I finally turn my head enough to look up at him.
He’s standing a few feet away, posture relaxed in a way that feels practiced. Hands loose at his sides. Face still partially hidden, unreadable. He looks like he belongs here in a way I never will.
“Why am I here?” The question has been clawing at me for hours, scraping at the inside of my skull. I expect him to dodge it. To redirect. To say nothing. Instead, he studies me for a long beat.
“Because you can’t leave.”
“That’s not an answer.”
He doesn’t respond, and his eyes give me nothing.
“Are you going to hurt me?”
Nothing. Not a word.
The longer he stands there without answering, the more my pulse starts to trip over itself. I can’t tell if the silence is restraint—or decision.
“Are you going to kill me?” I choke on the words, jaw tense as I bite back tears.
It feels like an eternity before he finally speaks. “Nothing will happen to you if you follow the rules.”
I push myself to my feet, ignoring the way my legs tremble. Standing makes me feel less small, even if he’s still taller.
“And what are your rules?”
A flicker of something passes through his eyes. Approval, maybe. Or interest. “You don’t run. You don’t hurt yourself. You eat. You sleep.”
I scoff. “Almost sounds like you want me to take care of myself.”
“I do.”
The answer is so simple it disorients me, my breath hitching as if I’ve misheard the rules of the game halfway through playing it.
I cross my arms, square my shoulders, needing to show strength even if I don’t have any. “So, what? You keep me fed and rested until you’re done with me?”
“Don’t reduce it.”
“Don’t reduce what?”
“This.” One word. He doesn’t gesture. Doesn’t need to. “You.”
A chill slips down my spine that has nothing to do with the cold. My arms tighten across my chest, a reflex, like I can hold myself together if I squeeze hard enough.
“You don’t get to decide what I am,” I say with an even tone.
“I’m not deciding. I’m telling you to stop thinking that this is something simpler than it fucking is.”
“You mean this is not kidnapping?”
“I mean like pretending you already know how this ends.”
I swallow against sandpaper, my mind scrambling for the familiar footholds of captivity—violence, ransom, escape routes—but he’s stepped sideways out of all of them.
I laugh under my breath, brittle. “You’re really good at this. Saying nothing while making it sound like something.”
“I told you the rules. They’re simple.”
“And if I don’t follow them?”
