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The door swung open and nearly took Maxwell out. He just managed to reel back before taking the old wood in the nose. Martha pushed her way in with Joan hot on her heels.
Martha started speaking before she’d finished moving. “I heard Sebastian made it back?” Then her eyes fell on Sebastian, swept him from head to foot, and turned to Maxwell. “Is he going to make it?”
“Yes.” Maxwell gave Sebastian a hard look. “As long as he doesn’t move in the next hour.”
Sebastian gritted his teeth. “I don’t have a goddamn death wish, Maxwell.”
Maxwell didn’t miss a beat. “But you’re not exactly careful.”
“Are you sure you can’t give him anything for the pain?” Hess asked, dragging Martha’s eyes to him, then inevitably down to their hands. And then her eyes narrowed just like Maxwell’s. Sebastian felt a defensive urge to pull Hess a little closer, as though just the look in Martha’s and Maxwell’s eyes would take him away.
“I’m sure.” Maxwell nodded crisply, then side-stepped Martha and Joan, squeezing past them in the tiny room to get to the door. “I’ll be back.”
Joan stepped around Martha and sat on the edge of the bed. Sebastian winced as the slight movement sent pain ricocheting up his stitches, and Joan gave him an apologetic look. “How are you feeling?”
“Like we should make Maxwell head of interrogation.” Sebastian groaned. He shook his head. “He looks so nice, but…”
Joan laughed and patted his knee. “I’m sure he’s doing what he thinks is best.”
Martha stepped forward with a hard look. “We need to debrief you.”
Joan’s mouth fell open, and she jerked her head up. “Right now?”
Hess’s hands tightened around Sebastian’s. “It can wait, Martha.”
“No, actually, it can’t.” Martha jabbed a finger at Sebastian. “He’s cognizant and talking, and we need to know what happened at Kaston’s headquarters.”
Joan frowned. “He’ll be cognizant and talking in the morning too.”
“Not if he bleeds out.” Martha waved a hand at the blood soaked into the sheets surrounding Sebastian. “We can’t risk waiting until the morning.”
Hess pulled himself up straight, and his eyes flashed. “Push him now and he might not make it to morning.”
“He might not make it anyway, and he’ll take everything he knows to the grave.” Martha stepped up to Hess, and they stared at each other with hard, inscrutable eyes.
Sebastian watched them and the ticks and twitches that flicked across their faces. It was like they were having a whole conversation that Sebastian couldn’t hear.
But it didn’t matter.
“I’ll do it.” Sebastian tugged on Hess’s hand to get his attention. “I don’t want to die with this information, and I don’t want the Resistance to piss away eight hours waiting for it while I sleep.”
Martha didn’t even glance down at him, her eyes still riveted to Hess. “Leon?”
Hess glanced down at Sebastian without any of the rawness or nuance that had been in his gaze before. The same familiar wall was up, and Sebastian had no idea what was behind it. Then Hess untangled their fingers and let go of his hand, and even though Sebastian’s heart clenched, he resisted the urge to pull him back in.
Hess stepped back and nodded to Sebastian. “Debrief him.”
Martha’s posture loosened, and Sebastian realized just how much she had been tensed up and leaning toward Hess as though they might physically engage with each other. She nodded and grabbed a beaten chair from the beaten desk across from the bed.
She settled into it with her data tablet, and after one last look of misgiving, Joan pulled out her own.
Sebastian started to push himself up to sit, but Joan put a hand on his chest. “Don’t. You heard Maxwell.”
He had indeed heard Maxwell. And he felt the pain Maxwell had wanted him to feel and that, more than anything else, convinced Sebastian to fall back against the pillows. His stomach curdled to do it, though. He had been through more than a few serious debriefs with Martha and Joan but never for something as horrible as what he had just come out of. And to lay down helpless and in pain while he relived it was the last thing he wanted to do.
But they didn’t always get everything they wanted.
Hess stepped back out of the way of Joan and Martha and crossed his arms. He leaned against the wall but didn’t take his eyes off Sebastian. His hard, intense gaze settled heavily over Sebastian like a grounding weight.
