CHAPTER 128: INSANITY

Justin – POV

The door crashed open.

Boots. Six of them. Big fuckers, faces blank under black masks. They swarmed me, rough hands grabbing my arms, wrenching them back. Cold metal bit into my wrists—cuffs—digging into half-healed bruises from the last time. My muscles strained, rage exploding in every vein, but there were too many.

Then the guards parted.

And they brought her in.

For a second, my heart actually stopped.

June.

But no.

Not my June.

This girl looked like someone who’d crawled out of hell wearing June’s skin.

Her hair hung limp, tangled around a face pale as marble. Her wrists were cuffed, the metal digging so deep it had turned the skin raw and angry. She wore a thin hospital gown, bare feet shuffling, eyes wide and glassy.

But it was her eyes that killed me.

Empty. Lost. Ferocious in the wrong way.

Like an animal that had forgotten language, mercy, and love.

My June was gone.

"What the fuck did you do to her!" My voice ripped from my throat, raw, savage.

I lunged forward. The cuffs yanked me back, the guards hauled me down to my knees, forcing my face into the cold concrete.

"June! June! Look at me!"

She didn’t blink. Didn’t flinch. Just stood there, chest heaving in small, panicked breaths, pupils blown so wide there was barely any brown left.

Like she couldn’t see me at all.

Then he walked in.

White lab coat. Gray hair slicked back. Face calm as if this was a fucking science fair.

"Number Nine," he drawled, voice like old paper. "The current Number Twelve... is, shall we say... lost."

I spat at him. The glob of blood and spit hit the floor by his shoes.

He didn’t even look down.

"If," he continued, like we were chatting over coffee, "you can bring her back from the brink of insanity, we might consider letting her go."

My breath roared in my ears.

"You fucking piece of shit," I hissed, fighting the guards’ grip until my shoulders screamed. "What did you do to her!?"

His mouth twitched. Almost a smile. "Merely reminded her of what she is."

"Let him go," he told the guards.

They dropped me. I nearly fell, caught myself, knees shaking.

June still didn’t look at me.

Her gaze flickered across the ceiling, the walls, as if the monsters in her head were dancing just out of sight.

My June...

I staggered forward, cuffed hands out. "June... baby... it’s me. Look at me."

Nothing.

Her lips moved, barely. Whispering something I couldn’t hear.

The air between us felt like glass — fragile, cold, impossible to break.

I’d fought wars for her. Killed men for her. Burned entire buildings to the fucking ground. But this?

This was worse than any bullet.

"June, please." My voice cracked like it hadn’t since I was a kid, locked in a cell just like this. "Come back to me."

She flinched. A tiny, animal twitch. Her eyes darted to my face — just for a heartbeat.

Then back to the wall.

Gone.

The old man stepped closer. "You see, Number Nine... we discovered something fascinating."

I didn’t want to hear it. I wanted to tear his throat out. But the guards stood ready, rifles lifted just enough to remind me that June stood between them too.

"You broke the first Number Twelve out before the final phase of her conditioning," he said. "Her mind healed — partially. Enough to form attachments. But the voices never left her, did they?"

My jaw clenched. "Shut the fuck up."

"And now," he continued, voice almost gentle, "we’ve brought them back. Stronger. Louder. Until she doesn’t know who she is anymore."

I saw June’s mouth move again. Lips soundless.

And I knew.

She was answering them. The fucking voices.

"June!" I stepped closer. The guards raised their rifles. "June, look at me! It’s Justin!"

For a breath — the barest flicker of a second — her gaze met mine.

Recognition sparked there. Like a candle in the dark.

Then it guttered out.

She backed away, shoulders curling in, head dropping.

"You see?" the doctor murmured, eyes glinting with something like triumph. "All that love, all those years... gone. All it takes is the right dosage, the right questions... and the voices do the rest."

He turned, as if dismissing me. "But perhaps," he added, almost carelessly, "you can still reach her. The old bond might reassert itself."

His gaze flicked back to me. "Or she’ll tear your throat out. Either way, we’ll learn something valuable."

