Chapter 34
thirty-four
Elliot rose to his feet. His world narrowed to a single point: Keene, fleeing with death in a metal case.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, he didn’t run scenarios or weigh outcomes. He didn’t think three steps ahead.
He hunted.
Behind him, Dom was shouting orders, directing the WSW team to secure Rue and get her medical attention.
Rue was in good hands. Dom would move heaven and earth to keep her alive while he did what needed to be done.
The corridor Keene had fled down was long and poorly lit, the emergency lights casting alternating patches of shadow and sickly amber glow.
Elliot checked the borrowed rifle—half a magazine left. Not much, but it would have to do. He pressed forward, listening past the distant gunfire for the sound of footsteps, for the metallic clank of that case against a doorway, for anything that would tell him which way Keene had gone.
There—a door left ajar at the end of the hall, swinging slightly as if someone had just passed through.
Elliot moved toward it, rifle raised, his finger hovering just outside the trigger guard.
He paused at the door, listening. Nothing but the hum of machinery and the faint wail of alarms in the distance.
He eased the door open with the barrel of his rifle, revealing a service corridor that ran parallel to the main hallway. Smart. Keene was avoiding the main thoroughfares where he might encounter WSW forces. Elliot slipped through the door and closed it silently behind him.
The corridor was cramped, lined with pipes and electrical conduits. The ceiling was low enough that Elliot had to duck his head slightly to avoid the hanging bundles of cables.
Perfect.
This was exactly the kind of environment he could use to his advantage.
He spotted a junction box on the wall ahead, its panel slightly ajar. The station’s power grid would be running on emergency protocols after Dom’s explosive entrance. Elliot reached up and yanked down hard on the main breaker, plunging the service corridor into absolute darkness.
For three heartbeats, there was nothing but the sound of his own breathing, then?—
“Shit!” A clatter and thump from ahead, the sound of someone stumbling in the dark, followed by a metallic clang as something hit the floor.
The case. Keene had dropped the case.
Elliot smiled grimly in the darkness, his eyes already adjusting.
The scientist was muttering now, scrabbling around on his hands and knees for the case.
Elliot closed the distance, silent as a ghost.
Ten feet away.
Five.
Normally, he’d be calculating odds, planning extraction routes, weighing risks. But with Rue’s blood still tacky on his hands, all he could think about was making sure her sacrifice meant something. Making sure Keene paid.
“Keene!” he roared, his voice barely recognizable to his own ears.
The scientist flinched, glancing back over his shoulder, his eyes wide with fear. Then he redoubled his efforts, sprinting for the door that would lead to the western garage and the snowcats beyond.
Elliot fired, his shot not intended to kill—not yet. The bullet caught Keene in the shoulder just as he slammed through the door into the garage.
Fuck.
Elliot ran, bursting through the door mere steps behind him, gun up.
But Keene hadn’t made it far. He staggered and slumped against the wall in the hallway on the other side of the door, his face contorted in pain and fury as he clutched the metal case to his chest.
“You don’t understand what you’re interfering with,” he gasped as Elliot approached. “This is bigger than any of us. The pathogen could revolutionize medicine—or warfare. Whoever controls it controls the future.”
“Spare me the villain monologue.” Elliot ripped the case from his hands, hauled the man to his feet, and pressed the gun against his forehead. “You’re not getting away, and neither is your little science project.”
“You think this ends with me?” Keene sneered. “Praetorian has resources you can’t imagine. They’ll find the pathogen again, with or without me.”
“It’ll be harder if they don’t have you.”
“You’re not a killer, Elliot,” Keene said, his voice taking on a placating tone. “Not like this.”
“You think so? You just hurt someone I love.” This wasn’t how he usually operated. He gathered intelligence, he planned extractions, he coordinated logistics. He didn’t execute unarmed men in cold blood, no matter what they’d done.
But Rue’s face flashed in his mind—her skin going gray as blood soaked through her shirt, her voice weakening as she urged him to stop Keene.
The memory of Maren’s frozen corpse, and all the others at Takahe Station.
The black veins crawling beneath Tyler’s skin as the pathogen consumed him from within.
This man had destroyed countless lives and would destroy countless more if Elliot let him walk away.
His finger tightened on the trigger.
“Stop!”
