The Flesh Cartel, #10: False Gods

middle of nowhere. He could grab Roger. Choke him. Snap his neck, even, like he’d seen in the movies. Except he wasn’t that strong, was he? But he could grab his arms and make him swerve the car, and maybe they’d all die in some dark ditch but at least that would be the end of it. This sad fucking story.
    Or maybe it wouldn’t. Maybe Mat would die and Roger would die and you’d have killed them both and Nikolai would never take you back and you’d be alone, all alone, fucked-up and unlovable and lost.
    Or he could go back. Go back and take his punishment and let Nikolai fix him no matter how much it hurt, how long it took, and then be happy again. Loved again. Never, ever alone again.
    You scaredy-cat. Chickenshit. Coward.
    No. Just . . . practical. He wanted to live. No matter what that took, no matter how ugly it might get, he wanted to live . And he wanted Mat to live, and Roger to live, and even if he did crash the car and even if they did all survive, what then? Nikolai would just send more men when they didn’t return.
    Nikolai’s punishment would come. It was always going to come, and there was no stopping it, and wasn’t that what Dougie wanted? A world that made sense, a world that followed rules, a world where what you saw was what you got and every promise was fulfilled.
    I want to go home . Back to school and back to Vegas and back to Serena Chang’s tits half falling from her too-tight shirt. Home.
    Nikolai is your home now.
    Oh God, maybe he should crash the car after all. Just crash it and kill himself and put an end to this fucking shouting match in his skull.
    But too late again, too late. The tires were already crunching up the graveled driveway. For all the hours he’d stumbled blindly behind Mat, stupidly trusting, stupidly hopeful , the drive back to Nikolai’s had only taken ten or fifteen minutes. God, they’d been fooling themselves even worse than he’d thought, hadn’t they? There’d never been any hope at all. They hadn’t gotten anywhere .
    No wonder there hadn’t been any guards. They’d never stood a fucking chance.
    Roger pulled up in front of the house, put the car into park, and turned to face Dougie. Dougie didn’t miss the tranq gun held firmly in one of Roger’s hands. Steady hands. A man with no split loyalties. A man who, yesterday, he thought he might’ve died for, if the need had arisen. But now . . . God, what now ? He felt . . . nothing. Not even hate.
    Roger inclined his head toward the house. Toward where Nikolai was no doubt waiting to bring Dougie back to heel. “It’s not too late to fix things,” Roger said, and Dougie hated how sincere he sounded, how sympathetic, how loving . “I know it may seem like it is, but it’s not. The master is a reasonable man, and he cares about you very much. I think you know that.”
    Dougie wasn’t willing to reply to that last bit, not just now, because he didn’t know that. Oh, he did, he did , but at the same time . . .
    Instead he just lowered his eyes, stared at his hands fidgeting in his lap because it was so much easier than looking at Mat or Roger or the house, and said, “I’ll go quietly.” Because, really, what else was he supposed to do? What options did he have? The thought of walking back through that door twisted his insides so bad his heart felt choked by his lower intestines, but fighting would only make things worse. So, so much worse.
    “I know you will, little guy.” Roger killed the engine, and the locks popped. “Go on up. He’s waiting for you. I’ll deal with your brother.”
    “But—” Dougie looked to Roger, to Mat still slumped unconscious beside him, to Roger again. “I mean, aren’t you—” coming with me? I can’t do this alone. I’m not strong enough. I’ll run, I’ll panic, I’ll stand frozen in the yard until the cold takes me, I’ll . . . I’ll . . . Please .
    Roger smiled sadly and shook his head. “You need to make the choice, Douglas. You need to prove to the master—and to yourself —that you’re strong enough. You are, I know it. I’ve seen it. You’ve made some terrible choices tonight, it’s true, but your brother can’t mislead you now; you’ll make the right choice this time.”
    Dougie wished he had half as much faith in himself as everyone else seemed to. Roger, Mat, Nikolai. But he’d let everyone down, hadn’t he. Every last one of them. Even though they each expected different and conflicting things, he’d somehow still