“Truly, I’ve never seen a castle like this in the US,” I said.
“And we have two in town.” Logan smiled when he caught my disbelief. “The red cloaks own one too, not too far from here. You can see some of their land from our yard.”
My eyebrows rose. “Do you guys talk to them? Do you know who they are?”
He shrugged a shoulder, non-committal. I took it as confirmation. He changed the subject, back to the castle we were in. “The woman who once owned this castle was the granddaughter of a German lord. It’s said that she had her husband build her this castle to be a smaller version of theirs in Germany. Have you heard of the Eltz family?” He waited for me to shake my head.
“Well, the outside was drawn as inspiration from that. In general, this is a much smaller version. Once it was built, she poisoned her husband and kept his estate. Once she inherited his money, she remarried four more times, killing each husband in peculiar ways. Peculiar, but realistic enough that they never charged her for murder.”
“So it’s haunted,” I said, looking around.
“Definitely haunted. If you wander through the house long enough, you’ll find dead ends and weird shit all over,” he said. “Like that lovely staircase that leads to nowhere.”
“Who owns this place? Like really owns it?” I whispered.
“We do.” He turned to me with a grin. Even that looked more scary than sexy in this setting.
“Why’d you say you couldn’t help me if I walked behind you?”
“They like to snatch people as they walk down these halls.”
“Snatch them?” I squeaked. “Who?”
“The members. To be funny.”
“It doesn’t seem funny at all.” I shuddered. “Is that what happened to Lana? Was she snatched?”
“No.”
His answer didn’t help calm my nerves. In an attempt to distract myself from those words, I turned my attention to the doors that lined the hall. There was a door on either side of the hall, one for each step you took. If they were all rooms, over forty of them. It seemed implausible, of course, but the hall we were walking seemed endless. We took a right at the end and were led to another endless hall.
“You have got to be kidding me. Does this ever end? Is that why it’s called Labyrinth?”
Logan chuckled. “Yes.”
“Lab for short.” That came from a voice on the other side of me. I hadn’t heard him approach at all and shrieked, jumping toward Logan. He put a protective arm around me, even though his shoulders were shaking with laughter as we both looked at Nolan.
“It’s not funny.” I slapped Logan’s arm away from me and stood between the two of them, still looking at Nolan. “Where the hell did you come from?”
“I was eating.” He grinned. “All of the doors in this particular hallway lead to the same hall. We got food, alcohol, weed, other shit.”
“All of these doors lead to the same place?”
I looked at the doors on either side of me. “How?”
“Two different wings, same hall, it connects at the end.”
“Is this some kind of frat house?”
“Definitely not a frat house, otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. We’re all sleeping here tonight though. Yourself included.”
“What? Why? I didn’t even bring my things.” Not to mention, I didn’t want to stay in an old, creepy manor.
“Because it’s initiation night and that’s what we do.”
“But I don’t even have clothes, I didn’t even—”
“Logan’s got you. He made sure your room was stocked with anything you might need.”
“How?” I gaped at Logan.
“I grabbed some things at the store for you. It’s not a big deal.”
“How do you know my size?”
“I guesstimated.”
“Guesstimating a woman’s size is exactly the kind of thing that’ll get you killed.”
“Well, you’ll have to allow me to be far away from you when you open the bag.”
“I can’t—”
“All right,” Nolan said loudly, cutting into my sentence. “I’ll let you lovebirds get to it. Marcus is waiting for me to spark up a joint. See you soon. Thirty minutes.”
“So, what now? You’re going to show me to my room that you stocked for me?” I faced Logan again.
“Yep.”
“For the record, I don’t think it’s cool that you guesstimated my size and bought things for me.”
“Noted.” He started walking up the stairs and I followed closely beside him, afraid of being spooked again. We stopped at the head of yet another hallway. Unlike the walls lined with red wallpaper downstairs, this hallway had dark gray walls and a long dark red rug that seemed endless.
“You’re in here.” Logan walked ahead and opened the second door to our right.
I followed him inside. It looked like what I pictured a bedroom at Versailles to look like, gold and red wallpaper, portraits of women from hundreds of years ago, and a gold, ornate four-post queen-size bed in the center of the room. Above it, a glass chandelier I was sure my mother would drool over. There was a duffel bag on the floor and a garment bag on the bed. I walked toward it, unzipping the garment bag. I was expecting a dress or something. What I found was a black cloak. I glanced at Logan over my shoulder.
“I’m supposed to wear this?”
“Yes.” He glanced at his watch. “You have twenty-five minutes to dress and meet me downstairs. Can you do that?”
“I mean, I’m basically throwing a shapeless black thing over myself, so yes.”
“I’m right next door if you need me.” He left the room and closed the door behind him.
I stared at it for a moment before kicking myself into movement. Unzipping the duffel bag on the floor, I found underwear, the skimpy kind you buy on an anniversary to wear for your significant other. Not the kind you buy to wear under a cloak.
“Bastard.” I threw the underwear down, kicking myself for not having his number to text him about this.
It wasn’t like I had anyone I could send a picture of this to for conversation or advice. Celia couldn’t find out about this. Hailey was out of the question. So, I kept it to myself and looked at the rest of the stuff. A pair of leggings, a pair of jeans, two T-shirts and a sundress. All my size. That gave me pause, but I didn’t have much time to dwell on it now. I slipped off my coat and pulled my shirt over my head. Should I put the cloak over my jeans? I frowned for a beat. I couldn’t imagine why that would be a problem. I would’ve gotten away with leaving my shirt on too, I supposed, but I didn’t want to waste more time.
According to what he’d said, I had five minutes to meet him downstairs. I made sure everything was put away before looking at myself in the mirror. I looked like a creepy nun with this getup. A creepy nun who was wearing a lacy red bra. Turning away from the mirror, I walked over to the window. The woods were behind the house, but there was a big white shack looking thing that seemed to share land with the house right beside us. I hadn’t even noticed there was a house there when we pulled in. It had been impossible to see with all the trees in the way. I craned my neck to get a better look at their yard. There were holes on the ground that looked like a cemetery. I shivered. Were we staying beside a cemetery? I made myself snap out of it and walk out of the room to meet Logan downstairs.