Jazz had lost track of time.

The dim torchlight barely changed, offering no clue if it was morning or night on this Emperor-forsaken planet. The stone walls, damp with moisture, seemed to close in tighter with every passing second. The weight of his chains dug into his joints, but that wasn’t what made his vents hitch and his hands clench into fists.

It had been six hours since they took Sideswipe.

Six hours of silence.

Six hours of staring at the empty space where his reckless, loudmouthed, pain-in-the-aft partner should have been.

Jazz had yelled until his vocalizer felt like it was tearing. He’d pulled at the chains, slammed his shoulder against the cell bars, tried anything to break loose and find him. But nothing. No guards had come back. No sounds of a scuffle. Just the cold, suffocating quiet of the dungeon.

He wasn’t used to this kind of helplessness. The thought of Sideswipe—alone, out there, who knows where—made his processor spiral into every worst-case scenario possible.

When the sound of footsteps finally echoed down the hall, Jazz’s optics burned with exhaustion and something rawer—something dangerous.

Because if they didn’t bring Sideswipe back in one piece…?

Whoever was responsible was about to regret keeping him alive.