The Flesh Cartel #2: Auction

circled and poked and inspected.
    Don’t do anything stupid, Mat. Please don’t do anything stupid.
He didn’t. “Take the fighter to the holding pen with the others.
    As for the brother, I’d like to speak to him alone before he’s brought out. And Clarice, stop worrying over that crying bitch’s makeup, would you? I’ve never seen mascara running down a crying woman’s face lose me money in this business.”
    She swept out again, her entourage following behind.
    As soon as she’d left, one guard turned to another. “I don’t care what she says, that animal needs a fucking gag, so bring one along just in case.”
    Just then, Mat’s fingers drifted briefly, inconspicuously, across the tray on the sink where the bloody razorblade lay. But before he did anything else, he met Dougie’s eyes again, just as briefly.
No, Dougie thought as hard as he could. No, no, don’t be stupid it’s too risky no no no.
Mat’s hand fell, empty, to his side.
    35

chapter
four
    hey were separated again.
    T But God it had been good to see Dougie. A little bit gaunt, but clean and still with light in his eyes, not beaten yet. And not wearing that plug anymore, although Mat wasn’t sure how relieved he was on that point. Dougie was okay. There was still hope for them. They could still get out of this. Live to see the other side. He just didn’t know how. He wished he hadn’t put that razorblade down, but to have taken it after Dougie’s emphatic no would have been a betrayal.
    Two heavies frog-marched him down a different hall. Up a flight of stairs. Another hall. How big was this fucking place?
    At last, they stopped in a room whose feel, if not its exact appearance, resembled the changing room before a fight. Except against one wall was a row of tall cages, just big enough for a single man to stand up in. Or a woman. Several of the cages already held an occupant, a placard on each door displaying a string of letters and numbers. A man dressed all in black, wearing a headset and holding a clipboard and a portable scanner, approached Mat when the guards walked him in. No words were exchanged, but clearly this was an old routine, because one of the guards wrenched Mat’s left arm out to the side and held it there while Clipboard Guy passed the scanner over the microchip buried beneath his skin. The man nodded, checked something off on his clipboard, and said, “Cage fourteen.”
    36 They dragged Mat to an empty cage, unlocked it, and
    shoved him inside. It was tiny—no bigger than a shower stall at a public gym—and barred on all four sides. The cage to his right held a beautiful girl, naked like all the people in cages, and so young he felt sick with fury just looking at her.
    He hoped like fuck she was eighteen, but then, what did age of consent matter in a place where consent didn’t matter?
    The cage to his left was empty. He noticed one of his guards handing Clipboard Guy a bit
    gag on their way out. Well, at least they hadn’t forced it on him yet.
    “I’m Leslie,” the girl to his right said. She was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, staring him right in the eye. She had an intense look about her for someone so young. It made a mockery of the pigtails they’d done her up in. “I just wanted you to know that. Then at least somebody does.”
    He nodded solemnly. “Mathias. Carmichael.” The exchange seemed too weighty, too significant, to give her his nickname. “Do you know what they’re going to do with us?” “Kill us, hopefully.”
    Mat swallowed back sudden tears and the urge to scold, to tell her not to talk like that, not to give up. Who was he to decide what someone else could or couldn’t bear? “How old are you?” he asked instead. He didn’t know why. He didn’t want to know.
    “Not old enough for this shit.” And then she smiled. “I turned nineteen in August.” No tears in her eyes. They
    were hard, resigned. She shrugged, laughed humorlessly. “I spent the last two months hooking, anyway. Aged out of the system. Maybe this is God’s way of punishing me for all 37
    the shit I’ve done. But at least here I get three square meals and a roof.”
Aged out of the system. A cold chill chased down Mat’s spine.
It had to be a coincidence.
    “No bed though,” she said, in a tone like she was just talking to herself.
    Things were quiet after that. Between them, at least, though he heard murmurings now and then from some occupants. Others kept to themselves, afraid or ashamed,