Loyalties (2 page)

Roger let himself in, closed the door behind him. He was dressed more casually than Dougie remembered him being the first time they’d met—a lot like how Nikolai had dressed Dougie yesterday, actually: washed-out jeans and a soft forest-green sweater with the sleeves pushed up to his elbows. He was balancing a tray in one hand. “Brought you breakfast.”

“Um, thanks.” He tracked Roger with his eyes as the man sat on the edge of the bed, placed the tray between them, lifted the lid. Yogurt and granola and fresh fruit—perfect after yesterday’s overindulgence. His stomach grumbled. Was it okay to just dig in? Should he offer to share?

“Go on,” Roger said, nudging it forward. Added, “I already ate, so don’t mind me.”

Dougie took that for the permission it was and started mixing granola and strawberries into the yogurt. Took a bite. The sugar, or maybe just the pleasant tang of it, woke him up a little, cleared his head. He realized Roger was still sitting on the edge of the bed. Watching him with that soft, inviting smile on his face.

Was still watching him when he’d scraped the last of the yogurt from the bowl. It wasn’t unnerving so much as just plain strange. If Roger wanted something, why wasn’t he
saying
something? Dougie put the bowl back on the tray a little harder than he’d intended and said, “What?”

Roger made a sort of half-shrug, and his smile turned rueful. “The master thought you might find it helpful to talk with me.” When Dougie said nothing to that, he added, “Seeing as I’ve . . . you know. Been where you are.”

He looked a little uncomfortable. Dougie hadn’t seen very much of Roger, but he’d never seen him even
hint
at unsteadiness. Did Dougie remind him of something he didn’t want to think about? Was he worried that he couldn’t give Dougie what he needed because he’d been faking it for the last twenty years or however long he’d been stuck here? Oh God, was he—

Dougie flinched so hard from the hand landing on his knee that he almost knocked the tray off the bed. “Hey,” Roger said. “Hey, it’s okay, you don’t have to talk to me if you don’t want to.”

Dougie was panting, could feel his pulse pounding at his temples and throat. And Roger’s hand, stroking soothing little circles right above his knee. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I . . . Sorry.”

“It’s all right.” Roger’s hand stopped stroking, patted Dougie once. “I’ll just . . .” He hooked his thumb toward the door, began to stand.

Dougie lunged forward and grabbed his wrist. “No!” He was on his knees somehow, his blanket-shield fallen away, the empty tray clattering on the floor. Completely naked in front of this stranger, making a mess of everything, and he didn’t even care. “No, I mean . . . please, stay.” He didn’t know why he wanted that so much—
needed
it so much—but he did. He did.

And thankfully, Roger sat back down. Offered him that patient smile again. Not patronizing, not condescending, not even mad about the mess on the floor. Just . . . kind
.
Understanding, too.

I’ve been where you are.

Dougie let go of Roger’s wrist, settled himself back against the headboard, pulled the blankets back up to his waist. All easier things to do than giving voice to any one of the jumble of questions rushing to the forefront of his mind. But he could only fidget for so long while Roger sat patiently by, and who knew how long Nikolai would let the man stay. So Dougie sucked in a deep breath and forced himself to start talking before he could overthink himself into a corner. “What, um . . .” His eyes darted to Roger’s—pretty, bright green like the kind you read about in romance novels but never see in real life—and back down to the blanket bunched in his lap. Had Nikolai chosen him for those eyes? The rest of him wasn’t so bad, either.

Off topic, Dougie. Stop stalling.

Yeah, okay. “When you . . .
before
, I mean, you know, before . . .”

“Nikolai saved me?” Roger offered.

Dougie nodded, desperately searching for the sincerity in that statement, for any hint of artifice. He found none. “What was it like? I mean, what did you want to be? What did you dream about? Who did you love?”

