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ADRIAN

I t 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 breakfast particles 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 brother didn’t intend 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 as kind to 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 the foresight 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 because the 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.

It was also all I had at the moment. Hope and a burning rage.

The kind that had me pushing to my feet, sweeping an arm across my desk and sending everything crashing to the floor, before I stomped over to the bookcase and shoved it onto its side.

The bed was in my sights next when the creaking of a hinge had me spinning on a heel and glancing around an empty room and a still-closed door.

I was losing my goddamn mind. Hearing things. It wasn’t unexpected, just inconvenient.

But then I heard it again, a creak followed by a small voice calling out to me. “Adrian?”

I spun around again. And again. Until I was making myself dizzy, leaning my back against the closest wall and sliding onto my ass. My feet spread out in front of me, my head pounding and my heart racing. More symptoms of dehydration.

I could feel my eyelids growing heavy, the stonework cool against my spine as a thin sheen of sweat dried across my forehead—moisture I couldn’t afford to lose.

The first slow blink had me looking back at nothing. The second the same but darker as my vision started to tunnel while the third had me scratching at the floor. Trying to pull myself up as I stared into the face of a woman I’d only seen in photos.

A ghost. My mother.