“That’s another thing I teach all my subs: self-control. For now, I think you need to cool down.”

There was a familiar noise: a glug, and then a soft hiss. Then water splashed over North, soaking him as Brueckmann hosed him through the crate’s open walls. He sprayed Shaw too, although North couldn’t really see Shaw—North was crammed too far back in the crate, and he couldn’t turn his head well enough to see. Shaw was still coughing and gagging, though, and Brueckmann kept spraying until the plastic floor of North’s crate had a quarter inch of water.

When Brueckmann spoke again, his voice was very close. “My subs always learn the same thing. If they make daddy happy, they’ll be happy. You can spend a few nights here—cold and wet, your muscles cramped and aching. Or you can be a good boy. Say you’re sorry. Tell me all about Mark. I’ll get you a shower, a real bed, somewhere warm. I’ll chain you, of course, but it won’t be uncomfortable. You have a decision to make. I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

Two sets of footsteps splashed out of the room. The lights went off. The door shut.

Already, North was shivering. The cold crept through the cement, through the thin plastic of the crate’s floor, and it was funny that everything could be so cold when North’s muscles were already cramping and turning to fire.

“Shaw?”

Another of those horrible, gaspy breaths, and Shaw said, “I’m sorry.”

“I’m the one who should be fucking sorry. I’m the fucking idiot that put us in here.”

“How bad—” Shaw coughed again. “How bad—”

“It’s fine. They’re fucking paper cuts, that’s all.” North twisted, trying to turn so he could see Shaw, but the room was pitch black. “You?”

“I was planning on singing you a lullaby.”

“Yeah, well, I guess that’s fucking out of the picture.”

“North?”

Grunting a response, North tried to wriggle around again. If he could get himself, somehow, facing the crate’s door, he might be able to get it open.

“North?”

“Kind of doing something here.”

“North?”

“What?”

“For the record, I think you’d make a very good sub.”

And for just an instant, hearing the word sub in Shaw’s mouth, that image flashed through North’s head again: Shaw on his knees, the collar around his throat, his eyes coming up to stare at North. Then the rest of Shaw’s sentence transmitted, and North started to laugh.

“I was thinking about it,” North said, “if the whole detective thing goes bust, which it’s starting to look like it might.”

From Shaw’s crate came splashing, and then a thrum of metal like someone running a mallet up a xylophone, and Shaw’s voice sounded more distant when he said, “You’d look very pretty in a collar.”

And fuck, why did that make North want to fucking groan?

In the same teasing voice, Shaw said, “I bet Tuck would love you like that.”

The words popped the illusion, and all of the sudden North was just cramped and aching and cold and wet again.