Elliot and Rue weren’t in here. They couldn’t be. They would’ve answered when he called for them?—
Dom rounded a toppled shelf and saw what Griffin was staring at. A circular hatch stood open in the far wall, and beyond it lay a room that looked like something out of a horror movie. Not Elliot or Rue, thank God, but bodies. At least ten, by his count.
“Fuck me,” he breathed. His rifle trembled as his brain tried to reconcile the sight. He’d seen plenty of dead in his line of work, but nothing like this. Their skin was paper-pale, threaded with black veins that pulsed in his imagination even though he knew they couldn’t. It was as if whatever killed them hadn’t just stopped their hearts—it had written itself into their flesh.
Sabin appeared at his shoulder. “Three more dead over behind the door. Looks like they were trying to claw out of the room after they were locked in.” He scanned the bodies, and his tanned face went gray. “Mon Dieu. What happened here?”
Dom forced himself into the freezer, scanning each face for any sign of Elliot or Rue. His heart hammered against his ribs as he checked each body, praying he wouldn’t find either of them among the dead. Most wore lab coats or expedition gear, their faces peaceful in death except for a few whose mouths were frozen in silent screams.
“Look at this,” Griffin called from back out in the lab. He was crouched beside another body—a woman with pale blond hair. Her name tag was still visible: “Dr. Helena Moretti.”
Dom’s blood chilled. Moretti. As in Dr. Emerson Moretti, the man Elliot had asked for a dossier on. The man who had been lying about who he was and why he was in Antarctica. Dom had read all of those dossiers repeatedly on the flight to Chile and remembered seeing the name Helena, listed as Moretti’s wife.
“She’s been here a while,” Griffin continued, studying the body with cold detachment. “Look at the ice formation. These people have been dead for months, maybe longer.”
Relief flooded through Dom so fast it made him dizzy. If these bodies had been here for months, then Elliot and Rue hadn’t suffered the same fate.
“Keep looking,” he ordered, backing out of the freezer. He couldn’t stand to be in there another second with all those dead eyes staring at nothing. “Check every room. They were here—we know they were here.”
The team spread out through the rest of the station, calling out clear reports as they swept each space. Dom found himself in what looked like a residential wing, pushing open door after door. Most of the rooms were undisturbed, personal effects still arranged on desks and nightstands.
When he checked the shower room, a pile of clothes on the floor had him stopping cold. He recognized that red jacket. Elliot had grabbed it from HQ before boarding his flight to come here.
Dom crouched and picked it up. It was sopping wet and only just starting to freeze. There was a nasty tear down the shoulder, but no blood that he could see. A quick look through the rest of the clothes confirmed what he’d already suspected: Elliot and Rue had stripped out of their ruined clothes and showered here.
“Dom,” Griffin called.
He carried the jacket back to the hallway and showed it to his cousin. “It’s Elliot’s and it’s still wet. We must’ve just missed them.”
Griffin nodded and motioned for him to follow as he jogged back toward the front door. “One of our guys just found snowcat tracks headed away from the building.”
Dom dropped the jacket and broke into a run, adrenaline spiking through his system. Outside, the wind had died to a whisper, and he could see the tracks clearly now, deep grooves in the snow leading away from the station in a straight line toward the horizon. One of the WSW specialists was crouched beside them, studying the patterns.
“Fresh,” the man reported as Dom skidded to a stop beside him. “Maybe six, eight hours old at most. Maybe less. It’s hard to pinpoint with all the ice and blowing snow.”
Dom pulled out his satellite phone and dialed Davey’s direct line. It rang once before his oldest brother’s voice crackled through the static.
“Tell me you found them.”
“Found signs they’d showered and eaten, possibly spent the night here. Looks like they got a snowcat working and are on their way back to Thwaites.” Dom’s words came out in a rush, his breath forming clouds in the frigid air. “But, Davey, there’ssomething else. There are bodies here. Lots of them. Including Helena Moretti.”
Silence stretched across the line.
Dom turned away from the tracks, scanning the horizon for any sign of movement. Nothing but endless white in every direction. “Whatever happened here, it wasn’t an accident. These people were locked in, and some of them...” He swallowed hard. The image of those clawing hands would haunt him for years to come. “Some of them tried to fight their way out. And if Emerson Moretti lied about his purpose here, what else has he been lying about?”
“Jesus Christ.” Davey’s voice carried the weight of command even across thousands of miles. “Get to them, Dom. Intercept them before they get back to Thwaites.”
“On our way.” Dom ended the call and looked at the snowcat tracks again, following their path with his eyes until they disappeared into the swirling snow.
Somewhere out there, Elliot was fighting his way across the ice with a woman who threw herself into danger like it was a sport. The thought should have been comforting—if anyone could keep Rue alive, it was his methodical, overprotective middle brother. But the bodies in that freezer kept flashing behind Dom’s eyes, and those spidery black veins.
What if whatever killed them was still out there? What if Elliot and Rue were walking straight into the same trap?
“Dom.” Griffin’s voice came over his comms, cutting through his spiraling thoughts. “Plane’s ready. Let’s go.”
“We’re coming, Elliot,” he murmured into the wind. “Just hang on.”
Then he ran for the plane.
