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She pats the bed next to her. I wince at even that small action. I know how unbelievably painful the sores make movement.

Gently, Pestilence sits where she indicates.

The old woman reaches out to him and cups his cheek. “I forgive you, dear.”

Pestilence looks blindsided. “For what?”

But he knows. I can see it on his face. He knows exactly what she’s forgiving him for, and he’s covering up the fact that he—is—shook.

“You don’t have an easy task ahead of you,” she says. “For whatever reason, the Lord deemed fit for you to feel what it is to be human—the loss, the heartbreak, all of it.”

Suddenly, Pestilence appears very young.

Only now do I see in him what Ruth does: he is one of us even as he stands apart. He’s not insulated to our pain and torment the way I’d like to believe he is. He has to bear it like some kind of penance.

With that one realization, the entire axis of my world shifts.

He is every bit a victim of this apocalypse as I am.

Noble, gallant Pestilence, who must watch us all die, who mustmakeus all die, even though death greatly bothers him. No wonder he hates us so much. Hehasto. Otherwise, he’s murdering thousands and thousands of people for no good reason other than the fact that he was told to do so.

“You’re going to be okay. You walk in His light,” Ruth says like the straight baller she is. I mean, holy shit, this woman is on her deathbed and she’s comforting the dude that put her there. If that’s not savage, I don’t know what is.

Pestilence’s nostrils flare, as though he’s holding back some strong emotion.

“Rob’s not here to say it,” Ruth continues, “so I will say it for him: You take care of that little lady you’re with, alright?”

He stares at her the same way he did that first night, like he’s never encountered a Ruth before.

Slowly, he nods. “With my life, I swear it.”

Something warm and uncomfortable spreads through me.

She gives him another one of her sweet smiles. “Now, if you would be a dear, I’m awfully thirsty.”

She has to no more than utter the request for Pestilence to do her bidding. The two of us watch him leave, and it’s only after he closes the door behind him that Ruth calls out to me.

“Come closer, Sara.”

I almost don’t. Now that it’s my turn to sit on the bed and hear Ruth’s final words I find I really don’t want to. A childish part of me believes that if I avoid doing so, she might live longer, like this ailment is a spell that can be broken.

Reluctantly, I sit down on the mattress and take her hand in mine.

She peers at me closely. “My, are you young.”

Now that we’re alone, she seems fainter, weaker. No matter how many deaths I sit through, I always forget how alarmingly fast the end comes to the plague’s victims.

“Only on the outside,” I say. It feels as though I’ve lived a hundred different lives, each one of them violent and bloody. I guess that’s what sorrow does to you—it fast tracks your soul.

Ruth gives a sad chuckle. “If that isn’t the truth …” Her eyes wander off before returning to me. She squeezes my hand, her grip surprisingly strong. “What you’re doing … ” she begins.

Immediately, my pulse begins to hammer away. I have a horrible feeling I know where she’s going with this.

“It’s … good,” she finishes.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Just like Pestilence, I’m hiding from the truth in Ruth’s words. And just like Pestilence, I’m shaken by how perceptive she is.

Ruth gives me a sly look. “But I think you do.”