The Flesh Cartel, #10: False Gods

to get them into such deep shit and then balk at the consequences? Well, Dougie would show him how to bear it with dignity. Maybe he’d learn a thing or two. Learn to accept his place with grace and poise, like a slave was supposed to. And lead me not into temptation anymore.
    Mat turned away from Dougie—probably couldn’t bear the reprobation in Dougie’s eyes, and wow, big bro was just revealing himself as one kind of chicken after another tonight, wasn’t he? He looked to Roger instead, started trying to talk to him. Well, grunting around his gag, jerking his arms as far as the straps would let him, like he was trying to gesture.
    Roger moved to stand by Mat’s head, reached back into his pocket, and pulled out a second whatever-it-was. Placed them both in one palm and held them just over Mat’s chest.
    Mat stopped jerking and nodded. Frantically. Huffed what Dougie thought was a Please around his gag.
    But then Roger straightened up and shook his head and said, “No, I’m sorry, it doesn’t work that way. Not this time.” Mat squeezed his eyes shut, and a few fresh tears leaked from the corners. He shook his head. Grunted another Please , more insistent than the last.
    “I’m sorry,” Roger said again, and Dougie’s anger—quashed momentarily by curiosity—began to rise again. Whatever magical fucking psychic exchange they were having, it was fucking rude to be excluding him from it, he was right here for fuck’s sake, and he was so. Fucking. Tired of all the bullshit. Just wanted this over and done with. Mat had already fallen off his pedestal and broken into a million pieces; nothing left for Dougie to do now but crawl away from the shards and hope he wouldn’t cut himself as he went. Hope he’d still be fit for Nikolai’s love when he came back.
    Roger’s back straightened, and in the blink of an eye his arm had moved, striking as fast as a snake. Oh, it was an auto-injector, like an EpiPen. Stuck in Mat’s naked, trembling thigh now, and God, the noise Mat made at that, like some broken pup, like he was dying , half-swallowed like he didn’t want Dougie to hear. Roger pulled the needle free. Rubbed at the site of the injection a second or two, then ran a hand over the top of Mat’s head. Tears were squeezing out of Mat’s eyes, and he was sniffling and hiccupping, teeth digging so hard into the gag Dougie half expected it to break.
    Just stop looking at him.
    A shadow fell over Dougie, and now Roger was standing over him, holding the second auto-injector in his fist. Dougie nodded at him, determined to show up Mat. He hoped that somewhere, Nikolai was watching. That somewhere, Nikolai would see how obedient Dougie was being, what a good brave boy. “Go ahead. I’m not afraid.”
    “I know you’re not,” Roger said, but he didn’t seem proud or impressed. More upset than anything. Sad, maybe. Or angry. Dougie thought he knew Roger pretty well, but right now . . . right now he felt as if Roger were a stranger. Well, maybe he was. They’d been nearly brothers, there, at least for a while, but now some crucial understanding between them had been eroded away. Because Roger couldn’t comprehend any reason to ever try to leave their master, while Dougie, even if only for a fleeting moment, had , and there was no bridging that.
    Off to his right, Mat lurched and wailed, rattling the bed frame, and Roger winced.
    “I’m not afraid,” Dougie said again, even though he kind of was now. How could he not be, hearing the noises Mat was making? Mat, who’d take a beating in the ring that would bring most men to tears ten times over, and then brush himself off and go party half the night. Mat, his stupid, stubborn, strong-as-an-ox, fatally prideful brother.
    Roger brushed thoughtful fingers over Dougie’s bare thigh, like he was trying to re-map Dougie, find his way back to the man he knew Dougie could be. Should be. Had been, before Mat had ruined everything. Dougie wished he had a hand free, just so he could grasp Roger’s, show him how serious he was when he said, “Help me come home, Roger.”
    Roger slammed the auto-injector into his thigh.

Dougie had been sure he was going to die, couldn’t foresee any other outcome to this unending agony, but suddenly he was surfacing into awareness, the pain still lapping at his body but most definitely receding. The tide going out. And when it did, what would be left of him—of his body, his sanity, his dignity—on the shore? He