His grin falls away. “What’s wrong?”
We’re supposed to be enemies, but despite everything, I kind of like you. Oh, and the rest of humanity has figured that bit out too.
I shake my head. “Just … tired.”
He comes over to me, clad in all his accoutrements. There’s nothing like seeing Pestilence dressed in his finery to make a girl feel like three-day-old road kill.
He bends down and, studying my face, presses his thumb right beneath my eye.
“You’re getting exhausted,” he notices.
Scratch that—seven-day-old road kill. We’re talking the really fucked-up bits of critters that remain plastered to the asphalt long after they’ve expired.
“All the traveling has taken a toll on me,” I admit.
The stress, the long days stuck in the saddle, my mounting injuries, the relentless winter chill, the unreliable meals—I’ve done my best to muscle my way through it, but it only takes Pestilence’s notice for it all to come crashing back into my awareness.
Exhaustion probably won’t be what kills you, I remind myself.
Pestilence frowns. “Then you shall rest. We’ll linger here for—” he glances out the window, taking in the weak winter sun, “two more days.”
I don’t have the heart to tell him that two more days isn’t going to make much difference. That it hasn’t made much of a difference. We’ve been pausing for days at a time.
It’s never going to get easier with Pestilence. Care though he might, he’s always going to be impervious to the things that will kill me, and so he’ll always push me harder than what I’m capable of.
But I don’t say these things. Instead I nod and give him another weak smile.
His frown deepens. “I don’t like this look,” he says, studying my features. “You lie with your face. Do you need more time? Three days? Four? You shall have it—only remove this sad, defeated look. I cannot stand it.”
I don’t think anyone has ever told me anything so genuinely frank and kind.
On a whim, I pull him to me, hugging the horseman tightly. At first, he’s stiff in my arms, but as the seconds tick by, he hesitantly wraps his own arms around me, and I feel utterly engulfed by him.
“You’re a good man, Pestilence,” I admit.
And therein lies my problem. He’s not a nice man, he’s not a peaceful man, but he’s good man.
I close my eyes and breathe him in. He smells like cheap soap, and beneath that, divinity. (Didn’t even know one could literally smell divine, but there you have it.)
His lips brush my ear. “You forget, I am no man, Sara.”
A laugh escapes me. “Fine. You are a good harbinger of the apocalypse.”
He holds me tighter, his cheek brushing against my temple. “And you are a compassionate woman.” I feel him finger a lock of my hair. “Far too compassionate, if I’m being honest,” he says under his breath.
I take some solace in the fact that whatever this is that I’m beginning to feel, Pestilence is experiencing it as well. And we might each be bulldozing our morals, but at the very least, we’re doing it together.
We end up leaving the house two days later. That’s about all the time I could take in that messy place. I’m no paragon of cleanliness, but that house … even now, kilometers away, my skin crawls at the thought of it.
I’m pulled from my thoughts when I catch sight of a sign in front of us. After we fled Vancouver, we’d traveled through mostly backroads and places off the beaten path, but inevitably, Pestilence had made his way back to the main highways. And now I see something I’d missed.
I suck in my breath.
Seattle 54 mi.
“What is it?” Pestilence asks.
“We’re in America.”
Somewhere between Pestilence getting attacked in Vancouver and my own brush with death a few days ago, I hadn’t even realized that we’d crossed countries.
“Ah, America,” Pestilence says with distaste, dragging me back to the present. “Here they are made particularly mean.”
A ridiculous wave of fear washes through me at that. “Pestilence, we need to get off the main road.”
“Whatever for?” he asks, genuinely curious.
I can still feel the ruin of his head, cradled in my lap. I’m not ready to go through that again.
“There’s a large city coming up,” I say. “Bigger than the last one.” There were dozens of people waiting for Pestilence in Vancouver; how many would there be in Seattle? “Let’s go around it.”
“I will not be driven off my course by the presence of humans.”
That’s the last he says on the subject.
My dread mounts as we close in on the metropolis. Something bad is going to happen. I can feel it the way you can feel a storm coming; the very air is ripe with it.
Like Vancouver, the slide into Seattle is gradual. First we pass through a sleepy satellite city, which gives way to another that’s a little denser. And then another. A wave of déjà vu washes over me as we pass through the same types of communities that we did in Vancouver.
Pestilence’s arm tightens around my waist. Can he feel it too? The promise of violence flavors the very air.
I pull my jacket tighter around me. It’s only going to get worse the farther south we travel. Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles … The nightmare we encountered in Vancouver will repeat itself over and over again. And even once we’re through with the West Coast, there are entire other countries to cross.
The shadows are just beginning to stretch their spindly fingers across the land when Pestilence leaves the highway, leading Trixie into a neighborhood of tired looking houses that appear as though they’ve settled their old bones in for a long rest.
Pestilence turns Trixie onto the driveway of a darkened house, the horse’s hooves clacking against the cracked concrete. The pale green paint of the place looks timeworn and faded.
We ride right up to the door before Pestilence swings off his mount. Grabbing the doorknob, he twists, breaking the lock and shoving the door open.
I’m just stepping off Trixie Skillz when I notice the hazy glow of an oil-lamp coming from inside, the flame turned way down low. Reclining on the couch next to it is an old woman, her white hair cropped close to her head, her spectacles perched low on her nose. She peers over them at us, the book in her hands entirely forgotten.
We crashed the house of someone’s grandma. Just when I thought we were fresh out of horrors, another one comes.
“We have nothing of any value, I assure you,” she says, her voice surprisingly steady for someone who thinks their home is being invaded.
“I am not here for your things,” Pestilence says. “I am here for your hospitality.”
The woman squints curiously at the horseman. Setting her book aside, she rises to her feet. Age has made her soft and plump, but there’s a certain quiet strength to her.
“Ruth,” a thin, raspy voice calls from another room in the house, “who’s at the door?”
Did he miss the part where we broke into their home?
Ruth’s gaze stays on Pestilence for a long time, moving from his bow and quiver to his crown, before settling on his face. “I believe it’s one of the Four Horsemen, dear.” Her eyes flick to me. “And he’s brought with him a lady friend.”
“What in the—?” Shuffling sounds come from the back room.
Whatever shock came over Ruth moments ago, now dissipates. All at once, she begins to move, hurrying over. “Well, come now, you both must be cold. Come in, come in—and for the love of the Good Lord, shut the door behind you.”
Pestilence looks quizzically from her to the doorknob, which hangs at a funny angle. I push the door closed behind him.
Ruth comes to me and helps remove my coat. Her dry hands brush against mine. “Heavens, girl!” she exclaims, cupping one. “You’re going to catch your death out there. You’re as cold as ice.” Ruth clucks her tongue at Pestilence. “Shame on you for letting her get cold.”
The horseman stares at Ruth in shock, and I try not to smile. It’s clear he’s never encountered a sweet old lady before.