The Flesh Cartel #9: Trials and Errors by Rachel Haimowitz Page A

his eyes and leaned into the touch, like some needy cat but sexual, somehow, made him want to pull his hand away again. But he resisted the urge. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t mean it. He just . . . needs you.
    And you need him, too. You can’t live without him. Not his fault he’s too fucked up to express that properly anymore.
    Okay, so Mat would be stuck with the gag a little longer. Maybe there was a shed or something in the garden. Not that he wanted to put rusty gardening equipment anywhere near his face. Oh well, no point in worrying about tetanus when they hadn’t even made it out of the house yet.
    Shit. Which way was out? How to ask? He tucked one stick beneath his arm and made a walking man with two fingers, mimicking going down steps with them.
    “Stairs?” Dougie asked, and then his eyes lit up. “You want to go back downstairs?”
    No! Mat shook his head vehemently. Damn, well, it was hardly Dougie’s fault for not thinking of the stairs that led down to the front drive. He tried again. Drew a rectangle in the air with one finger, then mimed turning a doorknob— The front door, kiddo, where’s the front door? —and when Dougie just cocked his head at him like some confused dog, he tucked both sticks between his knees and wrapped his arms around his blanketed chest, shivering as if outside in the cold. Made a broad, expansive gesture for the sky.
    Then took a hold of the sticks again because he felt fucking naked standing here without a weapon, never mind that he’d been trained as one himself.
    And still Dougie didn’t seem to get it. God, how messed up was Dougie that he didn’t instinctively know where they needed to go? They were wasting fucking time here. If he didn’t figure it out soon, Mat would just have to pick a direction and hope. There had to be night guards or something prowling the halls, preventing slaves from escaping, preventing cops or even unwitting outsiders from getting in. They were running out of fucking time .
    “Front door,” he said, trying his best to whisper through the gag, but it came out as something a little closer to hrnt oor . Well, oor rhymed with door, at least. He tried again. Oor. Oor.
    Click , and Dougie’s addled fucking mind jumped into action. “You want to go out. A-are you sure that’s a good idea?”
    Good idea? Probably not, but it’s our only option now. I have to get you out of here, good idea or not, suicide mission or not. Mat nodded.
    “Follow me,” Dougie sighed. Sniffled. Stepped forward.
    Mat caught him by the arm and shook his head. No. Pointed. You stay behind me. He brandished his sticks. If we come up against anybody, I want them tasing me first.
    “Please don’t hurt anyone,” Dougie whispered, and Mat’s teeth dug so hard into the bit he hurt his fucking jaw, but Dougie slunk behind him and meekly pointed right. Like an obedient little slave, and that thought made Mat as sick with fury as Dougie’s twisted fucking concern for the members of this twisted fucking household. No room for anger now, though, no room—just like in a match, and God, he’d never fought one so important, except for maybe the one he’d lost against the bruisers who’d first brought them to Madame’s—so he forced it all down, buried it for later, and led Dougie right.
    The hall was mostly dark, thin slivers of light spilling in from somewhere—moonlight through a window, perhaps, or maybe a guard’s flashlight. His eyes had adjusted enough to see, but just barely, and every twitch and shadow sent his heart jumping, his hands jerking with the instinct to strike. He wouldn’t have even half a second to spare if they stumbled across someone; he’d need to knock them out before they could alert anyone else, make any noise, scream for help.
    But all the shadows were just shadows. No threat, no danger. Just an overactive limbic system in a house full of all-too-real horrors.
    At last, the hall opened up onto the broad, fancy foyer