Chapter 152| What the Safehouse Held

Dawn broke gray and unremarkable over the property Farrow’s team had identified, a modest, unassuming house tucked into a stretch of quiet countryside that gave no outward indication of the considerable secrets it apparently held, and Allen felt the Precognitive Reflex settle into watchful readiness as the combined WHRIB and Fallen Crown team took their positions around its perimeter.

"On my signal," Farrow said quietly, her own tactical team fanned out with practiced, professional precision. "Slow, methodical, no unnecessary risk."

The entry, when it finally came, proved almost anticlimactic — no defensive measures triggered, no alarm sounded, simply a locked door that gave way to Vivian’s efficient strength and revealed, beyond it, a house that felt considerably more lived-in than any of them had properly anticipated.

He was there.

Reginald Cross stood in the property’s central room, unhurried and composed despite the sudden, considerable intrusion, and Allen felt old, complicated fury rise sharp and immediate at the sight of the man who’d once taught him proper sword grip now standing amid what was clearly a carefully maintained operational base, monitors and encrypted equipment lining walls that had, apparently, coordinated considerably more than simple household duty for decades.

"Allen," Reginald said, voice carrying the same calm, measured warmth Allen remembered from childhood, entirely unbothered by the weapons trained on him from every angle. "I confess, I expected you’d find this place eventually. I simply hoped for more time."

"You gave Edward that device," Allen said, voice tight with barely controlled fury. "You knew what it could do."

"I knew what it might do," Reginald corrected gently. "I never wished you genuine harm, Allen. Not you, specifically. Edward’s own choices, his own considerable resentment — those were his to make, regardless of what I offered him."

"A boy is dead," Allen said, the words scraping raw. "Because of what you offered him."

Something almost like genuine regret flickered behind Reginald’s composed expression, there and gone too quickly for Allen to properly trust it. "That outcome was never my intention," he said. "I offer you my genuine condolences, for whatever they’re worth to you now."

"They’re worth nothing," Allen said. "Not from you."

Farrow stepped forward then, her own considerable authority settling firmly into place. "Reginald Cross, or whatever your actual name is — you’re under arrest, pending formal charges related to—"

She didn’t finish. Reginald moved with sudden, startling speed, considerably faster than his composed bearing had suggested, and though Vivian and Irene both reacted immediately, his own SS+ capability proved sufficient to clear the room’s rear exit before either could properly close the distance, vanishing into the surrounding countryside with the same unhurried, patient competence that had apparently defined his entire, decades-long deception.

"Pursuit teams, now!" Farrow ordered, though the command carried little genuine hope, and within minutes, confirmation arrived that he’d cleared the property’s perimeter entirely, evading even the WHRIB’s own considerable tracking capability with practiced, professional ease.

"He’s gone," Vivian confirmed grimly, returning from the fruitless pursuit.

Allen absorbed the escape with quiet, frustrated fury, though Myria’s voice, calling from deeper within the house, drew his attention before the frustration could properly settle.

"Allen. You need to see this."

He found her in what had apparently served as Reginald’s private study, a considerable collection of documents spread across an old, water-damaged desk, and Myria held up a particular file with careful, focused attention, her own expression carrying something he hadn’t previously seen from her — genuine, unsettled alarm.

"Operation Designation: Deepwell Reclassification," she read aloud, the document’s water-damaged pages crackling faintly as she turned them. "Dated to exactly the year of your wives’ original incident. ’Subject Group: Four confirmed S-rank assets, American registry.’"

Allen felt something cold settle in his chest as he took the document from her, scanning its considerable, damaged contents with mounting, disbelieving horror. "Prototype fusion methodology," he read slowly. "Myria, this is—"

"I don’t want to speculate before we’ve had this properly analyzed," Myria said, though her own careful composure carried visible strain. "But Allen, if this document means what it appears to mean—"

"The dragon wasn’t natural," Allen said, the realization settling with devastating weight. "Whatever happened to them, six years ago. It wasn’t an accident."

Vivian appeared in the doorway then, drawn by the tension in their voices, and Allen watched her face as she read the document over his shoulder, watched the color drain slowly from her composed features as understanding dawned.

"Show the others," she said quietly, voice carrying a controlled stillness that Allen recognized, with growing unease, as the particular calm that preceded her own most dangerous fury. "They deserve to see this themselves."

Farrow, examining the document’s remaining pages with her own professional focus, looked up with grim, confirming weight. "The dating matches your wives’ recorded incident precisely," she said. "The subject count matches. I’d need considerably more analysis to confirm definitively, but Hunter Veton — I don’t think this was an accident either."

Allen stood amid the safehouse’s considerable, unsettling revelations, the document’s damaged pages trembling faintly in his own unsteady grip, and felt the ground shift beneath six years of carefully accepted, tragic history.

"We need to bring this home," he said finally, voice steady despite the storm building beneath it. "They need to know. All of them."

The transport ride back to Hegeville passed in heavy, considerable silence, the document secured carefully in Myria’s keeping, and Allen found himself, watching the countryside blur past the window, bracing for a conversation that would, he already knew, change everything his family had spent six years believing about the tragedy that had first, so painfully, brought them together.

"How do we even begin telling them?" he asked quietly, breaking the silence somewhere past the halfway point of the drive.

"Honestly," Myria said, though her own composure carried visible effort. "Exactly as we found it. No softening, no speculation dressed up as certainty. They deserve the facts, however unfinished, delivered plainly."

"And if it’s true?" Allen asked. "If everything they’ve believed about that dungeon, about the dragon, about the entire tragedy that cost them their bodies — if all of it was constructed?"

Myria was quiet for a long moment, watching the same blurred countryside pass beyond her own window. "Then they’ll need us more than they ever have," she said finally. "Not to fix it. Some things can’t be fixed, only faced. Just to stand beside them while they face it."

Allen reached for her hand, drawing what steadiness he could from her familiar, grounding presence, and let the transport carry them the rest of the way home in silence, the document’s considerable, unsettling weight riding with them the entire distance.