AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Sebastian froze.
Hess stood beside Maxwell, watching Sebastian and the board with a cool expression.
Sebastian glanced at the board—Hess’s face, darts stuck into his chin, his cheek, and his forehead—and swallowed. Hess never came down to the cantina. Never. He hadn’t expected…
Sebastian shook off his shame.
He narrowed his eyes at Hess and planted his hands on his hips. He finished his sentence in a clear voice that carried right over the silent bar. “If it wasn’t for him, Colin would still be here to play with me.”
Sebastian felt every eye on him and lifted his chin. Questioning and complaining about Hess or leadership wasn’t a crime in the Resistance. They weren’t an army. They needed to vent sometimes, and they were allowed to as long as they did their duty. But Hess’s face on a dartboard? No one had gone that far.
Hess’s expression gave nothing away. If what he saw bothered him, Sebastian wouldn’t know. Sebastian looked into his dark eyes, and it was like looking at a blank wall.
After a moment, Hess turned away from him and toward the crowd.
“We suffered a crushing setback at Kaston,” he said in a calm, carrying voice that managed to be audible throughout the room while still being intimate and sincere. “I won’t pretend that you shouldn’t be angry. I won’t pretend that I’m not angry.”
And for just a moment, they could all see and hear his anger in his clenched fists and his rough voice.
“I won’t pretend the loss of comrades is easy to bear or that it should be.” Hess looked around at them all, and, from all their expressions, they hung on his every word. Hell, Sebastian hung on his every word. “We have started a new stage in our struggle. When this is over, we will have either driven the invaders from our home once and for all… or we won’t be here anymore.”
A poignant pause.
“I trust each and every one of you. I believe in your strength, and your commitment, and your valor. I know that none of you could ever let me down.” Hess pressed his fist to his own chest. “And I would die before I let you down.”
And then he walked out, his heavy, decisive footfalls ringing in the quiet bar, fading away as he disappeared into the hall. The room stayed still for another moment, then broke out into a buzz of low conversations.
Martha stood from her table, put a hand on Garrett’s shoulder to keep him seated, and followed Hess out the door. Garrett shot Sebastian a disgusted look, and Sebastian turned away from him and all the other eyes on him. Not everyone was as pissed off at him as Garrett. He wasn’t the only person in the room angry at Hess for Kaston; he was just also angry at other things.
Nonetheless, he wiped Hess’s face from the dartboard and tried not to flush when Maxwell sighed.
“You just can’t help yourself, can you?”
Sebastian didn’t need to see Maxwell to know he was shaking his head.
“You just have to make a scene.”
“And I don’t feel bad about it.” Sebastian jutted his chin out at him and gathered his darts. He shoved half of them into Oliver’s hands, who took them with his lips still sealed shut as though afraid to set Sebastian off. “Do you think you’re finally ready for a real game?”
Oliver took the darts, stepped out of the throwing spot, and raised his hands. “Whatever you say.”
Sebastian scowled, lined himself up, and ignored all the eyes he could still feel on him. “Good.”
Chapter Nine
Leon kept his footsteps measured and clear and slow even as the door to the cantina slammed shut behind him. He wouldn’t stop to break down, and he wouldn’t run to his room to do it there. He would walk. Dignified. Confident. Slow. Until he got to the privacy of his room.
“Leon!”
He winced at the sound of Martha calling after him. He hadn’t seen her there in the cantina, but then he hadn’t been able to see anyone. All he’d been able to see, even when he wasn’t looking at him, was Sebastian’s defiant scowl and the disgust in his eyes.
“Leon.” Martha caught up to him and put a hand on his arm, but he didn’t stop walking, and she fell into step beside him. “He didn’t mean it.”
Leon snorted at the absurdity of that statement. “Yes, he did. Sebastian never says anything he doesn’t mean.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s right.”
“He is, though, isn’t he?” Leon stopped and turned on his heel to face her. “In the most basic sense, he is right. If it weren’t for me, his best friend would still be here. They would all still be here.”
