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What a fool you are, Burns, to care for someone who has so little regard for you.

What I feel for this manisagony. Terrible, crushing agony.

I rotate to face Pestilence. “If that’s the way things are, then keep your hands and your mouth to your fucking self.”

Pestilence is the enemy. I can never forget that.

Chapter 28

It’s two nightslater when a burning hot hand presses over my mouth, rousing me from sleep.

“Not a word,” the gruff voice commands.

I blink my groggy eyes open.

What’s going on?

I squint into the darkness, half expecting to make out Pestilence’s striking features. But it’s another man who glares down at me, his face coarser, meatier, and frankly,uglierthan the horseman’s.

I feel the cool bite of metal under my jaw.

“Get up,” Nick demands, his voice hushed.

My mind is furiously trying to catch up with what’s going on. Gun. Nick. Waking me up in the middle of the night.

Throwing off the ratty wool blanket, I carefully slip off of the futon.

He pushes me forward, across the living room and towards a door that leads to his backyard. “Out the door, quietly.”

Fear rattles through my bones, but the emotion is so very weak. I’ve lived through too many fires to be frightened of death. The only thing that keeps me moving towards the front door is the ridiculous worry that Nick’s sons or wife might get drawn into this—or they’ll have to bear witness to it.

Behind me, in one of the far off rooms, I hear a wet, rattling cough.

They have enough worries as it is.

I let Nick lead me outside, my bare feet going numb as I walk over fresh snow. More flakes of it drift down, kissing my face and tangling in my hair.

Ahead of me, there’s no back fence to enclose Nick’s yard from the thick forest pressing in on it. I can just make out the icebox and the area where Trixie was secured to earlier. The horse is gone, presumably with its rider—who I haven’t seen since dinner.

Nick pushes me forward with the barrel of his gun. “Keep walking.”

If tonight goes according to this guy’s plans, I know how it will end. Nick and I take a stroll into the woods and only one of us will leave.

I’m not going to let that happen.

“Where is Pestilence?” I ask.

“You mean your boyfriend?” he says, his voice dripping with malice. Nothing and no one in the world can take the ugly hatred out of this man.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

Just need to bide my time until we reach the forest. It’s hard to shoot someone when there’s a tree in the way.

“No?” Nick says, feigning surprise. “So you’re just whoring your body out to that thing to buy yourself a little time?”

This guy’s family is on the brink of death, and he’s worried about my sex life?

“You know, I don’t even blame him all that much,” Nick continues behind me. “Who wouldn’t want to tap a piece of fine ass if they got the chance? But you,” he says accusingly, “you’re the one who turned your back on your own fucking kind when you started screwing that monster.”