Remembering last night.
I can still feel the press of his thumb there, and then that almost-kiss. We have shared all sorts of small intimacies, each one backed by a different emotion, but those that passed between us last night … I feel my cheeks heat a little. Those are going to linger with me.
Pestilence looks regretful, but I have no way of knowing what exactly it is that he regrets.
“Have you eaten?” he asks.
I clear my throat. “Yup,” I say, happy to focus on something other than us.
There is no us, Burns.
“I packed up some food as well,” I add.
The saddlebags are stuffed with the goods. I’d also packed up more liquor, despite last night’s little soiree.
“Good, then let’s be on our way.”
We head out of the house and back to the beach, Trixie trotting behind us. I can’t help casting a glance towards the area where I held Pestilence. It’s too far away for me to make out the bits of blood that still surely stain the sand.
I turn to the horseman, his steed at my back. “Should we talk about last night?” I ask.
He jaw clenches, and one second ticks by. Then two, three, four—
“What is there to talk about, human?” he finally says.
Ah. So the lines have been redrawn this morning. In the harsh light of day, I am once more Pestilence’s arch nemesis, and he mine.
I stare at him for a moment, then sigh. I don’t know what I want, but I don’t think it’s this.
I begin to swivel to face Trixie when he grabs my waist. For a minute, my wild imagination takes off. I even feel that damn fluttering in my stomach.
The horseman doesn’t want things to be how we left them either.
But then, rather than pulling me into an embrace, he hoists me onto his steed, joining me seconds later.
Just as quickly as my heart soared, it now plummets.
Why do I care? Fuck him and this soft, weak thing I feel towards him. I can’t believe I had the audacity to feel sorry for him and his wounds yesterday, as if he’d been a victim rather than the instigator.
As usual, Pestilence uses one of his hands to secure me to him, but today it feels all wrong. Impersonal and cold. Even when he hated me, he burned hot with the emotion. Now there’s an indifference to his touch, and I’d rather gouge my eyes out than leave things like this.
The horseman clicks his tongue, and Trixie begins to race down the beach, towards the sea. I barely have time to register that we’re going to be traveling over the ocean again before we make it to the water.
A wave of vertigo passes over me as I stare down at it, watching the way its surface ripples. I keep waiting for the ocean to start obeying the laws of physics and swallow us up, but it remains steadfastly solid.
It’s only once we’re out past the tumbling surf that I realize the vertigo wasn’t all mental.
Oh God, horses and hangovers don’t mix.
The roll of Trixie’s body is sloshing everything in my stomach right, then left, then right again.
Stay down, I silently order the pancakes in my stomach.
I breathe through my nose. This will just pass, this will just …
Noitwon’titwon’tstopstopstop—
I lunge for the side of the horse. The sudden, violent motion throws my body out of balance, and rather than vomiting, I slide off the horse.
“Sara!”
I hit the water with a smack, and the first thing I can think as I gasp in salt water is how blindingly cold the Pacific is. Cruelly cold. Water doesn’t have a right to be this cold. It makes the icy baths I’ve had to take since the world ended seem mild in comparison.
It’s only as I sink into the ocean’s dark depths, paralyzed by the chill that I realize I am sinking, the water no longer obeying whatever supernatural force allowed the horseman to ride over it.
If anything, it feels like the sea is greedy to pull me under, like I’m the tithe it requires for the horseman to cross unscathed.
I kick madly for the surface, my stupid, gaudy clothes dragging me down.
In my panic, I barely notice the arm that winds around my waist, tugging me away from the darkness.
It’s not until I’m dragged back onto shore that I realize the horseman saved me. I don’t have much time to concentrate on that little detail before I turn on my side and start retching up the contents of my stomach along with all the saltwater I sucked in.
Bye pancakes.
I sick myself until there is nothing left in my system. Even then, my body only half believes it, my stomach still contracting.
“You do not get to kill yourself!” Pestilence all but roars, seawater dripping off his hair. He looks mad with anger, and his eyes are so vividly blue.
I rub my neck, my throat raw. “I wasn’t trying to,” I say hoarsely, sitting up.
“Lies!” he bellows. “I saw you throw yourself from the horse.”
“I needed to puke.” The words come out scratchy. “That’s all.” I clear my throat, focusing on him. “Why are you so concerned anyway?” I ask, rising to stand on shaky legs. I squint at him. “You’ve made it plenty clear today you don’t care much about me.”
Those last two lines were supposed to stay firmly inside my mouth.
The horseman glares at me, his brows furrowed. “Suffering is—”
My shoulders slump. “For the living. Yeah, yeah, I know.”
He grabs my chin, forcing me to look at him. His eyes search mine, and they’re raging with anger.
All at once, he jerks my face forward and kisses me.
Chapter 24
It’s harsh. Angry. Almost violent. I suppose this is the only kind of kiss that’s fitting for us.
And then it hits me that Pestilence is kissing me, his lips are crashing against mine, his touch feverish as he crushes me to him.
Unwittingly, I grab the horseman’s forearms with my icy hands, using him to stabilize me.
He’s kissing me.
I don’t have the breath or the will left in me to tell him please again, to force his hand and stop this from happening.
Don’t want it to stop.
After the first few seconds pass, it’s clear Pestilence doesn’t know what lips are supposed to do in a kiss. All his (hateful) enthusiasm is there, but it’s being held up by the rigid set of his mouth.
It’s me who ends up leading the way, my lips gliding over his. He follows my movements, all of his anger making his mouth almost bruising in its ferocity.
It feels like I’m drowning all over again, the taste and touch of him sucking me under. Everything is harsh—the chill of my skin, the achy burn of my throat, the savage brush of his lips against mine. Saltwater drips down our faces, mingling with our kiss.
I don’t know how long the two of us are locked together like that before I realize that I’m wet and freezing and I just retched (to be fair, he doesn’t seem to mind). And oh yeah, I’m kissing Pestilence.
Still, it takes a surprising amount of willpower to tear myself away. I stumble back, and I pretend that it’s just the sand that has me weak in the knees.
Pestilence is breathing hard, his chest rising and falling laboriously. He takes a step forward, his eyes locked on my mouth.
Wants to pick up where we left off.
At the last second, he seems to come to himself. He scowls, his icy blue eyes meeting mine. “You will not try to kill yourself again.”
“I wasn’t trying—”
“Do not defy me, Sara!” he bellows. Then, softer, “I won’t let you die.”
Pointless to explain myself. Pestilence is willing to believe that I tried to poison him with alcohol, but he won’t connect the very obvious dots that I poisoned myself with the stuff.
“Fine,” I say, my voice twisting over the words. “It won’t happen again.”
He nods, his eyes going back to my lips. “Good—good.”
Try number two to leave the island goes better than the first one. This, of course, is after we make our way back to the house and I warm myself up on another hot bath and another set of dry clothes—this all on Pestilence’s insistence.