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“What are you doing?” I protest, squirming in his arms.

No response.

Now I truly begin to struggle. “Let me go.”

He puts me down in the foyer. The room spins a little once I’m on my feet.

So weak. Too weak.

Can’t stay here though.

I head back to the door, and again he picks me up and bodily moves me away.

Again, as soon as he sets me down I move towards the door.

He cuts me off. “Sara, I cannot let you leave.”

He’s begging me with his eyes, and I know he sees what I feel: I’m not strong enough,healedenough. All those weeks of traveling, all those wounds, even with the rest, my body isn’t ready for more. And still I drive it forward.

“Pestilence, don’t make this worse than it already is,” I practically plead. “I’m leaving, either with your blessing or against your will, but I won’t stay here any longer.”

The look on his face pulverizes the last of me. I can see his heart breaking in front of me. That raw grief lingers for just a moment, and then his features harden.

Without a word, he picks me up again.

“What are you doing?” I struggle in his arms. “Pestilence, put me down!”

Ignoring my demands, he moves me into the master bedroom and deposits me onto the bed.

By the time I scramble off of it—taking an extra few seconds to let the vertigo pass—he’s already made it to the door. With a parting look, he slips out, closing it behind him.

Rushing after him, I grab the doorknob. I twist it, but the door won’t open. The horseman must be holding it closed.

“Pestilence, let me go.” My voice rises with panic.

He doesn’t seriously mean to keep me here, does he?

“Youwillforgive me,” he says quietly from the other side of the door.

“Let me go!” I shout louder.

But he doesn’t.

Pestilence boards upthe master bedroom windows and blockades all the doors leading out. Not before I rush outside a few times and he has to drag me back in, but eventually, he manages to bar all the exits, leaving me trapped inside.

And so I’m back to being his prisoner.

At least the horseman is smart enough to keep his distance. I only see him a few times throughout the rest of the day, when he drops off food and water, his eyes sad and haunted.

I think maybe whatever madness came over Pestilence will wear off. That he’ll eventually unbar the windows and open the door and beg for my forgiveness.

But it never happens. One day melts into the next, and he stays away, coming to me only so that he can feed me. Not even at night does he slip into my room to express his tortured feelings for me, or to fall asleep pressed against my back.

My body misses him, my heart misses him. The latter is dying away beneath my ribcage, hating his betrayals yet wanting him still.

I don’t try to escape. What’s the use? I can’t slip past Pestilence unnoticed.

I try not to think about all the millions of dead people that must be rotting right where they died. The T.V. stays off for that very reason. I can’t bear to watch the news and see all those bodies. Not when I played a role (albeit, unwittingly) in their deaths.