He might be able to get free of Brueckmann. He might be able to crash into Jeremy, might knock him off Shaw—might, only might, because Jeremy was a lot bigger than North. But what would happen then? Would Brueckmann put his switchblade into North’s back?

Twenty seconds? Had it been twenty seconds already?

“All right.”

“Say, sir.”

“All right, sir.”

“Say, please sir, may I go to my spa suite now?”

That electric current pinballed through North’s muscles again. “Please, sir, may I go to my spa suite now?”

Twenty-five seconds. Thirty.

“Of course, sub. Go ahead and make yourself at home.”

Shaw was choking, the noise audible as Jeremy played with him, adjusting the pressure on his boot, grinding it back and forth like he was working a pedal. And again, North had the frantic, desperate desire to attack. But he’d let that feral part of himself off the chain just a few minutes before, and that was how they’d landed in this mess. So he sprinted around the desk, yanked open the office’s back door, and charged into the next room.

It was spare and utilitarian: fluorescent lights, a hose coiled and hanging on the wall, a drain in the cement floor. Another door in the back. A shower head suspended in the middle of the room. A toilet in one corner. And, lined up against the far wall, wire dog crates.

Your spa suite.

North didn’t need to be told. He knew, and he dropped onto hands and knees and scrambled into the closest crate. One of Brueckmann’s boots planted against his ass, shoving him forward, and North crashed head first against the crate’s far end. He felt pressure as Brueckmann forced his legs and feet into the crate, and then the crate’s door was closed—North was too big, much too big for the space, and Brueckmann must have really had to lean into the door to get it to shut. And then the click of a lock.

“Good sub.”

North couldn’t straighten his legs. He couldn’t turn around. He couldn’t even fully stretch out his back—he had to arch in the middle, compressing himself. And already his muscles were starting to burn.

None of that mattered, of course. “Where’s Shaw? Show me he’s ok. I want to see him, so get him the fuck in here and show me—”

Wheezing, gasping, choking, sputtering, Shaw half-crawled and was half-thrown into the crate next to North. His breathing sounded terrible—gaspy and ruined. Possibilities reared up in the blackness of North’s mind: his windpipe had been crushed; he was having some sort of fit; he needed medical attention right now, his airway opened surgically, and instead, he was going to die inside this fucking dog crate.

Another lock clicked.

“I’m going to kill you,” North roared. “I’m going to fucking kill you.” He couldn’t move, couldn’t twist around to face Brueckmann, so he shook the crate as best he could. The metal clamor ran through the line of crates, and the sound was tremendous, but there was also something pathetic about it, something juvenile, that made North embarrassed—humiliated, in fact.