Fake Dating The Bad Boy-Chapter 52: Finding The Monster

Justin – POV

The streets blurred past me.

I drove like a man possessed, barely blinking, barely breathing, just chasing shadows.

Every light, every corner, every block felt wrong. Empty. Too quiet.

She wasn’t answering her phone.

I wasn’t even sure she had it with her.

She left without her bag. Her shoes. Just vanished like the night erased her.

The kind of disappearance that made my skin crawl and my hands itch to grab something—someone—and demand answers.

But no one had any.

Not the old lady I bribed down the hall.

Not the front desk.

Not even the cameras—I checked, hacked into them myself.

Nothing.

She was just... gone.

And my gut knew exactly where she’d go.

Not because it made sense. Not because she wanted to.

But because trauma is a leash.

It always drags you back to where it started.

Home.

Fucking home.

That house. That man. That woman who pretended not to see.

I slammed the gear into park two blocks away.

I knew the routine. Knew her father’s schedule. Thursdays, they both worked—long shifts, out by eight. If she went back, she’d be alone.

Safe.

I clung to that word like a drowning man to driftwood.

Safe.

God, please let her be safe.

I cut across backyards, through fences, silent like the ghost they turned me into.

The house stood the same. Dull green paint peeling off like rotting skin, the front steps slumped with fatigue. Her mother’s garden was gone now. Just dirt and cigarette butts and one half-dead rose.

I slipped to the back.

Windows dark.

No sound.

No car in the driveway.

No shadows moving behind the curtains.

I crept closer.

My fingers brushed the side panel under the kitchen window—found the loose one, just like before. I’d used it years ago, back when I wasn’t supposed to know where she lived.

It still opened.

Quiet.

Effortless.

Like the house wanted to let me in.

I slid through and landed on the linoleum without a sound.

The kitchen smelled the same—cigarettes and cheap vodka and something burnt.

I stood still.

Listened.

Then I heard it.

A sound that didn’t belong.

Muffled.

Wet.

Like someone trying to choke on their own breath.

And then—her voice.

A whimper.

No words. Just pain. Pure and high and broken.

I didn’t think. My body moved on instinct. Slow. Silent.

I edged toward the archway leading to the counter.

And froze.

Time split in two.

There she was.

June.

I felt the blood drain from my face as I slid up to the doorway, peering around the edge with a sliver of sight.

And I saw her.

Bent over the kitchen counter.

Jeans around her ankles.

Her face twisted in silent horror.

His hands on her hips.

His belt on the floor.

And I saw red.

And her fists pressed flat on the counter like she was praying for gravity to rip her out of her body.

My world went red.

Everything—everything—in me snapped.

I wanted to kill him.

Wanted to rip his throat out with my bare hands.

Wanted to make him scream until the neighbors thought the devil himself moved in.

But then—

Before I could even move—

She moved.

Fast.

Savage.

Like something deep inside her broke.

She reached for the jar next to the sink—he didn’t even see her do it. He was too busy grunting, murmuring filth in her ear like it was love.

She spun.

Fork in hand.

And jammed it into his eye.

He screamed.

High. Shrill. Disbelieving.

She didn’t stop.

She ripped it out—blood spattered the cabinets—and stabbed again.

This time in his neck.

And again.

And again.

Fork. Flesh. Blood. Bone.

Over and over until he slumped backward, gurgling, mouth wide, one eye rolling loose and blind.

He wasn’t dead.

Not yet.

But fuck if she wasn’t trying.

And I stood there—frozen.

A grown man, a fighter, trained by monsters—and I stood fucking frozen while a girl half my size tore her abuser apart with a kitchen utensil.

God.

God, June.

She was crying and stabbing and shaking and screaming without making a sound.

That hurt the most.

The silence.

She didn’t even scream.

She just breathed through her teeth like the air hated her and she had to fight for every scrap of it.

He dropped like dead weight, twitching, groaning, blood leaking into the tile.

Still breathing.

Barely.

She didn’t kill him.

Not yet.

She turned, gasping, her shirt covered in blood, the fork still clenched in her trembling hand.

Her eyes found mine.

And she dropped the weapon.

I moved.

I don’t even remember walking—I just remember grabbing her.

Pulling her back, away from the blood and the body and the war she unleashed on him.

"June," I said. Or maybe I didn’t. Maybe it was just a breath.

She flinched like I was the enemy.

Blood on her arms.

Blood on her face.

"June, it’s me," I said again, slowly now, lower. "It’s Justin. Baby, look at me."

