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Colin lunged. “Sheila!”
Sebastian managed to twist at the last second to take the blow along the meat of his inner thigh instead of straight into the Neumann family jewels. It hurt like a son of a gun, but not nearly as much as it could have.
Sheila tried to slip past him in the chaos, and she got her hands on the deadlock before Sebastian hauled her back. He threw her back into the room and into Colin’s arms, then advanced on her.
“Alright. Give it up,” he snarled. “Tell me what you know, or your two kids will be missing a dad and a mom.”
“Sebastian!” Colin stared at him, horror-struck, but Sebastian just snarled harder.
“There will be a lot more orphans if the Klah’Eel take Kaston.” Sebastian stuck a finger in Sheila’s face. “You think you’re the only Resistance soldier with children? There’s a whole bunker of them in the basement, so tell me, why aren’t yours with them?”
Sebastian had thought threatening her children would quell her—fragile as she seemed to be—but he had clearly underestimated a mother’s protective instinct. She drew herself up tall, and her eyes flashed, no longer glistening with tears.
She looked to the bell, and Sebastian couldn’t help following her gaze for a moment even though the bell couldn’t possibly tell him anything. It didn’t have a timer. How long ago had it gone off? Time was so hard to track amid an argument.
Soldiers should be filling this room at any second.
And Sheila wasn’t saying anything.
Fuck.
Sebastian had played it all wrong.
“Sheila.” He dropped his hand and gentled his voice. “I know you’re not the enemy. I know you’re not a villain.”
“And I’m not an idiot either.” Sheila lifted her lip. “You’re the torvar.”
Sebastian nodded. “My name is Sebastian.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
Then all three jumped at a sudden banging on the door behind Sebastian. “Hey! Who’s in there? Unlock the door. We’ve all got to get our supplies!”
“The horned bastards are going to be here soon,” supplied a second voice, followed by a chorus of aggressive agreement.
“Sheila, please, if you know something, we need to know it.” Sebastian grabbed her shoulders. “There could still be time.”
“There’s not any time.” She pushed him off and turned to Colin, clutching his shirt. “They promised to get out Janie and Alfie, and they said there’d be less violence if the Resistance was got out of the way. I had to!”
“You had to what?” Colin grabbed her wrist and shook her. “What did you do? What’s going to happen?”
“I don’t know, I just know I had to be out of here as soon as the bell rang. And instead, I came to get you.”
Sebastian became aware of a faint hiss, and he waved them quiet. “Shut up. What is that?” But any sound he heard was drowned out by the banging on the door.
“That.” Colin pointed up at a ceiling corner, and Sebastian followed his finger to a vent. His heart stopped.
“Oh no, no, no, no.” Sebastian stumbled back against the door and got his fingers on the deadbolt to open it but stopped. A yellow gas issued out of the vent, billowing around itself and falling cloud-like into the room. The soldiers behind the door kept hammering.
“Shit, we have to get out.” Colin pushed Sheila ahead of him toward the door. But Sebastian kept himself planted firmly in front. “Sebastian, open the door!”
Sebastian shook his head. “No.”
“What the hell do you mean no?” Colin looked back at the gas filling the room and eddying around their feet. Then the hissing got louder, and they all looked up to see it streaming from the vent just a few arm’s lengths from their heads. “I don’t know what that is, but I don’t think it’s fucking good.”
“We can’t let it out,” Sebastian yelled. The gas was on him. It had a faintly sweet smell that was—disconcertingly—almost pleasant. “This room is supposed to be filled with people right now. That’s who they’re hoping to get. We can’t let it out.”
“Sebastian!”
