Chapter78 – Reputations Burn
She chuckled again, but her laughter was brittle, cracked. No one had visited her in months—not that she expected anyone to.
But beneath the laughter, something sour boiled inside her. Frustration. Rage.
“It’s a pity,” she murmured, eyes narrowing, “that I didn’t take that bitch Clarissa down with him…”
Why did Clarissa always get to be the lucky one? She’d planned it so well—dragging Darkwood to hell while snaring Clarissa in the same net. Two birds, one stone.
But Clarissa got rescued. Just in time. Again.
Why was it always her who suffered while Clarissa got savior? Why did she have to be the broken one, the dirty one?
June's breathing quickened, her fingers twitching violently. Her hand raked across her thigh, scratching hard, again and again, until blood started to bead beneath her nails.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t over. She still had time.
.......
"All this money, just for a damn phone?"
Atticus didn’t answer. He simply took the device, turned it over in his hand, and powered it on.
There was a lock screen password. But Atticus only curled his lips slightly. After a few deft movements—click, swipe, tap—the lock screen vanished.
He flipped through the contents like he was browsing a magazine. What he found was exactly what he expected.
Photos. Videos. Everywhere—naked girls, drunk girls, unconscious girls. Their faces flushed, their clothes in tatters, their dignity stripped bare and frozen in high-definition pixels.
The man next to him let out a low chuckle, a lewd gleam in his eye. “Didn’t think you’d be into this kinda stuff,” he sneered.
Atticus said nothing. His voice was masked by a voice modulator—deep, emotionless. He wore a black hoodie and a facemask. Not even a glimpse of his true identity could be seen.
Atticus ignored him. He kept scrolling until—there. He stopped. Pressed play. A girl’s screams. A man’s hoarse, guttural laugh. Clothes being ripped apart.
The frame shook, but the image was clear enough: a terrified girl pinned beneath a man’s weight. Her naked upper body was smeared with dirt and bruises, tears streaking down her pale, twisted face.
June. It was her.
Atticus stared at the screen. His eyes, behind the mask, were ice.
He paused the video and deleted it. “Here,” he said, handing the phone back.
The man blinked. “That’s it? You just wanted to delete something?”
Atticus’s tone remained low, robotic. “My employer doesn’t want her reputation damaged. Here’s your payment.”
The man whistled as he checked the envelope. “Damn. If that’s her price, she must be somebody. Then again... Darkwood pissed off the Wraith family. Guy had it coming.”
Atticus adjusted his mask, tugged his cap lower, and turned without another word.
The man watched him walk away, a small frown creeping across his face. “Freak,” he muttered.
......
A few days later, June was walking to school in high spirits. With Darkwood rotting in prison and no evidence to tie her to anything, she felt happy.
A song played on her lips as she strutted down the path. She was even considering dyeing her hair, maybe pink. New look, new start.
But then… Something was off. People were staring at her. At first, it was just a glance or two. Then it became whispers. Smirks. Laughter.
She slowed. Confused. Irritated. “The hell are you looking at?” she snapped, hands on her hips, facing a small group of people.
They didn’t answer. Just laughed harder.
June’s face turned bright red, but before she could yell again, a voice rang out beside her. “June!” Lyra ran over, pale and breathless. “Tell me that’s not you!”
June turned to her, confused. “What are you talking about?”
Lyra bit her lip, hesitating, then slowly handed over her phone. “It’s all over campus. Look…”
June grabbed the phone. The video was already playing.
Her world shattered. It was her—bare, screaming, pinned beneath Darkwood in some grimy alley. The angle shifted, showing her from the front—her tear-streaked face unmistakable. Another video played after that—this one in a hotel bed. Same man.
Her hands shook. Her breath hitched in her throat. “No… this isn’t… this isn’t me!”
She fumbled to delete it, jabbing the screen over and over. But it wouldn’t go away.
“June!” Lyra reached for her, panicked. “Calm down! We can talk to someone, the school—”
June shoved her. Hard. Lyra stumbled, hit the ground with a cry of pain. June didn’t even look back. She ran.
The scandal exploded across the campus like a bomb.
Not only had the video gone viral on the school’s internal network—it was now spreading across forums, group chats, and even external websites. Clips. Screenshots. Commentary.
The administration scrambled to take it down. But it was no use. Someone had locked it in place. Every attempt to delete it failed.
People started digging, tracing the video’s origins. That’s when it came out—the file had been extracted directly from Darkwood’s phone.
The very same phone now sitting in the backroom of a shady mobile store on the outskirts of town.
The man in the videos? That was Darkwood, unmistakably.
Everyone thought the same thing: He must have done this. Even June believed it.
Sitting alone in her room, curled up and trembling, she muttered over and over, “He found out… he found out what I did… he’s trying to take me down with him…”
June never came back to school. Even though, technically, she was a victim—someone who should've been pitied—public sympathy evaporated in an instant.
The internet didn’t care about nuance. And when the drama wasn't your own, there were always keyboard warriors waiting to tear someone apart just for the thrill of it.
> “She sure didn’t look like she hated it. Slut was moaning like a pornstar halfway through.”
> “Must be nice to fuck a body like that.”
Worse, someone doxxed her—leaked her home address. Then the DMs started rolling in. Some men even offered money, thinking she was for sale.
June spiraled fast. She shut herself in her bedroom, curtains drawn, phone off, refusing to face the outside world. Her mental state cracked, inch by inch.
Eventually, her mother came to school in person, quietly filed the withdrawal paperwork, and left.
Clarissa sat in the library that day, idly flipping pages in a book she wasn’t reading, her thoughts heavy.
She remembered now—this was the turning point. The reason June turned cold, cruel, and vindictive in the original story. But June's end... it was even worse than in the book.
Clarissa exhaled, lips tightening. The plot’s changed too much anyway. This? This is nothing.
That night, after a long shower, Clarissa padded down the hallway in a loose robe, her damp hair clinging to her neck. She was headed to the kitchen to warm up a glass of milk when she passed by Atticus’s door.
She hesitated. Then turned back, poured the milk into a mug, and knocked gently. “Atticus, are you still up?”
A beat. “Yeah. Come in.”
She pushed open the door to find him at his desk, a book open beneath the soft glow of his lamp. Clarissa stepped in and placed the steaming cup beside him.
“Don’t stay up too late,” she said softly. “It’s not good for your eyes. Drink some milk.”
Atticus looked up and nodded. “Thanks.”
He took the mug and drank deeply. The way he obediently finished it all made her smile.
She lingered a moment, watching him. Then finally spoke, “I was thinking... I’ll visit your school later. That okay?”