This is not a human I’m dealing with. He won’t hesitate to hurt me more if I resist.
And I’m tired of resisting. It just feels so … useless against this unstoppable force.
I shrug off my shirt, doing my best to cover my breasts with my arms.
Pestilence’s hand moves to my back, his fingers splayed out. His touch is gentle, but I jerk at the feel of it anyway.
“Hold this against your front,” he says from behind me.
I glance down at what he’s offering. It takes me a second to register that the white cloth he’s holding out to me is gauze.
Bandages. He means to bandage me.
I let out a shuddering sigh that ends up sounding like a sob. Alright, maybe it was a sob. And that sob turns into a hiccupping laugh, which turns into another laugh. And then I can’t stop laughing, even as tears begin to slip out from my eyes and I’m no longer sure whether I’m laughing or crying, because.
Because.
Because oh-my-fucking-God, I shot a man and lit him on fire and even now I want to throw up that I could do that to anyone, even a harbinger of the apocalypse. But the nightmare didn’t end there. I was tied up and forced to run behind the same undying creature that I thought I killed, the same creature that’s killing us all off. And I was then dragged, and my arm was wrenched out of its socket and my back feels like it was torn to bits—not to mention my legs—and I had to watch a man die the most horrific death, and now I’m being patched up when I thought I was going to be physically humiliated, and ugh, this nightmare is not going to end because Pestilence is an ungodly psycho who isn’t satisfied with destroying life as we know it. He must make an example of mine along the way.
Now I’m no longer laughing, and I’m not even sure you could call this crying. It’s a full body sob, like my mind’s trying to purge everything it’s witnessed “I hope you’re enjoying this,” I say through my tears.
“I am,” Pestilence responds joylessly. “Here.” He passes me the roll of gauze. Still shaking with the force of my emotions, I take the bandages and wrap the linen across my torso, then pass it back. The two of us do this over and over again until he’s redressed my wounds.
I wipe my eyes, clear my throat, and pull myself together.
Deep breath.
It’s all going to be okay—or it isn’t, but that’s okay too.
Once I trust myself to speak, I say over my shoulder, “I appreciate what you’re doing, but if I don’t clean the wounds, they’re going to get infected.” I mean, they might not, but that’s a gamble.
I suppose I should simply be grateful for this little bit of kindness.
“That’s unnecessary,” the horseman says.
“What do you mean that’s unnecessary?” I ask, trying to riddle out what he means.
“Your wounds won’t become infected.”
I swivel more fully to face him. “How do you know that?”
He looks heavenward, like he’s trying to find both God and his patience in the rafters. “Because I control infection in all its forms.”
Seriously? So not only can he prevent me from catching the plague, he doesn’t need to clean my wounds to keep infection at bay?
“Then why change the bandages at all?” I ask, facing forward again.
“An injury this large demands upkeep for it to heal properly,” Pestilence says. He rips the gauze from the roll and ties it off. “Now, give me your wrists.”
I do so, oddly mesmerized by the situation—and by Pestilence, if I’m being honest.
He leans over my wrists, his wavy golden hair falling in front of his eyes as he unwinds the old gauze. At this angle, the horseman looks heart-wrenchingly innocent, which is an odd thing to say about a man, particularly one who has a healthy kill rate under his belt. Perhaps it’s simply that he’s being gentle for once, or that I’m finally getting a glimpse of his (vanishingly small) humanity.
My brows furrow as I stare at his bent head. “Why are you doing this?”
“Suffering is meant for the living.”
I don’t know why I expect a different answer. And I get it. I hurt him, so he hurts me. We’re both just following script. It’s just this moment that I don’t get. Watching him care for me, being tender with me. It’s unsettling enough to expect an answer beyond, I want to make you suffer.
But if there’s another explanation, I’m not going to get it.
Chapter 13
Baths are going to be a problem.
The next day, I stare Pestilence down, the tub at my back, the door at his. The two of us are crammed inside a small bathroom in the new house we’ve decided to bed down in.
Like the last home we stayed at, this one is blessedly empty. And bonus: this house has electricity, which means hot water, which means my ass is getting cleaned.
The only snag is the psycho who thinks that I’m going to run away despite the fact that he’s left me alone in a bathroom before—hell, he’s left me alone in bedrooms and living rooms and kitchens. He knows he’s broken my will to escape him. So I don’t understand why he thinks there’s any sort of need to stay in the bathroom with me.
“Okay, you have to leave,” I say, staring at the giant man-thing across from me.
His arms fold over his golden armor. Horseman code for make me, lady.
“You might not know this, but people don’t watch other people take baths.” I don’t think they do at least. But maybe there’s a whole sexually deviant underbelly to society that I don’t know about. Stranger things have happened—the man in front of me case in point.
“You want a longer leash, you’re going to have to prove it,” he says, his face haughty.
“How about all those other times when you left me alone to go to the bathroom?”
“You were too weak to disobey me,” he says.
“I wasn’t last night.”
He just stares at me.
I throw up my arms. “I’m going to be naked and drenched in water. Do you know how cold it is outside?”
He doesn’t respond.
“It’s cold enough to freeze my tits off,” I answer anyway.
No reaction. Not even a laugh. Figures. Pretty sure his sense of humor is nonexistent.
“Please.” I’m shamelessly resorting to begging.
“Please?” he echoes. “Have you forgotten our history? I begged and you denied.” He leans against the door. “Take your bath, human, or don’t, but I’m not leaving this room without you.”
I seriously consider forgoing the bath. I’m no prude, but I’m not exactly thrilled to by showing the goods to the creature that’s trying to end civilization either.
But in the end, it comes down to practicality. I’m covered in blood and dirt and who knows what other bodily fluids. I’m a biohazard.
Giving Pestilence a dirty look, I turn on the hot water spigot and begin removing my clothes.
He doesn’t have a problem with nudity, I try to reassure myself as I shuck off my pants. I think back to the sight of him buck naked. He doesn’t even know he’s supposed to be embarrassed.
That reassures me only a little.
It’s when I reach for the gauze covering my torso that I hit a snag. Wherever Pestilence tied off the linen bandages, it’s beyond my reach. I tug fruitlessly at the wrappings until the horseman peels himself away from the door.
He knocks my hands away and turns my back to him. I’m about to protest when rrrrrrip, he tears the linen away from my back.
Once he’s finished, he bends to my ear. “You’re welcome.”
I make a face to the wall as he returns to the doorway.
By the time the bath is nearly full and blessedly heated, the rest of my clothes and bandages are gone.
Pestilence’s eyes flick over my body in that same dispassionate way they did before. I could be a lamp, for all his interest.
I should be relieved. If he were to instead assess each imperfection of mine, I might die of embarrassment.