Elias Thorne
The race against the clock was brutal, a frantic fifteen-minute scramble that felt less like packing for a trip and more like trying to erase his identity. Kai burst into his cramped apartment, the afternoon sun cutting through the dust and the wreckage of his disrupted routine. He didn't bother turning on the lights. Every surface the abandoned canvases, the overturned coffee mug, and the image of Mara's terrified face still burned in his mind felt like a reproach, a reminder of the life he was about to walk away from.
He was allowed a single overnight bag. Adrian had been precise, layering restraint over an already impossible demand. It wasn't just about luggage it was a symbolic death. He grabbed a worn duffel, the one he used for hauling art supplies, and shoved in only what he could justify: a few shirts, one pair of clean jeans, his sketchbook, and the small silver compass his grandfather had given him the last relic of anything solid or honest.
He hesitated at the painting supplies. The rich oils, the stained rags, the half-finished canvas that held the frantic, unresolved energy of his old life. Leaving them felt like cutting off a limb. But Adrian hadn't offered him a retreat he'd offered him a life, with obedience as the entrance fee. Kai zipped the bag and left the room without touching a single brush.
Mara was still on the edge of his bed, frozen from the moment Adrian clicked off the call. When Kai started pulling out clothes, the paralysis broke into a cold, controlled anger.
"You're actually going?" she said, voice flat. "He tells you to smash your phone, vanish into a city you've never heard of, use a fake name and you just go? You're walking straight into it, Kai."
"I have to," he murmured, lifting the bag to his shoulder. "He gave me an address. I need to see what this is. If I refuse now, I lose everything he offered. I will go back to that counter tonight. I can't. Not after what I saw today."
"What you saw was staged!" Mara fired back, following him to the door. "He didn't need your 'observation.' He needed you to *believe* you were inside something real, so you'd abandon your life on command. He's testing your obedience, not your talent."
Her logic hit with cold precision. But Kai had already crossed the invisible line. He couldn't un-see the woman in red, or the man who looked straight at him. He already belonged to it.
"I need to know what he's planning," Kai said, hand on the doorknob. "I need to know what 'reflector' really means. I'll call you when I get there from a payphone. It's just one night. Elias Thorne checks out tomorrow."
He didn't wait for her reply. He closed the door on her frantic protests and walked away from the life behind it.
The train station was loud and worn, a monument to a city that used to matter. Kai bought a one-way ticket to Veridian, a name that sounded like a place from a fantasy map. He paid in cash. Every movement is small, discreet, anonymous. He scanned the terminal for a familiar suit or Adrian's blonde assistant, but everyone there was just living their own lives.
He took a window seat on the train. The 7:00 PM departure felt like a line on one side, the life he knew; on the other, the shadow waiting for him.
As the city shrank into neon and haze, he let his head rest against the glass. The adrenaline that kept him moving began to drain, mixing with a sharp, terrifying kind of freedom. He pulled out his notebook and began to sketch not people, not scenes, but shapes: the stark geometry of Veyra Tower, the empty white floor around the marble sculpture, the blank, unreadable calm in Adrian's eyes. All his lines were hard, angular shaped by the man pulling the strings.
The trip stretched almost five hours, moving into darker, richer outskirts until Veridian finally appeared sharp, vertical, new, and blinding. Where his city was old money and stone, Veridian was glass and ambition.
A cab took him to The Zenith Hotel, an imposing black structure that radiated wealth. The lobby glowed with brass, crystal, and orchids. The check-in counter was a slab of lit onyx. Kai felt small walking toward it.
"Welcome to The Zenith," the woman at the desk said with an easy smile.
"I have a reservation. Under… Elias Thorne," Kai said, the false name heavy in his mouth.
"Ah, yes, Mr. Thorne." No hesitation. "You're on the Executive Floor. Harbor view."
Cold sweat ran down his back. This wasn't luck. This was orchestration.
She gave him a key card. "Room 3804. Your luggage is already…"
"My luggage?" he cut in. "I only have this bag."
A flicker of confusion, then her smile returned. "A member of your party ensured your items were placed in the suite already."
Adrian's reach was already in the room waiting. They had anticipated his needs before he arrived. He was contained.
The suite on the 38th floor was silent and immaculate. The city glowed beneath it. On the desk, in perfect order: a leather portfolio, fresh art paper, new charcoal pencils, and the exact brand of paint thinner he used the rare one. Adrian had built him a workspace. He had removed all excuses.
Next to it, on a silver tray, sat a high-end satellite phone not disposable, not temporary. Only one number is programmed.
Kai stood at the window, feeling small against the scale of it all. He picked up the phone. It vibrated once a text.
**Enjoy the view, Elias.
Your first assignment begins at 11 AM.
Do not leave the room. Do not waste the canvas. Rest.**
No purpose. No explanation. Just time and command.
Kai sat on the bed. Twenty hours until his future was explained. Twenty hours trapped in a city he didn't know, under a name that wasn't his, while Adrian Veyra pulled strings from somewhere unseen.
He was terrified. He was exhausted. He was completely caught and starving to know what Adrian would demand of his eyes and his conscience at 11 AM.
To Be Continued