Not entirely opposed to seeing that.
The Reaper gives his brother a withering look. “I don’t know how many times I have to tell you, but I cannot accurately locate Thanatos when he’s in the sky. So I improvised with the horse.”
The older, blond-haired man moves over to me, ignoring his brothers’ bickering.
“Thanatos bound you up?” he asks, his gaze moving to my wrists, which are still red and raw. I can’t tell if he’s concerned or simply curious.
I lift a shoulder. “We’ve done worse to each other.”
The wheels in his mind seem to be turning, but rather than responding to that, he says, “I’m Victor, though you can call me Pestilence.”
Pestilence.
I almost don’t breathe. But of course one of them would be Pestilence. My eyes look over him anew as so many turbulent emotions course through me.
This is the horseman who killed my birth parents. The horseman who should’ve ended my life as well. And now he’s standing in front of me.
He’s not at all what I was expecting. My throat closes up. “You’re—”
“Old?” he finishes for me, his eyes gleaming good-naturedly. “I was made mortal long ago. And now—I age.”
I have to breathe through my nose to control everything it is that I’m feeling. Never did I think I would ever face down this … this monster, and definitely not under these strange circumstances.
My hand itches to reach for a dagger that isn’t there, and I am so close to crying right now, which is the last thing I want to do, but Pestilence is so damn civilized and he has kind eyes and laugh lines but he killed my parents.
He is my enemy too.
Before I can respond, War ambles over, his eyes scrutinizing me. “So you’re Death’s wife.”
Screw. This.
I walk out of the house there and then.
I stride past the idle horses, down the overgrown driveway with its rusted junk. The rain quickly drenches me, but I don’t care. I’m no longer bound up, I don’t need to stay inside that decaying house with those terrible men, and— My eyes catch on an opening in the hedge circling the property.
I can escape.
I’ve been so distracted by my present situation that I lost sight of my single most important goal—getting away.
I pick up my pace, afraid the unnatural overgrowth is going to close up at any moment.
“Wait!” I hear heavy footfalls behind me.
My steps falter.
If I leave now, I will slip through Death’s clutches. If I linger, then I might learn why these horsemen are following Death.
I stare at the thicket surrounding the house. Rain drips from all those hundreds of leaves, making the plants glisten everywhere but that one break in the foliage. That opening is mocking me.
“I know we’re a bit much,” Pestilence calls out after me. “My brothers and I are not trying to heckle you. We’re here to stop Death, once and for all.”
I don’t think I breathe.
I spin, facing down Pestilence.
For a moment, I forget about all of the bad blood I have with this horseman.
“You’re here to stop Death?” I say, disbelieving. I mean, they’re the Four Horsemen. All of them are here to destroy our world.
I search his gaze. “Why would you—any of you—” I gesture vaguely to the house where the other two men are, “want that?”
Pestilence sighs. “It’s a long story. One that Famine, War and I are willing to tell you, if you’ll listen.”
I search his face as rain drips from my hair and my lashes. He sounds truthful, and if he is, then … perhaps Thanatos could be stopped, permanently.
I ignore the way dread coils inside me at that thought. Death needs to be stopped. This is bigger than me and my feelings.
Then I remember who exactly it is I’m talking to. This is the horseman who wiped out my first hometown.
“Why do you think I would want to help you?” I say. “You killed my parents.” My voice breaks over that old wound. I have witnessed more recent, more painful deaths at the hands of Thanatos, but oh how I have made him pay for them.
This horseman, on the other hand, he robbed me of the life I might’ve had, and now he wants my help? Because of him, I’ll never know the parents who brought me into the world, I’ll never get to hug them or memorize their faces or learn about who they were and where I came from. And though that life would mean erasing the one I did grow up with—a life full of love and laughter—it’s still a future that was stolen from me all the same.