They spent every day after that taking turns giving him a new first name.

His personal favourite was Pubert Osmanthus Carmichael Summers.

He had no idea why.

Probably because it was fucking ridiculous.

Just like them.

Then they reached six months.

The length of their initial contract.

Summers knew it was unlikely to mean the end of their assignment, but when the monster emerged that evening, he stood waiting to be acknowledged.

He could only speak when spoken to.

He could not ask about leaving unless the subject of their contract was raised. They could not abandon their posts. They could not discuss the terms of their employment with anyone outside the room.

All of it was enforced by one thing.

A fucking blood pact.

Fucking supernatural bullshit.

Their boss crossed the room without looking at them, a leather bag stuffed with documents hanging from one hand.

Summers remained at attention, waiting.

Finally, the monster glanced in his direction.

“Well?” he said impatiently. “Hurry up and speak.”

“Our initial contract term has been completed,” Summers said.

Their boss waved one hand as though the matter were beneath his concern.

“It has already been officially extended. I am nowhere near finished with my business here.”

“We would like to terminate our contracts.”

The monster stopped.

He turned slowly, irritation twisting his refined features. One lip curled, revealing a second sharp canine beside the first.

“I decide when I am done with you,” he said. “Do you understand?”

Summers wanted to argue.

Gods, he wanted to.

But the headache struck hard and fast, agony driving through his skull.

Their boss continued.

“Your lives belong to me. I could make them far more miserable than they are now, so do not test my patience. Do as you are told and remain exactly as you are.”

Summers fought the command.

He really fucking fought it.

He reached for his gun, or tried to. He imagined drawing it and shooting the fucker in the face. Imagined Ben building an IED powerful enough to scatter him across the entire hotel. Imagined anything that might offer them a chance of escape.

His fingers twitched uselessly at his side.

Blood began trickling from his nose as his body strained against the pact.

“Yes, sir,” he finally forced out.

The pain vanished instantly.

Their boss hardly spared them another glance before walking away.

Summers wiped the blood from beneath his nose.

He had failed.

Again.

Then he turned, already knowing what he would find.

Ben and Kyle looked utterly furious.

Livid.

Hart looked calm, as though he had expected nothing else.

Needless to say, none of them spoke that night.

When Summers woke the following morning, Kyle was sitting at the surveillance station, spinning one of his knives and looking as though he wanted to hunt something.

Ben was nowhere in sight, but water was running in the bathroom.

Summers checked the time.

He got up anyway, even though it meant Hart might wake without him.

“How long has he been in there?” Summers asked.

Kyle blinked.

He frowned as though returning from somewhere very far away, then checked the time.

“Forty minutes?”

Summers stared towards the bathroom.

Something cold and ugly stirred beneath his ribs.

He crossed the room and knocked.

“Ben?”

No answer.

The bad feeling sharpened.

He tried the handle.

Locked.

“Fuck.”

Summers moved immediately, slamming his full weight into the door. The lock tore free and the door crashed inward.

Then his heart stopped.

Ben was curled naked on the shower floor, water pouring over him. Blood streamed from his nose. His eyes were red-rimmed, and the barrel of his gun was pressed into his mouth.

“Fuck! Ben!”

Summers dropped beside him.

He gently pried the weapon from Ben’s cold fingers, then unloaded and disassembled it with lightning speed, scattering the harmless components across the tiles.

Ben choked.

“I—I couldn’t do it.” His entire body shook. “I’m sorry. Sorry. I’m so sorry.”

Summers pulled him close.

“I’m here. I’ve got you.”

Ben broke against him, choking on every breath as he sobbed into Summers’s chest.

“I’ve got you,” Summers repeated. “You’re with me. Stay with me. Breathe.”

Hart appeared in the doorway and calmly reached past them to turn off the water.

Kyle followed with a towel, draping it over Ben’s shivering body and then around Summers’s shoulders.

“He would never have been able to pull the trigger,” Hart said matter-of-factly.

Summers’s heart lurched.

“The blood pact would have prevented it.”

His blood ran cold.

“How do you know?”

Hart shrugged.

“I spent a week trying, about a month after we arrived.”

Summers stared at him.

Then he looked at Kyle.

Kyle did not appear surprised.

If anything, he looked as though he understood exactly what Hart meant.

As though he had tried too.

Fuck.

Fucking fuck.

Summers had never imagined he might be grateful for the blood pact.

But here he fucking was, kneeling on a flooded bathroom floor with his three broken disasters, thanking every god that supernatural compulsion had stopped them from dying.

They were so fucking fucked.

Summers rubbed slow circles over Ben’s back until his sobs began to weaken.

Then he pressed his mouth close to Ben’s wet hair.

“It was your turn to give me a name today.”

Ben groaned against his chest.

Summers held him tighter.

“I’ll give you a hint.”

Ben gradually went still.

For several seconds, the only sound was water dripping onto the tiles.

Then Summers surrendered the last fragile scrap of distance he had left.

“My name starts with A.”

🥜🥜🥜

Summers did not go to the gym.

He spent the rest of the morning holding the brat, who seemed nowhere near ready to let him go.

Ben’s first-name guess was, of course, fucking Artichoke.

Why?

Who the fuck knew?

But it made them laugh again.

That night was the first time all four of them shared a bed.

They dragged it closer to the surveillance station so they could continue taking shifts at the feeds, but none of them strayed far. They remained close, tightly knit together beneath the blankets.

The following day, Ben stole another handful of Hart’s peanuts and said, “You know, we’re closer than family at this point.”

He tossed one into his mouth.

“Closer than mine ever was, anyway.”

Kyle glanced at him. “You still keep in touch with them?”

“Nope.” Ben ate another peanut. “My mum died when I was nineteen. Depression. Dad had already remarried years before that.”

Then he looked around at them.

“But you boys?” He shook his head. “Fuck, we’re practically married at this point. I even know where Kyle buried the bodies.”

Kyle spun one of his knives.

“Not all of them.”

Ben huffed. “Enough of them. Seriously, how were you never caught?”

Kyle shrugged.

“I’m very good at cleaning.”

Ben looked around the immaculate hotel room and apparently decided he couldn’t argue with that.

Neither could Summers. Cleaning seemed to be how Kyle regulated himself, and he approached the hotel room with forensic precision. Honestly, it was no surprise he had once been one of the most successful contract killers specialising in abusive men.

Then, out of nowhere, Hart said, “When we get out, we should buy a house together.”

Silence fell.

Summers’s heart gave one heavy thud.

No one spoke for several seconds.

Then Kyle said, “It would have to be within walking distance of a gym.”

Hart nodded. “And have enough bench space for your cooking.”

“And a huge television,” Ben added. “With a comfortable-as-fuck couch.”

Hart made a small noise.

“Obviously.”

Kyle turned to Summers.

“What are your favourite cookies?”

Summers froze.

He had no fucking idea.

Then a long-buried memory surfaced: warm biscuits cooling on a metal tray, the scent of toasted nuts and melting chocolate filling a kitchen he had not allowed himself to remember in years.

“White chocolate and macadamia,” he said.

Ben looked surprised. “Really? I’ve never had those.”

“Neither have I,” Hart said.

Kyle grinned.

“I can already smell them.”

And, unfortunately, Summers could too.

Freshly baked cookies. Kyle moving around a proper kitchen. Hart sitting somewhere he could see every entrance. Ben sprawled across an enormous couch, complaining about something while crumbs covered his shirt.

All four of them under one roof.

Fuck.

Summers hated how much he wanted it.