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“No, actually.” Sebastian closed his eyes to bring the remembered images into better focus. “They weren’t shooting much. Capturing, mostly. They were taking people alive.”
Joan hummed and tapped into her tablet but didn’t say anything. Neither did Hess or Martha, though they glanced at each other. Sebastian bit his lip as his sluggish mind finally wrestled with that thought.
“Why would they do that?” he asked. “Why capture our men instead of kill them?”
Leon shook his head. “Don’t worry about that now.”
“But—”
“And then where did you go?” Martha prodded him.
Sebastian looked at her, then Hess, then dropped it, too tired to fight anyone.
“And then I tried to get out of the city. I could see the Resistance ships already evacuating. I knew it wasn’t worth trying to get to a barricade.” Sebastian relaxed back into the bed as the rest of the words flowed out more easily. The rest was boring and simple now that the attack was over: a looping series of running and hiding, running and hiding, until he’d finally all but crashed his stolen ship outside the capitol building of Ralscoln.
“You’re slurring again.” Joan stopped him as he tripped over his words, trying to come up with the name of the town he’d stolen the ship from.
“Sorry.” Sebastian grimaced and rallied his strength again, grasping at it even though it felt as if it was bleeding right out of him along with the blood that had escaped the sutures.
“No.” Martha shook her head, then gave his hand a squeeze before letting it go. “We’re done. We got everything we needed.”
Sebastian nodded and let go again of all the strength he’d gathered. He closed his eyes, and he might have whimpered, but he couldn’t tell because the pain pulled him under. It was everywhere and everything, consuming him slowly.
He felt a broad hand take his and heard the low rumble of Hess’s voice, then Martha’s low reply, but he couldn’t make out their words. He pulled weakly on the hand that held his. “Hess, please.”
“Shh.” Calloused fingers pushed his sweaty hair from his forehead. “Just a little longer.” And then, “Where the fuck are they?”
“I hear them.” That was Joan, followed by the scrape of a chair. “I think they’re coming.”
Sebastian groaned and opened his eyes again. “Who?”
But no one answered him.
The door swung open again, and this time Joan almost took it in the face. Maxwell stepped in briskly and opened the door as wide as it would go. “Everybody out now.”
Joan and Martha glanced one last time at Sebastian and then quickly complied, disappearing out the door and into the hall. But Hess kept his hand clasped around Sebastian’s.
“You too, sir.” Maxwell frowned.
Hess’s grip tightened. “I’d like to stay.”
“There’s barely enough room to bring the gurney in as it is.” Maxwell shook his head and then crossed his arms and nodded at Sebastian. “And he deserves at least a little privacy, don’t you think?”
Understanding dawned on Sebastian like the most beautiful sunrise, along with a healthy dose of indignation. He dropped Hess’s hand and fought to lever himself up onto an elbow, snarling through the pain. “You goddamn liar, Maxwell. You do have a body for me.”
Maxwell’s lips quirked up into as much of a shit-eating grin as Sebastian had ever seen on his face. “I do. And you can get into it as soon as there’s room to bring it to you.”
Sebastian looked up at Hess, but Hess was already striding toward the door. He threw an unreadable glance back at Sebastian before stepping into the hall. “I’ll be right outside.”
Then the end of a gurney appeared in the hallway and began maneuvering awkwardly to get into the room. Sebastian saw a glimpse of Garrett’s scowling face as he pulled the thing back and forth until it was angled to get in the door, and then Maxwell grabbed it and pulled it inside.
“Thank you. We won’t be long.” Maxwell squeezed around the gurney to the door. “Can you please find another mattress and some sheets? We’ll need to replace the ones in here. They’re ruined.”
To Sebastian’s surprise, Garrett just nodded. Then Maxwell closed the door, and it was just the two of them and a brain-dead body.
“What the fuck, Maxwell?” Sebastian groaned, and he tried to push himself to sit. “You had to torture me?”
Maxwell quickly dropped to his side and looped an arm under his shoulders so he could sit up closer to the body. “Let’s just get you safe. Then we can discuss my methods.”
