AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Garrett just sneered. “Hiding is your job, torvar.”
And then he pushed past Sebastian with a hard shoulder check, like the most stereotypical schoolyard bully, and went off down the hall in the direction Hess had gone.
Sebastian shot a glare at his back as he left and rolled his shoulder.
Colin and Maxwell would say Garrett was just afraid of him. And fine, he should be, but there were plenty of people afraid of him but not also mean to him. And there were plenty of people who had figured out they didn’t need to be afraid of him!
“Small-minded son of a bitch,” Sebastian muttered to himself as he left down the hallway in the opposite direction. Speaking of Colin and Maxwell, they should be around here somewhere if they weren’t already at the barricade. Sebastian’s stomach rumbled. Food should be around here somewhere too, and the mess was as good a place as any to start sniffing out a traitor among the men.
Unlike the Ralscoln capitol building, Sebastian knew the Kaston headquarters as well as his childhood home. He navigated quickly through it while there was no one to see him, but once he got out of the offices—mostly abandoned now that the war had actually started—there were more people around, and he modulated his walk and his speed.
Now he would be that confused recruit. New, desperate, and scared, but too full of put-on-a-brave-face-son-type masculinity to show it. Looking around as he got to the mess, there seemed to be a lot of those.
He eyed his comrades as he got into line and shuffled along the counter, having his tray filled with simple but good, hardy Tava fare: the kind of meal you served soldiers when it might be their last. Many of the people he recognized, all the Resistance members who were still smiling, joking, and at ease, the people who had seen enough dangers not to be bothered now. But even more of the people were unfamiliar.
He spied Colin’s dirty blond hair with a mental sag of relief and sidled over.
Colin was chatting with a woman Sebastian didn’t recognize, but he looked up and gave Sebastian a friendly smile when Sebastian set his tray down. “Hello, have we met?”
“Once or twice, maybe.” Sebastian shrugged and sat down on the bench beside him. He tapped Colin’s foot three times under the table, and a sudden flash of realization lit his face before he quickly tempered it.
“No, we definitely have.” Colin clapped Sebastian’s shoulder, and the lies slid off his tongue. “I helped you at target practice the other day when your gun jammed.”
“Right, that was you.” Sebastian forced a smile that seemed befitting of the sort of new recruit who panicked when their gun jammed. It didn’t feel right on this face, and now that Sebastian was paying attention, he noticed his hands had all the right callouses for frequent gun usage. Hopefully no one questioned his story too closely.
“Well, I’m Colin, and this is Sheila.” Colin motioned to the woman across the table. “My cousin.”
Sebastian abruptly paid more attention, pulling his focus away from stuffing boiled root vegetables into his mouth. Colin didn’t mention family often, but Sebastian had always gotten the distinct impression it was because they were too important to him rather than nonexistent. He could relate to that.
“Nice to meet you, Sheila.” Sebastian reached across the table and suddenly felt guilty that he had to give a fake name. Meeting his best friend’s cousin, and he couldn’t even properly introduce himself. “I’m Neumann.”
“Nice to meet you too.” She smiled, and it lit up her tired eyes in a way that almost hid the bags under them. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around before.”
“Are you around a lot?” Sebastian raised his eyebrows. That would surprise him, considering he didn’t recognize her.
“She has been.” Colin nodded with a quick, suspicious look to Sebastian that broke his affable expression for a moment. “She joined up a couple months ago when we started planning to take Ralscoln. You wouldn’t have been around, I don’t think.”
The implication was that Neumann was new, but he and Colin knew it was because he had been too busy preparing for the attack on the summit in Northern Tava to have spent much time in Kaston. Sebastian shook his head. “No, I wouldn’t have. What do you do?”
“Logistics mostly. Not a lot of physical strength in these arms.” She laughed and held up her right arm and flexed her bicep, which Sebastian had to admit was scrawny. She tapped her own temple. “Plenty of mental strength up here, though. And I’ve loved learning from Martha.”
“Do you work with her closely?”
Sheila perked up. “Oh, do you know her?”
Sebastian knew Martha Hyland better than most, and she knew him better than anyone in the Resistance, but he shook his head.
“Only heard of her. She’s one of the founders, right?”
“Only one left,” Colin nodded grimly. “Her, Hilda—she died before my time, but I think Hess knew her—and Hilda’s brother, Farlon. It’s a shame you missed Farlon. He was a good man.”
Sebastian let the sadness hit him and occupy the ache in his chest Farlon’s death had left. Then he pushed it away. “I’ve heard.”
“Martha’s wonderful, though.” Sheila reached across and patted his hand, as though to make him feel better for having missed the Resistance’s greats. “Brilliant and competent. I have been working closely with her. Trying to build up Kaston’s defenses as much as we can.”
“Sheila’s from Kaston.” Colin pointed his fork at Sheila as he ate, a note of pride in his work. “Knows the city inside and out.”
“That’s a lucky break for the Resistance.” Sebastian smiled at her. Knowledgeable of the city. In the Resistance’s supply chain. Fairly new. Could it be that easy?
