Page 88 of Famine

“How can you possibly be a heavenly thing?” I ask as we leave the building. Outside, the rain is coming down hard, soaking me within seconds. “You meet compassion with violence, and mercy with betrayal.” More tears slip out. “If there’s one thing in my life I regret, it’s saving you. And if I could go back and undo it all, I would.”

“You would choose to not help me?” Famine says, glancing down at me, rain dripping off his face. Just from his tone and the look in his eyes, I know I’ve hit on something sensitive.

“After what you’ve done?” I say. “In an instant.”

“After whatI’vedone?” A muscle in Famine’s cheek jumps, and the rain seems to come down harder. “This is not a war I started, it’s just the one I’m ending.”

I glare up at him, my dark hair plastered to my cheeks. “What you’re doing isn’t ending some war, it’s just evil for the sake of evil.”

Overhead, the sky flashes, and for an instant Famine’s face looks inhumanly harsh.

“Howdareyou judge me—you, who are nothing,” the Reaper says, coming to a stop. “Nothing but self-aware stardust. In a hundred years you and your petty, self-important beliefs will be gone, your memory cast from the earth, and everything that makes youyouwill be scattered to the winds. And still I will exist as I always have.”

“Am I supposed to be upset by that?” I say. “That in one hundred years you’ll still exist as this, soulless, festering thing, while for once in my life I’ll get some goddamn rest?”

Famine flashes me an angry look. A second later he lifts me up, and for an instant I think he’s going to hurt me just as he has everyone else. But then I realize that his horse is right behind me, blending into the dark night.

He sets me down hard on the seat, and I’ve only just managed to adjust myself when Famine follows me up, his body pressing in close.

Grabbing the reins, he clicks his tongue, and his horse takes off.

The rain and wind whips against my face, but I hardly feel it. I’ve gone numb. Maybe that’s why I don’t immediately notice that Famine’s cutting through fields rather than taking the main road.The crops rise around us like phantoms in the darkness.

The sky flashes, lighting up the world. For an instant I can clearly see stalks of sugarcane around us, but as I stare at them, they begin to wither, their leaves looking like long, curling claws reaching for me.

The sky flashes again and again, and the thunder seems to fill the whole sky. Rain leaks from the heavens like blood from an artery.

It’s a nightmarish ride, made all the worse by the Reaper’s dark, forbidding presence at my back.

I quake when I see our house in the distance, lit up by candlelight. We’re going back, and it’s an awful sensation, to survive all this death—like I’ve missed the boat to the afterlife and all that’s left for me is to waste away here.

The horseman nearly rides us into the house before pulling his horse up short. A few guards meander about the property, but now that we’ve arrived, they start to approach us. They must see something in Famine’s expression, however, because they stop several meters away from us, not daring to come any closer.

The Reaper swings himself off his steed, and before I can so much as move, he reaches up and hauls me off his horse as well.

I glare at him. “I can get off on my own.”

“Can you now? That’s news to me. You’re always harping on getting everyone else off.”

Wait, was that a sex joke?

I don’t have more than a moment to process that before Famine tows me by the wrist into the house, leading me back to the room I was tied up in all day.

Naturally, I fight against his hold, trying to yank my wrist free. It doesn’t deter the horseman. If anything, I get the impression that he wants a knock-down drag-out fight.

When we get to the room, he practically tosses me inside, and I stumble forward before whipping around.

If he wants a fucking fight, I will give him one. Already I’m fantasizing about slamming these big-ass boots into his nutsack.

He follows me into my room, his body dripping with rainwater. I, too am soaking wet, the water sliding down my legs.

“Well?” I say angrily. “Why aren’t you leaving?”

The Reaper scowls at me, looking like he’s about to say something. Instead, he walks back to the door and kicks it shut with his booted heel. Then he wheels about, unholstering his scythe and tossing it on the bed.

“I’ll leave when I want to leave,” he says.

Anger makes my face flush. “Getout.”