CHAPTER 131: A HYPOTHESIS

Justin – POV

I don’t know how long we stayed like that.

Minutes. Hours. Could’ve been days for all I cared.

June had stopped shaking, at least. Stopped fighting me like a feral cat.

Now she was in my lap, curled so small it fucking shattered me to look at her. I sat on the cold concrete, legs aching, back against the wall, and just... held her. One arm around her waist, the other hand running through her hair over and over until my fingers got caught in the tangles.

Her hair smelled wrong. Like antiseptic and sweat and fear. Not her shampoo. Not the faint trace of my cologne she sometimes stole.

God.

Her face was still thin, eyes too big in their sockets, but at least there was no fresh blood now. At least she was breathing.

I kept whispering to her. Little nothings. Old words I hadn’t used in years.

"Shh, baby, I’m here. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you."

Over and over, like a goddamn prayer.

Rico should have been here by now.

Where the fuck was he?

I kept glancing at the steel door, expecting it to explode open any second, for Rico to come storming in with half the team at his back, guns drawn.

Nothing.

Only silence.

The realization sank in, slow and cold: maybe they got to Rico, too. Maybe they jammed the signal. Maybe... fuck.

But I couldn’t afford to panic.

Not now.

After she’d calmed — after the screaming had faded into exhausted little gasps — I reached for the cuffs.

Her wrists were bruised, angry red marks biting into that pale skin I knew too damn well. Seeing it made my vision blur with rage.

I forced my hands to stay steady as I unlocked them, one by one.

The cuffs clattered to the floor, metal on concrete, too loud in the stillness.

She flinched at the sound.

"Hey," I murmured, brushing my thumb across the inside of her wrist, over the bruises. "It’s okay. Look. They’re off now. You’re free."

She stared at me, blank-eyed, like she wasn’t quite seeing me.

But at least she didn’t pull away.

She stayed in my lap, trembling every now and then, breathing too shallow. Her heartbeat was a terrified flutter against my chest.

I couldn’t stop touching her — smoothing her hair, tracing her spine, brushing my thumb over her cheekbone. I needed to feel she was real.

Needed to convince myself she was still here.

Because this wasn’t my June.

Not yet.

The girl in my arms felt hollowed out, emptied, replaced by something quieter and darker. But underneath it — god, there had to be something left of her.

I pressed my forehead against hers, letting my breath mingle with hers.

"You’re safe," I whispered again, voice cracking.

"I’ve got you, baby. I’m so fucking sorry I wasn’t here sooner. I swear to God, I’m gonna make them pay. Every single one of them."

My throat burned.

"I promise you," I rasped, the words tasting like blood and desperation, "I will get you out of here. Even if it kills me."

She shifted in my arms, her face turning toward my neck. I felt the faintest touch of her breath, hot and damp, like the ghost of a sigh.

Maybe she was still in there.

Maybe.

My eyes kept darting to the door.

Rico, where the fuck are you?

I couldn’t sit here forever. I needed to move. To find a way out.

But every time I tried to shift, June whimpered and clung tighter, her nails biting into my shirt.

So I stayed.

Held her tighter.

Ran my hand through her hair again, slow and gentle, even as my own heart felt like it was being ripped apart with every beat.

They did this to her.

Turned her into a ghost.

And I was going to tear the world apart to get her back.

But first...

First, I had to keep her breathing.

Had to keep myself breathing.

Because if I let the voices take over now — the part of me that wanted to rip steel doors off hinges and snap necks until the walls dripped red — I might lose her forever.

So I breathed.

Counted her heartbeats against mine.

Whispered her name into her hair, over and over, like it was the only word I still remembered.

"June. June. Baby, come back to me. Please."

Even if she didn’t answer.

Especially because she didn’t answer.

And under it all, the cold dread:

Rico wasn’t coming.

Not yet.

And I had no fucking idea what they’d do next.

But they’d underestimated one thing.

They thought I’d be broken seeing her like this.

They didn’t realize all they’d done was give me one more reason to destroy every last one of them.

