Page 63 of Famine

I bolt.

My arms and legs pump as I make a beeline for a field lined with rows and rows of wheat that are somehow, inexplicably, still alive.

I don’t quite know what I’m doing, and I don’t especially care.

Run-run-run-run-run.

I weave through the plants, their stalks slapping at me. Over my heavy breath, I hear Famine’s pounding footfalls behind me, and Satan’s balls, the fucker is coming for me.

I strain my muscles, pushing them to their limits.

The problem is, I’ve spent the last few years being a soft, pliant thing that men can fall into. My muscles are nonexistent, and they’re tiring fast.

It takes Famine a laughably short amount of time to close in on me. He catches me around the waist and the two of us go tumbling into the dirt.

I cough, the heavy press of the Reaper at my back making it hard to breathe. After a moment, he flips me over.

“You foolish little flower, don’t you know?” he scolds me. “I killeverything. If you leave my side, youwilldie.”

I push uselessly at his shoulders. “Then let me die, damn you!”

“No.”

Famine looks at me, gobsmacked; his response seems to shock him more than it does me. He searches my face, like it holds some answers.

Gentler, he says, “You saved me once. I am going to return the favor, even if it means forcing you to stay with me.”

My mind flashes back to the way Famine looked at me all those years ago when he realized I had saved him. Like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

I think maybe he believed in humanity in that moment. Even though he shouldn’t have. Even though he doesn’t now.

Still, I can tell he believes insomethingwhen he looks at me. His cruel expression is gone, and his eyes are alight with … well, whatever it is, it’s not anger.

The horseman pushes himself off me, rising to his feet.

I lay in the dirt a moment longer, just staring up at him.

Famine dusts himself off. After a moment, he reaches out a hand to me. When I don’t immediately take it, his green eyes flash.

“We can either do this the easy way—and you can willingly come with me—” he says, “or we can do it the hard way.”

He doesn’t elaborate on what the hard way is, but I’m not interested in finding out. I feel defeated all of a sudden. Resisting him doesn’t seem to get me anywhere.

“I think your definition and my definition ofhardare two very different things,” I say, taking his hand.

He doesn’t get the joke—or if he does, he doesn’t react.

Famine pulls me back to my feet. Even once I’m standing, however, he doesn’t let my hand go. It’s not until the two of us are in the saddle and his horse begins to move that he relaxes his hold on me. But then, the arm that held me fast last night is back around my waist, pinning me against his armor. I don’t think the Reaper is afraid of me diving off his horse or falling asleep.

I think, despite all the horseman’s hate and anger, he doesn’t half mind touching me after all.

Chapter 19

“I’m tired.”

“Not this again.”

For the second day in a row, the two of us have been riding late into the night.

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