Famine (The Four Horsemen Book 3)

by Laura Thalassa

  His eyes dip to my mouth, and in the midst of his hate-fueled rant, I see something flare in those unearthly green eyes.

  His gaze moves up to mine, and there’s a zing of connection. “Or maybe you believe you’re above punishment.”

  As he speaks the hardwood floor beneath me rises up like an anthill before splintering open. A seemingly harmless stem rises from the ground before probing around towards my leg. I try not to scream at the sight of it, even as it begins to slither up my leg.

  “Wh-what are you doing?”

  “Reminding you why you don’t try to stab me or slap me or accost me in any other manner.”

  The single shoot splits off into two, then three, then four, growing up and around me. Tiny thorns appear along the stem, lengthening and sharpening the bigger the plant becomes. The shrub doesn’t quite wrap itself around me. Instead it grows like a cage around my body. Only once it’s bracketed me in does Famine release his hold.

  He backs away. “You saved me once, so I’ll spare you for that reason alone,” he says, “but do not ever test me again.”

  With that, he exits the room, slamming the door behind him.

  I stand still for a beat, waiting for something else to happen—for Famine to come back or this cage to wither up and die.

  Neither thing does.

  “How the fuck am I supposed to get out?” I finally mutter to myself.

  The answer, I find out several hours and many cuts later, is painfully—that’s how I’m supposed to get out.

  Chapter 15

  I wake to screams.

  I sit up too fast, swaying a little. I put a hand to my head, blinking away sleep. The screams continue, punctuated by low, agonized moans. My heart is beginning to thunder before I can truly process what I’m hearing.

  I stare at the window for several seconds, thick grey clouds obscuring the morning light. The screams are coming from outside, only now they’re beginning to die off. My pulse pounds in my ears.

  I don’t know how I get the courage to throw off my covers—covers still stained by the blood from Famine’s scythe—and I slide out of bed. I haven’t seen the horseman since he left me here last night, but from the sounds of it, he’s been busy.

  I pad around the thorny bush that caged me in yesterday and creep towards the window, dread pooling in my stomach. Outside, two people are dumping a body in what must be the home’s backyard. There are already other bodies lying on the ground, some of them still moving.

  I stumble back, tripping on my own heel and falling hard to the floor.

  I have to breathe through my nose just to keep the bile down.

  My own memories replay themselves—how Elvita was stabbed, how I was stabbed. How crassly Famine’s men discarded my body.

  I wrap my arms around myself. As the screams rise, I pinch my eyes shut, my body shaking.

  This is where I’m supposed to go storming out like some brave heroine and stop Famine. Instead, I’m paralyzed by fear, my mind replaying my own horrific encounter with the horseman.

  That’s why I’ve allowed myself to go along with being the horseman’s prisoner—so I can hurt him again. Only now, when fighting him would make a difference … I can’t do it. I don’t have a weapon, but even if I did, I don’t think I could make myself walk over to him. I don’t want to move at all.

  Famine was right. I do lack courage—courage to do anything in the face of his atrocities.

  My heart is in my throat and my breath is coming much too fast when the door to my room opens. A man comes in, one I don’t recognize. My breath stills.

  “Famine wants to see you,” he says.

  I’m still shaking, and I still can’t move. When the man sees this, he comes over to me and grabs my arm, pulling me to my feet.

  I wobble, and then I’m tripping forward, following the man out of the room and towards the living room, where all the furniture has been pushed aside, save for the wingback chair Famine sits in.

  He lounges on it like it’s a throne, his legs kicked up over one of the arm rests and crossed at the ankles. Despite the fact that it’s the middle of the morning, a wine glass dangles out of one of his hands.

  He looks drunk. Very drunk.

  “Where have you been?” he demands when he sees me, his tone surly.

  “Hiding,” I reply as the man who led me here finally lets my arm go.

  “Hiding is for cowards,” the horseman says, kicking his feet off the armrest and straightening in his seat.

