Justin POV:
But June…
She had let them in. Maybe not by choice. Maybe it was the years. The layers of hurt. The betrayals. Her father. The trauma I never got to protect her from.
Maybe they slipped in when no one was watching.
Now I sat by her bedside, tracing the outline of her hand with my thumb, afraid to touch her too hard. Afraid she'd bolt. Afraid she'd be gone again.
"Hey," I whispered. "You still in there, Number Twelve?"
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek.
I hated saying it.
I hated the number they gave her.
But part of me hoped maybe… maybe it would pull something back.
She stirred slightly.
But it wasn't her eyes that moved.
Just her fingers. A twitch.
It was something.
"June," I said again, voice barely above breath. "You remember the hallway?"
My eyes burned.
"Back then… when we used to sneak bread from the infirmary. When you told me not to eat mine too fast or I'd throw up."
I laughed under my breath. It was a cracked, broken thing.
