What the fuck am I going to do with Gabriel?

I kidnapped her on a whim. But I can't take her home just like this. I don't have a home, I have a headquarters. So I need to come up with a plan.

But it's very hard to think when someone screams by your side, into your ears.

She made me re-evaluate my previous opinion about screaming women. The ones I've met until now weren't so bad. There was a certain charm in their screaming I failed to notice back then, in lack of an adequate comparative basis. I'm not saying I miss my scream queens, because that's the last thing I'd do, but they've been put into perspective, for sure.

Gabriel sounds like a fucking siren.

And she doesn't seem to get tired of it. She has some lungs, I'll give her that. But when will she stop? And why does she do that, in the first place?

Okay, everyone has strange habits. Olaf bites on his knuckles when distressed. Boulder grits his teeth. I, apparently, break things. Screaming isn't the worst thing you can do, I guess.

Jorge murders people, yeah, it just came into my mind.

Okay, screaming definitely isn't the worst.

I turn up the volume to the max, and that's it. I hope she likes heavy metal. Everything else is too mild to suppress her wailing.

The boys had already seen her when she came to convince me to steal Tobey back. And the idea of throwing her into one of those secured underground rooms we use for a prison doesn't sit well with me. I need her willing cooperation, if possible.

There's only one logical solution to make her blend in.

Just when I come to a conclusion, she abruptly shuts up. The music sounds insufferably loud at once. I turn it off. My head's grateful for the sudden silence.

"Is it over?" I ask her.

"Yes," she says, looking sincerely embarrassed. "Sorry. I had to."

"No problem."

"I know I'm strange when—"

"And I know people who do stranger things. No problem, I said."

She seems surprised. Or, better said, her unexpressive eyes show something that may be interpreted as a surprise, with a bit of stretch.

"We need to discuss the rules," I remind her.

"What rules?"

"The rules you need to follow if you want to stay alive after we've arrived at the headquarters."

"I like rules," she answers.

I roll my eyes.

"I hope you like to follow them in practice too, not just in theory. Anyway. You're my lover, if anyone asks. And you're not leaving my room, except with me."

"Sounds like fun." She nods, with an admirably straight face.

I can't decide if she's dead serious or she's mocking me.

"No resistance this time?" I ask her.

"No. My brain restarted in the meanwhile, thank you. Screaming works wonders."

"You mean, you noticed that resistance was futile?"

"I calculated everything in the last few minutes while talking, Mint. And I'll make my future decisions based on the results of said calculations, not stupid instincts that get you nowhere. I'm not a fucking rug, Mint."

I wish I were able to follow her.

"Okay, another thing," I say. "You can't call me Mint, obviously."

"Copy that."

"What will you call me then?"

"I won't call you anything, Mint. I can talk to you without saying your name all the time. I just learned from the movies that in order to sound normal, you need to mention the name of the person you're talking to, as many times as you can, for no reason."

"Well," I answer, "now that you're saying, that's a custom that always annoyed me. I mean, people already know their own names, right?"

"Exactly."

"I mean," I go on, "there are very cute names in the world, like Elise, for example, but no need to abuse them, repeating them all the time, right?"

"I agree." She smiles. "Who's that, by the way?"

I stare at her. She smiles wider. She's the greatest actress of our time, or she's suffering from a memory loss.

"Who is that, you ask?" I sneer at her. "Doesn't it ring a bell?"

"Sorry, I'm bad at remembering names."

I feel a rush of blood to my head.

"That's the only thing I asked for beating up sixty-eight of my men barehanded," I remind her. "Your fucking name."

"Oh."

"Oh, indeed."

"I forgot about it." She shrugs. "I have this problem, someone says my name, and I fail to react because—"

"Do you know what happens to people making a deal with me and trying to fuck me over?"

"Something not very nice, I'm afraid."

"Define not nice," I dare her, leaning a bit closer.

"Um, dying in an excessively violent way? You certainly don't want to kill me, Mint."

"How do the percentages look?"

"It's 79% that you won't kill me because of such a stupid issue."

