They whisper my name in fear. Justin Black. The guy who sits in the back of the class, always in black, always untouchable. The one everyone watches but no one dares to approach.  

They don’t know me. Not really.  

Because if they did, they’d stay the hell away.  

I don’t do friends. I don’t do relationships. I don’t do attachments.  

But then there’s her.  

June Matthews—cheer captain, golden girl, a walking distraction. She’s everything I hate… and yet, she’s in my way. Assigned to me. Forced into my space. Testing my patience.  

She thinks she can handle me.  

She’s dead wrong.  

Because I have a secret. A place where I go to release the darkness inside me. Where names don’t exist, where pleasure and pain are one and the same. A world where people fulfill their deepest, most twisted fantasies.  

June doesn’t belong in my world.  

But the longer she stays, the more I want to pull her under.  

And once I do… I’m not sure I’ll ever let her go.

She was asleep now. Curled into the blanket I draped around her shoulders, her lashes twitching faintly with dreams—or maybe nightmares. Her breathing was even, soft, but the shadows on her face hadn't left. Not completely. Not ever.


I sat just a few feet away on the edge of the cot, elbows on my knees, fingers interlocked so tightly they ached. I couldn't stop watching her.


But the longer I stared, the heavier my thoughts grew. They pressed in, thick and suffocating, until I felt like I was back in one of those cages again, where the air tasted like bleach and blood and the world was just a scream you swallowed so no one would hear.


Chapter 59 - Retribution