The Flesh Cartel #5: Wins and Losses

God, let go or you’re gonna break my arm!”
The pressure eased a tiny bit. Enough, though, for Mat not to worry about his body doing something stupid without his brain’s permission. He sucked in a shuddering breath, tried to relax his muscles.
“If I let go, will you be a good little pet and hold still?”
“I’m holding still now, aren’t I?” Mat snapped. They both knew what he meant, too, he was sure of that.
Nikolai let go.
Mat’s arm flopped painfully to his side, but he left it where it lay. He held still.
“Now stay. Disobey me and you won’t like the consequences.”
Consequences. That fucking word again. If he ever—no, when he got out of this hellhole, it wouldn’t be enough to just save Dougie, or even to tear down this whole sick operation in his wake. No. He’d kill Nikolai. That thought gave him the strength to stay in place as Nikolai crossed the room, over to the table where Mat had left his list.
“Hmm,” Nikolai said, but all Mat could focus on was the unmistakable clink of a belt being unbuckled and then the whisper of leather pulled across fine woolen fabric.
He’s going to belt me. Like a bad child.
“Oh, this is interesting.” The swiffing sound of a piece of paper sliding across a smooth surface. Mat couldn’t decide if it was better or worse than the sound of Nikolai’s belt sliding from its loops. No doubt they’d both hurt him. He just wasn’t sure how yet.
“Winning, Mathias? Really? How very sad and confrontational to live a life whose meaning inherently hinges on someone else losing.” Footsteps. Nikolai drawing closer. Right next to him, now, though Mat kept his eyes forward, didn’t look. “Yet another thing outside yourself. Like Douglas—whom I see from all the boxes and underlines you’re still quite fervent about,” he added dryly. “So tell me, Mathias . . .” Fingertips brushed over his ass again, there and gone, and then a loud crack and a stripe of fire followed in their wake. Mat jerked, shouted—it was unexpected, that was all. He hadn’t been prepared for it. “How does one win at this?”
By not giving you the satisfaction of knowing you’ve hurt me, fucker. By not letting it break me again like it did before. By not letting you scare me with it.
All of which was a lot easier to think when Nikolai wasn’t hitting him. It got bad fast. Very, very fast. And Nikolai wasn’t stopping this time. Maybe Mat should’ve answered him out loud. Maybe Nikolai figured Mat didn’t feel like chatting so why bother with more words. Another strike. Another. Another. Ten, twelve, fifteen. He lost count. Couldn’t think. Needed to buy some fucking time.
“You—” he gasped between one hit and the next.
Nikolai paused, thank fucking God. “Yes?”
“You outlast it.”
“Fair enough. So say your endurance outlasts my energy to hit you. What if when I’m tired I give you the serum? What if you outlast five hours of pain, and I give you another, and another? Do you win then?”
Mat didn’t know how to reply to that without conceding the point. Nikolai went back to beating his ass like the belt might somehow knock the answer out of him. God, couldn’t he hit him somewhere else? Felt like he was being fucking flayed alive. He squirmed, shifted—holding still was impossible now anyway—hoping to make the belt land anywhere but on that same patch of napalm-slick skin—
“I asked you a question, boy. I expect an answer. And while my aim is impeccable, I assure you, if you don’t hold still, I’ll end up hitting something I shouldn’t. Your spine. A kidney. Your balls. Do you want that?”
“No,” he rasped, and it was a fucking miracle he could get the word out without letting loose the scream behind it. “I don’t . . . I don’t know what then. I’d keep going, I guess. Hang on.”
Nikolai drove the belt down again, right across the brightest mass of agony on his left buttock. Mat screamed. “Like you are now? Does this feel like winning?” Another strike. Another. Mat screamed again, balled the bedcovers in his fists, ground them between his teeth. They were damp beneath his cheeks. More than sweat.
His screams must have been reply enough, because Nikolai said, softly, “Perhaps you need to reconsider what it means to win here, Mathias.”
“I can’t win,” he moaned into the bed. “That’s what you want to hear, right? That I can fight and fight and fight but you’re always going to be—”
Nikolai rubbed what he probably