"Do you call that certain?" I snort. "What a careless little tactical analyzer you are. There's a 21% probability that I will. Besides, we were talking about the chance of me wanting to kill you. Wanting. And right now, I have a 99.9% desire to strangle you, just saying."

"Oops. There goes a rare truth."

"Maybe you want to nudge me towards that 0.1%," I advise her. "I don't know a fucking thing about you. I want to know your real name, at least. I worked for it."

"Names are overrated," she says, trying to look away.

I don't let her. I grab her chin, and I force her to look me in the eyes.

"No thinking. No lying. Just your real name."

"All right!" she gives in. "All right! I just don't like it very much, okay?"

"Your. Real. Name."

"It's Jane," she confesses.

I can't help but smile. No matter how annoying she is, her real name really fits her. Elise was too cute for a woman like her. Jane sounds serious and clever. Just the way she is.

"Jane," I repeat, trying to refrain from grinning like an idiot. "This one sounds real."

"I know," she huffs. "I'm a natural-born Jane."

She's so cute, sulking over her name. I almost hug her on instinct, but I've had enough of the screaming for today. She's a bit sensitive to being touched. Like Boulder's eyes are sensitive to light, or Duke's skin is irritated by wearing synthetic clothes. No big deal. Everyone has something like that.

"I'll have to touch you when the guys are around," I warn her.

"Okay," she agrees without objections, to my surprise. "I already know how to hold hands."

"Incredible. Babies are born with that reflex, did you know that?"

She snorts and turns away.

She doesn't say a word when we arrive at my new headquarters. She doesn't say a word either when Boulder freaks out seeing her, muttering something like 'here comes trouble.' She doesn't say a word when I brief Jorge about the fact that she came to stay, and Jorge forgets to close his mouth for five minutes. She remains silent until I show her to my loft.

Okay, it's just a big room with a bathroom, rather. I had no time to choose something nice when my last place got compromised. By her, to be precise.

"Where will I sleep?" she asks.

"In the bed," I inform her.

"Okay. Where will you sleep, then?"

"Come on. It's a double bed. There's enough space for two people."

"I don't think I could sleep with someone by my side," she says.

"I don't think I could, either. But we don't have any other choice than to try, do we? You're my lover. That's the backstory. You agreed to that."

"Maybe you could buy another bed. Being a mercenary lord, you probably have the money to do that, but if you don't, my salary at the kindergarten will cover—"

"Lovers," I interrupt her. "I already told you about the snake pit we're in. The moment they start to suspect something—"

"Oh, come on. Conan the barbarian almost swallowed his tongue to keep a straight face when you introduced me to him. They already—"

"He's called Jorge. And he's observant."

"Well, he might be. But your other men have eyes too, sadly."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Come on, Mint. Why on Earth would a man like you choose a woman like me? It's absurd! You have access to all the women in the world! We're already fucking suspicious, one way or another! A separate bed—"

"Okay," I lose my patience. "Let's make something clear. You're not a guest here. You're kidnapped, all right?"

She shuts up, finally.

"So your options are quite limited," I go on. "You sleep in the fucking bed or on the floor. Understood?"

"I can't sleep on the floor, either. I already tried, and—"

"I don't care, Jane."

"You're fucking annoying, Mint."

"Remember, you can't call me—"

"There's no one else around."

"But there will be," I remind her. "So you better practice, or else you might involuntarily—"

"I don't do things involuntarily. I'm not driven by my stupid feelings, preconceptions, and beliefs, like a neurotypical."

"What the fuck does that mean? It's something you made up like the guardian angel bullshit, right? Oh, never mind, just shut up already."

Later, at night, when we lie side by side, with our backs turned on each other, I kinda re-evaluate the issue of separate beds. She's as tense as an archery bow. There's no hugging, or touching, she barely breathes, she's so quiet, yet her evident unease keeps me up.

I think about the thing she asked me. Do I want her by my side just because I don't want Duke to have her?

Yes, probably.

When I hear her light snoring from the other side, it lulls me to sleep, too.