Page 111 of Tell No One
“Fucking hell,” said a guy with a French accent as he approached where Tag and Ahsan were lying.
“Pony to puppy,” Delaney said with a laugh. “He better trained now?”
“Let’s see. Up pups!” Norbury ordered.
Both Tag and Ahsan came up on their knees, paws together in front of their chests. The men laughed. They kept on laughing when Norbury made Tag and Ahsan wag their tails, fetch the ball, roughhouse, then pretend to fuck. Tag was humiliated and angry, but he didn’t want Lincoln to hurt Ahsan because of him. Tag couldn’t bring himself to look at Delaney or even go near him. He put up with being patted, stroked and touched, and he wanted Delaney to kill all of them.
Lincoln came to take Tag and Ahsan out and they left the room on all fours.
“If I was gay…” said the American and the others laughed.
Tag followed Ahsan and Lincoln up the stairs to their room. He had no idea of the layout of this place, how many members of staff there were. Nothing useful to tell Delaney.
“For your bad behaviour in the pool and outside, you can both stay as you are.” Lincoln left them.
Tag put his hand between his feet and tried to pull off the mitten. “Help me, please.”
Ahsan tugged and as Tag wriggled his fingers, he could feel the covering coming loose. When it came off, he gulped. No going back now. The other was easy to remove and he unfastened the hood and wrenched it off.
“You too?” Tag asked.
He wasn’t sure Ahsan would agree but he nodded.
A few minutes later, they were both free of everything, including the tails, harnesses and collars.
“Lincoln is going to be pissed off,” Ahsan said.
“He’ll probably be happy because it gives him an excuse to punish us.”
Ahsan smiled. “Now what?”
Tag longed to tell him everything, but he held his tongue. “Want to put on some clothes and go for a walk?”
Ahsan’s eyes widened as he gaped at him, then nodded.
Their clothes were in a cupboard and they quickly dressed. Tag tried the door expecting it to be locked and it wasn’t. Lincoln was so arrogant he’d not expected them to disobey him. When Ahsan slipped his hand into Tag’s, Tag squeezed his fingers. He was glad Ahsan was brave enough to do this with him, because if they were both running tomorrow for their lives, he needed Ahsan to show the same courage. Maybe they should run now.
At the top of the stairs, Tag hesitated. He could hear voices in the drawing room, though the door was almost closed. He headed down the stairs and pulled Ahsan towards the front door. When they stepped outside and had closed the door behind them, they grinned at each other.
“They might have cameras,” Tag said. “We’re probably going to get caught but let’s see how far we get.”
Tag led the way, heading around the side of the house, taking in everything he could. Garage, two cars, a barn. There was no one around. He led Ahsan into the garage, then out again. No keys in the cars. Nowhere to hide in the garage, but the barn had possibilities. Under cover of the barn, they ran down towards the water.
“What were you looking for?” Ahsan asked.
“A place to hide. There’s a load of wood stored across the beams in the barn. We could lie on those.” Though he meant Ahsan could.
Tag picked up a flat stone and sent it flying across the lake. When it bounced twice, he grinned.
“They’d find us eventually,” Ahsan said.
“Probably.” Tag threw another stone and it skipped three times.
“We could run now.”
“They’d catch us. We need to leave when they won’t find out for a while that we’ve gone.”
Moments later, they were both skimming stones. Delaney had been right when they’d done this on the beach. Wrong sort of stones there but these were perfect.
