Chapter 359: What To Have For Breakfast
Someone pounded on my bedroom door at what had to be the single worst moment in human history.
Not because I was doing anything interesting.
Unfortunately.
No, the interesting parts had ended sometime just before the sun decided to start its day and after my body, my dignity, and several parts of my common sense had been thoroughly dragged through my decisions that I had no immediate plans to regret.
After having my mind blown more times than I could count, I had gotten maybe two hours of sleep. And... not that I was complaining... but most of it was pinned between two warm, possessive men who treated personal space like an extinct species.
Seriously, both Yuche and Lingyun were half sleeping on me, my poor, bruised breasts now doubling as pillows for them and their arms were wrapped around my waist tighter than my baby vine that had the common sense to disappear sometime before the bath last night.
But when the pounding came again, hard enough to rattle the door in its frame, my first thought was not danger.
It was fertilizer. My plants needed the bone meal of whoever was standing on the other side of my door.
Just saying.
I opened one eye.
The room was still dark around the edges, the weak grey light of early morning barely pushing through the curtains. My sheets were a disaster. My body felt like I had fought zombies, built a murder wall, taken a bath, and then made several extremely enthusiastic choices that I would be feeling in places I refused to name before breakfast.
Yuche’s arm tightened around me, burrowing his head even deeper into my skin. I guess he wasn’t happy about waking up to a nipple in his face, because he moved up to my neck, never opened his eyes, and fell back asleep.
Lingyun, on the other hand, was half sprawled on my other side, one leg thrown over mine, his hand resting possessively against my hip as if he had passed out mid-claim and expected everyone to respect the paperwork.
The door pounded again and I could feel the frustration flowing through the thin wooden blocker.
I wonder if whoever was on the other side could feel the anger and frustration flowing back from this side.
Lingyun’s eyes opened.
There was no sleepy confusion. No slow blink. No cute little waking-up moment. Fire snapped to life over his fingers before his head even lifted from the pillow.
"Whoever that is," he said, voice rough from sleep and several other things, "has chosen death."
"Get in line," I muttered.
Yuche’s arm tightened around me for half a second before he released me, already awake in the way dangerous men became awake. Quietly. Completely. Like sleep was just another door he could close behind him when the world became inconvenient.
"It’s Chenghai," he announced like I should have already known that fact.
I was also pretty sure that, because Yuche knew who was on the other side of the door, that was the only reason the person outside the door was still alive.
I dragged the blanket up because I had no interest in giving the entire household a morning show. My hair was probably a disaster, my body was definitely a disaster, and if anyone had the nerve to look smug about either of those things, I was going to start assigning chores with knives.
"What?" I snapped.
The pounding stopped.
Chenghai’s voice came through the door, steady and deeply unfair for someone interrupting a woman who had earned the right to be unconscious until noon. "There’s someone at the wall."
I stared at the ceiling.
Of course there was.
Not the gate. Not the driveway. Not the front door.
The wall.
The thing I had built specifically so people would stop becoming my problem had apparently lasted less than one full night before attracting a morning problem like a corpse flower attracting flies.
Lingyun pushed himself up on one elbow, fire still curling lazily around his hand. His hair was a mess, his mouth was swollen, and he had the audacity to look offended on my behalf. "Tell them to go away."
"I did," Chenghai replied.
That made me open my other eye.
Yuche had already reached for his pants, because unlike Lingyun, he apparently understood that answering emergencies naked made people ask questions. Lingyun noticed, looked down at himself, then at me, then smiled like an idiot.
"No," I told him.
"I didn’t say anything," Yuche replied almost innocently. But the smirk on his face was anything but innocent.
"You didn’t have to. Your face has subtitles," I replied with a hiss.
His smile widened. "You know me so well."
"Unfortunately."
Another pause came from the other side of the door, which meant Chenghai was doing that thing where he pretended not to hear anything that would make the rest of the day unbearable.
Then he said, "It’s Old Chen."
I sat up, slower than I wanted and with more hatred for my own muscles than usual. Yuche’s hand came to my back at once, steadying without fussing, and I let him because standing up only to fall over would give Lingyun material for weeks.
"What does he want?"
"He says someone is hurt."
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The hook.
The trap.
The stupid little thread of humanity dragging itself up to my brand-new wall and bleeding on the doorstep I no longer had.
Lingyun’s fire dimmed slightly, not gone, just quieter. Yuche’s hand stayed at my back. Neither of them spoke.
Smart men.
They knew better than to volunteer me for mercy before I had pants on.
"Is he at the wall?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Is he touching it?"
"No."
"Then he’s smarter than he looks."
Chenghai didn’t answer.
That was never good.
I turned my head toward the door. "What aren’t you saying?"
A second passed before Chenghai replied.
"The wall reacted to the injured one."
The room went still.
Not quiet. Still.
Yuche’s hand stopped moving against my back. Lingyun’s fire rose again, brighter this time, reflecting orange against the dark window. My exhaustion did not disappear, but it shifted, sliding somewhere colder and more useful.
Of course.
Of course the apocalypse couldn’t let me have two hours of sleep, a hot bath, and two men without immediately coughing up a new problem at my property line.
I threw the blanket off and reached for the closest piece of clothing that looked like it belonged to me.
"Fine," I said. "Let’s go see what the murder wall wants for breakfast."