Ahead of me, there’s no back fence to enclose Nick’s yard from the thick forest pressing in on it. I can just make out the icebox and the area where Trixie was secured to earlier. The horse is gone, presumably with its rider—who I haven’t seen since dinner.
Nick pushes me forward with the barrel of his gun. “Keep walking.”
If tonight goes according to this guy’s plans, I know how it will end. Nick and I take a stroll into the woods and only one of us will leave.
I’m not going to let that happen.
“Where is Pestilence?” I ask.
“You mean your boyfriend?” he says, his voice dripping with malice. Nothing and no one in the world can take the ugly hatred out of this man.
“He’s not my boyfriend.”
Just need to bide my time until we reach the forest. It’s hard to shoot someone when there’s a tree in the way.
“No?” Nick says, feigning surprise. “So you’re just whoring your body out to that thing to buy yourself a little time?”
This guy’s family is on the brink of death, and he’s worried about my sex life?
“You know, I don’t even blame him all that much,” Nick continues behind me. “Who wouldn’t want to tap a piece of fine ass if they got the chance? But you,” he says accusingly, “you’re the one who turned your back on your own fucking kind when you started screwing that monster.”
I don’t even bother telling him that I’m not screwing that monster. The truth won’t save me.
“What do you possibly hope to accomplish by killing me?” I ask, stepping past the first of the evergreen trees that border the property. I can barely feel my feet at this point.
Need to make a move, and soon.
“Vengeance for my family.”
I raise my eyebrows even though he can’t see the action. I know the horseman likes kissing me, but I doubt my death would shake him all that much.
“Pestilence won’t care,” I say. “You’ll just be killing me to kill me.”
Nick’s boot slams into my back, sending me sprawling into the snow.
Whatever chance I had to escape, it’s gone now. My feet are too cold, my body too prone. I squandered the time I had chatting with this angry man.
“What is one more death?” he asks, staring down at me. “We’re all fucking dying here anyway. I’ll be glad to rid the world of one traitorous whore.”
Up until now, the horsemen, the plague, the dying electronics, none of it had truly felt apocalyptic. Not even seeing those empty cities Pestilence and I passed through, their occupants hidden away.
It’s this moment, lying in the snow, a gun at my back, where it sinks in. This truly is the End of Days. Because even with all its hardships, in the world I grew up in, we didn’t turn on each other. Not like this.
I flip over and stare at the rifle.
Nick pulls the bolt back, sliding a bullet into place.
Shit, he’s really going to do this.
There are worse deaths than gunshot wounds, I think, staring down the barrel.
“Put the gun down.” The stoic voice comes from the forest behind me.
Both Nick and I glance over my shoulder.
Standing in a patch of moonlight, looking ever so much like a deity, Pestilence holds his bow at the ready, his crown gleaming in the dim light.
Nick readjusts his hold on the weapon. “Save my family, and I’ll let her go.”
“I don’t bargain with mortals.” Pestilence takes a step forward, his aim never wavering.
“Stay back!” Nick calls. “If you want her to live, keep your distance, horseman!”
It’s all playing out wrong, like a loose string unraveling cloth.
“I assure you, I won’t.”
I take a steadying breath. Just staring at the horseman’s cool demeanor calms me.
“I’ll shoot her!” Nick threatens, his anger morphing into panic as his moment of revenge slips further and further from his reach.
“Do so at your own peril.”
My eyes cut to Nick’s, and I see the moment he decides that killing me is still the better option.
I never see his finger pull the trigger.
The air stirs next to my ear, then—
Thwump—BOOM!
My entire body jerks at the sound.
Dear God.
My hand moves to my chest. But the pain I expect to feel never comes. It’s only after I take in several frightened breaths that I realize I haven’t been hit.
Thwump. Thwump—thwump—thump.
Faster than I can react, Nick’s body seems to dance as it’s riddled with arrows. He grunts, dropping his gun and falling to his knees. His fingers go to his chest, where the arrows protrude.
I look over my shoulder at Pestilence, who’s striding towards us, his face filled with grim determination. “She is not yours to kill,” he says.
Turning back around, I crawl over to Nick and push the rifle out of his reach. My eyes move over his injuries, and my paramedic training kicks in. It doesn’t matter that I have a serious hate-on for Nick; I begin to assess his injuries all the same.
“Don’t … touch me … plague fucker.” Nick says between laborious breaths. “You’re nothing but … a goddamned … whore.”
I hear the strain of oiled wood, and when I look up, Pestilence has another arrow already notched, the point of it trained on Nick. “I let your poisonous words pass the first time,” the horseman says, “but I won’t a second.”
Nick heaves in a breath, the sound wet. “You and I … both know … it’s true. How many times … did she have … to suck your … cock before—”
The arrow hits him in the shoulder with a solid thump. He lets out a garbled shriek.
“Test me again, human.”
“Do it,” Nick goads. “It would be … a faster … death than … what you’ve … given my family.”
“Don’t,” I say to the horseman. He stopped Nick from shooting me. He’s no longer any sort of threat.
Pestilence walks over to the man and stares down at him, arrow still pointed. “If I know any mercy,” he says, “it’s Sara’s doing.”
If I know any mercy, it’s Sara’s doing.
Only days ago I’d told Amelia that the horseman was incapable of it.
You’re changing him just as he’s changing you.
Nick must want death because he says, “Fuck you and this cunt—”
The final arrow rips through Nick’s throat, and now he’s choking on his words, drowning in them.
“Vile human,” Pestilence says, looming over the dying man. “You could’ve spent your final breaths pleading for your family, but I see only hate in your heart.”
I can’t hear what Nick says, but I doubt whatever he mouthed at the horseman was particularly kind. It takes less than a minute for Nick to bleed out, and he leaves the world with a glare in his eyes.
My shoulders slump with exhaustion.
Pestilence slings his bow over his shoulder and kneels next to me, his hands skimming over my body. “Are you hurt?” he asks, concerned.
I shake my head, pushing myself to my feet. “I’m fine.”
The horseman takes me by the arm. “I was wrong, Sara, this cursed home is no place for even my wrath. Come.” He leads me to Trixie.
I eye the horse, then glance down at my icy feet. “Um, I need shoes … and my coat—and a bra. And everything else.”
Pestilence looks me over, from my borrowed pajamas down to my toes. I swear I can see him putting together what happened—how I was pulled from bed and led into the woods for a midnight execution.
Does he realize Nick wanted to kill me to hurt him? Does he understand human motives well enough to piece that together? And if Nick had been successful, would the horseman have even cared that I died?
Without another word Pestilence scoops me up.
I yelp as I swing into his arms. “What are you doing?”
“Helping you,” he says, carrying me back into the house. He sets me down on the floor of the living room, where the fire is nothing more than a few dying embers. Kneeling in front of me, he takes my feet and, one by one, rubs heat back into them.
“Why are you doing this?” I ask, watching him carefully.
He shakes his head, but doesn’t answer me.
Once I’m warm again, I grab my clothes and slip them on. All the while, the rest of the house is utterly still.
We leave shortly after that. And even though it’s the middle of the night and the snow is coming down harder, I’m so freaking relieved—to be alive, to be leaving that house, to feel Pestilence at my back, his arm gripping me tightly.