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“Hess.” Sebastian dropped his gun down and, for a moment, seemed to have forgotten the door as he stared at Leon in disbelief. “It’s not me I’m worried about.”
“Then what—” Leon shook his head. The obvious thought came to him, but that obvious thought was ridiculous. Sebastian was too distressed for it to be about that. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” Sebastian waved a hand in the air—luckily the one that wasn’t holding his gun. “Of course, you. I can’t let you get caught in that. I can’t let them do that to you. You can’t—” Sebastian cut himself off, pressed his lips tight together, and shook his head as though shaking the thoughts away. “Besides, it doesn’t matter if I’m affected or not. It’s not the gas that’s dangerous. It’s the other people.”
Leon bit his lip, searching Sebastian’s profile as the other man looked resolutely out into the hall and not at Leon. The hall was still empty, so Leon took the chance and reached out for the nape of Sebastian’s neck. He felt Sebastian go loose and pliant against his hand, and he pulled the other man toward him until Sebastian faced him fully.
“Hey.” Leon pressed their foreheads together so that all they could see was each other, even though they could still hear the bloodcurdling screams from civilians outside and soldiers below. He wished he could just give Sebastian what he wanted—get them both out of here as quickly as they could. But running wasn’t an option. Not yet. “Push through.”
Sebastian scowled and grabbed Leon’s collar, tangling the fabric in his fist but holding Leon close, not pushing him away. “It’s not a matter of pushing through, it’s a matter of not getting yourself killed.”
“This isn’t about me.” Leon moved his hand from the back of Sebastian’s neck to the side so he could run a thumb along Sebastian’s jaw. God, it felt good to touch him softly, even now in these circumstances. “We have to go down there and join the fight. I can’t abandon my men.”
Furious emotions flashed across Sebastian’s face, even as he turned his cheek into Leon’s hand. “You were willing to abandon our men in Kaston.”
“There’s a difference between a tactical preservation of our forces and running away to save my own skin.” Leon shook his head. “That battle was already lost. This one isn’t.”
“Yes, it is.” Sebastian pulled away with a snarl. He stood and knocked the door open. “You’ll see. You can’t help them.”
“Maybe.” Leon followed Sebastian’s example and stood to his full height. They rushed down the hall, all caution thrown to the wind. “You said you saw canisters being shot into the lower levels?”
“Yeah, but there could have been more. I only caught a glance.” Sebastian slowed as they approached the marble staircase and held his gun at the ready.
“Unless that was all they had.” Leon pressed himself against the hall wall and craned his neck to look around the corner and down the stairwell. “They couldn’t have gotten anything from another factory already.”
“Or they have plenty and just need a few more minutes to get an angle on the top windows.”
Leon raised an eyebrow but didn’t take his eyes off the stairwell as he crept closer to look over the banister. “And I always thought of you as optimistic.”
“I’m optimistic, not fool—oh fuck.” Sebastian grimaced and looked away as they both leaned far enough over the banister to see the broken bodies of two men on the stairs two floors below. Whether they had tossed themselves or each other to their doom, it was impossible to tell.
“Shit!” Leon pulled back just at the last minute as a gun barrel entered his sight range and bullets flew past his head. They buried themselves in the ceiling below and rained plaster dust on his head.
“Stay away! Stay the fuck away. I’ll kill you. Don’t come any closer. I’ll kill you!” The shrill voice of a man out of his mind echoed up the stairwell, and Sebastian grabbed Leon’s arm and pulled him farther down the hall and away from the screams and the bullets.
“Definitely the fucking gas,” Sebastian muttered as they hurried down the hall. “Fuck the Turner family and fuck the Klah’Eel.”
Leon didn’t disagree. “There’s a service stairwell farther on. There.”
“I see it.”
The drone of a low-surface ship suddenly whirred past the windows, and they broke into a run as the staccato rapid-fire of a machine gun filled the air. They raced down the hallway toward the door. Leon was certain they would hear the shattering of windows and the thud of bullets embedding in the floor behind them at any second. As they threw open the door to the service stairwell, they nearly took out a man running through their landing.
“Stop!”
“Freeze!”
Leon, Sebastian, and the third man all had their guns on each other in an instant. But the third man dropped his gun in the next, his face blooming with relief.
“Sir! You’re alright!”
“I’m fine.” Leon lowered his weapon too, and after a beat, so did Sebastian. “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.” The man ran both hands through his hair even though one of them still held his gun. “There were men in the crowd. They started shooting and throwing these yellow smoke grenades into the building. A few grenades dropped into the crowd, and the whole courtyard went crazy. And then two ships just flew in and started shooting.”
Leon’s jaw dropped. “At the civilians in the courtyard?” Surely that was too blatant a massacre, even for the Klah’Eel?
“No, at us on the roof, and—”
