The Flesh Cartel #1: Capture

blurred and swam. Nine PM. Closing time. If he was lucky, he’d have half an hour holed up here in the stacks before somebody came to chase him out.
    He’d written exactly ten words.
    He stared down at the article he was supposed to be critiquing and realized he didn’t even remember what it was about. He flipped back a few pages to the abstract, hoping to jog his memory, but it might as well have been written in Cantonese.
    It just wasn’t happening. He didn’t know why he’d thought it would happen. He couldn’t concentrate on the nights Mat had fights scheduled. Never had been able to. Especially not now that his brother was coming home with bruises and injuries that didn’t match up with that schedule.
    He should’ve just given in and gone to watch. Mat invited him every time, but he never could stand to watch Mat being hurt. Not that he could say that to Mat’s face—it was bad enough he was still the “baby brother” at twenty-three years old; he didn’t want Mat to think he was a wuss, too.
    He thought back to that wicked bruise across Mat’s right flank, those cuts on his cheek and lip and eyebrow he’d come home with a few weeks after his last fight. Training accidents, my ass . Sparring partners didn’t use each other’s faces as punching bags. Mat had been fighting for years, and sure he’d come home from the gym with bruises, but never anything that severe. That purposeful . Not to mention the extra money he’d had to go along with it. Surprise endorsement deal, my ass . Six grand didn’t just fall out of the sky, and it hadn’t fallen out of K-Swiss, either.
    Something was going down, Mat wasn’t talking, and all Dougie could do was come up with more and more horrible scenarios to explain the bruises and the cash. Mob bruiser. Underground cage fights. A loan shark.
    The thought of any of those filled him with never-ending, stomach-gnawing dread.
    He shoved aside the photocopied article and pushed away from the keyboard. To hell with this. If he stayed here one more second, he’d drive himself mad with worry. He should just go home and grab a beer. Mat was probably lounging backstage by now, getting a massage from some hot fanboy who he’d take to the after-party but never home, as if Dougie couldn’t figure out why Mat sometimes disappeared overnight after fights. Well, not “disappeared,” exactly; he always called to let Dougie know he wouldn’t be home, like Dougie was still thirteen and Mat was still trying—for all the good it’d done them—to show the world he was responsible enough to keep custody of him.
    Dougie saved his work to the student server, turned off the computer, and stuffed the article and his highlighter into his satchel. There’d be a bus coming by campus soon. He’d catch that, walk the last five blocks home, and just chill out. He’d try reading the article again tomorrow, once his head was clear. Once he knew Mat was okay.
    Maybe he’d take a shower. It was a rare joy to have a good long soak in a shower as hot as he liked without Mat flushing the toilet or chiding him about their electric bills. Rarer still to be able to get out of the shower and sit around naked in front of the TV, drip-drying onto his towel and letting his balls air out.
    Bliss.
    He caught the 9:13 bus, which meant, by his calculations, he could be home and showered by the time Colbert came on at 10:30. He even had time to stop at the corner grocery on the way and pick up an energy drink and some chips, which he figured he’d earned. He'd just have to eat them before Mat got home, because the last thing he wanted to do was mess with Mat’s diet. He’d already screwed with Mat’s career enough. Five years his brother had stuck around in Bumblefuck, West Virginia, while Dougie had lived with Pattie and Mike. Five years bouncing at a bar and fighting in some bullshit sideshow instead of the UFC just so he could meet up with Dougie for their morning run and visit on the weekends.
    Mat was twenty-nine years old now, his best years arguably behind him, and he was still bouncing at a bar. And getting beaten black and blue and red four times a year for middling returns and no glory, trying to get back everything he’d given up when he was young and promising. And every single cent of it went to Dougie. Dougie’s tuition. Dougie’s textbooks. Dougie’s practicums. Dougie’s bus pass, the one that got him home in time for Colbert.
    Well, soon it’d be Dougie’s turn. So