“Then why would you send her to your room?”

The Reaper doesn’t answer.

I try again. “Is she alive?” I ask.

“Why does it matter to you?” he says.

Because she’s young and scared and I recognize bits of myself in her.

“It just does,” I say.

After a moment, Famine exhales. “She’s alive. For now.”

As we leave Colombo, people—living, breathing people—peer out from their houses. Somewhere in the distance I hear a child laugh.

I take them in, confused. Famine doesn’t leave cities intact.

Behind me, the horseman begins to whistle.

What do you have planned, Famine?

Then I hear a distant, buzzing noise at our backs.

I glance over my shoulder, and on the horizon, the sky is dark, and I swear it seems to be getting darker by the second.

“What … what is that noise?” I ask, facing forward. It sets my teeth on edge.

He whispers in my ear. “Don’t you know, though?”

I strain to listen. The noise is getting louder and louder, even as the sky continues to darken. It’s not until a large bug whacks into my arm that I start to understand.

I brush the creature off, but then another three hit me in quick succession. I glance behind us again and I realize the dark sky is moving.

That bone-chilling sound is the collective buzz of millions of wingbeats.

It’s famine in its truest form.

My eyes meet the Reaper’s.

“Thus far, you seem to find my methods of killing distasteful,” he says, “so I thought I’d try my hand at a more … biblical approach.

“It will take them a long time to die,” he comments. “Starvation is no quick end. Maybe some of those humans will even manage to survive … you would like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Fuck. You.”

“Still not interested,” he says.

I face forward again.

“Then again, I’m not sure I want to be so merciful to you humans. I really wouldn’t want another Ana surviving my wrath—one is plenty enough.”

I twist in the saddle once more to openly glare at him. Only moments after I do so, the ground seems to shudder, and I have to grab onto the horseman to brace myself. He gives me an arch look at the action. Behind him, the sky clears, the insects dispersing in a matter of minutes.

I don’t see his awful plants sprout, and I don’t hear the pained cries of thousands of people who’ve been caught in their clutches, but I know it’s happening all the same.

I don’t have it in me to be horrified any longer. It’s just one more atrocity to add to the long list of them he’s committed since I first saw him in Laguna.

And if I’m to travel with him, then I better get used to this horseman’s perversions. I’m afraid I’m going to be seeing a lot more of them soon enough.

Chapter 18

“I’ll stop three times per day,” the horseman says hours later, when he’s pulled his steed off to the side of the road. “You’ll have to do all your humanly business then.”

“What if I need to go to the bathroom more often than that?” I say.

“That’s not my problem,” he says, leaning back against a nearby tree.

All around us are thickly forested mountains, the terrain broken up by the occasional homestead.

“I hope you know that I will pee on you in the saddle if I have to,” I say. “I have no problem with that. You may even like it too … if that’s your kink.”

But let’s be real, bathing in the blood of innocents is Famine’s real kink.

The horseman glowers at me. “I’m hauling you onto this horse in the next few minutes, whether you’ve relieved yourself or not; I’d suggest you stop wasting your time.”

Fun as it would be to make good on my own threat, I’m not that petty. I mean, if I had a change of clothes, then I might be, but for now … that scenario will have to remain hypothetical.

I begin to walk away from the horseman, looking for a secluded place to do my humanly business, but then I pause.

“Do you not have to go to the bathroom?” I ask over my shoulder.

Now that I think about it, have I ever seen him relieve himself?

“I’m not talking about this with you,” he says, fiddling with one of the saddle bags.

“But you eat and drink.” That must come out.

“Not talking about it.”

Fine.

With a sigh, I wander away to go to the bathroom. When I return, Famine is stroking his horse, his back to me. I pause for a moment, just watching him being gentle with his steed.

Just when I was certain the man was wholly evil, he goes and pets his horse like he cares about something.

“Does he have a name?”

I see the horseman subtly jolt; I guess he hadn’t realized I was there.

“Does what have a name?” His voice drips with disdain, his back still to me.

“Your horse.”

Famine turns to face me. “Are you ready to go?”

I sit down on the ground. “I mean I’m not unready, but I’m in no rush either.” It’s a lovely day, now that the sky isn’t filled with locusts or the screams of the dying. I could linger.

“I don’t really give a rat’s ass about your concerns.”

“You know,” I say, tipping my head back to get a better look at his annoyingly handsome features, “it’s bad enough that you’re a mass murderer, but I was at least hoping that you wouldn’t be such a dick when you weren’t killing people.”

“Up.”

“I’ll get up—but first, you have to tell me one redeeming quality about myself.”

“There’s nothing redeeming about you.”

I huff. “Well, sure there is. I have a banging body, for one thing.” I mean, that’s undisputed. Just ask my clients. “I’m also easy to talk to.”

“Up.”

“It’s okay if you’re a little shy about opening up—lots of men are. It’s really endemic to our culture—okay, my culture. Anyway, I’ll go first: I think you’re obscenely handsome, and your smile lights up your whole face.”

Of course, that smile usually precedes violence, but … it’s still a nice smile, and there’s not much else left to compliment. The man’s got a shitty personality.

The Reaper approaches me, and before I can say anything else, he heaves me up over his shoulder.

“Whoa. Hey, wait—we’re not leaving yet, are we? What about your neat food trick?” As if on cue, my stomach growls. “I’m hungry.”

“You get two more stops,” Famine says, dropping me onto the horse.

I frown at him. “I do need to eat, you know.”

“I know what limits the human body is capable of when it comes to food,” Famine says, pulling himself into the saddle. “You’ll survive a few more hours of fasting.”

He steers us onto the dirt road, and we resume our travels.

“So,” I say as we pass a tiny farm, “you can control swarms of bugs.” My tone is light, but I have to swallow down my alarm.

“I don’t control the bugs, I just call to them.”