  I flinch, his words echoing my own earlier thoughts.

  “Besides,” he continues, “I want you to get a good look at how your world dies.”

  I stare at Famine for several seconds.

  I hate you so very, very much.

  “Oh, wait,” he drums his fingers against the armrest, his brows knitted together. “It seems I’ve forgotten something …”

  He shifts, and I hear the jangle of metal. Famine’s eyes alight and he snaps his fingers.

  “Ah. I remember.”

  He unhooks something at his side. It’s only when he lifts it up that I recognize the manacles.

  “You can’t be serious,” I whisper.

  I pose no threat. If the horseman hadn’t forced me to come out here, I would’ve probably stayed holed up in that room he left me in, coming up with excuse after excuse to explain away my inaction.

  “You are clever and brash,” he says, “and I like you better when I can stop your tricks.”

  “You could’ve just left me in my room,” I say. I wasn’t going anywhere.

  The horseman sets aside his drink and rises, coming over to me with those shackles.

  “I could’ve, but then, my mind would’ve dwelled on you.”

  I don’t know what to make of that unnerving statement.

  I don’t fight the horseman when he begins cuffing me. Those earlier screams have already scared all the fight out of me.

  At my back I hear the front door open and the sound of footfalls as people enter the house.

  Casting me a sly smile, Famine finishes his work, leaving my side to grab his glass of wine and return to his seat.

  Stupid, evil horseman.

  I begin to walk back to my room, passing what looks to be an older man and a young woman, both who loiter uncertainly in the entryway. At the sight of them, my throat tightens. This is a story I already know the ending to.

  “Did I say you could leave my side, Ana?” Famine calls out, his voice grating.

  I pause in my tracks, my body tensing. At his asshole-ish comment, a little of my fire returns.

  I glance over my shoulder at the horseman. “Don’t be cruel.”

  “I can’t be cruel?” he says, his voice rising. “You don’t know what cruelty is. Not until you have endured what I have. Your kind taught me oh so intimately how to be this way.” The horseman says this right in front of the pair who wait in the foyer, their expressions uneasy.

  “Now,” he says to me, his eyes hardening, “get back to—my—side.”

  I square my jaw as I stare at him, fear and anger all churning inside me. Reluctantly I return to him, glaring the entire time. He glares right back at me.

  During our exchange, the older man and young woman have hung back, watching my exchange with Famine, but now as the Reaper slouches in his chair, he gives them a haughty look.

  “Well?” he says. “If you have something to say to me, say it.”

  Tentatively the pair creep forward.

  “My lord,” the man says, nodding to the horseman.

  Famine scowls. “I see no gifts in your hands. Why then are you here?”

  Of course the prick next to me would think a human should only approach him if they have something to offer.

  I take in the horseman again, studying his bright, narrowed eyes and the way he sits in this chair like a king. He’s intoxicated on wine and power and vengeance.

  The older man seems to shrink on himself before gathering his courage. He places a hand o
n the shoulder of the young woman he’s with and steers her forward.

  My eyes catch on that hand.

  The man clears his throat. “I thought that maybe … a horseman like you might want …” He clears his throat again, like he can’t get the words out.

  The silence stretches on.

  “Well?” Famine says. “What do you think I want?”

  There’s another long stretch of silence.

  “My daughter—” the man finally says, “is yours, if you’ll have her.”

  Daughter. The word is ringing in my ears.

  It was easy for Elvita and me to approach the Reaper. I was a prostitute and Elvita was the madam who managed my clients. But offering up your daughter to be used by some vengeful stranger? The thought has my stomach churning.

  Famine’s eyes flick to mine, and he gives me a look as if to say, See? I do this all the time, and it tires me.

  “Humans are so terribly predictable, are they not?” he says.

  Now that I actually think about it, this must happen to him all the time. In city after city he opens his doors to people who give him gifts. For a poor family, a woman’s flesh might be the most valuable thing they have to offer.

