Pestilence stays up late with the elderly couple, talking about things that I can’t quite make out. Bits and pieces of conversation drift in, and it’s just enough for me to figure out that they’re talking about God and religion. I get the impression that the horseman is far freer with his words around them than he is with me.

Startlingly, I feel a spark of jealousy. I don’t even want to talk to Pestilence about God, so I don’t know why it bothers me.

You want him to share his most private thoughts with you, and you alone.

To think that he’s telling this couple things that he won’t utter in front of me … beneath the jealousy and annoyance is hurt.

You’re his prisoner, something you seem to forget over and over again.

After what feels like an eternity of restless sleep, I hear chairs scrape back, then the shuffle of soft footfalls as Ruth and Rob make their way to the back of their house. I strain to hear anything else, each passing second waking me further, but there’s nothing.

Is Pestilence sitting alone in the darkness?

It’s not until sometime later, when the sound of a chair sliding back wakes me for the five millionth time, that I hear the horseman’s signature footfalls. He heads down the hall, towards my room.

My heart begins to patter as he nears.

Is he coming for me?

The thought that once filled me with revulsion now fills me with excitement.

I hear him pause outside my door, the silence stretching on and on.

What’s he doing?

The doorknob turns and he steps inside. I can barely make him out in the darkness. He’s just one larger shadow amongst the rest of them, his form looking staggering as it fills up the doorway.

He moves to the right of the bed, taking a seat on the floor and resting his back against the wall.

I don’t know what to do with myself—I’m supposed to be asleep, but I’m not, and that feels like such a big lie. Pestilence must realize I’m awake, right? I’m sure I’m breathing too loudly or laying too still.

“Amongst my growing list of flaws is cowardice,” Pestilence says in the darkness. “I come to you now like a thief in the night, for I fear you’ll never listen to me under the light of day,” his voice is whisper soft, “and I must confess all the things in my heart.”

Allllright. This should be interesting. And now I’m fucking wide awake.

“I find you beautiful, dear Sara, so beautiful. But it’s such a sharp, scathing beauty—like the edge of my arrowheads—because I remember you are not like me. One day, you will die, and I am growing anxious of that fact.”

I have to force myself to breathe and to hold back the awkward, choking sound that really wants to escape my lungs. No one has ever spoken to me like this.

“I admit,” he continues, “I have no idea what’s come over me. Never in my long existence have I felt this way. Not until I came to your world in this form could I feel. And before I met you, even that was limited to the vitriol that burned thick in my belly. All I once wanted was to raze civilization to the ground.

“It was not until I met you, hated though you were, that I understood the meaning of God’s words. Of mercy.” He says this as though it’s of paramount importance. “And now I understand why there is hope yet for your kind. Because along with the bad, there is this.”

Okay, I’m pretty sure this dude has no effing clue I’m awake.

“And I cannot figure out what this is,” he continues, “only that I feel it when I see you and when I think of you. When we ride together and I hold you, I feel as though all is right. And when you laugh, I think I might truly die. This is an agonizing sort of pleasure, and it’s ever so perplexing. I don’t understand how pain and affection can coexist alongside one another.”

He sighs, tipping his head up to stare at the ceiling.

“When you ignore me, I burn with restlessness; it feels as though the sun has turned its back on the world. And when you smile at me—when you gaze at me like you can see my soul—I feel … I feel like I am lit on fire, like you have been called by God to raze my world.”

He is breaking me wide open. No one has ever spoken to me like this—no one has ever even thought of me like this—and I have no defense against it.

He rises to his feet then and walks to the door. He pauses there. “For good or for ill,” he says over his shoulder, “I have been indelibly changed by you.”

It’s only once Pestilence’s footfalls have faded away that I release that choked sob.

It’s bad enough that I want his body. If only the attraction ended there. But my heart is giving way to the horseman’s words, and I’m afraid that in the end, it might be just one more of the horseman’s conquests.

Chapter 31

The next morning, I shuffle into the kitchen, noting the cold plate of scrambled eggs and ham left on the table alongside an empty mug, a tea bag, and a thermos full of hot water.

My finger idly touches the rim of the mug as I glance out a nearby window. The sun is already high in the sky. I rub my head, mussing my brown hair.

Slept too long—long enough for our dying hosts to make me breakfast.

The sound of Pestilence’s heavy steps has my entire body going haywire. It can’t decide whether I should squeal or bolt from the room.

“Good morning, Sara.”

I force myself to turn and look normal and not like I eavesdropped on things last night that I shouldn’t have. “Um, morning.”

The horseman’s gaze is deep, his eyes full of all those things he was waxing poetic on last night.

Don’t act like you didn’t tuck away each one of those compliments to savor later.

“Where are Rob and Ruth?” I ask, grabbing the thermos and busying myself making a cup of tea.

Pestilence’s face turns somber. “The plague has begun to exact its toll.”

My skin burns hot with guilt, and for an instant, I feel just as sick as they must. I’m eating their breakfast and sleeping in their bed like Goldilocks while they die from the plague I literally brought to their doorstep.

The horseman steps in closer, staring down at the tea I’m steeping.

When you laugh, I think I might truly die.

“I understand alcohol, but I do not understand coffee, and I most definitely do not understand tea,” he says, completely unaware of my thoughts.

I shrug.

“It tastes and smells acrid.”

“You actually tasted it?” I ask, raising my eyebrows as I bring the cup to my lips.

He grimaces. “Last night, after you went to sleep, Ruth and Rob insisted I try it.”

I snicker. “You let them pressure you into trying tea when I couldn’t even get you to drink hot chocolate?”

What a sucker.

Pestilence glowers at me.

I take another swallow of tea to hide my smile. Despite our casual conversation, the hand that holds the mug trembles.

I find you beautiful, dear Sara, so beautiful.

His words from last night surround me; I can’t just be normal around him. Ugh. I’m all wound up.

My eyes drift to the breakfast laid out for me. Between Ruth and Rob’s sickness and Pestilence’s attention, the thought of eating is twisting my stomach into knots.