The first thing Jasper noticed was the absence of sound.

It wasn’t the kind found in libraries or empty corridors. This was something else, unnatural and oppressive. It pressed in on him like invisible hands wrapping around his throat, not choking, but close enough to threaten.

The second thing was the cold. It gnawed at his fingertips, burrowed into his spine, and settled into his bones like it belonged there. What felt like a mattress beneath him was thin and unwelcoming, every spring pushing back with quiet malice. He lay still, trying to breathe, his skin already crawling with an itch of something unseen.

His lashes fluttered open.

The ceiling loomed overhead, concrete, cracked and raw, with one long jagged fracture running like a scar from corner to center.

A light, too bright, poured down without mercy. Surgical. Cold. Purposeful.

Jasper blinked against the glare, vision swimming. The room took shape slowly. Four walls. Unpainted cement. Windowless. The air didn’t move. It was the kind of stillness that existed only in dead spaces.

He sat up slowly, his limbs, heavy. His head throbbed at the base of his skull, a rhythmic ache pulsing behind his eyes. His bare feet met the floor, skin meeting stone, and he winced. The chill bit into him with more purpose than before.

This wasn’t a hotel room. It wasn’t even a cell, not exactly. There were no bars. But it wasn’t a room either. It was a holding space, designed not to trap by force, but to unmake. To reduce.

There was only one door, it was steel and featureless from the inside, with a bolted lock sunken into the frame. A chair, metal and angular, sat beside the mattress like an executioner waiting his cue. Before Jasper had time to make out the items atop a half rusted metal table, he noticed it. 

High in the right corner, barely visible unless you were looking for it, was the camera.

Black. Inset. Watching.

Jasper’s blood went cold. He looked away from the lens instinctively, wrapping his arms around himself like it could offer some sense of privacy. But he wasn’t stupid. Someone had been watching since the moment he opened his eyes. Probably before.

“Hello?” His voice cracked halfway through. Pathetic. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Hey! This isn’t funny!”

Silence.

Not even an echo. Just the stillness curling tighter, like it was alive.

He crossed to the door, his fingers tracing around it for an opening, anything to magically appear that would help him escape, but there wasn’t one. There was no way out. He was trapped. He knocked and waited. Nothing. He banged harder. Still nothing.

Just the quiet, thick as tar.

He started pacing. Twelve steps from end to end. Nine across. Back again. Around and around like a goldfish in a bowl.

“If this is about ransom…” he said, turning toward the camera, hating how small his voice sounded, “…just take the money. My father will pay. Whatever you want. Okay? You don’t need me for this.”

No reply.

“I’m not important enough for this.” He tried to make it a joke, but his mouth was dry. His stomach churned with something bitter and rising. “You’re wasting your time.”

Still nothing.

That part, at least, was true. Jasper was a lot of things. Spoiled, unremarkable, a decorative accessory to a very powerful man, but he wasn’t the one worth taking. He wasn’t the senator. Just his reflection in designer shoes and overpriced cologne.

So why was he here?

The lock clicked.

Jasper stopped breathing.

The sound was small at first, just a mechanical hiss, then a thud, so loud in the still room, it made his heart drop to the pit of his stomach.

The door creaked inward, and in stepped a man.

He was tall, lean, and moved like he knew the sound of every inch of his own body. He wore all black. His shirt stretched across his frame, sleeves rolled just enough to expose tanned, muscular arms. 

His hair was long and dark, falling in soft waves around a face that looked carved from stone. Angles too sharp to be called handsome in a conventional way. But striking. Dangerous. A face Jasper distrusted immediately.

And his eyes.

Amethyst.

Cool, unreadable, steady as steel beneath frost. They fixed on Jasper like a blade pressed to skin, not quite cutting, but more than threatening.

The man stepped in and shut the door behind him. There was no loud bang this time, just a quiet click.

Jasper forced himself upright. “Who… who are you?”

The man didn’t answer. He looked at Jasper like he was reading the label on a bottle of poison. Curious, detached, and unimpressed.

“Awake already,” he said, voice low, smooth, and vaguely amused. “Impressive.”

Jasper blinked. He knew that voice. It was the last thing he’d heard before the world spun around him, pulling him into the dark. It was the man who’d taken him.

“I asked you a question,” he said, throat raw but laced with defiance.

“I know.”

A long silence stretched between them. Jasper could hear the blood in his ears.

“Where am I?” he demanded.

The man walked slowly toward the camera, and pressed something beneath it. There was a faint whirr, and the ceiling light dimmed slightly. Not enough to be soothing. Just enough to remind him that someone controlled the switch.

“Somewhere safe,” the man said.

Jasper stood, back against the wall, his hands trembling. He shoved them into his pockets like it might hide the fear and anxiety he felt.

“What do you want?” His voice betrayed him.

The man turned back to him. His gaze sharpened. “Right to the point. Good.”

“You kidnapped me.”

“Yes.”

No hesitation. No guilt.

“Why?” Jasper’s voice cracked. He hated it.

The man didn’t answer. Instead, he walked to the table and picked up a bottle of water. He held it out like an offering. Not unkind, but not optional either.

Jasper didn’t move.

“Drink.”

He hesitated. “I’m not doing anything until you-”

The man stepped closer, slow and unhurried. Not threatening. Worse than that. Confident. Inescapable.

“Drink, Jasper.”

The sound of his name in that voice, flat, final, undeniable, stripped every ounce of bravado from his bones. He took the bottle with shaking fingers and drank. Not because he was thirsty. But because he didn’t want to find out what happened if he didn’t.

The man sat down in the chair. His body was relaxed but his posture was perfect. Still. Controlled. Like someone who didn’t need to move to dominate the space. His gaze drifted over him, like a surgeon sizing up a specimen before the incision.

Jasper swallowed the lump in this throat.

“If it’s money you want…” His voice was almost a whisper.

“You’re not ransom, Jasper, and I’m not interested in your father’s money.”

“Then why am I here?”

The man stood and walked toward him, his steps deliberate. No raised voice. No weapons. Just presence. Like a creeping tide meant to drown. 

“Tell me,” he said. “When was the last time you made a decision that wasn’t curated for you? When was the last time you did something that mattered?”

Jasper stared. “So this is about politics, then.”

“It’s not.”

“Then what? What do you want from me?” he bit out, like a cornered animal. 

The man stepped closer.

“To learn,” he said.

“Learn what?” Jasper attempted a step back, but all he was met with was a wall. His heartbeat quickened.  

The mans eyes were probing. “Who you are when no one’s watching.”

“I already know who I am,” he muttered, avoiding his gaze. 

“No,” the man said softly, with a faint smile that never touched his eyes. “You know who you’ve been told you are.”

He stepped back. Not out of mercy. Just to give Jasper space to collapse.

“You’ll have options,” the man said. “But not yet. First comes truth, then comes choice, then consequence.”

“This is insane,” Jasper whispered.

The man’s eyes flicked toward the door. “That’s what they all say, at first.”

He turned, entering a code into the keypad. The bolt hissed and the door groaned, but he didn’t leave right away. He looked back, like a judge passing sentence.

“The folder on the table. Read it. Tomorrow, we’ll talk again.”

“About what?” He stepped forward instinctively, his body aching to slip past the man and flee through the open exit.

The man’s expression didn’t change, but his voice dropped just enough to make Jasper’s stomach twist.

“The truth.”

He wanted to demand more, scream something clever or sharp or defiant. But nothing came. He just stood there, bare feet on the cold floor, and watched as the man left without another word, the door locking behind him with a mechanical click.

And the silence returned. But it was different now, worse. Because now, Jasper knew it wasn’t silence at all.

It was waiting.