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Speaking of horseman …

“Where are your other three riders?” I ask. This is one of the many questions that haunt the world—where the other three horsemen were. It’s too much to assume that they’re somehow gone; if Pestilence exists, so do the others.

Pestilence pokes at his pasta before tentatively twisting his fork around on his plate. “My brothers still sleep,” he says, frowning as he takes another bite off his plate.

Sleep?

“Uh, when will they wake?”

He doesn’t look up. “When it is time.”

Go figure that even buzzed, Pestilence still manages to answer questions as cryptically as possible.

Despite feeling guilty about partaking in food and drink, the horseman makes quick work of his meal and most of his bourbon.

I move through the liquor considerably slower than him. I’m what you affectionately call a cheap date. If I can stretch my drinks out, I will.

I lean back in my seat. “After you arrived here on earth, did you also sleep?” There were, after all, five years where he was unaccounted for.

He nods, pushing his plate away.

I sort of want to ask him where he managed to sleep for five years undetected.

“Why sleep at all?” Whywaitat all?

“There was the possibility …” He trails off, lost in some thought.

“What possibility?” I prod.

He rouses himself. “The possibility that humanity would redeem itself.” He grabs his glass and swirls it. “But alas, not even the End of Days can alter the depraved nature of your cursed kind.”

Ah, this spiel again. Just when I thought the horseman was done harping on humans for a while, too.

Pestilence lifts his cup up and stares at the little liquid that remains, his eyelids looking a little heavy. “This is poison,” he says, out of the blue.

“Mhm,” I agree. I mean, technically, it is.

His eyes slide to me. “Was that your plan all along? To poison me?”

Oh God, and now this poison-business. How idiotic must he think I am to try to poison an undying man?

“You’re the one pouring,” I say.

That logic seems to mollify him. Somewhat.

All of a sudden, Pestilence stands, grabbing his chair and dragging it around the table so that it’s next to mine. He sits on it backwards, unaware of just how sexy my traitorous eyes find him. He gives me one of his piercing stares.

I lean away from him nervously. “What?”

“I don’t know,” he admits. “I feel …somethingwhen I look at you.”

My mind flashes back to the bathroom and the heated expression on his face. A blush creeps up my neck, the alcohol making it burn hotter and spread wider than it would if I were sober. I force my eyes to stay on his face when all they really want to do is dip down to his torso.

“I cannot figure out what that something is,” he continues. “And hear me Sara, it is driving memad.”

Join the motherfucking club. We’re taking applicants.

“You’re human,” he says. “I don’t like your kind. I’m not supposed to likeyou.”