The Flesh Cartel - Episode #7: Homecoming

now.
    Maybe that was why Nikolai didn’t scold him. Just put an arm around his shoulder and tucked him close, let him pick at the remnants of his breakfast on his own. “Eventually I came to understand my mentor better, and the running away and the fighting and the back-talking all stopped. I realized that if all he’d wanted was a son, he could have purchased me on my own. He could have been selfish. But he took my mother as well. He not only gave me the gift of her continued presence in my life, but he also gave me the gift of seeing her happy . She’d never been happy in Russia. I don’t think I ever saw her smile there.”
    “And she was happy here? Even though she . . .”
    Was a slave? Like me?
    “Not at first. Not for a while. But eventually. Eventually she saw the light, as they say. Saw how much more fulfilling her life could be when put to purpose. I think it helped, too, to see that her son was cared for. She never could have given me that, otherwise. We were always too poor, too afraid. Too many dangerous men in and out of her life. Animals, all of them. We were animals. And do you know what I saw when I ran away, Douglas? I had enough money in my pocket to stay at the finest hotels, eat at the finest restaurants, buy the finest things. And yet all I saw, all around me, were more animals. Unhappy, unthinking beasts beholden to their urges, crushed beneath the weight of the emptiness in their lives, the sheer purposelessness. And then I came back, and I saw my mother at my mentor’s feet, and I understood.”
    Dougie didn’t understand. He wasn’t an animal. Mat wasn’t an animal. Pattie and Mike and Mom and Dad . . . none of them had been animals. None of them had seemed empty to him. They’d led good lives, hadn’t they? Happy lives. And so what if Mom and Dad had worried about money, or if Pattie and Mike had argued sometimes, or if Mat got beaten up for a living or Dougie stressed about making good grades. That didn’t mean they were stuck on a hamster wheel.
    Nikolai cupped Dougie’s chin in his hand, lifted Dougie’s gaze from the contemplation of his tray to meet Nikolai’s eyes. “It’s all right not to understand now, Douglas. You will in time. Can you trust that I’ll get you there?”
    Dougie licked his lips, stared into Nikolai’s eyes, and let himself search for answers—no, for faith —within. “Yes, sir,” he finally said. “I just . . . I don’t . . . I don’t know how .”
    The thumb on Dougie’s chin swiped gently across his lips; Dougie parted them, let the tip graze his teeth. This seemed to please Nikolai, which raised that warm shiver down the back of Dougie’s neck again. He reached after the feeling, clung to it. Touched his tongue to Nikolai’s thumb. “That’s all right too, Douglas. Nobody springs fully formed from their father’s head, you know.” Except Athena. She did. “We have mentors for a reason. Trust me to be yours.”
    “Yes, sir,” Dougie murmured against the pad of Nikolai’s thumb.
    Nikolai’s smile turned mischievous again, and he pulled his thumb free. “So, waffle fries, eh?”
    The tension popped, just like that, and Dougie laughed. Blushed. “Contraband, sir. I don’t ever remember a time when Mat wasn’t watching his diet. We never had any junk food in the house. We never went out to eat at greasy spoons. Wasn’t fair to him, Mom used to say—made it hard to stick to a strict regimen if we were waving it under his nose. So there I was, little bro, following in his footsteps, even though I wasn’t athletic in the slightest. Honestly, I’m still like that. Sneaking junk food: Red Bulls and sour cream and onion potato chips and Snickers bars. And Burger King hash browns. I know they sound disgusting, but . . .” His mouth watered just thinking about them, even though he’d just eaten more than his fill. “Actually, the night I—”
    He stopped. His heart pounded. No, he would talk about this too. His former life. He would talk about it like it didn’t matter, like it wasn’t taboo, and then it wouldn’t hurt so bad. “The night I was taken, that was what I was most worried about. I’d bought some junk food I had to eat before Mat got home.” How clearly he remembered weighing the change in his pocket, contemplating the shuttle schedule: Could he afford to splurge? Would he miss the bus? It all seemed so ridiculous now, somehow. “I guess it wasn’t the worst of my worries in the end, was it?”
    “Was it