He ignores me completely.

“Are we?” I ask a man passing by.

He ignores me too.

“Anyone?” I say. “Anyone at all? Do any of you useless sacks of shit know where we’re going?”

“Shut the fuck up,” someone says.

“Don’t talk to her,” Famine warns his men.

I can’t tell if he’s saying it in a how dare you talk to my lady that way or a don’t instigate her kind of way. Probably the latter because he’s a maniacal jerk. But you never know.

It takes a little longer for the rest of the group to finish gathering up whatever supplies they need, but soon enough, the small gang of us begin to move.

The moment Famine prods his horse into action, the beast takes off like he’s been unleashed. The two of them gallop ahead of us, moving farther and farther away before the Reaper doubles back, returning to us.

For a moment both man and horse look as though they’re free. The horseman’s bronze armor catches the light as he closes in on us. That sun seems to love him, the rays highlighting his toffee colored hair and making his mossy eyes glitter. He looks like a prince ripped out of a fairytale.

When he reaches us, he stops up short, causing his men to, in turn, halt their steeds too. Famine’s ruthless gaze moves over the group of them. These are the men who helped execute innocent people—who stabbed me and killed the mayor and his family. They’re the ones who have been doing this same thing to the people of every rotting city they passed through.

“Did you forget something?” one of them calls out.

Famine’s eyes land on the man for a moment before taking the rest of the group in again.

“You all have been so very helpful to me,” the Reaper says.

A knot of unease forms in the pit of my stomach.

“But,” the horseman continues, that wicked gleam entering his eyes, “just as flowers wither away, so too does your use.”

In an instant, plants break through the ground, their stalks growing impossibly fast.

I suck in a sharp breath as the first plant wraps itself around one man’s ankle. Another snakes its way up a calf.

The men panic. One of them reaches for a weapon holstered at his side. Another tries to lift his legs out of the way. None of it is any use. The vines reach out like limbs, dragging Famine’s guards off their frightened steeds.

“Please!” one man begs.

“Oh God!”

And the screams, the bloodcurdling screams.

I sit there, terrified at the sight.

A few of the horses rear up, spooked. Famine shushes the beasts, and this, oddly enough, seems to calm them down. They resettle, shuffling about only a little as their riders are attacked.

The man who first reached for his weapon now lays on his back, trying to hack away at the burgeoning thing wrapping itself around him. If anything, it seems to make the plant grow faster and more aggressively.

“Why?” one of the men gasps, his eyes beseeching the Reaper.

The horseman’s expression is downright chilling. “Because you are human, and you were meant to die.”

I hear the snap of bones and the strangled cries as the men fight for air. It seems like an eternity before they all go still. And I guess it’s a small mercy that they do go still; they could’ve clung to life like the old man I met when I first entered Curitiba.

I make a noise as I gasp in a breath. I’m surrounded on all sides by the dead.

The rider who my horse was hitched to lays a meter away from my horse, his mouth parted in a silent scream.

I stare at the Reaper, beginning to tremble. He enjoyed killing these men. I saw it with my own eyes.

Famine hops off his horse and moves over to the other steeds, systematically removing their saddles and harnesses, humming under his breath as he does so. One by one, he releases the horses, letting them wander off down the desolate streets.

Eventually, he makes his way to me. I still haven’t moved, hemmed in by the dead as I am.

“Come, flower,” Famine says, his voice deceptively gentle. He steps over to my side and reaches for me.

The hair on the back of my neck stands on end. I had almost convinced myself that this man was a pushover, and pushovers can’t be scary, right?

But fuck, I don’t think he’s a pushover, and no matter how disarming he is to talk to, all these bodies around me are a reminder that he’s still a wretched monster.

When Famine sees my expression, he raises his eyebrows. “If you didn’t have the stomach for my killing, you shouldn’t have sought me out.”

He’s right, of course. I could’ve stayed far away. Besides, the men he killed might’ve been the few that actually deserved death.

Still.

I take in Famine’s disarming, devilish face.

This is a creature that needs to be vanquished.

“You can either lift your arms and cooperate, or I can drag you off this horse,” he says. “I can tell you which one you’ll enjoy better.”

Reluctantly, I lift my shackled hands, and the horseman helps pull me off the horse.

He whistles, and his own steed walks over.

I can’t look at him. Not as he lifts me onto his own mount, not while he removes my former horse’s trappings and sets this last steed free. Not even once he swings himself into the saddle behind me.

Famine’s bronze armor digs into my back as he settles against me, and one of his massive arms drapes itself casually over my leg. His closeness only makes me tremble worse.

The Reaper clicks his tongue and his horse starts forward, picking its way past the bodies.

We’ve gone less than a block when he murmurs, “You’re shaking like a leaf.” His breath is warm against my ear. “I’ve told you before: you don’t need to fear me—not now, anyway.” The Reaper’s voice is gentle, but somehow that makes it all worse.

“Why did you do that?” My voice comes out like a croak.

There’s a long pause, and I genuinely think it takes him a moment to figure out what I’m referring to.

His fingers tap against my thigh. “They would’ve turned on me soon enough,” he finally says.

“You let them pack their things and ready their horses,” I whisper. “You had them ready a horse for me. Why?” My voice hitches. “Why do that if you were just going to kill them all?”

“You assume my mind works like yours. It doesn’t.”

Thank fuck for that.

The two of us are quiet for several beats, the only sound the tread of his horse’s footfalls and the slight jangle of my manacles. We pass by several rotting bodies, their forms caught within the grasp of more plants and trees.

“Is there any horror you are unwilling to commit?” I eventually ask.

“When it comes to you creatures?” he replies. “No.”

My thoughts spin round and round. I feel untethered; my entire life is gone and now I’m here, riding alongside the horseman rather than meting out my revenge. This is … not how I imagined events unfolding.

I wiggle my feet in my heavy boots. There aren’t any stirrups for my feet, and gravity seems to be trying to pull my shoes off of me. I roll my ankles, trying to readjust my footwear to make them more comfortable. It works … for a few minutes. But then I’m uncomfortable again.