“Ah.” Roger said nothing else for a long moment, but that
Ah
spoke volumes. Like he knew the question Dougie was
really
trying to ask—
How did you leave it all behind?
—but wasn’t brave enough to articulate. “It was . . . confusing. Messy. Not very nice.” Roger shifted, tucked one leg up beneath him and scrubbed a hand through his dirty blond hair. It stuck up endearingly—still cute, even at his age. And since when had Dougie started to think about other guys as
cute
? “My mom died when I was little. I don’t remember her at all. My dad . . . well, he loved me, but he wasn’t very good at the whole father thing, you know?” He looked down at his hands, examining his knuckles. Did he have his father’s hands? “He worked a lot. We never had much. He drank. I was fourteen when I ended up in foster care.”

Foster care. Just like Dougie had been.

No point to thinking about it, though. Trying to puzzle out the reasoning behind his capture was the action of a man still wishing to be free.

Roger, oblivious to Dougie’s revelation, went on. “I decided then and there that I wasn’t going to be like him when I grew up. I studied hard. I got into college. All I wanted was to be a cop. Not just any cop, either; I wanted to make detective. I didn’t realize until after I came here that all I’d
really
wanted was to not feel helpless anymore. Not feel afraid, you know? I wanted to learn how to take care of myself because there was nobody else in the world who would do it for me. Nobody else I could lean on. And I was scared all the time, even if I didn’t
realize
it at the time. The mast—Nikolai, Nikolai helped me. Took care of me. Taught me how not to be afraid anymore.”

“I don’t want to be afraid anymore either,” Dougie said. “Not even of Nikolai, or what might happen to me a week from now. I’m even afraid of myself, of what I might do.”
To
Nikolai or
for
Nikolai, he couldn’t say.

“My advice? Let it go. Just let it go. Give it to Nikolai. Let him carry that burden for you. He wants to.”

Dougie nodded. He believed that every bit as much as Roger clearly did, but it was still way easier said than done. “I wanted to be a therapist. A psychologist.” He paused, shut his mouth with a click of teeth. Why had he
said
that? Why even talk about his old life? And why to Roger, of all people? It wasn’t like Roger had been expecting him to respond. Talking about his own past and expecting the same in reply was the action of a man with ulterior motives, and no way was Roger the type. He was too . . .

God, he was too
pure
.

“I know. Nikolai talks to me about you.” He put up a hand before Dougie could respond, before the flash of jealousy Dougie felt at that knowledge—Nikolai
confides
in Roger—could fully form, let alone be analyzed. “Nothing too personal, I mean, nothing you’d be ashamed of me knowing. But where you came from, I know that. We’re alike in that way. That’s why Nikolai chose us: we want so badly to serve. I wanted to serve the law, serve my community. You wanted to serve people’s mental health . . . which I guess serves the community, too. But the kind of service we were striving for? It’s a losing battle, and we’d have burned out and the world would have eaten us alive. Even worse, it’s not what we
really
want. It’s just . . .” He shrugged. “A Band-Aid. A symptom of a deeper disease, of a pain we’d never have figured out how to heal on our own, one we were trying so desperately to guard against feeling again. But
this
kind of service . . .” He gestured in a way that encompassed the room, Nikolai, even some unknown new master waiting in the future. “This we can do. Nikolai won’t let us fail. And Nikolai
healed
me.”

Roger met Dougie’s eyes, and Dougie was shocked to see them shining with wetness, with a kind of devotion he himself had never known, never understood. “Nikolai will heal you too, if you let him.”

Dougie swallowed hard, and thought about school, and studying, and his old dreams of a practice, of rescuing Mat from a life of fighting, rescuing himself from . . . from what? Maybe Roger was right. Maybe he
had
been trying to rescue himself from a life of misery and fear. Maybe he’d picked psychology not out of passion but out of self-preservation. If he could master the human mind, if he could master the art of therapy and healing, then maybe he could heal himself. Was that what he’d been doing all that time? Chasing futilely after some panacea for his wounded soul and inadvertently making himself even more miserable in the process?

Could Nikolai really help him stop running from himself?

