“She’s my prisoner,” the horseman explains.
I grimace into my mug. The statement rings decidedly untrue to my ears.
“If you don’t mind me asking, what do you plan on doing with her?” Rob asks the question pleasantly enough, but I can tell he’s ready to throw Pestilence out if given the wrong answer.
I squeeze my cup a little tighter. I hadn’t expected strangers to care about me, especially ones who are actually eager to host a horseman.
“I’m keeping her,” Pestilence says.
Again, that look from the horseman. My stomach bottoms out, and I try to tell myself that it’s dread, but I can’t fool myself.
You’re anticipating what’s to come, Burns.
Neither Ruth nor Rob object to Pestilence’s answer, but I can see that it bothers them. Had I tried to kill a human—well, we have justice systems that deal with those sorts of crimes. But to punish me by keeping me prisoner … that’s just not done.
The horseman pushes his chair back and stands. “I need to attend to my steed. Entertain yourselves in my absence.”
Said like he’s the fucking king of the castle and not what the cat dragged in.
Without another word, he stalks out of the house. In his absence, the kitchen falls very, very silent.
Finally, “Are you okay dear?” Ruth asks.
I rub my thumb over the edge of the mug. “Yeah, I am.” I glance up. “I mean, it’s all relative at this point, but I’m not dead, and that’s more than can be said for everyone else.” My voice breaks. It doesn’t escape me that I’m sitting at a table with two more of Pestilence’s victims.
Ruth leans forward to place one of her hands over mine. She gives it a squeeze. “You’re going to be just fine,” she reassures me.
I didn’t know that I needed to hear those words until I feel my eyes prick. I nod at her, drawing strength from what she said.
Wrong to be taking her kindness and courage when she’s the one who truly needs it.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper hoarsely. “About … everything.” I’m apologizing for more than just crashing into Rob and Ruth’s lives alongside Pestilence. I’m apologizing for all those families whose lives we upended. I’m apologizing for failing to finish off the horseman, for now liking the monster. I’m apologizing for every little wrong, fucked up thing that’s happened since God decided it was time for us all to pay the piper.
Rob waves a hand away. “We received evacuation orders. We knew what staying meant,” he says, trying to absolve me of guilt.
“The horseman,” Ruth begins, “he’s not …” she searches for the right words, “forcing you to do anything against your will, is he?”
Rape, she means. She’s worried he’s been raping me.
“No—no,” I rush to say. Pestilence might be brutal, but he’s also gallant, in his own odd way. He’d sooner cut off his own hand than take me against my will. “He doesn’t really think like that,” I admit. “His understanding of human nature is limited to what he’s seen from his travels and from what he’s learned from me.”
But is that really true? There’s so much I still don’t know about him.
“If you don’t mind me speaking bluntly,” Ruth says, “the horseman might say that you’re his prisoner, but he doesn’t treat you like one.”
My breath catches in my throat. I don’t want to hear her next words.
“He treats you like … well, like he’s interested in you.”
My stomach tightens uncomfortably. “I know,” I say quietly. I don’t have the balls to admit that the interest isn’t just one-sided.
Just then, the front door opens, and Pestilence strides back in. His eyes find mine immediately, and there’s such naked longing in them.
When did we go from hating each other to this?
He takes a seat next to me, pulling his chair close to mine. “Are you hungry?” he asks, all his attention focused on me.
“I’m fine.”
“That’s not a true answer,” he says.
“It’s the only one you’re getting,” I say tartly.
Of course, that’s all Ruth needs to hear before she bustles away to put together a platter of nuts, fruit, and cheese.
Rob leans forward. “How much can you tell us of your origins?” he asks, changing the subject altogether.
Pestilence’s attention reluctantly moves off of me.
“That question has several answers,” the horseman responds. As he speaks, he removes his bow, then shrugs off his quiver.
“Are you a Christian entity?” Rob presses.
I should’ve anticipated this line of questioning from the cross hanging over the kitchen table.
Pestilence kicks his big-ass boots up on the table, crossing his feet at the ankles. I have no idea whether he knows it’s rude to do so, but he seems comfortable enough. He rests his arm over my chair again.
“Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist—they’re all wrong and they’re all right,” he says. “It’s not the details that are important. It’s the overall message.”
I feel the horseman’s fingers playing with my hair, the sensation making me want to lean into the touch (I’m a sucker for head scratches).
“Morality, and not faith,” he continues, “is what matters to God.”
Rob’s eyes are alight with joy. “Of course,” he says. He gives a startled laugh, like the entire conversation is just so surprising, which, yeah no shit, Burns, it is. “Ah, I never thought this day would come. I am the luckiest man, to be sitting here with proof of His existence. And how much do you know about the Bible?”
“The Bible is a work of man, not God. What use have I for something that is more wrong than right?”
I tense, expecting Ruth or Rob to bristle, but they don’t. I’m pretty sure Pestilence could fart and they’d find it enchanting.
“And what is right?” Ruth asks, coming back with the tray of finger foods, settling herself into her chair.
“That I and my brothers have come to conquer this land, and unless humans change, all will be laid to waste, and your day of judgment will fall swiftly upon you.”
He could really lube us up for entry, rather than just shoving shit at us like that.
Rob leans forward. “How do we change?”
“Your natures are corrupted,” Pestilence says. “Your hearts are hard and your minds are set on a selfish, destructive course. You have killed off countless creatures, you’ve made a mockery of nature, you’ve turned your backs on one another. Unless your ways change, you will be eliminated.”
Rob runs a hand over his close-cropped white hair. “That’s a tall order for our lot,” he says sadly.
“That is why humankind will perish.” Pestilence says this with such certainty that I have to tamp down a shiver.
He doesn’t believe we are capable of changing.
Rob leans forward. “But there is a chance we won’t?”
Pestilence hesitates. “Yes,” he finally says. “There is a chance. Until Death has ridden through the land and deemed it unworthy—until God Himself has called us back—there is a chance.”
I lay awake for a long time that night, my mind slow to turn off. Even once it does, my sleep is fairly light. A peel of laughter or a gruff word from the other end of the house is enough to rouse me.
Pestilence stays up late with the elderly couple, talking about things that I can’t quite make out. Bits and pieces of conversation drift in, and it’s just enough for me to figure out that they’re talking about God and religion. I get the impression that the horseman is far freer with his words around them than he is with me.
Startlingly, I feel a spark of jealousy. I don’t even want to talk to Pestilence about God, so I don’t know why it bothers me.
You want him to share his most private thoughts with you, and you alone.
To think that he’s telling this couple things that he won’t utter in front of me … beneath the jealousy and annoyance is hurt.
You’re his prisoner, something you seem to forget over and over again.
After what feels like an eternity of restless sleep, I hear chairs scrape back, then the shuffle of soft footfalls as Ruth and Rob make their way to the back of their house. I strain to hear anything else, each passing second waking me further, but there’s nothing.