JUNE — POV
After everything, after the gasps and whispers and heat of it all, I finally feel like I can breathe.
The storm in my head, the voices, the flashes of violence and grief—they’ve all quieted down. I lie tangled in the sheets, tangled in him, in the warmth of skin and silence. My body aches in a good way. My mind, for once, is still. Sane.
I stare at the ceiling, his breath steady beside . I can feel it on my shoulder, the steady rhythm of soone safe, soone mine. It’s almost enough to keep the thoughts from crawling back. Almost.
But I need to know.
I need answers.
Because I rember now.
Not everything. Not all of it. But enough.
Enough to make shake. Enough to realize how close I ca to never knowing.
He’s Number Nine.
My Number Nine.
The boy who always held my hand when the lights went out. The boy who I stole food for. The boy who whispered promises in the dark, telling he’d find a way out. Telling he’d protect .
He did.
We had escaped together. We had planned it like whispered rebellion in the dark, during those cold nights when the other kids cried themselves to sleep and we pretended not to hear. I had gotten myself into trouble on purpose just to be assigned kitchen duty. Just to be near him. Just to slip into that tal room with the vent behind the fridge. He had drawn the map from mory. He’d stolen the wire to pry it open.
He had hidden in a trash bag.
I rembered his fingers trembling when he zipped in, whispering through the thick plastic, "Don’t make a sound. No matter what happens."
And then... darkness. The sound of wheels. tal creaking. The trash truck doors slamming shut.
And then... him.
The man who took in. The man who said he’d found collapsed on the road, bloody and unconscious. The savior. Mark Matthews. Kind, generous, respected. The man who built foundations for girls like . The man people said was a hero.
A lie.
A monster.
And I had no idea I’d walked from one hell straight into another.
The next thing I knew—I was waking up in a hospital bed.
My body aching. My mind blank.
They told I had passed out in an alley. That a man—my adopted father—had found collapsed and bleeding, and rushed to safety. They said I’d been in a coma. That when I woke up, I couldn’t rember anything.
Not my na.
Not my ho.
Not the hell I ca from.
The doctors said it was trauma-induced amnesia. That whatever life I had co from, my mind had decided I shouldn’t rember it. That it buried it deep like corpses under floorboards.
And that was the beginning of June Matthews.
A new na. A new life.
Except it wasn’t a life. Not really.
But that’s not what eats at now. What claws at the inside of my chest is everything I don’t know. What happened after Number Nine and I ran? How did he survive? How did he beco Justin? What happened to the others? To the institution?
I turn to him.
He’s awake. His eyes are open, already on , as if he could feel the shift in my thoughts the second they started. That intense gaze of his—dark, watchful, a little wild—softens when it’s just . He doesn’t speak. He waits.
He knows.
And it’s that—his patience—that makes my throat tighten.
"I rember you," I say softly.
His lips twitch, just slightly. "Took you long enough."
That earns him a weak laugh from , but it fades quickly. I search his face for sothing—maybe the boy I once knew. But he’s not a boy anymore. Neither of us are.
"I rember the escape," I murmur. "The trash bag. The vent. The whispers. But after that..."
I trail off. My fingers tighten around the sheet. My voice is barely a breath when I ask, "How did you get out?"
Justin doesn’t answer right away. He sits up slowly, the blanket falling from his chest, revealing faint scars that scatter across his skin like silent testimony. Faded. Old. I hadn’t noticed them before. Or maybe I had—and I just hadn’t rembered what they ant.
His voice, when it cos, is rough. "I wasn’t supposed to make it."
That chills more than anything. He looks down at his hands, and suddenly I see them differently—hands that once clung to mine in the dark, now bigger, rougher, calloused with ti and pain.
"I went back for you," he says. "Right after. I wasn’t supposed to, but I had to. You were gone. The truck had already left."
"You said you’d co back," I whisper, my throat burning. "That we would escape together."
"I did," he nods. "And I did co back. But they were already looking for . I barely made it out the first ti. They caught ."
I suck in a breath, dread curling in my gut.
"They brought back. But I wasn’t a kid anymore, June. Not to them. I was a defector."
I blink rapidly, trying to process. "What... what did they do?"
Justin’s eyes lift to mine, and for a mont, I see sothing in them break. "They experinted on . Isolated . Tested how far they could push a body before it gave out. I don’t know how long it lasted. Days. Months. Maybe years. It all blurred together after a while."
