WALL MEN: A Haunted House (The Wall Men 1)

Gabrio, who stands at one end of the terrace like a sentinel, doesn’t bother looking at me. “We have no blankets; however, the temperature here is a constant sixty-eight degrees. All year round. Hardly the weather to cause hypothermia. And humans can survive three days without water. You will have to wait.”

Okay, so Gabrio is smart and knows about the climate back home. But can he outwit a woman’s needs?

“I have to pee,” I say. “And my you-know-what is about to start. What do you want me to do?”

He finally lowers his emerald green eyes and glares at me. “You may piss anywhere you like, and if you are to menstruate, I am certain Tiago can provide you absorbent material from his beard.”

“I’m not trimming my glorious beard for her moon cycle,” Tiago snaps from across the courtyard. “She can bleed on herself. I do not care.”

Tiago the vain and the terrible.

I’m lucky I was lying about my period, but what if I’m stuck here longer than a few weeks? What if Bard wakes up and assumes I’ve gone to visit my friend Sunnie for Christmas like I had planned. No, no. He knows I wouldn’t run off on vacation while he’s in the hospital.

“Alwar said you were supposed to take care of me,” I argue.

They ignore me, but then I remember what Alwar said: Being a dick is the new polite.

“Hey! You fucking pieces of shit, I’m talking to you. Alwar gave you assholes an order.” The words are out of my mouth before I’ve thoroughly evaluated them, but make no mistake, my stomach is knotting.

Tiago the terrible smirks with delight. “So it does have a backbone.”

It? “Fuck you. I need to piss. I want water.”

Gabrio laughs. “Perhaps it does have a chance of surviving. The Blood King will be in for a surprise.”

“Who’s the Blood King?” I ask, masking my concern with a tough-girl voice.

“You will meet him soon enough.” Tiago walks over to a section of the massive wall. He pushes on a beige square stone, and a door grinds open. There’s some kind of rope-and-spring mechanism for hinges. “You may relieve yourself in there. You will also find water for drinking.”

There are hidden rooms in the wall. My mind runs with it. Maybe this isn’t just an enormous barrier. It’s their keep, like Alwar said. Keeps have things like armories, kitchens, and shelter from the elements, right? Is the other side of the painting in there, too?

I’m about to say thank you before going in but stop myself. Kindness. Civility. Bad.

I say nothing and enter the cavernous room the size of an airplane hangar. It’s made of the same gray stone and smells like piss. Old piss. Wet piss. New piss. All the piss flavors of the rainbow.

I pinch my nose. What kind of bathroom is this? Obviously, a bathroom for giants and not for a human woman who cares about hygiene.

On one end of the room, there’s a small waterfall cascading down an algae-covered wall. The water flows through a deep channel in the stone floor, where it disappears down a drain.

It’s a toilet.

Words cannot describe how little I want to imagine a giant doing his business, squatting over a crevasse on the floor.

My eyes follow the waterfall to its source. It’s coming through holes in the ceiling.

They drink from that? I’m not putting my mouth anywhere near it.

Still wearing my black snow boots, Bard’s oversized plaid shirt, and his huge sweats, I untie the little string around my waist and relieve myself while I have the chance. There’s no toilet paper. No soap to wash my hands either.

Just pretend you’re camping, Lake, I tell myself.

I head for the door, give it a push, and step outside. An ear-piercing shriek echoes from the sky, forcing me to cover my ears. I look up, but I’m not sure what I’m seeing. It appears to be a large black bird falling from the orange clouds.

“Fliers,” says Tiago, as if it’s some boring daily occurrence.

Gabrio doesn’t seem to agree because he bolts to a different section of the big wall and pushes. Another door swings open. I can’t see what’s inside from where I’m standing, but Gabrio emerges a few seconds later, holding two enormous crossbows almost as long as his body. The arrows have sharp harpoon-like silver tips, the kind whalers use.

“Take your weapon,” he barks, tossing one of the crossbows to Tiago.

Tiago catches it with a nonchalance that makes me wonder if he’s mentally unstable, because now that the Flier thing is closer, I’m guessing it’s not a bird. Birds have feathers, not scales. Birds are pretty—most anyway. This thing looks like it climbed straight from a raging fire. It’s covered in a chunky sooty crust, reminding me of chicken that’s been left too long on the BBQ.