Chapter 118: The Cost of Answers.

The glass doors sealed shut behind Jagger with a faint, almost inaudible hiss.

At once, the walls frosted from edge to center in a smooth sweep of white, cutting the chamber off from the world outside. One moment, he could still make out blurred figures moving beyond the glass, staff crossing between terminals, silhouettes drifting through sterile light. Next, everything vanished behind an opaque wall of white.

Silence rushed in after it.

Adriana and Director Ng took their seats without hurry.

Adriana sat at the head of the table, posture straight, shoulders squared, hands folded neatly in front of her. She looked as if she had been carved into the chair rather than lowered into it. Director Ng took the seat to her right, tablet already in hand, the pale screen glow sharpening the tired lines beneath her eyes instead of softening them.

Jagger remained standing for a second longer.

His gaze swept the room once, measuring it. The sealed walls. The table. The chairs. The exits that no longer existed. Then he moved to the far end opposite Adriana and sat down.

The high-backed chair was cold against his spine. The glass tabletop reflected the overhead lights in a hard, sterile glare that made the whole room feel too bright, too clean, too controlled for the subject hanging between them.

The silence inside the chamber was absolute.

No low hum from ventilation. No muffled footsteps beyond the walls. No distant echo from Sector Zero’s training courts.

Just the quiet presence of three people and the weight of an unspoken name.

Adriana’s gaze never left him.

She did not blink. Did not shift. Did not waste movement.

Jagger felt his own pulse more clearly in that silence, steady but hard, each beat sharpened by the memory of her voice on the training floor.

Only known living relative, Hannah Ashton.

He leaned back only slightly, more to stop himself from leaning forward.

“Well?” he asked, voice low and stripped of patience. “You said her name. So stop wasting time and tell me where she is.”

Adriana did not answer.

Not immediately.

The pause was deliberate. He knew it. She knew he knew it. That was the part that made his fingers curl faintly beneath the armrests.

Then Director Ng tapped her tablet twice.

A beam of white-blue light spilled upward from the screen and widened into a floating pane above the table. It expanded section by section, clean and crisp, with lines of formal text assembling themselves before Jagger until a full document hovered between them.

He stared at it.

At the top, written in precise, cold lettering, was the title:

SECTOR ZERO STRATEGIC COOPERATION AND RESTRICTED INTELLIGENCE ACCESS AGREEMENT

Jagger’s expression flattened.

“You brought me into a sealed room to show me paperwork.”

Director Ng’s face remained calm. “Before we proceed, Sector Zero requires a formal cooperation agreement from all hunters designated as strategic assets, Herald Slayers, or individuals of exceptional irregularity.”

Jagger’s eyes narrowed. “Exceptional irregularity.”

“In your case,” Director Ng said evenly, “yes.”

Her finger moved across the tablet. Several lines in the holographic contract brightened.

“This agreement grants you conditional access to restricted intelligence, operational briefings, classified threat assessments, and bunker security clearances as authorized. Your clearance level will increase in accordance with your proven usefulness, cooperation, and operational value. You will also be granted access to any information deemed relevant to your declared point of inquiry.”

Her gaze lifted to meet his.

“That includes information concerning your sister.”

That hit.

He did not move, but something in him went still in a harder, more dangerous way. For half a second, even the room seemed to tighten with it.

Then his eyes dropped back to the contract.

The highlighted clauses shifted as Director Ng continued.

“In exchange, you will disclose all relevant information regarding your class, title effects, combat capabilities, active and passive skills, and any condition that may affect your threat profile, operational reliability, contamination risk, or contact stability.”

Jagger looked up slowly.

“So this is extortion.”

“No,” Adriana said.

Her voice was calm. Flat. Absolute.

“This is structure.”

Jagger let out a sharp, humorless breath. “Right. Of course it is.”

Director Ng adjusted her tablet. “Sector Zero cannot protect, deploy, or classify an unknown variable like you. The combat test against the Herald Slayers proved that you are dangerous when pushed to the brink. The fact that a level seventeen hunter had to be subdued by four high-level awakened-ranked hunters only reinforces that point.”

She paused just long enough to let the words settle.

“Your records also indicate you had no prior formal combat training. Yet at various points, you demonstrated combat instincts and responses far beyond what your level and background should reasonably allow.”

Jagger leaned forward now.

The look in his eyes was not hot. It was colder than that. Sharper. A kind of focused hostility that made the air around the table feel thinner.

“What are you trying to say?” he asked. “That I’m lying about my level?”

Director Ng did not flinch. “Not lying. Omitting.”

He stared at her for three long seconds.

Then he looked back at the contract.

“You want everything,” he said quietly. “That’s a very polished way of saying you don’t trust me.”

Adriana held his stare. “Correct.”

That landed harder than a denial would have.

For a second, Jagger said nothing. He only looked at her, and the silence that followed became something measured and ugly.

Then his gaze returned to the contract.

Clause after clause unfolded in pale light.

Mandatory disclosure of combat-relevant abilities.

Mandatory reporting of irregular behavioral episodes, contamination symptoms, or cognitive instability.

Consent to monitored evaluation and restricted operational oversight.

Failure to disclose information deemed materially relevant to Sector Zero security, readiness, or containment risk will be treated as intentional concealment.

Jagger’s eyes stopped there.

“Materially relevant,” he said. “That’s vague.”

“It is meant to be comprehensive,” Director Ng replied.

“That’s one way to describe it.”

Director Ng folded her hands over the tablet. “If you prefer, I can describe it more plainly.”

“Try.”

Her voice remained calm. “We do not tolerate surprises in here, Mr. Ashton.”

Something cold pulled at the corner of Jagger’s mouth. It was not a smile.

“You should probably stop calling me Mr. Ashton,” he said. “It makes this sound more polite than it is.”

Director Ng did not rise to it.

Adriana did.

“If politeness offends you,” she said, “I can remove it.”

Jagger’s eyes cut to her.

For a heartbeat, nobody spoke.

Then he leaned back slightly in the chair, gaze moving over the contract again as if searching for the exact point where the trap became a cage.

“And if I don’t sign it?”

Director Ng answered first.

“Then this conversation ends here. All restricted intelligence concerning your sister remains sealed. Your evaluation status remains incomplete. Your movement within Sector Zero remains, for lack of a better word, limited.”

Adriana’s voice followed a beat later.

“And until I’m satisfied you are not a threat to this bunker, you do not leave.”

There it was.

Not raised. Not hidden. Not dressed up any longer.

Jagger’s jaw tightened.

For the first time since entering the room, something flashed openly across his face. Not fear. No surprise.

Fury.

“You’re blackmailing me using my sister?”

“Yes,” Adriana said.

The word landed clean. Unapologetic.

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