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 hishands, 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 gurgleemerged. 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.
