There’s a faint sound like a sigh as the binding parts, and then my hands are free. I gasp and yank them back without meaning to, scooting backward across the bed to get away from him. A sharp inhale tears down my throat as I fall with a thud off the side of the bed, pain shooting up my tailbone, but it only fuels me to get farther away from him. I scrabble backward on my palms and heels until my back hits something solid, cold—a glass wall. Immediately, I push up and try to stand, but my knees buckle again and I crumple back onto the floor.
“Who are you? What do you want from me?” I grit out.
He watches my face as he steps back, his gaze planted on mine like he’s looking at a puzzle he already solved but wants to admire again.
“You—” My voice breaks. I swallow and try again. “Who are you?”
He slides the knife back into the sheath with a small, decisive click. Straightens. Takes a breath like he’s setting something down inside himself. But he doesn’t answer. He simply stares at me, as if he’s expecting me to bolt at any moment, his posture trained to chase.
“Why did you take me? If it’s money you want, you chose the wrong girl.”
He continues to study me; his eyes are winter. Not the soft kind. The kind that kills animals that don’t find shelter in time. Pale where the light hits, darker in the well of the pupil, ringed in the blue of old glass.
“What are—” I begin.
He lifts a hand. Just a small motion, and it silences me more effectively than a shout.
“Don’t run, Sophia.”
Oh my God, he knows my name. My stomach drops. “Why? Why me?”
His gaze flicks to my wrists—raw, reddening—then back to my face. Something unreadable passes through his eyes, then he reaches into his jacket.
I flinch before I can stop myself. But instead of a weapon, he pulls out a small white tube. Plain. Unremarkable. He steps forward—not close enough to touch me—and extends it toward me between two fingers.
I don’t take it, my jaw clenched, body rigid. The tube hovers in the space between us, an offering that feels more like instruction. When I still don’t move, he crouches, sets it on the floor within my reach, and straightens again.
The hood casts his eyes in shadow until the blue catches the glass walls behind me—a flash like a blade before it disappears again. The buff covers the lower half of his face, but I can tell his mouth is set. Focused.
“What is this?” I whisper. My voice comes out shredded. “Why are you doing this?”
He doesn’t answer. He just tilts his head a fraction, the way animals do when they’ve heard a sound you can’t. The gloves stay in his pocket, hands hanging loose at his sides —calloused, thick veins roped through ink. Even from here, I can see that his fingers aren’t clumsy. They’re deliberate.
He turns away from me, toward a steel door recessed into the far wall—one I hadn’t seen before. My heart stammers as I watch his hand touch the keypad. Just as the panel hisses, he pauses. His shoulders lift faintly with a breath, but he doesn’t turn.
I expect him to say something, but it’s like he decides against it and walks out.
“Please!” The door seals with a mechanical thump, the lock catching heavy as a vault.
The silence afterward is worse than his presence. It’s weighted, engineered, pressing against my ribs until every breath feels stolen. The silence is so complete I can hear the hammering of my own pulse.
I turn as desperation surges, fingers scrabbling at the glass walls as if I could pry them open. My reflection jolts back at me—wild-eyed, blotchy, mouth parted like a girl caught mid-scream. I stand, turn in a circle, peering into each corner of the room. The glass, so thick, it muffles even the winter storm’s rage outside.High ceiling. Dark wood. A half-impossible mix of luxury and prison.
This can’t be happening. God, please, this isn’t real.
I clutch my wrists, raw and throbbing, and press them to my chest like that could hold me together. The first sob rips out of me raw, cracking in the empty room. It’s awful how loud it sounds. How final. Every breath is jagged, shallow, not enough as I crumple to floor. Panic crawls under my skin, sharp little claws that dig into my mind and rattle it.
I don’t know where I am. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know why.
And for the first time in years, I pray. Not for comfort. Not for safety. Just that someone—anyone—will find me before he comes back.
Music starts, threading through the house like it was built into the walls. Low. Minor. Familiar in the wrong way. It isn’t loud enough to be comfort. It isn’t soft enough to ignore.
It keeps playing on repeat. Not to soothe the silence—but to replace it.
Like this is how things work here. Sound instead of answers. Noise instead of mercy.
Like whatever he has planned doesn’t require my understanding.
