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.
thirty-five
CHRISTCHURCH, NEW ZEALAND
Rue wonderedif the IV drip was laced with something stronger than saline, because she had to be hallucinating. That was the only explanation for why Elliot was currently locked in a debate with a nurse over theentire environmentof her hospital room.
“The standard cotton blend is perfectly adequate for patient comfort,” the nurse said, her voice tight with the kind of patience usually reserved for unruly toddlers.
“Not for someone recovering from hypothermia,” Elliot countered, adjusting the blanket around Rue’s shoulders for the third time in ten minutes. “Her core temperature regulation is still compromised. These sheets feel like sandpaper, the thermostat is at least three degrees too low, and that flickering fluorescent light is going to give her a migraine. And don’t get me started on the mattress—this thing is one step above a slab of concrete.”
Rue closed her eyes and sank deeper into the pillows, praying he’d take the hint and stop before he started critiquing the aircirculation or the noise in the hallway. He’d been hovering over her for the past eighteen hours like she was made of spun glass, and while part of her warmed at the attention, another part wanted to throttle him with her oxygen tube.
