Trials and Errors (8 page)

And was hit face-on with cold air and starlight so fucking beautiful he could have cried.

Probably would’ve, if not for Dougie crowding up behind him, pressing right into his back, as stubborn as a barnacle.

This was it.

Freedom.

Gotta move. Appreciate it later.
Preferably from the lobby of a police station.

Of course, the big fucking question was: where to
go
? They could follow the driveway, but if someone woke and noticed them missing, that’d be the first place they’d look. The forest was safer. Maybe they could parallel the driveway from thirty or forty feet deep in the tree line. Shit, he was freezing. His feet were already numb just standing out here on the porch. Maybe that was for the best, though; a single pair of wool socks wasn’t exactly much protection from all the rocks and sticks and shit littering the forest floor, and at least this way he wouldn’t feel the pain so much. Dougie was shivering too, but he was dressed pretty warm; Mat didn’t think it was the cold making his little brother shake.

Damn it. Fuck shit damn!
His fingers tightened around his sticks. He’d never wanted to hit something so badly in his entire life.

Behind him, Dougie made an awful little mewling sound. Like he’d sensed Mat’s anger and was terrified by it. Mat forced himself to relax. Stay loose and easy. Stay sharp. Get moving.
Come on,
he tried to say, but it came out, “Kuh uh.” Whatever, close enough. He darted down the stairs and onto the driveway, and Dougie followed. Still a lost puppy, hugging himself, body small and frightened as he darted behind Mat and followed him into the shadowy overgrowth.

Stay close, kiddo. Just like when we used to go running. Stay close to me.

Mat had never bought into the barefoot running fad, a fact that was becoming really apparent now. It felt like he was walking on broken glass, and they’d barely made it past the tree line. Oh well, at least out here in the wilderness there was no risk of stepping on somebody’s used hypodermic like back in Vegas.

Dougie followed close behind, still hugging himself, breathing heavily so that plumes of white breath erupted from him like from a steam engine’s stack. It was darker in the trees. Harder to see. Mat tripped over something, stumbled three or four feet down an incline, stubbed his toe before regaining his balance. He’d dropped one of his sticks in the process. Didn’t really see a point in picking it back up. In tight quarters like these, poplar trunks growing skinny and close, he’d be better off bare-handed. He dropped the other stick. Squinted up through the canopy at the stars. Found the Big Dipper and then the North Star, off to his left. Which meant the mountain was sloping down to the east. Perfect. If they were anywhere near where the foliage seemed to suggest they were, the ranges in this area ran mostly north to south. Heading east meant they’d run into civilization sooner rather than later.

Except they didn’t. The going was painfully slow in the dark and the muscle-cramping cold, especially with Dougie lagging behind, still sniffling like a child. Mat was freezing, and thirsty, and it was hard to breathe through this fucking gag, and God, he didn’t even want to
think
about his feet. If he managed to survive this ordeal with all his toes intact, he’d be genuinely surprised. The cold had numbed nearly every inch of him, and what it didn’t numb, it shot through with burning pins and needles. He lost sight of the driveway without even realizing it’d happened. Hiked down and hit a gulch. No way out but back up. Nearly fucking vertical. No easy feat wrapped in a fucking blanket. Dougie didn’t seem to be faring much better. He was dressed more appropriately, but not for this, not for winter in the fucking mountains in the middle of the fucking night. The wind tore at their hair. Dougie looked . . . listless. Like he was going where Mat led him only because he couldn’t bear to be alone. Like he hated every fucking step of it. Like a man walking to the gallows who didn’t even have the balls to be indignant about it, just scared and small and sad.

They scrambled their way back up the other side of the gulch. Sat to rest, just for a moment. Too long was dangerous—they’d freeze if they stopped moving. Dougie pulled the folded bedsheet from his down jacket with trembling fingers and wrapped it around his head and shoulders. Turned to Mat, eyes wet and luminous in the moonlight, and spoke his first words in what must’ve been hours: “I want to go home.”

I know, kiddo. I’m doing my best. We’ll hit a town eventually, I promise. We’ll talk to the cops. Maybe we’ll get home, maybe they sold our home like Madame and Nikolai said, but it doesn’t matter. We’ll get a hotel, and then we’ll get an apartment, and home will be wherever we’re together. I’ll take care of you. I’ll never fail you again.