  I shouldn’t have a problem with that—it’s been my currency for the last five years.

  But right now it sickens me.

  Famine’s gaze flicks over my face, drinking in my reaction before he casts a lazy glance back at the man. “So you didn’t come to me empty-handed after all.”

  The man shakes his head. The girl is beginning to tremble; she looks visibly frightened by the horseman.

  “She’s not much to look at,” Famine notes, his gaze moving over her. “Too short and her skin is blemished.”

  Because she’s still a teenager, I want to shout. Never mind that I, too, was a teenager when I first started sleeping with strangers. I don’t have to want that life for anyone else.

  “And her teeth …” the horseman makes a face.

  There’s nothing wrong with this girl’s teeth—or the rest of her looks for that matter—but that’s beside the point. Famine is aiming to hurt.

  Just like the plants he kills, Famine has his seasons. Sometimes he’s light and happy, like spring. And then other times, like now, he’s cruel and cold like winter.

  Abruptly, he turns to me. “Tell me, Ana, what would you have me do?”

  What … the hell?

  I stare at him like he’s gone mad.

  “Should I fuck her?” he asks me. “Or would you prefer I make an example out of her as I did you?”

  I curl my upper lip, repulsed by him. “You are a monster.”

  “Mmm …” The corner of his mouth lifts and he turns his attention back to his guests.

  Once again, Famine eyes the girl up and down. She stares back at him, still visibly shaking.

  All at once, he stands, setting his drink aside. I think that maybe he means to hurt the pair, but he doesn’t reach for his scythe. Instead, he closes in on the girl.

  Reflexively she takes a step back. I can’t see his face, but I can see hers, and she’s terrified.

  “I have enough enemies,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at me. “I’ll spare her the worst of my torments.” To one of his men, he says, “Put her in one of the bedrooms.”

  Chapter 16

  I stare after the now crying teenager, my stomach churning. The entire time I feel Famine’s eyes on me.

  Don’t do this, I want to tell him. Don’t use that girl the way men have used me. If it’s sex you’re after, I’ll give it to you. If it’s resistance you want—trust me, I’ll make sure you know how unenthusiastic I am.

  I don’t say any of those things. I have a prickly, uncomfortable feeling that the horseman would happily acquiesce and kill the girl instead. The true question is why Famine did decide to keep her around to sleep with when he’s been pretty aggressively against sex with me.

  Not a minute after his daughter is carted away, Famine’s men lead the father through the house and out the back door.

  “Where are you taking me? Where are we—let me go—” A door opens, then shuts, cutting off the older man’s words.

  It doesn’t take much longer for his cries to start up. I pinch my eyes shut, willing away the sounds.

  I made a mistake hunting down Famine. A terrible, terrible mistake. I thought I could exact my vengeance—or die. But neither of those options have happened.

  “Now, now, little flower,” the horseman says, his voice low and lethal, “closing your eyes won’t make it any less real.”

  “If you let me go, I’ll leave you alone,” I whisper.

  I don’t want to listen to all this suffering. I don’t want to see it either.

  “Will you now?” the Reaper says. I hear his footfalls as he comes up to me. “Just when you started growing on me, too,” he whispers against my ear, his breath warm.

  My eyes snap open. The horseman stands unnervingly close, and as I watch him, he runs a finger down my bare arm, the touch drawing out goosebumps. He stares at my puckered flesh.

  What the fuck is he doing?

  A guard clears his throat, breaking whatever weird thing came over the horseman.

  Another person is ushered in, and Famine shifts his attention to them, returning to his chair.

  I know the Reaper brought me out here to make me uncomfortable; he seems to relish his cruelty. Two can play that game.

  I might be frightened by the horseman, I might even be cowardly in the face of death, but damnit, I have been and always will be a bold motherfucking bitch.

