Page 154 of Famine

With that rallying thought, I elbow my way through the vegetation, my hair snagging on a couple outstretched branches.

When I get to the front yard, Famine is waiting for me, his horse saddled and ready. Wordlessly, he takes the bag I’m holding and secures it to his steed.

I follow behind him, taking a deep breath to steady my stomach.

The Reaper turns to me. “Before we go …”

I wait for him to finish his sentence. Instead, hereaches a hand out, angling his palm towards my feet.

My skin tingles, and I can sense Famine’s magic unfolding around us.

“What are you doing?” I ask him.

“Being naughty,” he says.

After seeing what I have of Famine’s normal behavior, I can’t imagine whatnaughtylooks like. What I do know is that I should definitely be afraid.

Only, I’m not. Despite all his brutality, I know this man isn’t going to hurt me. I know it with a certainty I cannot explain.

At my feet, the moist earth shifts. From it rises a small green shoot. I watch, fascinated, as it grows before my eyes, the branches climbing, several of them twisting up my leg. Leaves and thorns sprout from the plant.

“Is this where I finally die?” I say, my voice even.

“Don’t be so dramatic, little flower. I already told you—I don’t intend to kill you.”

Even as the plant grows, not a single thorn pricks me, though it does start to coil itself around my body like a lover.

I watch, transfixed, as in a matter of moments a rosebush comes to life around me. From it sprouts a single bud. I stare at it as the bud grows, then bursts open, revealing the delicate, smoky petals of a lavender rose.

I go numb at the sight of it.

Famine grew the same flower the first time our paths crossed. And now he grew it again.

He plucks the rose from the plant, removing its thorns. He runs a hand over the rose bush. “I know she’s lovely,” he murmurs to the plant, “but you must let her go.”

As though it understands, the rose bush uncoils itself from me.

Just as I’m stepping away from the plant, Famine hands the rose over.

“Why?” I ask, taking it from him. Why did he grow this rose for me after he wiped out my village, and why did he grow it for me again today? It’s been one of those odd, random things that’s picked at me.

“Because around you,” he says, “I feel the oddest urge to use my power to create rather than destroy.”

We don’t return to São Paulo, and for that, I’m absurdly grateful. Even from here I swear I can smell the decay in the air. I can’t imagine what death would look like in a city that large.

Not that we avoid it altogether. Heitor might’ve lived on the outskirts of the city, but the sheer sprawl of São Paulo means that we spend kilometers passing corpses wrapped up in bushes and trees.

“Were they in pain?” I ask.

I expect a cruel response from Famine. Instead he says, “It was quick.”

“Why kill them this way?” I ask. I now know that Famine can make a man wither away just as easily as he can plants.

“Preference, mostly.”

That’s all he says. It’s almost as though, today, he doesn’t savor his deeds like he usually does. I try not to think about that. It’s too easy to feel hopeful, like I have the power to change a bad man one blowjob at a time.

Though I will say, my blowjobsaretransformative.