Dougie just blinked at him, shivered, shook his head like maybe he’d read Mat’s thoughts right off his face. “Mat, I want to go
home.
”

Fucking gag.
Mat nodded back instead. Hauled himself to his throbbing feet. Reached out to take Dougie by the shoulders and pull him into a gentle hug. God, he could barely stand to touch the kid right now; it all felt so twisted and sexual. He wanted to hug his little brother like a normal person, hug him and pet his hair and even kiss him, and know one hundred percent that there was nothing ominous or inappropriate in it.

Damn Nikolai for taking that from them.

Dougie tore himself out of Mat’s arms, hugged himself instead, tears streaking down a face twisted with grief and fury. “It’s cold out and I’m tired and you’re
lost
, Mat! It’s not safe out here and you’ve . . . you’ve ruined
everything
, damn you! Why did you do this? Take me back. Take me back and we can still
fix this
. Nikolai can fix this!”

No stopping himself—Mat hauled back and slapped him.

Regretted it the instant the sound of impact rang out in the silent woods. Dougie crumpled, falling to his knees in the frost-covered duff. He cradled his cheek in both hands, sobbing bitterly.

God, what have I done?

“Take me home. Take me b-back. I hate you. I hate you.” Dougie rocked himself, clutching his cheek. “Hate you. Hate you. Hate you.”

Something in Mat’s chest seized so hard he couldn’t breathe for several long moments. He wanted to vomit. To scream. To rip Nikolai’s face off and shove it up the fucker’s ass.

“I
hate you
,” Dougie spat again.

No
,
kiddo,
no
, you can’t mean that. You can’t mean that. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have hit you, but damn it, what else am I supposed to fucking do?

Mat couldn’t say any of it. He just crouched there, watching Dougie cry, repeating “Hate you” over and over until it stopped sounding like words. When Mat reached out to try to touch him, try to apologize by gesture at least, Dougie fell back, swinging wildly to knock Mat’s hands away.

“Don’t you fucking touch me, don’t you fucking touch what’s not yours! You don’t get to touch me anymore. This is all your fucking fault! If you had protected me, if you hadn’t gotten into those underground fights, started meeting all the wrong people! If you hadn’t been so fucking stubborn, hadn’t fought everyone at Madame’s like a fucking animal and caught Nikolai’s eye for it! If you—” He hiccupped a sob, swallowed it down, clutched at a handful of duff and hurled it at Mat’s chest. “If you— If you hadn’t let me go to fucking foster care in the f-first place . . .”

All true. All true. But none of that—
none
of that cut as deeply as what followed: “If you’d just
left
me back at Nikolai’s where I f-fucking
belong
!”

Mat thumped to the ground, stunned senseless. It took him far too long to realize that awful keening noise wasn’t coming from Dougie.

And fuck, but Dougie had shouted so loud they’d probably been heard for miles. How far had they gotten from the house? Would people be coming now? They needed to
move
. He stood back up, but when he tried to go, Dougie didn’t follow.

Damn you. Get up.
He grabbed Dougie by one wrist and
yanked
, not caring if he broke the kid’s arm if it would just get him fucking
moving
. Not caring how much Dougie hated him. Let him—they could fix this later. They
would
fix this later.

As angry as Dougie was, that good slave-boy part of him responded to the harsh treatment; he let himself be pulled to his feet, and kept up when Mat took off at a stumbling run.

Over his harsh panting, he thought he heard that keening sound again, except this time he was certain it wasn’t him. Wait . . . no. That wasn’t keening, that was the sound of a car.

That was the sound of a fucking
car
driving on a fucking
highway
. No crunch of gravel, that sound Mat remembered so clearly from when he’d been taken here. Oh no, that was the sound of a good ol’ public road. And public road meant friendly strangers, meant a sheriff’s car, even. An ambulance. A fucking bus full of nuns, it didn’t fucking matter. They’d flag down whoever it was, and hopefully Dougie would be together enough to ask to be taken to the police. But fucking hell, even if he didn’t speak a word, what else was there to do but bring them to the cops or the ER? They were bleeding. Half-frozen. One of them naked but for a blanket and gag, the other crying inconsolably.

