His fingertips …

“Your arms!” I gasp. Holy mother of … “How do you have hands?”

Famine smiles a little, and my whole body reacts to that smile. “Are you now worried about my capabilities?”

My gaze flicks skeptically from the hand touching me to his face. “Maybe … what are you doing?”

“I wanted to see you,” he says, his gaze moving over me as though he’s trying to commit my features to memory.

He stands, and for the first time I notice the other items lying next to him. One of them I can’t immediately identify but the other one I recognize as a scythe, its wicked blade gleaming.

Dear God, that thing looks deadly.

He picks up the scythe, and my heart begins to patter. Last night I didn’t realize just how massive he was, and now, with that weapon in hand, Famine looks especially lethal.

I edge away from him.

The horseman must see me cower because he gives me an exasperated look. “You slept on me last night. There’s nothing for you to fear.”

“You now have a blade—and hands,” I say. “How did you get them back?”

“My body regenerates.”

“Your body …” Dear baby Jesus, he can grow back limbs? “And the … the …” I gesture vaguely at his attire.

Famine presses his lips together, either in displeasure or because he’s trying not laugh. He doesn’t seem like the laughing type, so displeasure it is.

“I’m not of this world, flower.”

That’s not really an answer, but I’m sort of stuck on the fact that he called me flower.

That’s a compliment, right?

Looking at him, I want it to be a compliment.

Are you seriously crushing on one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, Ana?

Damnit, I think I am. But in my defense, they don’t make cheekbones that pretty here on earth.

“Come on,” Famine says, interrupting my thoughts, “we need to move.”

“Where are we going?” I ask, hurrying after him, grabbing my basket of fruit. I have some fatalistic hope that bringing this basket back home will somehow spare me my aunt’s wrath.

It’s a foolish hope, but then, I am a fool.

Famine doesn’t respond, and it’s just as well. We’re clearly headed back towards town, the two of us walking down the road I so recently found him on. My eyes linger on the scythe he holds; he decided to bring that but not the other, less threatening object, and I’m trying really, really hard not to think about the motives behind that decision. Or, for that matter, what’s going to happen the moment the townspeople meet Famine.

“Last night this road was swarming with men,” Famine says, more to himself than to me. “Now it’s deserted.”

The back of my neck pricks. “Do you think those men … ?”

“They’re setting a trap for me,” he says.

The thought is downright petrifying.

“Maybe we shouldn’t be on this road then … we could hide …” All I can see in my mind’s eye is how much torture Famine’s body endured when I first found him.

“I have waited years for this moment,” he says. “I will not hide from them. Their deaths are mine to savor.”

That’s right about when I have my first real misgivings about Famine.

“I didn’t save you so that you could kill a bunch of people,” I say.

“You know what I am, flower,”—that name again—“don’t pretend you don’t know my nature.”

Before I can debate with him more, we enter Anitápolis.

People are going about their morning when we walk down the street. They stop what they’re doing, however, when they notice Famine and his big-ass scythe.

As we move towards the middle of town, a coal-black horse comes galloping down the cracked asphalt, heading right for Famine. The steed looks spitting angry, but at the sight of the creature, the horseman seems to relax.

Wait. Is that his … ?

The steed slows, finally stopping in front of Famine.

The horseman leans his forehead against the horse’s muzzle. “It’s alright, boy,” he says, rubbing the side of the creature’s face. “You’re safe now,” he says, echoing the same platitudes I murmured to him last night.

I stare at the horse. Where has the creature been this whole time? And why has the steed decided to make an appearance now?

They’re setting a trap for me.

Just as the thought clicks into place, I hear the whiz of an arrow.

Thwump.

The projectile makes a meaty sound as it skewers Famine’s shoulder.

I expect the horseman to scream or to flinch like he did last night, but he does none of those things.

He smiles.

An unbidden shiver runs through me.

That is not the look of a man who’s afraid. That is the look of a man bent on burning the world down.

Famine’s eyes meet mine for a long second, and they’re full of wicked glee. Then his gaze flicks to the men trailing behind the black horse—men I didn’t notice until now. They hold bows and swords and cudgels.

“I had hoped to see you all once more,” Famine says.

The horseman’s nostrils flare, and the wind shifts. That’s all the warning any of us get.

In the next instant the earth splits beneath the men, and strong, green shoots sprout from the ground. They grow within seconds, wrapping round and round the men’s ankles, climbing higher by the second.

The men shout, their fear apparent, and several onlookers scream, many of them beginning to flee.

I, however, am still as stone, my eyes pinned to the sight ahead of me. I’ve never seen anything like it. All those horrible bedtime stories I used to hear about the horsemen suddenly make so much more sense.

As the vines grow larger, moving up the men’s legs and torsos, they sprout thorns. Now the men start to cry out in earnest. A few of them stab at their unnatural bindings. One breaks free, but he trips, and the monstrous plant reaches out for him, moving as though it has an awareness of its own, impossible though that might be.

I glance at Famine, who is hyper focused on the men, a small, cruel smile on his lips. He told me he could kill plants; he never mentioned that he could grow them at will, or that he could turn them into weapons of his own making, but it’s obvious that he’s doing both at the moment.

The plants have now grown as tall as the men, and their many branches twine around whatever limbs they can get ahold of. Now … now they begin to squeeze. First, the weapons fall from the men’s hands. But it doesn’t end there.

I cover my mouth. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” It doesn’t even occur to me to tell the horseman to stop.

I simply watch in horror as bones break and bodies contort. My stomach churns at the sight. I’ve seen my share of violence, but never like this. Never like this.

And then it’s over. Too many vital things have been broken in those bodies. Maybe Famine could recover from those injuries, but not these men. They sag in their strange cages, their bulging eyes blank, their limbs contorted.

I turn and vomit.

Dead. They’re all dead.

For several seconds there’s a strange stillness to Anitápolis. Even though plenty of people have fled from the gruesome confrontation, more have lingered, drawn out by their curiosity and horror.