After Domingo left, I heard from Carlos that Doc actually did the job that his name alludes to. He took us both into his room and supplied medical care to prevent us from dying.

  I was unconscious and was slowly bleeding from my eye socket. Doc just put some gauze in the hole and taped it shut. It was such a significant injury that he could do little to help me besides trying to prevent infection.

  I had woken up in the first bed I had felt since I was brought to Time Out. They had taken away all the clothing we had in our sleeping spot and replaced it with a clean mattress and sheets. They had been forced to replace it to prevent complications from the dirty clothes we slept on every night. Despite Domingos actions the night before, they still wanted us alive so we could be used to force our mom to do whatever they wanted.

  Carlos was sitting on the mattress with me when I woke up. He started to tell me all the things that happened after I had passed out. He told me how Doc had treated me, and then he started talking about his own treatment with a fascination that he had not had in his voice in a long time.

  “I mean, what he did hurt like hell, but it was also incredible. Look at this, I can barely see the stitches that he made to close it up.” He was holding out his arm that ended in a stump. There were a few dark red lines crisscrossing the stump where his skin had been sewn together. “I watched the whole thing. He cut the skin to the perfect proportions so that it would connect seamlessly around the remainder of my arm. When he wrapped it around the exposed bone, I thought I was going to pass out, but it only aches a little now. I wish I could have become a surgeon like him when I grew up.”

  I was struggling to understand what was going on in Carlos’s mind. He had been with me all this time. He had seen all the treatments that Doc had given me and the scars that I still had all over my body because of him. I could not walk without a limp because Doc ruined my foot, and it healed wrong. I had always thought he understood how evil Doc was because of the torture that he had put me through every time I was brought to him. Now, out of the blue, he was praising how skilled he was, and dreaming of being just like him.

  It made me feel like something that connected us through all of the horrible things they put us through was starting to splinter. I did not want to think that he was idolizing the man who had been tormenting my thoughts since the very first time we had met him. I could not even escape him in my sleep because he would visit me most nights in my dreams.

  I tried to hug my brother and tell him how I was feeling, but he sat up and got off the bed when I reached for him.

  “I need to do some work; all these piss ants around here might think I lost my edge now that I only have one hand. I need to remind them I am the top dog around here, even with this handicap.”

  Carlos was no longer the top dog. He tried to fight like he used to, but everyone knew his weakness, and it caused him too much pain when he tried to use his handless arm to fight. I watched from the sidelines as he grew increasingly beaten down by kids he always thought he was superior to.

  I remembered back to when Carlos first got into Time Out. He was always talking about finding a way to escape. I don’t understand what changed, or when, he started caring more about his place as the best fighter than getting free of this awful place. I knew I had not been fully there for Carlos in a long time, but this was not the caring brother that I used to know.

  I vowed to myself I would try to pay more attention to the things around me. I think my brother needs my help, and I can’t just float off like I have been doing. He was the most important person in the world to me. He had kept me safe when I needed it; he needed me to be there for him. I did not want him to become one of those kids ruled by rage and fighting over every minor thing. I decided to watch him.

  One day, Doc determined our wounds healed enough that we were out of danger, but they did not take the mattress they gave us to sleep on out of the sleeping room. Now that we were out of danger, there were no protections the evil thugs were enforcing to keep us safe. Carlos fought with everything he had to keep that bed, but he was beaten by the new top fighter, Alex. Alex took the mattress over to his spot in the back of the room, where Boss used to sleep.

  I could see something dangerous in Carlos’s eyes as I saw him staring at Alex from across the room. I tried to talk to him about how it was ok, we would be ok just to sleep on the floor. We did it before, and it's even warmer in the sleeping room now. Nothing I said seemed to make a difference. He just sat there on the empty concrete patch the mattress used to be on, staring.

  From that day on, it was as if my brother were possessed. He would take any opportunity to fight. He always challenged kids who beat him after he lost his hand. It was like he was training himself and working his way up the brackets of a tournament. He did improve. He learned to use his stomp to hurt people even better than he used his hand or fist. I tried to talk to him to calm him down. “This is not the way that Mom and Grandma taught us. Fighting is only a last resort when there is nothing else. Do you remember the song we used to sing?”

