[ Adam Parrish is terrified.

Of course he does his best not to show it, taking the folder they give him carefully as if trying to avoid transferring some kind of dirt on to the cardboard. His mind spins with questions: where is he? How did he get here? Why can't he remember? Do the others know? With each one it gets worse. He feels grubby, sweaty with terror and small inside. Cabeswater is gone. He can't feel it. And if it's gone then he doesn't know what to do. There's nothing to protect him. Avoiding the gaze of anyone with a gun, shoulders hunched in on himself, Adam only opens his mouth when when the woman addresses him. ] Listen, I don't know what I'm doing here. I know, I know, it's explained in the file. But I shouldn't be here. [ She tries ushering him to the car as she talks but he feels a sudden rush of defence, planting his feet into the ground. ] No, wait. You can't do this. I have rights.

[ Adam is a boy of eighteen, fair, freckled and delicate featured, dressed in faded jeans and a red coca-cola t-shirt. He looks like a normal boy. But he's fierce and prickly and afraid and that's not a good combination. ] I don't want to read the damn thing, I want to go home. [ Anger is explosive. It's a gift he got from his DNA and he throws an arm out, the papers rustling in his grip. The woman doesn't look worried, only looking to two other soldiers who take a step forward. She tells him he has no choice. She tells him he has to stay. Adam's gaze drifts from her to the fingers of one man lightly resting on the butt of what looks to be a tazer. She continues. Adam has choices. He has a name he can choose but doesn't. A job. A school. A home. She rattles them off but he feels dead inside. Florida, North Carolina, Vigini --. ]

Yes, yeah. I'll go there. [ He doesn't know where De Chima is and he can't remember Gansey's number but maybe he can look up his parents on the directory and they can call their son and send him or Ronan to come fetch him. That's a better idea. Better than being here waiting to be hurt anyway. They tell him to wait a minute and he finally looks around him, sees the same expression from his face on other people's. He doesn't feel bad about shouting. He doesn't have it in him. ]

[ Somehow this is worse. It feels the same but isn't and every one he speaks to asking about Henrietta looks at him blankly. One man had clutched him by the shoulder and said son, you're not home any more and he'd fled feeling ill and uncertain. The cell phone the soldiers had given him feels heavy in his pocket with wasted potential. He'd tried to call Fox Way and all he'd gotten was a dial tone. He'd tried the mechanics he worked at. The Factory. The school. All the same.

And then there are the people. The ones who stop him in the street and grin at him like he's something. It feels like a trick. The recognition he'd wanted for nothing he'd done. Has all his wishing and hoping brought this on?

Adam is thoroughly miserable. And cold. The wind cuts through him and he slumps into a bench, pulling change out of his pockets to rifle through it. He's probably got enough for a cup of coffee. He has keys to a room he doesn't know. There's probably rent to pay. His head hurts.

And then someone sits beside him and he jostles a little, apologising under his breath for no reason. ]

Anything goes! If you need to plot something out with me pm me on this account or pp me at athosing !