  Just as a man approaches Famine, I casually leave my post and sit myself down on Famine’s legs like this is just something I do. And it is. I often sat myself down on men’s laps in the tavern next to The Painted Angel, and plenty of those men were only slightly less revolting than Famine.

  Beneath my ass, the Reaper tenses.

  “What are you doing?” he hisses, too low for anyone else to hear.

  I ignore the way my heart pounds or the fact that this monster has rejected me several times over. I shake my hair out, the long, wavy locks brushing against his face.

  “Making myself comfortable,” I say.

  I adjust myself on his lap, the manacles jangling, and I make sure to cause a little extra friction.

  Much to my delight, he sucks in a breath.

  I can’t fight Famine, or appeal to his sensibilities, but I can drive him mad. I’m actually pretty good at that.

  The horseman grabs me by the waist. He’s about to push me off, I can feel it, but for whatever reason he decides at the last minute to keep me pinned in place, his fingers digging into my skin.

  The man waiting in the foyer now approaches us, fear—and perhaps a little hope—visible on his face. His clothes are tattered and patched up, and the sandals he wears look worn thin. Whoever he is, he doesn’t have much, yet still he came here intent on giving the Reaper something.

  When he gets close to us, the man reaches into his pocket and pulls out several rings, a dainty gold bracelet, and a necklace with the image of Our Lady of Aparecida dangling from it. The man bows his head and kneels, his hand outstretched.

  “What is this?” Famine asks, disdain dripping from his voice.

  “This is the only true wealth my family has,” the man says. “It’s yours.” He looks up, and I can see in his eyes he wants to beg for someone’s life, but he bites back the words.

  I move to stand. For an instant the horseman resists, but eventually he releases me.

  God, the Reaper is an odd bastard.

  I approach the man and crouch down in front of him. “That’s beautiful,” I say, touching the image of the Virgin, my manacles clanking. “Does it have a story behind it?”

  “It was my mother’s—given to her by her mother,” the man says, daring to look from me to the horseman behind me.

  “She must’ve loved it very much,” I say.

  “Ana, get up.”

&nb
sp; I look over my shoulder at Famine, who is signaling to the guards to take the man. I know what happens next.

  I grab the man’s wrist, not getting up and refusing to let him get up either, even as Famine’s new recruits close in on us.

  “This man is giving away a holy relic,” I say, staring at the Reaper. “Surely you see the sacrifice in that?”

  Famine frowns at me. “It’s a shiny trinket dedicated to a false idol. It is less than useless to me.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “Is it false?” No one in Brazil stopped believing in the Virgin and her benevolence, not even when the world was being ravaged. If anything, she’s the one thing we clung to most—proof that there’s some mercy to what otherwise appears to be a vengeful God.

  Famine narrows his eyes and gives me a mean smile, the expression all but saying, Wouldn’t you like to know?

  “Fine,” he says. His eyes move to the man. “I accept your gift.”

  For a moment, I relax. But then the guards still close in on the man, one taking his offered jewelry and casting it to the ground. The rest grab the man’s arms and drag him away.

  He’s begging to them now, though he leaves willingly enough.

  I stare down at the scattered jewelry as the group of them leave the house. The Virgin and all her benevolence stare back up at me.

  God is here, she seems to be saying, but even I can do nothing.

  “I wonder,” I say, staring down at the small pendant, “if you were a woman who could bear children, if you’d still be so cavalier.”

  “Man or woman—it wouldn’t matter. I am not a person, Ana. I am hunger, I am pain, and no thinly veiled attempts to stop me will work.”

  He’s right.

  I interceded and it did nothing.

  I stand up, still feeling the eyes of both Famine and Our Lady of Aparecida on me.

  I walk away from the both of them, heading back to my room, and this time no one stops me.

  I stay in my room for the rest of the day. I can hear the pleading, the pained screams, and the rattling death moans. And if I look out my window, I can see the suffering as people are killed, their bodies dumped in an ever growing pile.