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  “Fuck that song. It never did anything to help us in here. We have to carve our own place with violence and promises. Domingo has the right of it. Just get enough power that no one can do anything to you. Domingo can do anything he wants, and no one can stop him. That is going to be me someday. Once I am taken, I will become that powerful. Don’t worry, I will still protect you even if you don’t believe in me.”

  I could not believe he was on Domingo’s side. Domingo was evil; he killed Grandma, he took Mom away from us, and he put us in Time Out. Domingo caused every awful thing in our lives. How could Carlos agree with him?

  It felt like I was trying to hold sand in my hand, and every second, more of it slipped through my fingers. I tried to give him a hug. I thought if he could just feel how much I loved him, even in this awful gray place, he would stop being filled with rage. As I wrapped my arms around him, he just pushed me to the ground.

  Carlos challenged Alex for the bed that same day.

  I could not watch it, because I did not want to see that anger in his eyes anymore. I never remember seeing it there until his hand was taken from him. I hated Domingo for doing this to my brother even more. It was like he corrupted everything he touched.

  The fight only took 15 mins, then Carlos came back into the sleeping room with his stump bloody and his nose bleeding. He lay on the mattress for the first time since we lost it, and started barking, and shouted

  “Fucking Top Dog, don’t you dare mess with the Top Dog.”

  I watched him as he lay down on that mattress alone. He did not seem like he was going to bring it back to our spot. He lay there for a bit, laughing, then got up and walked out past me without ever looking down or offering to share.

  I did not want to ask him if he wanted to come back to our spot. He was acting like I was a nuisance, like I was a parasite dragging him down from his greatness. I knew he loved me, but I was having trouble seeing that in his eyes right now. So I just lay there listening to other kids recount the story of the fight.

  It sounded like my brother had gone insane. He tackled Alex and had bit him on the arm, then had choked him with his good hand and beaten him in the face with his stump over and over again until the thugs dragged him off Alex. Alex had been trying to get Carlos off him the whole time, and had ended up hitting Carlos in the nose in his wild flailing.

  We did not know how Alex was until he came out of Doc’s room 2 days later with bandages covering most of his face. He refused to even look at my brother anymore. He would always look down whenever Carlos came around.

  That first night of sleeping alone, I was cold again for the first time in a long time. Just lay there shivering alone while I heard everyone else sleeping around me. I was hoping my brother would feel the same and come talk to me, but he never did. It was the first time I had not slept next to him since we got to Time Out.

  During the following day, one of my fellow ghosts came over and lay next to me. He did not say anything, but I could feel him there next to me. We sat together most of the day. He fell asleep with me that night. It was barely cold at all now that I had a friend with me.

  The next day, the other 3 ghosts moved over to us. We barely said anything to each other, but being close helped. I was not cold at all from that point on.

  The fight to stay present so I could help my brother diminished once again after he left me. I felt like I was once again floating through time, like it was not there. Time Out continued to progress, where every day seemed to be the same except for who won what from whom in what fight. There was no longer any other type of playing like when we first got here; fighting was all that happened.

  I still would hear stuff from the other side of the wall. Most of it floated past me without registering. Nothing seemed to matter most of the time.

  I do remember one conversation distinctly, though.

  “She does not have nearly as much value now that Mr. Normal washed his hands of her.”

  “I can’t blame him. It is one thing to want a pretty face by your side, but if that pretty face almost gets you thrown into prison, it is time to start seeing the snake beneath.”

  “Can’t we just kill the asset then? They are getting close to aging out anyway. The older one is the oldest asset we have ever had. He is almost 13. Next time, he might kill one of the other assets before we can get him off.”

  I was shocked at this. I knew I was not good at keeping track of time, but we had been trapped here for 5 years. It sounded almost impossible to me.

  “You know Domingo is not going to like you talking behind his back like that. I'd better tell you before you get in trouble. Sometimes Domingo wants to make examples of people, but killing a family does not send a message as effectively as what he has in mind.”

  “What would you think if you heard that Maria was begging to suck his dick after he just killed her favorite child?”

  “That is impossible, he would have to be some sort of God.”

  “Well, that is what he is aiming for. I don’t know what he has in mind, but he is going to be making her his special project.”

  After I heard this, I knew they were talking about Carlos and me. All I could think was that I hoped I was her favorite, so Carlos could keep living. I was, after all, just a ghost; they were already dead.