Chapter 27
twenty-seven
She woke up cold.
Elliot was no longer pressed against her, warming her in ways she wasn’t entirely ready to explore yet. Panic rose up, sharp and painful, until she heard someone moving around outside.
What was he doing out there?
Standing, Rue wrapped the blanket around herself and crossed to the window.
She pressed her palms against the cold glass, squinting at the vast white landscape beyond.
The storm had broken, the sun transforming the Antarctic wasteland into something almost alien in its beauty—blinding crystal stretching to the horizon, a knife-edge between white and blue.
Her breath fogged the window, obscuring the view for a moment before dissipating.
Elliot was there, a dark silhouette against the brilliant whiteness, moving around a snowcat, checking the treads and breaking ice from the windshield. His breath plumed in the frigid air as he worked.
Mr. Fix-It.
Warmth unfurled in her chest, equal parts terrifying and irresistible.
Dammit, she didn’t want to feel this way about him. She wanted the easy flirtation, the rush of adrenaline, the thrill of the chase. Not this... ache. This unsettling sense that he might matter more than her next adventure. That he might be worth staying in one place for.
She shook her head, clearing away the thought.
Ugh, this right here was the problem with amazing sex. It made you think crazy things. Made you forget who you were.
She pulled the blanket tighter around herself and limped toward the kitchenette. Her ankle was still swollen, but Elliot’s wrapping job had helped. The pain had receded to a dull throb that she could push to the background with minimal effort. She’d hiked out of the Andes with worse.
She found a jar of instant coffee and set about making it, needing something to do with her hands.
And once again, the thought struck like lightning?—
Maren was dead.
Logically, she’d known it for the past year. But knowing and seeing were two different kinds of devastation.
She braced for the overwhelming punch of grief to hit her again, and it was there, but underneath it was a burning need to understand why this happened.
And to make someone pay.
But… who?
Atlas?
No. She instantly discarded the thought.
Atlas Frost was a lot of things—narcissistic, megalomaniacal—but he wasn’t suicidal.
He’d known about the black filaments in the ice, known what happened to Maren and her team, and it scared him.
That was why he told Davey and Rowan to send someone to Antarctica with her.
That was why he was helping—if it could be called that—Wilde Security take down Praetorian.
It all came back to them.
So Alexander Stirling and all of his minions would pay for Maren’s death.
He’d watch his precious private army crumble, watch all of his investments collapse, see every asset seized, every plan for world domination ruined.
And while Wilde Security made sure every last Praetorian bastard paid for their crimes, and she’d make damn sure Stirling knew Maren had started it all.
The thought buoyed her. Maren would love that.
She added three heaping spoonfuls of instant to a mug, poured boiling water from the kettle, and slurped it black. It tasted like battery acid, but it did the trick, warming her from the inside out, jump-starting muscles and nerve endings that were almost at their limit.
Outside, the snowcat’s engine rumbled to life, the growl vibrating through the floor under her feet, and she couldn’t help the smile.
Even at the ass-end of the world, Elliot Wilde made things work.
The engine cut off, and a moment later, the door to the station swung open, bringing with it a blast of frigid air that stole her breath.
Elliot stomped his boots on the threshold, brushed snow from his shoulders, and then looked up, surprise registering when he saw her standing there.
His cheeks and nose were red from the cold, and a layer of frost clung to the stubble on his jaw.
“You’re up,” he said, unwinding his scarf. “How’s the ankle?”
“Functional.” She held up her mug in question. “Coffee?”
A smile twitched at the corner of his lips. “Does it taste like stale motor oil?”
“You know it.”
“Better than nothing.”
As she prepared him a mug, she watched him shed his outer layers.
The jacket wasn’t the ripped one he’d arrived here in, and the thermal shirt underneath was a size too small, clinging to the muscles of his arms and chest. He must have scavenged the rooms for more clothes while she was sleeping.
He was also moving stiffly, favoring his left side.
He’d hurt himself worse than he’d admitted yesterday.
But of course he had. He’d walk on broken legs before admitting weakness.
