The Flesh Cartel, #10: False Gods

shut—no sudden movements, no loud startling noises. He heard the click of the automatic locks, noticed immediately there was no way to open them again from the backseat—someone had broken off the manual lock lever—and by the time he’d turned back again, the gun was pointed squarely at the center of his chest.
    Good. Better him than Dougie.
    Roger squeezed the trigger, and the world went black.

    “ No! ” Dougie threw himself at the gap between the front seats, knocking Roger’s hand away, knocking the gun away, but he was too late, too late, heard a too-quiet pop-hiss and Mat grunted and jerked, hand flying to his chest and then slumping, limp as the rest of him, in the darkened chasm of the backseat. “No!” Dougie screamed again, even though it was too late, even as Roger shoved him against his seat with a hard hit to the sternum from the butt of the gun.
    “It’s just a tranq dart. Master doesn’t want him rabbiting again. I don’t have to shoot you too, do I?”
    “No,” Dougie said, for the third time, but this time it was a sad little whisper. It seemed to be enough for Roger, though, who lowered the gun and then lifted a cell phone to his ear. Distantly, Dougie heard ringing, heard the faint “Hello, Roger” from Nikolai on the other end. His chest hitched at the sound, one-quarter conditioned pleasure, three-quarters terror.
    “I’ve got them, Master.”
    Speech from Nikolai then, something short that Dougie couldn’t make out beyond the general tone of satisfaction.
    “No, no trouble, Master.” Pause. “Yes, Master, just like you said, about half a mile south of the forest service road. We’ll be there soon.”
    He hung up, pointed a silent finger at Dougie— You be good now, you hear? —then turned and started the car.
    Started back to Nikolai’s.
    Dougie eyed the dart sticking out of Mat’s chest, fingers itching to remove it, but instead he clenched them in his lap. Pressed himself against his seat, exactly equidistant between the dangerous car door and his dangerous brother. Not touching anything. Especially not Mat.
    Mat, who wasn’t dead but wasn’t alive either, wasn’t okay, would never be okay again, not anymore, not now that Roger was dragging them back there. But Dougie? Dougie was fucking relieved , at least in part, to be going back to Nikolai, back to routine and responsibility, all the things that Mat didn’t have, that Nikolai wouldn’t give him.
    Mat deserved to be free. Needed to be free.
    Dougie wasn’t sure what he needed. Didn’t even know what he wanted . To be free out in the wilds by his brother’s side, or to be a good boy , loved and safe and cherished?
    He wished he’d never run. When he’d woken up this morning things had been so clear and simple, and now they were all fucked up. Roger was focused on the road, no answers coming from the back of his head, and Dougie was too afraid to ask the questions because what if he never stopped? Questioning, that’s what had brought him here in the first place, questions and doubts cracking away at his safety and certainty and what had it gotten him?
    Your brother back. Yourself back. Clarity. Distance. Perspective.
    Yeah, and what had that gotten him? Nothing but fucking trouble. What the fuck was he supposed to do with perspective in a locked fucking car or a locked fucking room in a locked fucking house in the middle of nowhere with a master who wouldn’t let him keep it? Oh God, he’d have to start all the fuck over again now, wouldn’t he? Have to . . . have to suffer again, bleed again, need again before he could ever kneel again at Nikolai’s feet and mean it, be happy there, survive and thrive, and fuck Mat for forcing that on him, for stripping him of weeks, months of labor, of scant inches torturously gained. He couldn’t go back to that. He couldn’t . He didn’t want to be Nikolai’s good boy again. Wouldn’t survive another transformation.
    Another breaking. He broke you.
    But you were happy then.
    No. He turned to Mat, slumped on the seat beside him, thought of all his brother had tried to do, how brave ( foolish! ) he’d always been, how strong ( stupid! ), how willing to risk it all for what mattered ( prideful and stubborn! ), thought, I should be more like him. I should be brave. I should take control of my own life. I should stop this.
    He looked at the back of Roger’s head again. Roger’s hands on the wheel. Roger’s car on some dark lonely two-lane highway in the