Justin POV:
I had left her sitting in that damn classroom, eyes distant, probably pondering the aning of life—or more likely, the aning of . I didn’t know. I didn’t ask. I couldn’t.
It took every ounce of restraint in my body not to just haul her over my shoulder like a caveman and take her sowhere far. Sowhere quiet. Sowhere I could keep her, away from all the bullshit and people and... .
But hey. Apparently, we live in a century where kidnapping the girl you’re obsessed with is frowned upon.
So I walked.
Tried to cool off. Tried not to spiral.
So I walked.
I made it halfway down the hall before I noticed it.
My hand.
Trembling.
Not from cold. Not from caffeine.
From him.
"Fuck. Not now. Not here," I muttered under my breath.
Not now.
Not here.
I yanked open the nearest door without thinking. Luck—real, rare, dangerous luck—landed in a janitor’s closet. I slamd the door shut behind and dropped to the floor, back to the wall, pulling my knees in like I could trap the madness inside if I curled up tight enough.
But the second the darkness wrapped around —
I was gone.
Not in the hallway. Not at the university.
Not in this body.
I was twelve again.
Back in the lab.
Suddenly, I wasn’t in a hallway anymore.
I was back.
Back in the lab.
Twelve years old.
My bones smaller. My skin thinner. My voice never loud enough to matter.
The concrete under was damp and foul-slling.
My skin went cold. My breath vanished. I wasn’t Justin anymore—I was Number Nine. The boy with dirty fingernails, hollow eyes, and a body too small to fight back.
It was my turn for the hole.
We called it the hole because the only way out was up. And no one ca down to get you. Not unless it was to throw more rats in.
The ga was simple.
Twisted.
Survive.
They left us in there for a month.
They gave us a knife.
Not food. Not water. Just the knife and the rats.
You either used it on yourself, ended the pain, fed the rats...
Or you used it on them—turned predator, not prey. Learned to tear, to skin, to feed.
There was no door—only a trap door above. You didn’t get out unless they let you. And they didn’t let you out unless they were done breaking you.
It was pitch black. The stench of mold, blood, and rot filled every breath. But worse were the rats.
And the knife.
They always left a knife.
A choice, they said.
Let the rats eat you alive, or fight. Kill them. Eat them. Survive.
Twisted, sadistic, experintal fun for the n in lab coats.
And there I was again—trapped in that mory. My fingers curled like they were still holding the blade. My skin crawled with ghost bites. My mind sank beneath the weight of screams long buried.
I survived.
Obviously.
And I’d left pieces of myself down there, buried in that concrete.
Now—now I felt him.
Number Nine.
The fourth fracture in my mind. The youngest. The one who never grew up. The one who rembered the hole in crystal fucking detail.
My pulse slamd in my ears.
My vision darkened around the edges.
Number Nine.
The fourth version of . The quietest. The deadliest.
He didn’t speak often. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough to silence everything else.
I could feel my posture change, body stiffen. My breath slowed, chanical now. Detached. He wasn’t scared of the past. He lived there.
"Don’t worry," he whispered inside our shared mind. "We’re still in the dark. Still safe."
I wanted to scream. To shove him back.
But the closet walls were too close.
And I was too far gone.
I felt my fingers twitch—tightening like they were wrapped around a blade again. Felt my spine curl, my knees ache from crouching in corners too long. Felt the language of fear wrap around my lungs like barbed wire.
I could see the rats.
Could hear the n laughing behind the two-way mirror.
I rembered the taste of rat blood. The sll. The way I stopped crying after the third day because tears were pointless when the only thing listening was sothing waiting to devour you.
I couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.
Number Nine.
The boy who killed and didn’t flinch. The boy they buried and never quite managed to keep dead.
I could feel him coming forward, crawling up my spine, clawing his way out from the shadows. He was small, quiet, and lethal in a way none of my other fragnts ever were. When Nine ca forward, it was because the pain was too deep to feel like a man. Because only a boy could understand that kind of horror.
And so that’s who I beca.
Curled on the floor, knees to my chest, head buried between my palms. Not crying—no. I’d long forgotten how. But my mind? Screaming.
I could sll the rats.
I could feel the cold.
I could taste the tal and blood and—
The door creaked.
I didn’t lift my head at first. Thought it was just a mory slipping sideways, maybe a hallucination bleeding through.
But then she spoke.
"What are you doing here?"
Her voice was like water after fire. Startled enough to jolt back—partially. My body rembered now, even if my brain hadn’t caught up.
I chuckled.
A dry, broken thing.
Lifted my face. Smirked.
Slapped on the smirk.
The armor.
The mask.
The infamous one. The one that made half the campus girls flirt with their doom. That perfect curve of lips that said, Yes, I’m dangerous, and yes, you still want .
The one they all believed in. The one they all feared or fantasized about.
It slid on too easily now.
"Scouting," I said. "Figured I’d find a good place to hide a body or two."
Her eyes flinched.
Not laughing.
Not playing.
Right. She knew.
She knew what I’d done. What I was capable of. What I’d beco for her—for revenge.
I stepped toward her.
She didn’t move.
God, she was beautiful when she was furious. Or scared. Or shaking because she didn’t know which was worse—, or the fact that she wanted anyway.
I saw it in her eyes.
The conflict. The pull. The magnetic disaster of what we were.
Her eyes widened—not with amusent. Not this ti. Fear. Or maybe not quite fear. Sothing murkier. She’d seen what I’d done to her adoptive father. She knew what I was capable of.
I took a step forward. The air shifted.
God, I’d forgotten how good she slled. How much space she took in my head. My hands itched to touch her, but I held back. Barely.
"Tell , June," I murmured. My voice dropped, smoky and slow. I leaned in, felt the heat between us rise. "Are you scared of ?"
She nodded.
Not the kind that ant run.
The kind that ant stay and ruin .
Good girl.
I didn’t touch her. Not yet. I didn’t have to.
She was already unraveling.
I didn’t need to touch her to know what was happening between her thighs. I’d morized her reactions. Her signals. Her weakness.
I leaned in closer, my breath tracing her neck like a secret.
"Liar," I whispered.
And fuck—her breath hitched. I felt the way her body reacted. The way her thighs shifted. She rembered too.
All of it.
Everything we’d done. Everything I’d taught her to feel.
I could’ve had her. Right then. Right there. I could’ve kissed her until she forgot her na and begged not to stop.
But I didn’t.
I wanted her wrecked. Not just touched.
I wanted her confused. Needy. Mine—even when I wasn’t there.
"I think you’re turned on," I said, darkly. Watching her pupils dilate. Watching her mouth part like she was about to either slap or sin with .
Her eyes fluttered.
My face hovered near hers—close enough to kiss. Close enough to devour.
But I didn’t.
Her hands were shaking.
Good.
"Tell you still want ," I breathed, voice soaked in temptation. "And I can give it to you. Fuck you till you forget what you saw."
God, I wanted her to say yes.
Wanted her to beg.
But I knew better.
Not yet.
The predator in wanted to feast. But the part of still bleeding in the back of that closet, the part still twelve and scared and covered in rats—that part needed her to want on her own.
So I stepped back.
Watched the frustration bloom on her face like wildfire.
I didn’t smile.
Not really.
Because if I did, I’d lose control.
Instead, I turned. Opened the door.
Let the light in.
Looked back at her—wrecked, breathless, furious.
"See you later, girlfriend."
I winked.
And walked away like I hadn’t just held back every part of screaming to stay.
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