Page 175 of Famine

“It looks like it’s going to grow teeth and eat my face off.”

I let out a freaked out laugh. “What am I supposed to do?” I don’t really mean to ask the question, but shit, I amnota contingency planner. Nor a doctor. And we’ve poured alcohol on the wound twice already, and I was really hoping that was going to work.

Worry sparks in the horseman’s eyes. “You mean, besides find you a doctor? I don’t know. You’re the human,” he says accusingly. “I don’t get infections.”

The two of us stare at each other, and without meaning to, I audibly swallow.

“Motherfucker,” Famine curses. And then he jolts his horse into action, and the two of us ride like the wind.

Famine

Hunger makes men desperate, dangerous. It’s a natural state of mine, but I haven’t felt it for a while.

But now, with Ana swaying unsteadily in the saddle, that familiar panic courses through me. I realize that I hate it. Hate it with every fiber of my being.

I force my steed to ride as fast as he can, only slowing when Ana leans over to vomit.

It happens just once, but then I can feel her shivering. I hold her as close as I dare—as close as she’ll let me—but my armor is hard and rigid and it can’t possibly be much comfort.

This isn’t good.

I knew that from the moment I first saw that wound in the light of day, but I’m understanding now that the human body shouldn’t be shivering in this sweltering heat. Nor should she be retching.

With that thought, I urge my horse faster.

Someone will know how to heal her.

Ana

We’re on the road a surprisingly long time. Then again, maybe we aren’t, maybe the pain has just become so damn distracting that the minutes drag out. It feels like a lifetime.

Famine himself is so distracted that he doesn’t bother killing off the fields around us. I would be touched by that if I thought it was somehow for my benefit, but I think he’s simply forgotten, so focused on getting me help.

A hard knot forms in my stomach, and I feel real fear beginning to take root.

It can’t be that bad. I don’t even think the cut was all that deep. But it was long … and jagged … and there’d been mud all over me and who knows what on the knife itself.

You think I’d learn to clean my damn wounds better after my last experience with infection.

Even when the fever starts to get bad, I’m not too worried.

I remember this. Back in Laguna the wounds I sustained were so much worse. I laid in bed for some indeterminate amount of time, closer to death than I was to life. And still I survived.

I’m that cockroach you just can’t kill.

So I lean back against Famine’s jostling armor and let my eyes drift closed—just for a moment. It wouldn’t be so bad to escape myself for just a little while.

I wake to Famine pulling me off the horse, and only then because the movement jostles my neck.

I cry out at the pain. It hurts so goddamn bad—so, so goddamn bad.

I try to pry myself out of his hold, but I’m groggy and my mounting fever is making my limbs stiff and clumsy.

“Where are we?” I ask.

“I’m finding you that doctor, remember?” he says, an agitated edge to his words.

Famine strides forward with me cradled in his arms. I grit my teeth at the pain each step of his causes. And then my nausea is rising.