Fake Dating The Bad Boy-Chapter 123: Horrors Of The Past (ii)

June’s POV:

Hours pass—I think.

The overhead lights flicker again. Then cut out completely.

Emergency red floods the space, glowing like blood.

I hear footsteps.

I bolt upright, heart hammering.

Justin.

But the door doesn’t open.

The camera above me pans slightly to the left.

Whoever’s watching is still watching.

Still waiting.

Still feeding.

I pace now. Back and forth. Whispering numbers to keep the voices down.

One. Two. Three.

Justin.

One. Two. Three.

Justin.

"Where are you?" I cry.

"I know you’re looking."

I press my palm to the wall, forehead resting against it.

"Please."

Tears slip down my face again. Silent. Bitter.

"I don’t want to be crazy again."

I can feel her—the other me.

The one that came out when they pushed me too far.

The one that stopped being afraid and started to enjoy the pain.

She’s pacing too. Inside my head.

Let me out.

No.

I beat her before.

I survived.

I built a life.

With Justin.

I can’t lose him now.

The door creaks open.

I spin.

But it’s not him.

It’s a tray of food—slid in quickly, silently. I catch a glimpse of white shoes before the door closes again.

They’re still treating me like property. Like a test subject.

Like... Number Twelve.

I don’t eat.

I don’t sleep.

I just stare at the tray until it’s cold.

Until I’m colder.

Flashback: Justin’s Escape

It was night.

Sirens screaming in the distance.

Chaos in the halls.

He came for me, blood on his face, hand outstretched.

"Run," he said.

No hesitation.

He’d already killed two guards.

He was a boy—but he looked like a monster.

Like mine.

I ran with him.

Even when they chased us.

Even when he carried me when I couldn’t run anymore.

We jumped the fence and never looked back.

I whisper now: "Do it again."

"Come get me."

"Please."

I sink to the floor again. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

My body trembles.

My hands are bloodied.

The tray is untouched.

The light still red.

And the camera still blinking.

Watching.

Always watching.

They’ll come for me again soon. Strap me down. Try something new.

They always do.

They’ll call me "it."

They’ll try to find the monster again.

I won’t give them the satisfaction.

I’m not Number Twelve.

Not anymore.

But I’m also not safe.

Not yet.

And Justin?

Still hasn’t come.

I lower my head to the ground and whisper one last time:

"Please... please come get me."

No one answers.

Not even the voices.

And that’s when I start to cry.

I don’t know how long I stayed there—alone with the voices in my head and the white walls looking at me. The silence pressed down on me, thick and suffocating, and it was messing with my mind, making everything feel jagged and raw.

The need for human interaction was overwhelming. Heck, even a goat would’ve been appreciated at this point. Anything, anyone, to break the silence that clung to my skin like dust.

I could feel my sanity fraying at the edges, one thread at a time. Every moment felt like an eternity. My hands shook as I pressed them against my face, feeling the warmth of tears that had dried long ago. It wasn’t just the coldness of the walls; it was the emptiness in my chest, the way everything felt so far from me, like I was disconnected from everything that used to matter.

The voices were louder now, not speaking words, but echoing emotions—whispers of desperation, of rage, of a hunger that gnawed at my insides. I used to push them down, to silence them with thoughts of Justin, of the life I had started to rebuild with him. But now... now it was just too much. They were all I had left in this sterile cage of a room.

The silence would stretch for hours, and then, just when I thought I was going to snap, there would be a rustle outside the door. My heart would race, my ears straining to catch any sign of life. But each time it was nothing. Silence again.

I was losing my mind. I knew it. The room didn’t feel real anymore. It was like I was floating in a dream, stuck between two realities—one where I was free, where I had a future with Justin... and one where I was just a test subject, discarded and forgotten.

I pushed myself up from the cold, hard floor, pacing the room in tight, frantic circles. I couldn’t stay still. I couldn’t breathe. I needed something, anything, to remind me that I was still human, that I wasn’t just a lab rat, waiting for some cruel experiment to take my last shred of sanity.

Every step felt like it was crushing me under its weight. But I had no choice but to keep moving, to keep trying to survive. If I didn’t, I’d be swallowed whole by the emptiness, by the hunger.

A muffled sound reached my ears—a creak, a soft shuffle. My head snapped toward the door. Is someone there?

I held my breath, waiting, but all that followed was the cold, crushing silence.

I dropped back to the floor, knees buckling beneath me. The voices whispered again, clawing at the edges of my mind, pushing me further down into the abyss.

