Page 28 of Lamb

My twin didn’t feel anything either as she returned my vacant stare. Her eyes sinking into her skull and her lips more cracked and peeling than soft and plump. She’d been aged nearly a decade at the same time her mind was reduced to the complexity of a toddler. Her coordination not much better. Itty-bitty baby steps and the shuffling of feet that meant there was no running away. Feeling as if the world was tipped upside-down or spinning a little too fast so that everything else seemed a million times slower in comparison.

She was still nice to look at though. Like a vintage doll you could bring back to life with a little bit of elbow grease and a touch of paint. Something to prop up on a shelf or perch behind a piece of protective glass when there wasn’t much else you could do with it. Like my mother… until even a comb and a bit of makeup wouldn’t help her…

I didn’t know where she was, what happened to herafter that night. Just that she wasn’t here. Or there. At the house with my father. And that was better for both of us. I mean, what good was a doll you couldn’t dress up and put on display anymore?

I blinked twice when the little raindrops dotting the glass blurred her image. The girl who’d morphed into a woman who’d morphed back into a version of a girl again, forcing my focus behind me. To the boy in the chair.

“Whoever you’re waiting for. 'Cause you’re definitely waiting for someone.” He seemed to muse to himself before commenting with atskof his tongue, “You still got that look in your eyes.”

“What look?”

He shrugged a single shoulder, a small movement that caught my eye and not much else. Because turning my head took too much effort. “Hope. Like ya still think someone is gonna come riding up that driveway on a white horse or some shit. Is that who you’re waiting for, princess? Your knight in shining armor? A hero in a world overrun by villains?”

“There’s nothing wrong with hope,” I pushed out a reply in one long breath, and another wave of exhaustion settled itself on my shoulders. As if some physical force was weighing me down so that even the air seemed heavier. Thicker. “Don’t you ever hope for something?”

I could see him staring at me through the window, his blonde hair more like a bright-white dot. His head canted and his mouth kicking up to one side. A permanent smirk meant to both put you at ease and intimidate you,depending on the day’s objective. Until another raindrop made his reflection just as invisible as my own.

He didn’t answer. Like the answer should be obvious. Or maybe it was moreominous. Maybe it was a way of calling me naïve without ever having to say the words. Because despite the several years I had on him, I was the one who had trouble facing the reality of my fate.Iwas the one who had trouble accepting it. And the realization that neither one of us was walking out of here. For two very different reasons…

I didn’t believe in old souls. That was something pedos liked to say to excuse their behavior. What I did believe in was trauma, and this kid had more than enough of it to pass around like candy-flavored sedatives.

Honestly, those didn’t sound so bad right now. I’d shove a handful down my own throat if some part of me weren’t put off by the idea of being just another name on the broken crosses I was counting again.

When I glanced from the window, back to the door, the kid was gone. Just the ghost of his bouncy ball echoing down the halls and the squeaking of his rusty wheels.

I was starting to wonder if the blonde boy in the wheelchair was another figment of my imagination, dug up and fleshed out by a mind that was slowly liquifying as time went on. Then again, I wasn’t sure that it mattered. Not when his company was the only thing keeping me sane.

If I could even call myselfsane… Wasn’t entirely sure I could…

41

ADRIAN

It was funny, the shit you picked up from an elective you decided to take on a whim. Shit like the fact spiders contained nearly one-hundred and thirty percent of your daily protein requirement, crickets thirteen percent, while termites maintained the highest caloric intake at over six hundred calories each—you only needed a handful of those crunchy sons of bitches to sustain the human body for an extended period.

In my case,days.At least four. Maybe five. Had plenty of termites during that time, the occasional cricket and a fat spider or two. But cockroaches were where I drew the line. Couldn’t stomach them. They were also faster than you’d think. Scurrying past me and dipping into little crevices in the stone. Never realized how many roommates I had until I had to start hunting for 'em.

I scrunched my nose and swiped my tongue over the film on my teeth, trying to loosen some of the breakfastparticles that embedded themselves in my cheeks. What they didn’t tell us in that entomology class was how the tiny legs liked to stick to your gums. And forget swallowing the fuckers whole. Without more than the condensation from the stone walls to force them down, you’d end up with a throat full of thorax pieces and antennae. A scratchy feeling that—believe it or not—was far worse than the earthy aftertaste they left in your mouth. A mix of old basement and fresh insect guts.

There was no part of me that believed big brotherdidn’tintend for me to die in here. The same way I had no doubt he didn’t just “forget” to feed his pet parrot a few years back. Seven days in a row. Without fail. Strange, considering Louie IV knew how to talk and had no problem yelling out whenever he was hungry. The fucker’s squawking carried through the vents and echoed down the halls upstairs. To the point I had to sleep with a pillow over my head some nights.

Didn’t last more than a week, the squawking and the bird that should have had a lifespan longer than the rest of the household, seeing as the poor thing had resorted to eating its own tail feathers and pseudo-cannibalism before Justine finally found him ass up at the bottom of his cage. Oddly enough, Tate hadn’t forgotten to fill the water bowl. Almost as if the sick fuck wanted to watch the damn bird wither away.

Big brother wasn’t askindto me, though. I wasn’t given the luxury of a bowl or even the spit pooling at the base of one of his leftover water bottles. I also didn’t have theforesight to stash much of anything besides a few drug vials. Which meant dehydration was likely to get me long before starvation had a chance to set in. My kidneys giving in before my heart gave out. Of the two, it was the more physically painful way to go.

I’d give Tate credit for his new level of sadism if I weren’t sure the outcome was a stroke of luck rather than part of some sort of master plan of his. Fucker was the very definition of an opportunist. The type to jump at the chance instead of making his own way. And that was something I had on him. I knew how to bide my time. I knew how to analyze without acting. I knew how to survive.

And I would survive this shit too. I just needed to clear away the brain fog long enough to think.

I looked around, taking in the four corners I knew better than the underside of my own hand, which was saying something—my palm and I were well acquainted over the years.

But these walls were a different story.

They’d stared back at me the first time I’d opened my eyes. They were my sanctuary as much as my prison. They weren’t about to be my tomb. I’d already nixed trying to pop the bolts out of the hinges, seeing as they were conveniently located on the other side of the door. I had no doubt that shit was intentional too. Built to my old man’s specifications. The sort meant to keep you in and not let you out.

Apparently, sadism was an inherited trait. That didn’t leave much hope for me, now did it?

Hope.I laughed at the fucking word. Probably becausethe delirium was getting to me. But also because that feeling was as useless as it was essential. Hope alone didn’t get ya anywhere. But sprinkle it on top and suddenly a shit sandwich was a little easier to choke down.

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