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Just when I think he’s going to share one of these sacred words, he says, “Go back to sleep. I will watch over you.”

I don’t want to sleep, not when I still feel the press of his supple skin beneath my fingers, marked with figures strange and holy. I’m unbearably lonely, my body aching at the lack of a partner, and damn it all, but the partner it wants is him.Iwant him. All of him. In me, around me, next to me, filling my mind, my body, my life—and that’s so many different kinds of fucked up, and I’m so over it, so over feeling torn.

Pestilence stands, backing away into the darkened recesses of the house. I nearly call out to him. It would be so easy to coax him towards me, to remove that towel and pull him down and feel his weight settle on me.

To my shame, it isn’t my loyalty to humankind that stops me from calling him back. It’s the deep fear that he’ll refuse my advances.

There’s only so many shitty things a girl can take in a single day.

Chapter 30

The good news: this house comes stocked with every food imaginable to man. The bad news: everything apparently expired seven years ago.

That’s what we get for squatting in a hoarder’s home.

At least there’s coffee—and powdered creamer. I greedily drink my cup while sitting in the house’s breakfast nook, the space packed with dirty dishes, mail, and a few more of those empty prescription bottles.

I stare out the window, taking in the yard with its thin dusting of snow, warming my hands on the mug I hold. My gaze drifts from the window to the nearest pile of junk. Resting at the top of it is a flyer with a drawing of Pestilence.

Warning! Pestilence is Coming!

The words are emblazoned in red. Beneath it in smaller print is a paragraph detailing his movements and urging residents to evacuate, preferably for at least a week.

I flip the page over and nearly balk. Staring back at me is my face. It’s not particularly accurate; it has that same look that police sketches have. My face is wider, my cheeks fuller and my chin pointier, but it’s still me.

Traveling with a Mystery Woman!

The paragraph beneath it says that while evidence suggests I’m Pestilence’s prisoner, I’m likely working for the horseman and to keep wide berth.

Lastly, the page has a map of North America, a red line drawn up the East Coast before cutting across Canada, and ending with the tip of the line curved downward, suggesting that the horseman and I are traveling down the West Coast, which seems accurate enough.

Behind me, the door opens, jerking me to attention. I shove the paper away.

Likely working for the horseman.The warning replays itself over and over in my mind, and I feel every inch the turncoat. Because that flyer nailed my situation, hadn’t it?

“Sara!” Pestilence calls, his heavy footfalls making their way to the kitchen.

He grins when his eyes alight on me, the expression so foreign and wonderful that even in the mood I’m in, my heart skips at the sight.

“Knew I’d find you in here,” he says.

I give him a watery smile back.

It only takes him a few moments to see that I’m troubled.

His grin falls away. “What’s wrong?”

We’re supposed to be enemies, but despite everything, I kind of like you. Oh, and the rest of humanity has figured that bit out too.

I shake my head. “Just … tired.”

He comes over to me, clad in all his accoutrements. There’s nothing like seeing Pestilence dressed in his finery to make a girl feel like three-day-old road kill.

He bends down and, studying my face, presses his thumb right beneath my eye.

“You’re getting exhausted,” he notices.

Scratch that—seven-day-old road kill. We’re talking the really fucked-up bits of critters that remain plastered to the asphalt long after they’ve expired.