"Oh my God..." My hand flies to my mouth.
"I don’t rember the exact mont I broke," he says, voice quieter now. "But I do rember the mont I stopped being afraid of them. That was the day I killed one of the guards."
My stomach turns.
"I thought that would be it. I thought they’d end it. But instead, they... promoted . Gave a new na. A new room. More privileges. I beca one of their success stories." His smile is bitter. "They called Justin."
"No..." I shake my head. "No, you’re not one of them."
"I was," he admits. "For a while, I believed them. That I was stronger. Better. That what they did made ... sothing worth keeping. I forgot who I was. Who you were."
His voice cracks on the last word, and my vision swims with tears I didn’t know were waiting.
"What changed?"
"I saw your na," he says. "On a file. A photo. You’d been found, adopted, living a normal life. And I rembered. All of it. You. The plan. Your laugh in the vents. The way you always shared your food."
His eyes don’t look away. Not this ti.
The silence that follows is heavy. And when he speaks, it cos slowly—carefully, like he’s choosing which truth might break least.
But he tells it all anyway.
"I didn’t beco Justin. They gave the na. After they took back."
I sit up, wrapping the blanket around my chest like it could protect from the cold sliding up my spine.
"But we were rescued. Eventually."
My breath catches. "We?"
"Children Right Foundation. It wasn’t the governnt. Wasn’t your rich father. Wasn’t you."
His voice is quiet, but I feel every word like a slap.
"They found what was left of us. Pulled us out. So of us could still be saved, they said. I was one of the lucky ones." He gives a bitter smile. "Assimilated, they called it. We were given therapy, education, housing. A chance to be... human again."
My heart is pounding. "That’s how you beca Justin?"
He nods once. "That’s the na they gave when they registered for school. When I got my new ID. New life. But I didn’t forget."
He leans back against the headboard, staring straight ahead like the past is playing in the corner of the room.
"I tried to. They wanted us to move on, but I couldn’t. None of us could. Not the ones who rembered everything. We tracked down the people who did this. The guards. The doctors. The ones who watched us scream and bleed and beg."
"And?" I whisper.
"And most of them paid their way out of trouble. Rich lawyers. Private settlents. Influence in all the right places." His jaw clenches. "No justice. Not the kind that mattered."
I feel the world tilting, my stomach turning.
"We caught so," he says. "Low-level ones. The assistants. The guards who weren’t protected by money. So of us wanted them to face trial. Others..." He doesn’t finish that thought.
I already know.
Then his eyes shift to , sharp. Accusing. "And then Rico found out you were alive."
My breath catches. "?"
"You were the rumor at first. A girl who used to scream when the lights went out. Who had vanished. They said you died. But Rico said no—he saw a photo. Fancy magazine feature. Daughter of so big-ti philanthropist. Attending private school. You had a last na. A life."
I open my mouth, but I have no defense.
"I hated you." He says it like it costs him sothing. "I hated that you were living well while the rest of us were trying to survive therapy. Trying not to kill ourselves. You were safe. I thought... maybe you were waiting. Maybe you’d send soone for us. But you didn’t."
Tears burn the backs of my eyes.
"You weren’t the reason we got out. Other people rescued us. Not you."
I cover my mouth, the guilt breaking open inside like a wound.
"So I found you," he says. "Tracked your schedule. Enrolled in your university. Sa course. Sa classes. I sat behind you. Watched you laugh with your perfect friends. Pretend the world hadn’t burned."
"Justin..."
"I waited for you to recognize . I thought the mories would hit you. A scent. A sound. . Sothing. But you looked at like I was no one."
"I didn’t rember," I croak.
"I know that now." He swallows hard. "But back then... I agreed to be your fake boyfriend so I could get close. So I could corner you, make you look in the eyes and rember. And when you scread in your sleep? I thought it was happening. I thought it was finally happening. I’d sit there, waiting for you to wake up and say my na."
Tears spill down my cheeks.
"But you never did," he says quietly.
The silence swells until it feels like it could crush .
"I’m sorry," I whisper. "God, I didn’t know."
"I know," he says again, softer this ti.
I reach out, trembling, my fingers brushing his wrist. "You should’ve told ."
His hand wraps around mine. No anger. No hate. Just that sa quiet grip he once gave when the lights flickered in our cell.
And for the first ti in years, I don’t feel like soone made of cracks and missing pieces.
I feel like soone finding their way ho.
Reviews
All reviews (0)