The white walls closed in. The hunger inside me grew.

*******

Just then, the door creaked open with a soft mechanical hiss. I scrambled up so fast I nearly slipped, heart slamming against my ribs. My breath caught.

And then I saw him.

"Nate?"

Relief hit me like a freight train, messy and loud. My knees gave out with the force of it, and I let myself collapse to the ground, laughing—no, gasping—like someone who’d just breached the surface after drowning.

"Thank God," I choked. "Nate—quick—help me. Please. Get me the hell out of here."

He stepped into the room slowly, his familiar figure bathed in the sterile overhead light. White coat. Clipboard. I blinked, confused for a moment. But I was too frantic, too shaken, to register what I was seeing.

"I knew—I knew someone would come," I rambled, eyes stinging. "You have no idea what they’re doing here—what they’re doing to me. I thought I was going insane—Nate, please."

I tried to crawl toward him. My voice cracked. My legs trembled beneath me. I felt like I might throw up again, but I didn’t care.

"Hey," I whispered, clinging to the edge of hope. "Come on. Help me."

But he didn’t move.

He didn’t kneel.

He didn’t offer his hand.

He just... stood there.

Watching me.

Expression unreadable.

A knot of confusion curled tight in my chest. "Nate...?"

Then he smiled.

Not kindly.

Not comfortingly.

It was... clinical.

Cold.

Detached.

Like a man admiring his subject.

My blood went cold.

"What... what is this?" I whispered, my voice splintering.

He took another step forward, his eyes scanning me from head to toe—not with worry or concern—but with observation. Like I was a living report.

"I always knew you’d be fascinating under pressure," he murmured, scribbling something on the clipboard. "Isolation’s doing its job faster than expected."

I froze.

A sharp ringing filled my ears.

"What... what the fuck are you talking about?"

He tilted his head, as if amused. "It’s really something—seeing you like this. Raw. Unfiltered. It’s better than the initial projection reports."

My throat closed.

No.

No no no no no no no.

"You’re... part of this?"

Nate smiled wider. "You’re smarter than you look when you’re not trying to seduce your way out of everything."

The words hit me like a slap.

I stumbled backward, my spine hitting the wall.

"You were watching me?" My voice cracked, barely above a whisper. "All this time?"

He gave a soft laugh. "Observing, June. Clinical assessment. Behavioral data. Watching is what stalkers do. I’m a professional."

The betrayal made the room spin. My stomach turned. "You... you were hired before the semester started."

He nodded casually. "Six weeks before. Embedded under a behavioral psychology fellowship. They brought me in as part of the secondary arm of the project."

"You’re one of them."

"Not the grunts in the lab coats, no," he replied with a smirk. "I was field work. Social integration. Real-world feedback. But you—you were the jackpot."

My lips parted. Nothing came out.

"You weren’t supposed to be so charming, though," he added, crouching just far enough to look at me from a new angle. "I admit, you were... memorable."

That one night.

That one fucking night.

My skin crawled. I wanted to tear it off, scrub it raw, scream until it bled.

"You slept with me," I rasped.

"Had to assess all interaction metrics," he said, unapologetically. "And you’re not exactly hard to get into bed."

I lunged.

But my body betrayed me—weak from dehydration, disoriented from god knows what cocktail they’d pumped into me.

I collapsed halfway across the floor, a sob choking in my throat.

Nate didn’t flinch. Just calmly took another note.

"You were doing so well out there, June. The boyfriend, the normal life. You almost convinced me you’d stabilized."

"Justin," I whispered, tears streaming down my cheeks now. "He’ll come for me."

"Oh, I’m counting on it," he said, eyes gleaming. "They want to see what happens when a monster falls apart. When he loses his reason to behave."

"No," I whimpered, shaking. "No. He’ll kill you."

"Maybe. But not before we get what we need."

I stared up at him, vision blurred, heart thudding in broken, uneven beats.

The pieces clicked slowly.

Too slowly.

He’d been there during the week I felt watched. The strange texts. The shadows at night.

He was always just close enough.

The clipboard. The coat. The quiet precision.

He was never trying to help me.

He was studying me.

The laugh that left my throat was ragged and hollow, a wounded animal noise.

"You’re fucking sick," I hissed. "You all are."

He stood and walked toward the door without another word.

Before he left, he paused—just long enough to glance over his shoulder.

"Sleep tight, Number Twelve."

The door clicked shut.

And then the screaming began.