The soldiers led them through a maze of fortified trenches and camouflaged bunkers to a command tent larger and more permanent than the others. The air inside was thick with the smell of old canvas, gun oil, and a tense, unyielding authority. Seated behind a makeshift desk of crates and a faded map was a man who was unmistakably Leo's father. He had the same sharp jawline, the same intense eyes, but where Leo's were often alight with fiery emotion, this man's were chips of flint, hardened by eighteen years of loss and command. A nameplate on the desk read: COMMANDER MARCUS CROSS.
He didn't stand. His gaze swept over the group, lingering on Leo with a mixture of profound shock and something colder, something fractured. Then his eyes scanned Eva, Wolfen, and the others, his brow furrowing in deep suspicion.
"Leo," Marcus's voice was a low, gravelly rumble, devoid of warmth. "Eighteen years. You walk in here, looking like you just left yesterday. Not a day older." His eyes narrowed, shifting to the rest of them. "None of you are. Explain. Now."
Eva, falling into her role as the diplomat, took a half-step forward. "Commander Cross, we understand your suspicion. We are simply humans who have survived in isolation. We're just trying to find a—"
Before she could say "lab," Wolfen cut her off, his voice loud and clear, slicing through her diplomacy.
"She's lying."
The word hung in the tent like a gunshot. Eva whipped her head around to stare at him, her eyes wide with a mixture of betrayal and fury. What was he doing?
Wolfen ignored her, his gaze fixed on Marcus. He pointed at Eva, then at Derek, Jordan, and a stunned Leo. "They are all hybrids. Genetically and technologically enhanced. And I," he said, tapping his own chest, "am human. We are trying to find a laboratory here, where my sister and Eva's sister are being held prisoner. We are trying to save them."
He gestured to Leo. "Your son was experimented on by the ones who run that lab for seven years. I have been training them all for the last ten. And hybrids," he finished, delivering the final, unbelievable truth with clinical precision, "do not age."
He finally turned his head and met Eva's furious glare. His expression was utterly calm. "Future alliances," he stated, "cannot be built on a foundation of lies."
The revelation was a bomb. Marcus Cross's stony composure cracked. His hand, which had been resting on the desk, moved. In a fluid motion born of a lifetime of combat, he drew a heavy pistol from a hip holster, leveling it directly at Wolfen's forehead. At the same time, the tent flaps rustled, and four guards entered, their rifles raised, covering the entire group.
The air turned to ice.
"Dad…" Leo's voice was a faint, broken whisper. "Where's Mom? I want to meet her. You're… you're insane."
Marcus's aim didn't waver, but a profound, gut-wrenching pain flashed in his eyes. "She is dead," he said, the words flat and final. "Eaten alive. Right in front of my eyes. She was trying to get to a rally point, desperate to see you one last time before she died." He took a sharp, ragged breath. "I put a bullet in her head myself. To spare her… that."
The horror of the image silenced them all. Leo looked like he'd been physically struck.
Marcus's finger tightened on the trigger. His voice was dead calm. "What are your final words?"
Wolfen, who had been standing with an almost bored patience, finally smiled. It was a small, chilling expression. "Do you," he asked, as if inquiring about the weather, "want to kill a Prime Architect?"
Marcus's eyes narrowed. "Ten seconds."
"We know his location!" Eva interjected desperately, her mind racing. "We can help you kill him!"
"Six seconds."
The guards' grips tightened on their rifles. The situation was a heartbeat from a bloodbath.
Then, a quiet, steady voice cut through the tension. It was Maya. She had been so silent they had almost forgotten her.
"You need us," she said, her black eyes fixed on Marcus. "And you know it. You know you will die alone, suffering. And so will all your men."
It was the truth, spoken not as a threat, but as a simple, unassailable fact. Marcus flinched, a barely perceptible twitch, but it was enough. He was a strategist. He knew his limits. He had been fighting a guerrilla war against an enemy he couldn't comprehend. Maya's words struck at the core of his greatest fear: dying without achieving vengeance, leaving his men to be slaughtered.
Wolfen's smile widened. He looked from Maya back to Marcus, the architect of the new, brutal truth they were building.
"Here is the deal," Wolfen said, his tone that of a businessman closing a transaction. "You share your intelligence on this region, the enemy movements, everything you know. And we will share ours. We will help you kill the Architect who commands this territory. And in return, you will help us rescue our sisters."
He didn't ask. He stated the terms. The gun was still pointed at his face, but the power in the tent had irrevocably shifted. It was no longer about who had the weapons. It was about who had the power to truly change the game.
Marcus Cross slowly, slowly, lowered his pistol. The guards, taking their cue, lowered their rifles, though their fingers remained near the triggers. He stared at Wolfen, then at his son, then at the collection of impossible beings standing before him.
The war had just gotten a lot more complicated.