I woke to my hands tied at my sides. Something was attached over my nose, the tube ending at my chest. I saw a single bulb overhead casting shadows in the room. 

I wiggled and found my ankles similarly bound. Pins and needles slowly tickled its way up my arms and legs. The numb parts waking from stiffness to uncomfortable pain. 

In a corner a tv buzzed. A picture of a young girl framed at the side of a newscaster. The title read: Home of Detective in local serial killer case, ransacked. Detective and family missing. I turned away.

“Hello!” I waited for anyone to answer before yelling louder, but the breathing apparatus over my nose sucked the power from my lungs. 

“Hello? Is anybody there?” 

I heard the shuffle of feet. Two steps and a pair of shoes shone in the baleful light. 

“No one that will help you.” 

“What? What do you mean?” I struggled against my bonds making the table clank. 

“I mean, no one is going to help you.” 

The man walked into the light. His eyes were sharp and angry. “It’s just you and me now. Where is she?” 

I tried to think past the fog in my brain, but I didn’t know what he meant.

“Who?” 

“Harriett! My daughter! Where is she!” 

The man slammed down a hand by my head and left a leather square with a shield on it. 

“I know you did it. I know you killed them. Your DNA is all over my house.” The man bent and picked up a jar from the floor, then cracked the lid. 

My heart skipped a beat looking at the cockroach inside. The policeman lifted the tube and tipped the jar slightly. “Tell me where she is!” 

“I don’t know!” I screamed. Terror blinding me. I didn’t know who he was talking about.

The jar tipped and the cockroach scattered down the tube, landing on my face. I couldn’t fight the spasm of my breathing. I tried to snort the cockroach away but only enticed it into my nostrils. 

“Tell me where she is!” 

It crawled in. Ticking the hairs inside. The sensation of a sneeze began, and then the cockroach lunged deeper, hitting the back of my nasal cavity. 

“Tell me where she is?” 

“I don’t know!” I screamed, as the sneeze evaporated to eye watering pain. I felt every leg, every movement as it crawled down the back of my nose into my mouth.  

I gagged, coughing up the roach, spitting it out of my mouth. The man peered closer, right into my eyes. I remembered what he said as he did. About my DNA. Or rather our DNA. 

“It’s my brother. It must be. Please, I can help you arrest him. Please!” 

The man loaded up another cockroach as a second man came into view. 

“I told him you would say that,” my twin-brother said with an evil grin.