Her eyes snapped to mine.

Wild.

Empty.

And then—recognition.

Not relief.

Not joy.

Just recognition. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

Like she saw a rope she could grab, but knew it would burn her hands.

She crumbled.

Right there in my arms.

Dead weight.

No sobs.

Just collapse.

I held her.

I grabbed her—gently. Like she was glass, like any wrong touch might make her shatter.

"June," I breathed, brushing her hair back. "You’re okay now. I’m here."

But she wasn’t okay.

She was gone.

Her eyes darted around like she wasn’t sure where she was anymore. Like she was floating out of her body, the horror too much.

Her lips moved but no sound came out.

I took off my hoodie and wrapped it around her, lifting her jeans, covering her. The smell of blood and sweat and fear made me want to vomit.

The man on the floor groaned.

I looked down.

He was still breathing.

Barely.

Fork embedded in his eye, neck pulsing slow and weak.

But he was alive.

June was trembling.

She was on the floor, knees pulled to her chest, rocking.

Not crying.

Not blinking.

Just—gone.

I lifted her up gently.

She didn’t fight.

Didn’t speak.

Just clung to me, arms limp around my neck.

We left through the door this time.

The morning light outside felt too quiet.

Too clean.

Too normal for what just happened.

But I didn’t care.

She was in my arms.

And this time?

I wasn’t letting her go.

I cradled her like glass as I lowered her into the passenger seat, buckled her in slow, careful—like she’d shatter if I moved too fast. Her eyes were open but not seeing. Her lips moved, but no words came out.

I brushed a hand down her cheek, tried to catch her gaze. Nothing.

Just that blank, echoing silence in her.

It wasn’t gone.

It had burrowed.

And I’d make damn sure the bastard who did this learned what silence really meant.

I closed the door.

The click was too loud.

Too final.

I rounded the hood, pulled my phone from my back pocket as I reached the driver’s side.

I didn’t hesitate.

Didn’t think.

Rico answered on the first ring.

"Yeah?"

"I got one for you," I said, voice low. Flat. "Alive. Mostly. Come pick him up."

"Where?"

"Her house. Back window’s open."

"You sure he’s—"

"Still breathing," I bit out. "But not for long unless you move."

"Got it."

"And Rico?"

"Yeah?"

"Take him to the cave."

There was a pause.

A knowing one.

Then: "Understood."

He didn’t ask why.

Didn’t need to.

We both knew what the cave was for.

Not storage. Not intimidation.

Punishment.

Pain.

Retribution.

It was the only place where the screaming in my head ever quieted.

It started after the lab, after they pulled me out and dressed me up and sent me off to pretend I was normal. But the voices never stopped. Not really. They just changed shape. Became static in my skull, waiting to explode.

I tried therapy.

Drugs.

Noise.

Sex.

Silence.

Nothing worked.

Until I started tracking them.

The guards.

The doctors.

The ones who held us down and shocked our brains and made us doubt who we were.

I didn’t kill them.

Not right away.

I took them home first.

To the cave.

To the place I built with my own two hands.

Stone and steel and soundproof walls deep enough the world couldn’t hear what I did inside.

It helped.

Not forever.

But enough.

And now?

Now I had another one to add to the list.

I tucked my phone away, gripped the car door handle, and looked back once more at the house. That rotting box where June’s nightmares lived.

I wanted to burn it to the ground.

Wanted to raze it so completely it’d be erased from maps, from memory, from her soul.

But not yet.

There were still pieces in play.

Still names I hadn’t found.

Two people in charge. And the overall doctor.

Two ghosts behind the curtain, pulling strings, running experiments like we were nothing more than rats in a cage.

One male.

One female.

They called them the Heads.

The overall director—and the woman with the voice like ice who always smiled when she strapped electrodes to my temples.

I still heard her sometimes.

Still woke up with her voice saying, "Let’s begin again, Number Nine."

Nine.

That’s who I used to be.

Number Nine.

Justin was the name they gave me afterward.

The one I stole back.

But that boy—number nine—he still lived in my bones. Still whispered every time someone touched June.

Every time someone made her flinch.

The bastard inside that house was lucky she got to him first.

Because I wouldn’t have stopped at a fork.

I opened the door and slid into the driver’s seat.

She didn’t move.

Didn’t even blink.

I didn’t say anything.

Just started the car.

And drove.

Drove like the past couldn’t follow.

Like silence could finally mean peace.

Like maybe, just maybe, the cave would be enough this time.