Page 40 of Lamb

“And what if I am? You gonna rat on me?” I questioned him.

“Do I look like a rat to you, Doc?” he fired back.

“Nope. But you do look like someone who will do whatever suits him.”

“You’re not wrong.” He grinned. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew the way his tone changed when he was grinning. “And what suits me right now is introducing you to a friend.”

“I didn’t know you had any?”

“Oh, I have plenty of friends, Doc. Plenty of enemies too. But we can take care of those fuckers another day.”

We?It was on the tip of my tongue to say since when the fuck areweawe? But I couldn’t deny that I was curious. Which also went hand in hand with that progress I mentioned.

“You know what? Why the hell not?” I tugged off oneglove at a time before tossing them into the red bin. “Introduce me to your friend, kid.”

“Kaz, Kazimir Markov.”

“Hm?”

“That’s my name. Notkid,” he corrected, his tone more level than I’d ever heard it before. More Russian too. Almost as though he had a slight accent he’d forgotten to hide. “Butmy friendscall me Casper. Like the cartoon ghost. You should catch on, since you’re about to be one of 'em.”

“I’m about to be your friend? Or a ghost?” I attempted to clarify.

“You’re about to be mybestfriend. You’ll see.”

54

ADRIAN

Two steps into the hall and the stench of urine smacked me in the face, hard enough to have me stumbling back. I was more than used to the odor of rotting flesh and human meat patties. But this was something else. Sharp and musty in a way that had my nostrils watering and my eyes tearing up.

I looked over at the kid in the chair, his hospital gown ballooning slightly at the hem each time the AC kicked on, and he grinned back at me. Didn’t know where he was taking us. Just that it required us using an elevator before we were navigating what appeared to be the lowest level at Briarwood. A basement.

It was more than that though. It was its own separate ward. More zoo than hospital.

“There ain’t much you can do about most of 'em.” The kid shrugged, as he continued to guide me around various cages, arms stretching towards us and fingers clawing atthe metal bars. “But I think my friend over there has real… potential. Might be able to help you do whatever it is you’re trying to do here.”

I eyed the man in the far corner, hunched over in a ball and talking to himself as he rocked back and forth. So forcefully he was shaking the floor beneath him too. His mannerisms infantile while the rest of him…wasn’t. The fucker was nearly seven-feet tall—my best guess going off what I could see of him—the muscles in his arms larger than his head and his shirt so tight it was ready to bust off his torso. But it was all the chains that caught my eye. Wrapping around him like a snake and keeping him from getting farther than a few steps from the concrete wall.

“Don-Don misses the voices.” The blonde kid leaned over in his seat to whisper in my direction. “They haven’t been back since they cut into his brain.”

“Don-Don?” I lifted a questioning brow without taking my glare off the man in front of us.

“Yep,Donnie. Don’t know his real name. None of us do. But figured it was fitting for a schizo who prefers imaginary voices over real people.”

I nodded, and not because I understood the reference but because I understood the significance of carving out your own identity. What you called yourself,what other people called you, was all you had when they stripped everything else away.

I was a Prescott by birth. But I was Adrian Lambert by choice. A last name I’d picked out of an astrology book as a kid after I was told I needed one for the old man to registerme in school. Something he never considered until the fucker realized I’d taught myself to read.

I might have not had any respect for my father. But at least he was smart enough to pick up on the fact Tate would never be anything more than a breeder. A cum deposit filled to the brim with useless DNA. But me? The old man could use me. Shape me. Mold me into something worth investing in.

Point was, if the kid wanted to be named after acartoon ghost, it wasn’t on me to tell him it was a dumb idea. Guess it made more sense than a five-year-old idolizing some French mathematician.

“How long’s he been down here?” I turned back to Casper, my voice raised enough to carry over the continued clanking of metal and constant wailing.

“As long as I’ve been here. Probably longer.”

I flicked my eyes towards Donnie again. “And what do you expect me to do with him?”

---