She glanced at Elliot for confirmation, but he’d retreated into himself again.
Fine. If he couldn’t be strong right now, she would be strong enough for the both of them.
They wouldn’t die here, like Maren and Helena, locked away and forgotten.
Not if she had anything to say about it.
thirty-one
The hours crawled by,the air growing stale with the mingled scents of antiseptic, sweat, fear, and approaching death. Rue sat with her back against a lab bench, her injured ankle stretched out before her, throbbing in time with her pulse. She watched as the others settled into uneasy clusters around the room—Mia and Irina still attending to Tyler, whose rattling breaths punctuated the silence; Moretti huddled in a corner with Helena’s photos clutched to his chest; Camille and Noah speaking in hushed tones by the door; Koos snoring softly from one of the cots. How that man could sleep now was beyond her.
But it was Elliot who drew her attention.
He’d positioned himself near the wall farthest from the door, away from the others. Away from her. The distance felt deliberate, as if he were building walls not just against Praetorian, but against everyone.
She had never seen him like this—not when they’d dangled over that crevasse, not when they’d discovered the bodies at Takahe, not even when she’d broken down in his arms. He’d always been solid, dependable Elliot Wilde, the man with a plan for every contingency, a solution for every problem.
But now she saw all the cracks in his armor.
His face was drawn, those clever blue eyes vacant, staring at nothing. His right hand trembled slightly where it rested on his knee. The cuts along his knuckles had reopened, small beads of blood seeping through the bandages Irina had applied. He hadn’t even noticed.
She recognized that far-off look. She’d seen it once when she was a teenager in her father’s eyes after a hostage rescue went wrong in Myanmar—the thousand-yard stare of someone facing not just mortality, but failure on a scale that shook their very identity. Mom had helped Dad through that dark time, held him when he woke up screaming, soothed him back from the edge of hopelessness when he’d thought himself lost.
Elliot needed that, too.
He was drowning, and she was the only one who could throw him a life preserver.
Rue pushed herself up, wincing as her ankle protested, and limped across the room. She lowered herself beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched. He didn’t acknowledge her presence, just kept staring at that invisible point on the far wall.
“Hey,” she said softly.
No response.
“Elliot?”
His eyes flicked toward her briefly, then away. “You should rest your ankle,” he said, flat and hollow.
He was the one hurting, but he was still trying to take care of her. “My ankle’s fine.” It wasn’t, but that hardly mattered now. “You look like hell.”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “I’m fine.”
“Bullshit.”
He didn’t argue, which worried her more than anything. Elliot always had a comeback, always met her challenge with one of his own. This silent surrender wasn’t him at all.
She nudged his shoulder with hers. “Talk to me, El.”
His throat worked as he swallowed, but still, he didn’t look at her. “What’s there to say?”
The flatness in his voice scared her more than Praetorian’s guns or the black filaments creeping through Tyler’s veins.
“We’re going to get out of this,” she said with more confidence than she felt.
A bitter smile twisted his lips. “Are we? Because from where I’m sitting, we’re trapped in a lab while my own cousin helps Praetorian turn us all into science experiments. I’ve got nothing, Rue. No plan. No backup. Nothing.”
His hand trembled more violently now. She covered it with her own, feeling the heat of his skin, the roughness of his bandages.
“That’s not true,” she said. “You’ve got me.”