“Snowcat’s operational,” he said, hanging his jacket on a hook by the door. “We don’t have a lot of fuel, but I mapped the route back to Thwaites, and it should be enough if we’re careful.”
Dammit, she should’ve thought to do all of that—it was her job, after all—but she’d been too wrapped up in her own head.
Elliot crossed to the kitchen and accepted the mug she held out for him. “Thanks.” He took a sip and winced. “Ugh, that’s bad.” He set it down and nodded to a pile of clothes in a nearby chair. “I found you some gear. Snow pants, jacket, new gloves.”
“I’m starting to get the sense that you’re better at this resourceful survivalist shit than me.”
Elliot shrugged, but a flicker of pride passed across his expression. “I grew up competing with brothers and cousins who could field-strip a sniper rifle before they could drive. Improvisation is our family brand.”
He went silent and glanced toward the hallway, his jaw flexing. Her radar pinged. He was holding something back, debating whether to tell her something. Or maybe how.
“El, what aren’t you telling me?”
He set his mug down, rolling it between his palms. “Yesterday, when I searched the lab, I found something. I was going to tell you, but I found you in the shower…” He trailed off.
“Breaking down,” she finished for him. The reminder of that moment brought the grief roaring back, but she swallowed it down.
“You had every right to,” he said quickly. “But, yeah. I got distracted.”
She tried for a smile. “And then I really distracted you.”
He coughed on the sip of coffee he’d just taken. The pink in his cheeks was back, and this time, it had nothing to do with the cold.
Adorable.
“Yeah, well…” He cleared his throat and seemed at a loss for words.
How could this man, who had whispered such filthy things in her ear as she came, now get flustered over the word “distracted”?
She decided to take pity on him. “What did you find?”
“Right. Hang on.” He disappeared down the hallway, returning a moment later with a box of files that he placed on the counter between them. He grabbed a folder, opened it, and held it out to her, pointing at a name.
Dr. Helena Moretti.
“Holy shit.” She grabbed the folder and scanned through it. “I knew Moretti—our Moretti—was lying. He wasn’t supposed to be at Thwaites. Is he trying to cover this up or?—”
A picture slipped out from the back of the folder, and they both looked down at it as it fluttered to the floor.
It showed Helena Moretti with Maren and several of the others they’d found in the makeshift morgue, all smiling in front of the station, holding up their expedition flag.
They looked happy, excited, like they had no idea what was waiting for them.
Rue bent to pick it up, a fresh wave of grief rolling through her. “Or he was looking for her, like I was looking for Maren.”
“Yeah,” Elliot said, his voice tight as he took the photo from her and studied the smiling faces. “At first, I thought he was in on it, but I searched her quarters while you were sleeping. She had pictures of him.”
He pulled another handful of photos from the box and passed them to her. All of them showed a couple very much in love.
“If Moretti knew what really happened to her, I have a feeling he’d be screaming it from the rooftops. Which means as soon as Praetorian realizes what he’s up to, they’ll want to silence him.”
Rue flipped through Helena’s notes. “Jesus,” she breathed, scanning a particularly detailed autopsy report. “It’s like something out of a horror movie.”
The pathogen functioned more like a fungus or a parasite than a virus, turning circulatory systems into networks for the black filaments. The infected became walking incubators, spreading the organism through contact with bodily fluids.
And Tyler was almost definitely infected.
She looked up into Elliot’s worried eyes. “We need to get back to Thwaites.”
Though she didn’t know what the two of them could do against a potentially multi-million-year-old pathogen and a private military bent on using it for world domination.
They desperately needed back-up.
No, not just back-up. They needed a full Level 4 containment unit.
“Any luck getting through to your family?” She knew without a doubt he’d been trying since he woke up this morning.
Elliot scowled. “No. I connected for a second, but I couldn’t see or hear anyone. And I doubt they could hear me.”
“So we’re on our own,” she said, stating the obvious because sometimes you had to say the terrible truths out loud. She finished off the awful coffee and straightened her shoulders. “Okay, then. We’d better get moving.”