It’s the mother’s scream that does it for me.

“Stop!” I say, my eyes snapping open.

It might’ve been the mother’s scream that prompted me to do anything, but it’s the grandmother’s gaze that ensnares me now. She and I lock eyes, and she gives me a look that says, but what can you really do, girl? You cannot fight a storm and hope to win.

Famine’s men ignore me. Even as I’m scrambling to get off Famine’s horse, they drag the family away.

Famine, turns to me then, eyes narrowing.

I’m still trying to get out of the saddle, which is especially hard with an injured shoulder. I end up sort of just falling off the horse, crying out as I hit the ground, the action jostling my wound.

The Reaper closes in on me. In the distance, I can hear the rising voices of the family. The sound of it tightens my gut. No one thinks things are going to escalate this quickly … until they do.

Not even I anticipated this sort of escalation, and I know better.

When Famine gets to me, he pulls me roughly to my feet.

“Undermine me again, and I will make the situation so much worse,” he promises.

I lift my chin. “Fuck you.”

In response, he grabs the wrist of my good arm and pulls me towards the ranch house’s front door. Off in the distance, the screams have reached a crescendo. I’m shaking, full of fear and hopelessness. That, and a touch of anger. Smoldering, righteous anger.

Famine kicks open the front door. Inside, more of the Reaper’s men linger.

“Round up the people of this city and find a building big enough to fit them all,” Famine announces. “Tonight, I want there to be a celebration in my honor.”

Chapter 22

I’m unceremoniously dumped into a room.

“You’re to stay here,” Famine says.

“Or else what?” I say defiantly.

The horseman steps in close. “Stay. Inside.”

“Make. Me.”

His mouth curves into a sinister smile. “Fine. Just remember you asked for it.”

Before I can pick apart his words, Famine grabs me again and hauls me over to the bed.

“What are you—?”

The Reaper tosses me onto the mattress. Just as I’m scrambling to sit up he gets on the bed, his knee going to my chest.

I thrash as best I can against him; it isn’t much, my shoulder still throbs and I’m tired after a day of being in the saddle.

“Get off of me,” I growl.

Instead of doing just that, Famine grabs the bottom of my travel-stained nightgown. There’s a momentary pause, when I realize exactly what he’s about to do.

“Don’t,” I say.

He does.

Grabbing the bottom of the makeshift dress, he rips off a strip of fabric, then uses it to bind one of my wrists to a bedpost. I tug against the binding, but it’s alarmingly secure.

“So this is your kink, then?” I say, fuming. “I wouldn’t have pegged you for a bondage man, but then again, I wouldn’t have pegged you for evil, either.”

Famine rips off another strip of the dress, and it’s quickly going from an old-lady nightgown to something a bit more salacious. I don’t entirely disapprove.

I flail, trying to keep my remaining wrist out of Famine’s grip. But, it’s the injured arm here, so my efforts are paltry. Famine captures my wrist in a matter of seconds. He handles my injured arm gentler than I expect as he moves it towards the other bedpost. It still hurts like a motherfucker.

He ties my wrist to the bedpost, then sits back on his haunches.

“There,” he says, assessing his work, “now you can’t get in too much trouble.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” I say.

“I’ll come for you later,” he says, backing off the bed. “Until then, behave.”

Because there’s so much trouble I could get up to.

… Says the prostitute on the bed.

Okay, correction: there’s only so much trouble I’d want to get up to, given my circumstances.

The Reaper leaves the room, his footfalls growing fainter and fainter as he walks away.

“If anyone so much as looks at that door for too long,” I hear him call in the distance, “I will gut you and feed your entrails to you as you lay dying.”

Jesus.

I guess I’m going to have to behave.

Damnit.

I lay there for hours, trapped on that damn bed.

Outside my room, I can hear people bustling about, shouting orders to each other. Unfortunately, the same awful procession of people comes to Famine’s door just as they have in the towns before this. And just like all those other unfortunate interactions, these ones don’t end well either.

I can hear the screams, but worse, I hear the crackle of a bonfire somewhere nearby, and I can smell the smoke. At first it smells as smoke should, but the longer it burns, the more … cloying and meaty the smell gets.

I gag a little when I realize why that is. I lean my face into my shoulder, coughing like I can somehow get the smell and taste out of my nose and throat. That’s about when I realize that I’m leaning into my bad arm, and the bandage that covered it for hours has simply … vanished.

The horseman has some strange, terrible magic.

Once the shadows deepen and day turns to night, the procession of people tapers off.

For some time all I hear is the snap and sputter of the bonfire. But then, that sound is interrupted by ominous footfalls that can only belong to the Reaper. They get louder and louder until they come to a halt at the threshold of the room.

In the dying light, Famine looms in the doorway.

“Well look who it is,” I say, “the asshole of the hour.”

He steps inside the room, quiet. It raises all the hairs along my arm, that silent prowl of his. The closer he gets to me, the faster my breath comes. I can make out his scythe. It’s strapped to his back, the blade arcing ominously over his shoulder.

The horseman makes his way to the bed.

The horseman drops something onto the mattress before reaching for one of my bound wrists, effortlessly pulling apart the material that held me captive for hours.

He leans over my body to reach for my other, injured arm, but he hesitates when he hears my hitched breathing.

“Are you … frightened?” His voice is so low it makes me shiver.

“You sound delighted,” I say.

Okay, maybe not delighted, but definitely curious.

“I’ll be delighted when you actually stop fighting my every decision,” he replies, ripping apart my second makeshift shackle.

I shake my wrists out, trying to get the blood flowing back into them. “Then you’ll be delighted when I’m dead.”

“I’ll be relieved when you’re dead,” he says, gently moving my injured arm back to my side. The movement makes it throb something fierce. “You make even an immortal’s head pound.”

I scoff, sitting up as Famine grabs something from the bed. A moment later, some article of clothing hits me.

“What the—? Did you just throw—?”

“Put the dress on.”

“The dress?” I pick up the wadded up garment and shake it out. “Wait, what? Why?”

The Reaper sighs dramatically. For an evil motherfucker, he is so over-the-top with the theatrics.