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Three stiff black knots. He poked through a fourth while Dougie watched. Mat’s fingers were curled tight around the armrests he was strapped to, but he didn’t move. The woman came up beside Mat, rasped a finger across the light stubble they’d left on his cheek, the heavier stubble they’d left on his head. He looked wiry and mean, fighting fit despite all he’d been through, down to peak weight and rippling with muscle. All the cuts and bruises—and especially the one they’d just made and sewn up—only 33 served to highlight the effect: I’m a badass motherfucker, don’t cross me.
By comparison, they’d made Dougie softer and sweeter and more delicate, like something to be handled very carefully. And if the woman’s orders were anything to go by, he actually was going to be handled delicately. For now, at least.Both of them had been exaggerated to some strange sexual extreme. Two poles of the same miserable planet.
    Dougie’s attention snapped back to the present when someone fastened something around his neck. Tight, like a choker, but not digging in. Cold, delicate. His hands were untied, so he touched fingers to it, traced some kind of woven chain, heavier than a necklace. At the center was a little round disc hanging off a loop, like a tag on a dog collar, stamped with what felt like one long word. He couldn’t see it, but he’d bet anything it was the number designation the doctor had assigned him at processing. Someone was fitting a collar around Mat’s neck as well.
    Literally a collar—a choke chain, like you’d put on a savage dog. They clipped a little ring to one link to stop it from getting too loose, but it could still be pulled tight. A steel disc hung from his collar as well, an inch across, presumably stamped with his designation too.
    Madame slipped a finger through the ring on the end of the chain and yanked it until Mat’s mouth fell open, hands straining against his bindings. “And this one?” she said. “Is he done?”
“Just as you requested, Madame.”
    She indicated the straps on his wrists with a careless wave. “Will he bite?”
    “We can gag him, Madame.” 34 “No. Let him speak. Stand him up.”
    Mat flopped bonelessly as they unbound him, but for just a fraction of a second, he met Dougie’s eyes, and Dougie saw clarity there. The drug must’ve been wearing off. Which meant he was faking that jointless sprawl, faking his weakness as two guards hauled him to his feet and held him there while Madame 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