All they had to do was make it to that highway. Hope another car passed by soon.

Free. We’re going to be free. We’re going to go to the cops and I’m going to tell them everything and I’m going to bring this whole fucking operation down.
The thought made him downright giddy.

Even if Dougie hates me for the rest of his life, at least he’ll be free.

But maybe, just
maybe
, Dougie wouldn’t hate him. Because when he took a second to think about it, he realized he wasn’t dragging Dougie anymore. Dougie was running
with
him, beside him, just like old times, and when Mat stole a glance at Dougie’s face, he saw . . . God, was that
hope
? Excitement, even? Had he heard the car too and realized there was another answer, another way out of this mess?

Or was Mat just projecting his own wants and needs onto a half-second look in the near dark at his brother’s moving face?

Whatever. Didn’t matter. Road. Car. Freedom.
That
was what mattered.

They were both panting hard when they breached the tree line and emerged out onto the gravel shoulder of the two-lane highway, Mat struggling anew not to choke around the gag, to take in enough air through his running nose. It was quiet and dark, no sign of any vehicles, but that was okay. One would pass by soon. All they had to do was stay out of sight for now, pick a direction and keep walking until a car came from the east. If anyone was driving from Nikolai’s house, they’d be coming
down
the mountain, from the west just like Dougie and Mat had. Mat wished he could communicate all that to Dougie, but the kid looked too shell-shocked and dazed to be signaling anyone of his own volition, anyway. He’d follow Mat’s lead.

Because in his eyes, with Nikolai gone,
you’re
the master now.

You even beat him like one.

No. Stop thinking about it.

He reached out and took Dougie’s hand as they trudged along the shoulder. Held it tight. Dougie’s fingers were as stiff and cold as his own, even half-stuffed in his jacket sleeves as they were. They’d ask whoever they flagged down to crank up the heat, and Mat would hold Dougie’s hands to the vent. Prove he cared, that he wanted Dougie to be safe and well and comfortable. Prove he
loved
him, more than Nikolai ever had or would, because he didn’t expect anything in return. Nothing at all.

I just want you to be safe. I just want to protect you.

He wished he could say it. Wished he could say anything at all, even if it was just
Holy shit, it’s cold out here, hey kiddo?
Would they ever have a normal conversation like that again?

Don’t think about the future. Keep your eyes on the road.
Mat peered to the east, into the impenetrable darkness. Sometime during their little escapade, the moon had set, but there was no hint of the sunrise yet, either. And no streetlights on this windy mountain drive, so remote from civilization. No light pollution, either.
Too
remote. Nikolai had chosen well; he was like a civilized Leatherface, or something.

And wouldn’t that suck, if they got this far only to freeze to death on the side of a highway, waiting for a savior who never came?
Keep walking, just keep walking. You won’t freeze if you keep walking.
At least no snow had fallen yet.

He squeezed Dougie’s hand. Dougie didn’t squeeze back, but he kept pace beside him, and he didn’t pull out of Mat’s grip. Hard to make out his features, but the whole angle of his body, the set of his shoulders, told Mat that his hope was gone—if it’d ever been there in the first place, if Mat hadn’t just been seeing what he’d wanted to see. Apparently mirages weren’t just for deserts.

Dougie looked like he was on a fucking death march, just waiting for the end to come and swallow him up and take away his pain.

An end would come. Dougie’s pain would be taken away, too. But not in the way he clearly thought.

And just like that, the brighter ending came: a car rattling up the highway from the east, an old rust bucket by the sound of it, its muddied headlights cutting a huge curve across the scenery as it rounded a bend, blinding Mat as they hit his eyes. Dougie, too, judging by how he shielded his face with his forearm.

Mat lurched forward, throwing himself onto the shoulder, waving his arms wildly.

“Help! Help!” he shouted through the gag, and then, halle-fucking-lujah, Dougie snapped from his fugue and joined in too, screaming in a high, hoarse, but clear voice: “Help! Please, help us!”