Under the Shadows

38. Unveiling The Reclaimer

"He's been through a lot," Dr. Greaves said suddenly, his voice pulling her from her thoughts. Elyne looked up, her eyes meeting his. He had a calm, measured demeanor, but there was a heaviness in his gaze, as though he'd carried too many secrets for too long.

"I imagine you have questions," he added, his tone gentle but pointed.

Elyne hesitated, her throat tight with the weight of everything she wanted to say. Questions swirled in her mind, sharp and unrelenting, but she wasn't sure she was ready to hear the answers. Instead, she settled on the one thing that felt tangible, real.

"Why did he do it?" she asked, her voice low, almost hesitant. "Why become the Reclaimer?"

Dr. Greaves regarded her for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then he sighed, leaning back in his chair as though the weight of the answer had settled on his shoulders. "Dante has always been... driven," he said slowly. "Brilliant, yes, but also relentless. When his mother died—when StarShield left her to die—something inside him broke, Elyne. Irreparably. He was already carrying so much. That betrayal was the final blow."

Elyne felt her throat tighten as his words sank in. She thought of the photos she had seen earlier—Dante as a child, his angelic face alight with curiosity. That boy, bright-eyed and full of wonder, had been ground down, his innocence replaced by raw, unrelenting fury.

"He couldn't let it go," Dr. Greaves continued, his voice quieter now, tinged with a sadness that seemed to stretch back years. "Couldn't move on. He wanted justice, or maybe revenge. Hell, maybe he didn't know the difference anymore."

Elyne's gaze flicked toward the closed door leading to the room where Dante lay unconscious. She thought of his injury—a jagged scar running across his lower back, a wound that refused to fully heal.

"He never told me much about his back," she murmured, more to herself than to Greaves. "But it's bad, isn't it? Worse than I thought."

The doctor nodded, his expression grim. "The initial injury was severe. It should have been operable, but..." He hesitated, the faintest flicker of anger flashing in his eyes. "Let's just say the surgeon who worked on him wasn't up to par. The operation didn't take, and the damage was only worsened."

Elyne felt a pang of anger mixed with sorrow. The Reclaimer—a man who had built his reputation on precision and control—was walking around with a body that betrayed him at every step.

"Every movement must be agony," she said quietly, her fingers tightening around her coffee mug.

"It is," Greaves confirmed, his voice solemn. "But he won't let it stop him. He's too stubborn for that."

Elyne's chest tightened at the raw simplicity of the explanation. It made sense in a cold, logical way, but it didn't make it any easier to accept. She thought of the man she'd seen on the news, the one painted as a dangerous vigilante, and then of the man who had collapsed in her arms just hours ago. How much of him was Dante, and how much was the Reclaimer?

"And what about you?" she asked, her voice sharper now. "Why help him?"

Greaves leaned back in his chair, his gaze distant, as though he were looking at a version of himself from another lifetime. "I wasn't always here," he began, his voice low and measured. "I grew up in a cramped apartment with cracked walls and barely enough food to last the week. My father worked double shifts at a factory, my mother cleaned houses when her health allowed it. Every cent was stretched thin, every meal a reminder of how little we had".

He sighed, his eyes lost far away, deep into the depth of his memories.

"This kind of poverty... it eats away at you, he continued", his tone heavy. "Leaves marks you carry forever. But you know what I'm talking about, don't you?"