The command snapped through the air, and Elliot risked a glance over his shoulder, spotting the speaker at the other end of the hall.
Dr. Emerson Moretti. The man looked terrible—his face was pale and drawn, a hastily applied bandage around his head spotted with blood.
But his eyes were clear and focused in a way Elliot hadn’t seen since they’d met.
“Moretti,” Elliot acknowledged, but didn’t remove his gun from Keene’s head. “I’ve got this under control.”
“I know you do…” Moretti’s gaze never left Keene’s face as he came forward. There was something in his hand, but Elliot couldn’t make it out until it was too late.
“…but this isn’t just your fight.”
Before Elliot could react, Moretti lunged forward with surprising speed for a man with a concussion. His hand flashed out, and the scalpel plunged into Keene’s chest with perfect surgical accuracy, sliding between his ribs and into his heart.
“That was for Helena,” Moretti growled, twisting the blade before yanking it free.
Blood bubbled from Keene’s lips as he slid to the floor, eyes wide with shock. He tried to speak, but only a wet gurgle emerged. His hands clutched at the wound, fingers scrabbling uselessly against his lab coat as the crimson stain spread.
Elliot stood frozen, the pistol still aimed at where Keene’s head had been moments before. Part of him—the part that had been trained to preserve life, to bring people home safely, to follow rules of engagement—wanted to intervene, to save Keene, to arrest Moretti for what he’d just done.
But another part, the part that had held Rue as she bled, the part that had seen the frozen bodies at Takahe Station, the part that understood exactly what Moretti had lost, kept him rooted to the spot.
Keene’s eyes fixed on Elliot’s face for one final moment before the light in them dimmed, his body going slack as death claimed him.
Moretti stepped back. “I found her,” he said quietly. “At Takahe. I found all of them. Helena stayed with them until the end, trying to help, trying to find a cure.”
Elliot lowered his weapon slowly. “You knew? All this time?”
Moretti nodded, his shoulders slumping, the adrenaline visibly draining from him.
“I knew Jess was Preatorian when I hired her to come with me, and I knew about the experiment they were planning with your expedition. That’s why I came here.
I just needed to wait until she called them in to find out which of the rest of you was responsible for Helena. ”
“You played us.” Elliot could see it so clearly now and couldn’t help the bloom of respect. It wasn’t often someone outmaneuvered him so completely.
Moretti gave a laugh devoid of humor. “I played everyone. I wanted revenge. Was blinded by it.” His gaze dropped to the scalpel in his hand, as if he were seeing it for the first time. He let it clatter to the floor.
A short spurt of gunfire popped from somewhere behind them.
That would be Dom and the others securing the facility, clearing out the remaining Praetorian forces.
And Rue—God, Rue. He needed to get back to her.
As if reading his mind, Moretti nodded, swaying slightly on his feet. The burst of energy that had carried him this far was clearly fading. “Go. I’ll wait here.”
Elliot hesitated, torn between his duty to secure the pathogen and his instinct to help this broken man who’d just enacted the vengeance Elliot himself had been contemplating.
“Helena emailed me all of her records,” Moretti continued, his voice growing distant. “Everything Praetorian tried to cover up, she documented. It’s all on my computer.” He lifted his gaze. “Make it right.”
“We will,” Elliot promised. “We’ll make sure everyone knows the truth. About Helena, about Takahe, about all of it.”
Moretti nodded, sinking down to sit against the wall opposite Keene’s body. “Good. That’s... good.”
Elliot backed toward the door, unwilling to turn his back on the scene. Not out of fear for his safety, but because it felt wrong somehow, disrespectful of what had just transpired.
“Moretti,” he said as he reached the doorway. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Helena.”
“So am I,” Moretti replied, then picked up the scalpel again and stabbed it into his own neck.
“Fuck!” Elliot surged forward a step, but there was nothing he could do. Like with Keene, the aim had been perfectly surgical. Blood pumped from the wound in a steady, heavy spray.
Moretti smiled, then his eyes rolled back and his body went limp.
Elliot stood frozen, staring until his brain kicked back into gear.
Rue.
He grabbed the case and ran, already calculating the fastest route back to her, assessing what medical supplies they might need, planning their extraction from this frozen hellhole.
Let her be alive. Please, let her be alive.