My vision blurred red.

If it hadn’t been for the cuffs, I’d have been on him.

Ripping. Tearing.

The guards stepped closer, rifles aimed at my chest.

I forced my voice steady. "June. Please."

She rocked slightly, eyes blank. Whispering to shadows only she could see.

And I — Justin fucking Blackwell, monster, Number Nine, the one who always had a plan — had nothing.

Not a weapon. Not a plan.

Just desperation.

"I love you," I choked. "I fucking love you. Come back to me."

She lifted her head, almost slow motion. Her eyes met mine.

Empty.

"Blood," she whispered. Her voice was paper-thin, barely audible. "They want blood."

And then she looked through me.

The doctor turned away. "Fascinating," he murmured, scribbling something on his clipboard.

Rage swelled, hot and filthy, drowning every other thought.

But beneath it, deeper, colder than rage: fear.

I was losing her.

And this time, I didn’t know if I could get her back.

"Okay, let’s give the lovebirds some privacy," the old fucker said, tapping his clipboard like this was a fucking experiment and not my entire life shaking in the corner.

He nodded to the guard. A clatter of metal hit the floor beside me — the keys.

"Don’t open her cuffs yet before you get through to her," the doctor warned, voice calm as death. "We don’t want you dead when we just got you."

Then he turned, coat swishing like a butcher leaving his next meal to bleed out.

The door slammed shut.

Click. Lock.

I was alone with her.

Or what was left of her.

I could feel the cameras watching. The microphones in the walls.

Didn’t give a fuck.

All that mattered was her.

My hands shook as I fumbled with the keys, wrists raw from the cuffs. Metal scraped skin as I finally clicked them off, dropping them to the floor.

Didn’t matter. Didn’t fucking matter.

June.

She was squatting in the corner, knees hugged to her chest, rocking herself back and forth.

Her hair hung like a veil around her face.

She looked so small.

Like the little girl they’d taken from me all those years ago — and never really given back.

"June, baby," I rasped, voice catching in my raw throat.

She flinched. Her head lifted, strands of hair falling away.

For a breath, hope — stupid, fragile, dying hope — burned in my chest.

Then I saw her eyes.

Empty.

No spark. No recognition.

Just that wide, feral stare, like an animal too long in a cage.

"Baby, it’s me," I tried again, forcing my voice soft, gentle — the voice I used to coax her out of nightmares.

"It’s Justin. Remember? Justin."

She twitched, her gaze darting to my face and away, as if the sight burned.

My chest cracked open.

Fuck, she didn’t know me.

They’d taken everything.

I dropped to my knees a few feet from her. Palms open, voice shaking.

"It’s okay, June. I’m not gonna hurt you. I’m here, alright? I came for you."

No reaction.

She kept rocking, her breath coming in ragged little gasps, eyes locked on something that wasn’t me — wasn’t even here.

The voices.

I could see it now, in every tiny tremor of her lips.

She was listening to them. Talking to them.

The same voices she used to fight every day... until they’d broken her so deep she couldn’t fight anymore.

My stomach twisted.

I wanted to throw up.

I wanted to kill.

"I’m so fucking sorry," I whispered, voice cracking.

"I’m sorry I didn’t find you sooner. Sorry I let them get you. I swear to God, June, I’m gonna burn this fucking place to the ground."

Still nothing.

I inched closer, careful, like she was a wounded animal that might bolt.

My knee touched the cold floor, my breath misting in the icy air of the cell.

"June, please... look at me. Just look at me."

Her gaze flicked to me, then away again.

Empty.

Gone.

The girl who used to smirk at my worst jokes, who’d slap my chest and call me an asshole right before kissing me senseless...

Wasn’t in there anymore.

The rage came back, roaring so loud it almost knocked me sideways.

I clenched my fists until my knuckles cracked.

Not at her. Never at her.

At them.

The fuckers behind the cameras. The fuckers in white coats.

I was going to peel their skin off for this.

One by one.

Slow.

Everyone is going to scream a thousand time before they die