***********

The men in white came in like they always fucking did.

Cold. Clinical. Holding clipboards like shields, guards on either side gripping rifles like they expected me to snap at any moment.

And maybe they were right to.

One of them, the older guy, stepped forward. His white coat was pristine, pressed and neat, as if blood and screams couldn’t stain it. He looked at the monitor in his hand, eyes dancing with a perverse sort of curiosity.

"Wow," he murmured, almost to himself. "Remarkable. You’ve managed to calm her... in just under an hour. I must say, Number Nine, even if she’s... lost, there’s still something in her that responds to you. How? How does her mind still recognize you when nothing else does?"

His tone wasn’t admiration. It was fascination, the same way you’d look at a particularly interesting lab rat that refused to die.

I wanted to kill him. Right there. Tear out his throat with my bare hands.

But then June shifted on my lap, flinched, and her trembling got worse the second they stepped closer.

And I realized: if I snapped now, if I lunged at them, she might see me just like she saw them.

And I couldn’t live with that.

So I stayed still. Forced my hands to stay gentle where they curved around her waist, even though every muscle in my body screamed to do the opposite.

"You see, Number Nine," the old man went on, stepping even closer, "we studied the field reports... Nate’s research, specifically..."

The name hit me like a slap. "Nate?" I cut him off, voice low, dangerous. "That fucking—Nate? The university shrink?"

He raised a brow, almost amused. "Ah, I see. June wasn’t the only one who knew him. Yes. Nate was... a field agent, planted to observe her in a normal setting. To study her coping mechanisms. Her triggers. Her patterns of attachment."

My blood turned to ice.

Fuck. Fuck, I knew there was something off about Nate. The way he watched her, too intense, too analytical. The way he’d suddenly turned up at the university, always around. But I never guessed this.

They’d been watching her.

All this time.

The bastard in the coat adjusted his glasses, voice calm, unfeeling. "Where was I... Ah, yes. Nate’s notes. From our review, it seems June had an interesting pattern: when the voices grew loud, when the madness threatened, she sought... relief in sex. It worked, for a time. Enough to give her moments of clarity."

He paused, as if savoring the words. "And I’m sorry to inform you, Number Nine, but you weren’t the only one she went to. According to Nate’s notes, she was an exclusive member of a private club... the Red Bull club. Seeking strangers. Men who could... quiet the storm inside her."

The floor tilted under me.

My jaw clenched so hard my teeth felt like they’d crack.

Liar.

Fucking liar.

June wasn’t like that. I knew her. I knew what had been done to her by that monster who raised her. I knew how she flinched at touch when I first held her. She wouldn’t just let strangers...

And besides—fuck, I was a member too. I never once saw her there. Not once.

But doubt, vile and poisonous, snaked through my chest anyway.

The man watched me carefully, like he was measuring the damage his words were doing. "Oh, come now, Number Nine. You don’t really think I’m lying, do you? After all, you, too, used sex to quiet the voices. We know. It wasn’t easy to access your records—you covered your tracks well—but from what we found, it appears you also turned to... physical intimacy, to anchor yourself."

His words felt like knives, cutting into scars I’d kept buried.

Old nights. Old sins. Pretty Cat. The women whose names I never learned.

Before June.

Before her eyes and her laugh and her stubbornness made all of them irrelevant.

Fuck.

"And now," he went on, almost cheerfully, "we would like to test another aspect. A hypothesis, if you will."

His gaze turned clinical. Cold. "You are free to refuse, of course... but we would like you to have intercourse with Number Twelve. To see if your... connection can quiet the voices in her head long enough to bring her back. Perhaps even permanently."

The words hit me like a sledgehammer.

I saw red.

Fucking monsters.

"You think—" I choked out, voice shaking with rage. "You think I’d rape her? You fucking bastards—"

"Not rape, Number Nine," he interrupted smoothly. "You’d be... helping her. It’s your choice. If you refuse, there are others here who would happily volunteer. After all, the data matters more than the method and she is a looker."