The folder sat on the table, open like a wound.
Alex stared at it as the rain tapped the cracked windowpane behind him. He hadn't moved for hours. Not since Kael left. Not since the weight of truth pulled him into a silence deeper than rage.
Project Revenant.
They didn't just break him.
They built him.
His life had been rehearsed cruelty. A script written by ghosts in lab coats. Pain injected like serum. Loss, curated like art.
He touched the paper. Cold. Thin. Harmless.
But in his head, it screamed.
Medical records showed abnormal neurological activity. Psychological implants. Chemical stimuli. Sessions where they erased certain emotions, then reintroduced them under stress. Photos of his wife… staged interactions. A memory not his, designed to shatter.
His fingers trembled.
They didn't steal Rachel from him. They gave her to him—like a loaded gun with a countdown.
She was part of it.
Her betrayal wasn't betrayal. It was a mission. And when she cried… it wasn't love. It was protocol.
Alex stood up so fast the chair behind him tipped over. His breaths came sharp, rapid. A scream clawed at his throat but died before it could rise. He grabbed the wall to steady himself.
On the map before him — names, faces, strings, pins — a new piece was added.
Victor Kael.
Alex wasn't stupid. The man had brought him truth, yes. But no one handed over classified secrets without expecting a price later. Kael wasn't a savior.
He was a serpent in a silk suit.
But for now… a useful one.
Alex turned toward the boarded-up closet. He pulled away the planks and opened the steel box inside. Inside: an old case, dusty. Unopened since the fire at the East District.
He snapped it open.
Two pistols. A voice-modulator mask. Smoke bombs. Triggers. Not toys.
Tools.
He changed in silence. Dressed in black. Kevlar over scars. A ghost reborn.
Across the city, in a warehouse near the docks, voices echoed in hushed whispers. Armed men gathered around a shipment of weapons. The crates bore the insignia of a private security firm — TALON CORP.
Unregistered. Illegal.
They were smuggling arms for Crowne's underground militia.
Tonight, that pipeline ended.
Alex moved through the rafters like a shadow. Watching. Listening.
Twenty men. Light armor. Two techs, five smugglers. One handler.
The handler — bald, tattooed, chewing a cigar — barked orders like a war dog. "Unload fast! This shipment's going direct to Blackwall for reinforcement. The freak's getting bolder."
They feared him. Already.
Alex smiled beneath the mask.
He clicked the detonator in his hand. A series of small pops — smoke, sparks — disoriented the guards. Shouts rang out. Confusion reigned.
Then he dropped in.
Gunshots burst in staccato. He moved like fury incarnate — efficient, brutal. The first three men went down without seeing him. The next two tried to run.
He didn't let them.
One screamed, "It's him! The Revenant!"
That name. A joke born in whispers.
But it stuck.
And tonight, it became real.
He grabbed the handler by the throat and slammed him into the side of a crate. "Who's at Blackwall?"
The man spat blood. "You're dead already. You just don't know it yet."
Alex pressed a blade under the man's eye. "Try me."
"Y-you don't get it…" the man hissed. "Crowne ain't the top. He answers to something… older. Deeper."
"Names," Alex growled.
"Project Halcyon," the man wheezed. "Blackwall's a front. They're building something under it. You think you're hurting them? You're just cleaning up their failures."
Alex's eyes narrowed.
Halcyon.
Another thread on the board.
He knocked the man out cold.
Sirens in the distance. He vanished into smoke before they arrived.
Back in his hideout, Alex pinned a new photo to the board — a surveillance shot of Blackwall Penitentiary. The edges were burned, but the building was unmistakable.
Kael had been right.
Darius Crowne wasn't the end.
He was the start.
Alex turned to the small transmitter Kael had left behind. He hesitated… then pressed the button.
A click. Then Kael's voice: "You've seen enough to believe."
"I want in," Alex said.
Kael didn't sound surprised. "Then be ready. The next name on your list isn't just a player."
"Who?"
Kael's voice darkened. "Evelyn Voss. The woman who ran the Revenant trials."
Alex paused. "Where?"
Kael smiled from wherever he was. "Closer than you think."
That night, as Alex rested against the wall, exhaustion dragging his bones down, he closed his eyes for just a moment.
And dreamed of fire.
His hands holding a torch.
A city screaming.
And in the smoke… a face.
Not Rachel's. Not Kael's.
A painted smile. Pale skin. Watching him from the shadows.
Laughing.