The road to Fort Ravel wound like a scar through the mountains ,narrow, sharp, endless. By the time the old military fences came into view, fog had rolled in thick and low, wrapping everything in gray. Adrian stopped the car a few hundred meters from the gate. The place looked dead, no guards, no lights , just rusted wire and warning signs long forgotten. "Abandoned?" I asked. He shook his head. "That's what they want it to look like." I glanced at him. "You've been here before." His silence was answer enough. We climbed through a gap in the fence, careful not to make noise. The air was colder on the inside, still and heavy, like the base was holding its breath. Fort Ravel sprawled across the valley , hangars, barracks, watchtowers half collapsed, windows blown out. But the deeper we went, the more wrong it felt. No animals. No birds. No sound except our footsteps. Adrian led me toward a cluster of old storage buildings near the perimeter. He moved like a man retracing ghosts, quick, quiet, controlled. I followed, pulse steady only because his was. At the third building, he stopped. "This is it." "How do you know?" He didn't answer. Just pulled out a small flashlight and pushed the door open. The room inside was layered in dust. Broken crates, scattered tools, papers yellowed with time. But under it all, there was a faint hum. "Power," he said. "Someone's been here recently." We followed the sound through a corridor to a locked metal door. Adrian knelt, pressed his palm against the keypad, and smiled faintly. "Still the same access code." The lock clicked. Inside was a narrow room lit by a single strip of flickering light.
Computers lined the walls active. Monitors blinked with old military code and live feeds from cameras hidden around the base. And in the center of it all ,a steel table covered in files. He brushed dust off the top page. PROJECT REVENANT. "What is this?" I asked. He frowned, flipping through the pages. "Revenant means the one who returns. It's a code named black ops. Experimental recovery unit.
They were testing methods to fake field deaths and reinsert soldiers under new identities." I froze. "So Liam's death" "Wasn't one," he said quietly. He turned to a terminal and began typing fast. "If he was part of this project, there'll be a record." The screen blinked to life, and suddenly Liam's face filled the monitor. Younger. Alive. It was a video log, his voice rough, words hurried. "Operation Serpent went sideways. Ross isn't cleaning evidence, he's building something. Using us to cover it.
If anyone finds this,tell Elara I'm sorry. I couldn't protect them." A flash of gunfire. The screen went black. I stood frozen, my heartbeat roaring in my ears. He'd been alive. Long after they told me he was gone. Adrian stepped closer, his voice low. "He was trying to warn you." I shook my head, tears blurring the screen. "He was alone, terrified, and you let them call it friendly fire." He flinched, but didn't look away. "I tried to stop it. Ross shut me out. They made him a ghost because he saw something he shouldn't have." "What could he have seen worth killing him for?" He hesitated. "You don't want to know." "Yes," I said, voice breaking. "I do." He exhaled, the weight of it almost human. "Ross was trafficking weapons through humanitarian routes ,smuggling tech into conflict zones. Liam found out.
Project Revenant was meant to disappear anyone who got too close." The truth hit like fire. My brother hadn't died a hero. He'd been erased. I turned away, pressing a hand over my mouth to keep from breaking. Adrian's hand brushed my shoulder, tentative, careful. "Don't," I whispered. "Elara" "I said don't." But I didn't move. For a long time, neither of us spoke. His hand stayed there,solid, real, grounding. The anger bled into something else. Something softer. When I finally turned, his eyes were already on me. "He wasn't just your brother," he said quietly. "He was my family too." I didn't know what came over me ,grief, exhaustion, maybe the way his voice cracked on family — but before I could stop myself, I reached for him.
The moment his fingers closed around mine, the world stilled. No base, no mission, no ghosts. Just us two broken people holding onto something fragile in the middle of ruins. He leaned in, forehead against mine, breath unsteady. "We'll find him," he murmured. "Dead or alive, we'll find him." And for the first time, I believed him. The computers flickered. A warning window appeared: REMOTE ACCESS DETECTED.
Adrian's body went rigid. "Someone's in the system." He moved fast, fingers flying over the keys. "They're downloading the data. Whoever it is knows we're here." "Who?" I asked. He froze, staring at the terminal. "Pierce." My heart sank. "Noah?" He turned to me, eyes sharp. "He's been feeding Ross intel. That's how they found the safehouse. How they knew about the morgue." "That's impossible. Noah's like family." Adrian's tone was flat. "So was Liam. And look what they did to him." Before I could respond, alarms blared. Red light flooded the room.
"They're here," he said. Gunfire erupted outside. Adrian grabbed the drives, slung his bag over his shoulder, and pulled me toward the back corridor. "Move!" We sprinted through the smoke-filled hallways. Explosions rattled the walls; debris rained from the ceiling. A bullet grazed his arm, he stumbled but didn't stop. Blood streaked down his sleeve, dark against the dust. "Adrian!" "Keep going!" We burst into a maintenance tunnel, lungs burning. Behind us, voices shouted orders. "This way," he said, dragging me toward an old elevator shaft. The doors were half-open, cables exposed. "You're not serious," I said. "Do you trust me?" I didn't answer ,I just jumped when he did. We landed hard on a maintenance platform several floors down. The sound of boots echoed above. Adrian's breathing was ragged now, blood soaking his arm.
I reached for him instinctively. "You're bleeding." He smirked faintly, wincing. "You're terrible at compliments." "Shut up." I tore a strip from my sleeve and pressed it against the wound. His eyes locked on mine ,intense, dark, unreadable. "Why are you doing this?" I whispered. "Because I promised your brother I'd keep you alive." The words hit like a punch. "You knew him that well?" "He saved my life once," he said quietly. "He made me promise, if anything ever happened to him, I'd find you. Tell you the truth." My chest tightened. "You waited years to do it." "I didn't have a choice." The footsteps above grew louder.
He grabbed my hand again, warm, firm, and trembling just enough for me to feel it. "Whatever happens next," he said softly, "don't stop running."
"Adrian"
But before I could finish, the floor above us exploded, and everything went black.