I reach for his outstretched hand, giving into this moment of weakness. My hand hovers over his open palm.
Only then do I hesitate.
My gaze flicks up to Thanatos. Thanatos, who might stop fighting me, but who will never, ever stop the rampage. Thanatos who wants me to give up everything while he concedes nothing.
“No.” Even as I say it, I drop my hand and back away from him.
My heart is still racing. The tides are changing between us. I no longer feel like the hunter and him the hunted, and I have the craziest fear that if Death gets close enough to me again, he will try to snatch me.
“Don’t go, Lazarus,” he pleads.
I hesitate again. I don’t know why I do. I just … I wasn’t expecting this monster to have such a peculiar offer for me, nor was I expecting to be so seduced by it.
And I have no idea what to say to him now. So I settle for shaking my head as I put distance between us.
Death’s gaze narrows. “Mark my words, kismet: this is the last time I’ll give you the choice.” And then, as casual as can be, he calls his steed forth, mounts the beast, and rides off.
Chapter 17
Austin, Texas
December, Year 26 of the Horsemen
I’ve lain in wait for the horseman now two dozen times? Three dozen? Four? It all blurs together. And with each city I pass, my sharp grief and seething anger fades a little more.
Aren’t you tired of the fighting?
What if we decided to stop hurting one another?
“Place your best sharpshooters at all the main roads entering and exiting the city,” I say to Austin’s chief of police, Wyatt Davenport. “You only get one chance to kill the horseman. If an arrow goes wide or fails to instantly kill him, everyone dies.”
I’ve increasingly tried to confront the horseman before he can reach a city, but many times I can’t avoid it. Hence, how I’ve found myself in the room with Austin’s chief of police.
Chief Davenport pulls himself up a little straighter from where he sits in his chair. “We’ve received Oklahoma City’s warnings, and we’ve heard the stories from others who’ve stumbled across the bodies,” he says, somewhat defensively. “We are already aware of the horseman’s existence, and we have plans already in place.”
“He kills in an instant,” I say. “I’ve seen it firsthand.” So many, many times. “You need to evacuate everyone if you can. He’s coming from the North—” I stand and point to the highway I took into Austin. “Most likely he’ll use this road. It would be best to have civilians avoid it and to place most—”
“I will decide what is best for our city,” Chief Davenport says, cutting me off. He scrutinizes me again. “Who referred you again?”
I can feel my bones wearying. “The fire chief.”
I am tired. So, so tired.
Tired of explaining this to people who don’t want to believe it. Tired of waiting, bow poised, for Death to ride down that road. Tired of the long days and the short nights. Tired of the ever-present fear that I carry with me.
Tired of hurting Death. Fighting him.
Maybe I should just give in. It is all inevitable.
I push the seductive thought away.
“The fire chief,” he echoes, looking at me as though I’m a liar. I don’t know if it’s my gender, my authority, or what, but something about me rubs this man all wrong. “And where is he? Samuel would’ve made a point to be here himself if he felt it was important.”
“I don’t know why the fire chief isn’t here,” I say, exasperated.
The chief of police settles back into his seat, his gaze flicking over my shoulder to the door, as though he’s trying to figure out the fastest way to end this meeting.
“How do you even know the horseman is coming this way?” Davenport asks, scrutinizing me again, his expression shrewd. “Am I really supposed to believe some girl who just happened to roll on into my city spouting stories where everyone dies—except for her, of course—really holds the answers that no one else does?” He gives me a hard look. “Sharpshooters,” he mutters, shaking his head.
This is where he assumes I have some sort of elaborate plan to get everyone out of their homes so that I can rob them blind.
I’m so tired.
I haven’t told the chief of police the part about me being un-killable. I don’t think I have it in me today to tell that truth. So instead, I point to the map in front of him.
“That’s my evidence. Look at the cities he’s hit. There’s a pattern to it. And if you follow that pattern, you’ll see that it leads right through Austin. You said yourself that Oklahoma City reached out. You know there are—”