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It’s still darkout when Pestilence stops Trixie in front of another house. Just the sight of it has my heart galloping. I don’t want to face another family so soon.

The horseman swings off his steed. “Wait here,” he commands.

He heads over to the darkened house, opening the gate to the side yard before disappearing from view.

I rub Trixie’s neck as I wait for horseman. What could he possibly be up to now?

A minute later the front door opens and Pestilence strides back to me.

“We will stay here tonight,” he says.

I hop off Trixie and warily follow him inside the house. It’s only as I catch a whiff of garbage that’s been sitting out too long that I realize the place is empty. My muscles relax.

I head over to a light switch and flick it on. Above me, the entryway light sputters to life.

Electricity. Score.

Tentatively, I begin to explore the house, flipping on lights here and there as I do so. The place is a shrine to junk; heaps of it are piled everywhere. Old prescription bottles and magazines, weather-damaged paperbacks and moth eaten clothes—all of it is stacked into precarious mounds.

I bet whoever lived here had to practically be pried out of their home when the evacuation orders went out. No one just spends this much time hoarding junk to leave it all behind.

I wrinkle my nose at the ripe smell in the air. It isn’t just old garbage, it’s also the smell of animals. I move into the kitchen, where I spot several aluminum bowls, one filled with water and the rest empty.

Mystery solved.

Owner has a dog or three.

Pestilence rises from where he knelt in front of the hearth, dusting off his hands, a fire taking shape behind him. Backlit by flames, he looks formidable and perhaps a little sinister. He grabs his bow and quiver from where he must’ve set them aside and heads past me.

“Sleep, Sara,” he says over his shoulder. His tone is so brusque that, had he not kissed the life out of me a short while ago, I would’ve said that I’d angered him.

“Where are you going?” I ask, restless at the idea of his leaving.

He pauses, rotating around to face me. “To patrol the area,” he says. “There are always humans who hunt me. They wait in the quiet hours to spring their traps.”

“Is that where you were before, when Nick …”

Pestilence’s face darkens at the reminder. “Unfortunately, this night I missed the danger right in front of me.”

I think that’s his weird way of apologizing.

I bite my inner cheek and nod. “Well, … be careful.” The words sound horribly awkward. Why do I even want my inhuman and undying captor to be careful? What could possibly happen to him?

Pestilence hesitates, his features softening at my words. “I cannot die, Sara,” he says gently.

“You can still get hurt.”

Really, where is all this sentimentality coming from?

The corner of his mouth curves up. “I swear I will do my utmost to not get hurt. Now rest. I know you need it.”

I do. My body feels leaden now that the last of the adrenaline is finally exiting my system.

Once Pestilence leaves, I peer into each of the bedrooms. There are two beds, both which I can use, but there’s just something about them that’s intensely unappealing. Maybe it’s the strong smell of dog coming from them, or the moldering piles of old clothes, broken plates and scraggly dolls that are heaped around them. I don’t particularly want to sleep in either of these rooms.

I grab a few blankets I find folded on the couch and lay down in front of the wood burning stove.

You’d think after the night I had, I’d be lying awake for hours, replaying those fateful minutes in the woods behind Nick’s house. But no sooner have I laid down than I drift off.