Page 202 of Famine

“Not anymore,” he says, repeating his earlier words. “Which is why my brother has risen.”

I still don’t understand that. I don’t understand any of this. Famine supposedly tried to give up his task … but maybe it didn’t work? And now the fourth and final horseman has awoken and … he’s coming here? The more I process what’s happening, the sicker I feel.

“What does he want?” I ask.

“There is only one thing Thanatos ever wants,” Famine says. “Death.”

Famine

Death doesn’t show himself. Not in the hours that follow. Day turns to night and still he hasn’t arrived.

I can feel him out there. There’s no agitated energy, just cold, emotionless determination. He’s coming closer and closer, but there’s no urgency.

I stare down at Ana from where I sit on the bed. She’s finally managed to fall asleep, our sheets tangled around her legs. She’s absolute shit at sharing blankets. Just that one small detail has my chest tightening.

How many more things have I yet to discover about her? There’s an entire world contained beneath that skin of hers, and I hunger to explore it all.

But I might not get a chance to.

Not without facing my brother first.

I cannot tell what his intentions are—nor God’s for that matter. That was part of the deal: once we’re human, we live as humans do. The only divine intercession I’ve felt since I arrived was the Angelic word Ana spoke—and perhaps Ana’s miraculous recovery from the injuries my men wrought on her.

Of course, if Death awoke, perhaps it was God who woke him. I cannot recall what woke me, only that it was time.

Ana murmurs in her sleep, then shifts. Without intending to, I move over to her and kneel at her side.

I brush her hair back from her face, my thumb stroking her temple.

I didn’t know it would be like this. That itcouldbe like this. I had seen humans’ hate, and I had felt the depths of it, but I never imagined they could love this deeply. ThatIcould love this deeply.

It’s frightening and it’s making me obsessive.

“Nothing will happen to you,” I breathe. “On my very existence, I swear it.”

Death can come, but he will not take my Ana.

My brother doesn’t come that day or the one that follows—or even the one that follows that. It takes him two weeks to arrive in Taubaté. But the moment he does arrive, I know it.

His power detonates, the force of it so strong that I drop the dagger I was sharpening.

In an instant, the entire city of Taubaté is justgone, humans dropping dead where they stand. I sense their lifeforces all snuffed out like a candle. Thanatos doesn’t have to touch them to kill them—he doesn’t even need to make their flesh wither away as I must. He simply wills their souls to leave their bodies, and they do.

It’s that easy for him.

I’m still reeling from the display of power when I realize—

“Ana.”

All at once, I rise to my feet, the kitchen chair clattering to the ground behind me.

“Ana!” This time I shout her name. And then I’m racing through the house, panic rising like a swell within me. “Ana!”

What if she’s dead? What if he took her and—

She comes running out of our bedroom. “What’s wrong?” she says, breathless, her eyes wide with worry.

At the sight of her,alive, my legs buckle, and I fall to my knees.