Looking into Roger’s earnest, open eyes, he dared to hope the answer was yes.

Mat adjusted the rope around his neck, wishing he knew how to tie a noose instead of a simple slipknot. The ceilings weren’t high here. The chin-up bar was even less high. When he stepped off the chair, his toes would be only inches from the floor. He didn’t want to screw this up, didn’t want to give his instincts a chance to kick in and fight.

Knot over the carotid.
He spun the leather, placed it carefully. Just like a sleeper hold. He’d be out in seconds. Dead in a couple minutes. And with any luck—any at all—it would be Nikolai who came in and found him, Nikolai who’d first get to see the fruits of his twisted efforts. Would he look at Mat’s limp body and see a
person
? A life lost? Or just a waste of a million dollars and several weeks of his time?

No. Don’t think about Nikolai. Not now. Don’t give him that.

Happier thoughts. Happier. There’d been a time when he could call up such memories so easily. Everything seemed so far away now, so out of his grasp.

He curled his toes into the seat of the chair. Pressed a palm to the wall. Smooth and cool beneath his fingers. Tried to ignore the touch of the leather around his throat.
Focus.

The taste of homemade lemonade.

The day Knockout had stumbled, hungry and wet, onto their porch, stared warily at Mat, and started meowing.
Can we keep him, Mom?
Never any question she’d say yes.

Christmas with Dougie, the year they’d gotten a Super Nintendo and played it so obsessively that their mother had to lock it away.

His first kiss. The taste of cigarettes—the forbidden stacked on the forbidden—sticking to his lips.

His first state championship, Mom and Dad and Dougie cheering wildly from the bleachers when the last bell rang.

His first KO in a pro MMA fight, just forty-five seconds into round two, Mom and Dad and Dougie hugging and fist-pumping from the front row.

The look on Dougie’s face when he’d opened his acceptance letter to his first-choice undergrad school—the letter he’d left unopened for four whole days so he could do it with Mat instead of Pattie and Mike.

Dougie’s college graduation, Mat sitting with Mike, so full to bursting with joy and pride he didn’t even care if the whole crowd saw him cry.

Yeah, he’d had a good run. Right up until the end, almost, despite everything that’d happened. He could let go now. He wouldn’t be hurting anyone. Not anymore.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

Mat whirled around so quickly he almost fell off the chair. A moment of sheer panic as his hand shot out, found the chin-up bar to steady himself, chest heaving, heart thrashing. He blinked down at Roger’s open, wounded expression, at his half-outstretched arm nearly close enough to touch Mat, and felt a laugh crawl up his throat at the absurdity of it. He’d been preparing to step off the chair on purpose; why so much fear at falling accidentally?

And how had he not heard Roger come in?

“I really wish you wouldn’t do that,” Roger repeated. He sounded like he meant it, too—not for Nikolai, but for
himself
, like he’d miss Mat, or maybe took it as a personal affront that Mat would choose to leave him.

Or maybe as a failure. Maybe he thought he hadn’t taken enough care of Mat.

Which was bullshit. The way he’d come in every day, morning, noon, and night, with fresh food and bandages and antibiotics and painkillers and soft hands and softer smiles and more patience than any one man had a right to. The way he’d picked up after Mat’s hurled trays and hurled insults without complaint, without so much as a squinty glare. The way his mere
presence
had shouted, day after day,
I understand. I care. It’s all right.

“Yeah,” Mat said, but it came out on a croak, like the leather jump rope was already strangling him, so he cleared his throat and tried again. “Yeah. All right.”

He didn’t know why he was saying that. Hadn’t meant to. Didn’t seem to have any control over his fingers, either, as they reached up to his throat, loosened the slipknot, pushed the rope up and off himself. Lost control of the rest of himself as his legs and feet took him off the chair. Something bloomed hot and tight in his chest, as thick and choking as he imagined the rope would’ve been. Pain, maybe. Definitely. But something else, too.