to apologize for,” he says, turning his head a little towards me.
Slowly, I pull the arrow out through the hole it made in his skin. He doesn’t react to the sensation, though I can’t imagine it’s pleasant.
“I do, though,” I insist, giving the projectile one final tug to force the back end of it through. “I wouldn’t be pulling arrows out of you if you hadn’t agreed to my plan.”
It’s quiet for a few long seconds.
“You have an exceptional heart, Lazarus,” he finally says. “You shouldn’t apologize for it.”
I stare at the back of Death’s head, swallowing down the strange mixture of emotions rising in me. I see the best in humans, and he sees the best in me, and I’m not sure whether we’re both fools for it.
It’s intimate work, removing the arrows. Death’s wings jerk when I jostle the projectiles, so I’ve taken to smoothing my hand over his feathers. More than once I’ve heard the horseman sigh out a breath; he hasn’t said it, but I think those touches are soothing to him.
“What is it like, having wings?” I ask as I lift one to get at a trickier arrow. I watch in fascination as Death’s primary feathers splay out.
“I don’t know how to answer that,” he says. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”
I pull the arrow out as fast as I dare, making sure to keep my hand steady, even when his flesh catches on the projectile’s fletching.
It grows quiet again as I concentrate on my work, my hands slick with the horseman’s blood. I’m down to the final wound.
“Why did you do it?” Thanatos asks out of the blue.
“Do what?” I ask distractedly.
“You jumped in front of an arrow meant for me.”
Now I pause. Death is looking straight ahead, but I can sense his entire focus is on me.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I say.
“Why?”
Because this is only supposed to be one-sided.
I pull this last arrow out a little too harshly.
“Because I don’t,” I say, tossing the projectile aside. A pile of bloody arrows now litter the road. “I’m all done.”
Thanatos stands, opening and closing his wings as though to test them. He turns to face me, and I can practically feel his dark power pressing down on me.
“Remember our game last night?” he says. “Tell me your unguarded truths.”
“That was your game,” I tell him, “and we’re not playing it anymore.”
Death takes a step closer to me, his blood dripping from his wings. “Why did you take an arrow meant for me?” he asks again. “You know I can’t die.”
“I can’t either,” I bite back.
“Lazarus.” He says my name like he’s calling to my very essence.
I sigh. I’m too weak to bicker and too tired to care anymore. The world is ending. What do my feelings matter?
“I don’t know,” I say. “Truly, I don’t. I saw that arrow coming and all I knew was that I’d rather get hurt than watch you suffer.”
Thanatos rears back a little, his eyes scouring my face, presumably to look for the lie. When he doesn’t find it, he looks … he looks very pleased by my words, though I’m more than a little uneasy.