THE HANDLER'S SECRET

Chapter 6

The Handler's Secret

The rain poured down in sheets, beating against the windows of the small apartment where the man waited. He sat motionless at a table in the corner, a dim light casting shadows on the walls. The city outside was drowned in a quiet haze, the neon lights of distant billboards flickering weakly through the fog. He didn't know how long he had been here—time seemed to blur, just like his memories.

The device in his hand vibrated again. It had been silent for most of the night, but now, it buzzed insistently. His fingers tightened around it, his mind racing. It was her. It had to be. He had no other leads. No other contacts.

The screen lit up, and a simple message appeared: "I'm here."

His heart skipped a beat. V. The mysterious figure who had been shadowing his every move, guiding him through the maze of false identities and dangerous truths. She had told him that answers were coming—but he had begun to wonder just how much of this was a game for her, and how much was his reality.

He reached for the door. As his hand brushed the handle, there was a sudden knock. No code, no subtle warning. Just the loud, deliberate knock that felt more like an order than a request.

The man paused, his senses sharp. The knock was too loud, too confident. It wasn't V. He was sure of that.

With a swift movement, he ducked behind the door, positioning himself out of sight. His gun was in his hand before he even realized it, a familiar weight that brought an unsettling sense of control. He didn't know how he knew to act this way—how his body could anticipate danger like a reflex—but it didn't matter. He had learned to trust his instincts, even when his memories were fractured.

Another knock, this time more insistent. The voice that followed was deep, gruff, and unmistakably familiar.

"Open up, Agent."

It was a name he had heard only once before, but it cut through him like a blade. The voice belonged to someone from his past—someone who had been his mentor, his handler. It was the man who had trained him, molded him into the perfect weapon. The one person he never thought he would see again.

"V?" the man whispered, half to himself. "What's going on?"

The door creaked open, but he was ready. He stepped into the threshold, gun raised, prepared to fight. But what he saw stopped him dead in his tracks.

Standing in the doorway was a man—tall, with a weathered face and cold eyes, dressed in a black tactical suit that looked as though it had seen more than its fair share of bloodshed. There was no mistaking the identity.

"Handler," the man said, his voice barely above a whisper.

The Handler didn't flinch. His eyes remained locked on the man's, a grim understanding between them. The silence that followed was thick with tension, each of them sizing the other up as if they were about to engage in a deadly dance they had both mastered.

The Handler didn't make a move, but he didn't need to. The room felt charged, as though their mere presence was enough to shift the air around them. A long moment passed, the silence stretching like a taut wire.

"You're alive," the Handler said finally, his voice low and filled with an emotion the man couldn't quite read. "I didn't think you'd make it out."

The man lowered his gun, but his mind was spinning. "Why are you here? What do you want?"

The Handler stepped inside, his gaze never leaving the man. "We need to talk. It's not safe here." He closed the door behind him, locking it with a quick, practiced motion.

"Safe?" The man scoffed, shaking his head. "I've been running from my own shadow. There's no safe place for me anymore."

"Then maybe you're not the one who's been running," the Handler replied, his tone turning darker. "Maybe it's me."

The words hit the man like a slap to the face, but he held his ground. He was used to being caught off guard. "What are you talking about? You're the one who trained me. You're the one who made me this—this monster!"

The Handler's expression softened, and for the first time, the man saw a flicker of something resembling guilt in his eyes. "I didn't make you a monster. I made you a weapon. There's a difference. And when they turned you against me, I had no choice but to let you go."

The words hit him like a wave. "Let me go?" He laughed bitterly, feeling the rush of old anger surge inside him. "You abandoned me. You erased me. You made me forget who I was!"

The Handler's jaw clenched, and he took a step closer. "You don't understand. I didn't have a choice. We were both just pieces in a game that's much bigger than you or me."

The man's mind raced, but the pieces weren't fitting. Nothing about this made sense. "Why would the agency want me dead? What's going on?"

The Handler's eyes flickered briefly, and for a moment, the man could see something beyond the hard exterior. Fear. "You were the agency's best covert operative—one of the top. Trained to be a ghost, a weapon with no past, no future. They made you disappear because you were too dangerous. You were supposed to be the ultimate agent—no ties, no emotions, no past."

"But then something went wrong," the man said, the weight of the revelation sinking in. "What happened?"

The Handler took a deep breath, his eyes darkening as if the very thought of it brought back memories too painful to bear. "You were given a mission that went sideways. A mission that the agency never intended to fail. And when it did, they decided you were expendable. They erased your memories, wiped everything clean. You were supposed to be a shadow, an empty shell. But you survived. And they've been hunting you ever since."

The man's chest tightened. The pieces were finally beginning to align, but it didn't make him feel any better. "So I'm a ghost," he muttered, his voice tinged with bitterness. "I have no identity, no past. I'm just a weapon."

"No," the Handler replied sharply. "You were more than that. You had a future. You were meant to be something greater. But now, everything is a lie."

The man swallowed hard, fighting the urge to shake off the anger building within him. "And V? What does she have to do with this?"

The Handler's expression darkened, his eyes narrowing as he stepped closer. "She's someone who knows what's at stake. Someone who wants the truth to come out. But be careful with her. She has her own agenda."

The man shook his head. "I don't understand any of this."

"You don't have to," the Handler said quietly. "But you need to start. Because the agency isn't just hunting you anymore. They're hunting us. And the only way out is to finish what you started."

The man stood frozen, the weight of his handler's words settling over him like a crushing weight. It wasn't just about survival anymore. The lines were blurred, and the past he had lost was catching up to him in ways he couldn't have predicted.

"Do you still have what it takes?" the Handler asked, his voice laced with a challenge.

The man didn't answer immediately. Instead, he looked down at his hands—hands that had taken countless lives, hands that had been trained to kill.

He wasn't sure if he still had it in him, but one thing was clear: there was no turning back now.

"I'll finish this," he said finally. "But I need the truth. All of it."

The Handler nodded, his eyes steely with resolve. "Then it's time you learned the rest of your past."

And with those words, the man knew that the real fight was only just beginning.