Page 87 of Wilde and Untamed
He finally turned to look at her, and the raw devastation in his eyes stole her breath. “And what good is that going to do either of us? I can’t protect you. I can’t protect any of them. I’ve failed at the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”
“That’s bullshit,” she said, keeping her voice low. “You haven’t failed at anything.”
“My cousin is working for Praetorian.” The words came out ragged, like they’d been torn from somewhere deep inside him. “My own blood, Rue. What does that say about me? About my family?”
“It says Cade made a terrible choice. It doesn’t say anything about you.”
“Doesn’t it?” His laugh was hollow. “We’re all cut from the same cloth. Duty and family above everything. Except he chose... this.” He gestured vaguely at the door, at the guards beyond, at the whole fucked-up situation.
Rue had never been good with words—not the comforting kind, anyway. She could talk trash with the best of them, couldspin wild stories around a campfire, could flirt her way past most obstacles. But this kind of raw pain? She had no map for that terrain.
“Listen to me,” she said, gripping his hand tighter. “You are not Cade. You are not responsible for his choices.”
“I should have seen it coming. Should have noticed something was off when he left Wilde Security.”
“How could you possibly?—”
“It’s my job to see things coming.” The words came out like they’d been torn from somewhere deep and raw. “It’s what I do, Rue. I’m the planner. The one who maps out every possibility, every contingency. I’m supposed to keep three steps ahead of everyone else.”
She watched his profile in the dim light—the tight set of his jaw, the hollow beneath his cheekbone, the way his throat worked as he swallowed. He looked exhausted beyond measure, and... haunted.
“Nobody could have predicted this,” she said.
“I should have.” His voice dropped to barely a whisper. “It’s all falling apart, and I can’t... I can’t fix it.”
The raw pain of his words twisted in her chest like a blade. She’d never heard him sound so lost, so utterly without direction.
“This isn’t on you, Elliot.”
He laughed, a harsh, broken sound that contained no humor. “That’s where you’re wrong, Trouble. It’s all on me, and I couldn’t get a signal out to my family. I couldn’t protect you.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Do you know what happens if we don’t stop this? If Praetorian gets that pathogen off the continent? It could kill millions, Rue. And I’m sitting here, completely useless.”
“You’re not useless.”
If he heard her, he gave no indication.
“I should have planned better.” His breathing had grown shallow, his words coming faster as the carefully constructed walls he’d built around himself began to crumble.
She recognized the signs of someone teetering on the edge of a breakdown. She’d seen it in climbers who’d pushed themselves too far, in expedition members facing their mortality in the harshest environments on Earth.
“Should have insisted on better comms equipment, should have recognized the signs at Thwaites earlier. Should have anticipated Praetorian would have someone embedded with us. Should have...” His voice broke. “It’s all collapsing, Rue. Everything I’ve tried to hold together. My family. This mission. Us.”
His hands were visibly shaking now, his breathing ragged.
A part of her wanted to run. She was good at running, good at moving on when things got messy or complicated. Good at keeping emotional distance. But the memory of his arms around her in that shower at Takahe, holding her together when she was the one falling apart, held her in place.
“Elliot,” she said softly. “Look at me.”
He didn’t move, his gaze fixed on his trembling hands. She reached for his hand, but he pulled away, curling in on himself like a wounded animal.
No. He wasn’t doing that. He wasn’t retreating from her.
She threw a leg over his thighs, straddling his lap, and clasped his stubble-roughened face in both hands, forcing him to meet her gaze. The despair in his eyes stole her breath.
“Elliot,” she said more firmly. “Look at me.”
He blinked and lifted his red-rimmed eyes to hers.
“You can’t fix everything. You can’t save everyone. Not your family, not the world, not me.”
