A story commissioned by Commandon-t on tumblr!

Left Behind

Yuri was asleep when someone knocked on his door. They might have been knocking for some time before Repede barked and finally roused him. At first, Yuri pulled his pillow over his head with a groan. Surely he'd only dragged himself upstairs to his room a few hours ago. He hadn't gone out last night intending to stay awake until the birds starting chirping, but then alcohol happened, challenges had been made, and the live band drowned out the voice telling him it was time for bed. Besides, Flynn had always been at least sixty percent of his self control, and ever since they went their separate ways when he left the Knights two years ago, he'd had no one to rein him in.

The knock came again. Yuri mumbled some curse words into his mattress and started dragging himself out of bed. He grabbed a shirt slung over a chair and tugged it on while stumbling to the door. Yuri pried it open just after another knock came and he blinked blearily into the morning light. A person stood at the door, and his throbbing head took an extra second to tell him that it was a woman, and then that it was a knight. Ah, shit, he didn't recall doing anything illegal last night, but that might just mean he'd been drunk enough to do something really illegal.

"What I do?" he mumbled through a mouth that tasted like foot.

The woman wrinkled her nose at him; he couldn't blame her. "Are you Yuri Lowell?"

Yuri yawned and rubbed his face. The threat of imminent criminal charges helped awaken his hungover thought processes. "That depends on what Yuri Lowell is accused of doing."

"Boy, don't you have a guilty conscience." The woman glanced him up and down with her sharp, violet eyes. "I'm not here to arrest Yuri Lowell. I'm seeking him because he was listed as Flynn Scifo's next of kin. So, let me ask again. Are you Yuri Lowell?"

Panic shoved the hangover aside and demanded so much attention Yuri's heart forgot to beat. The last time he'd seen a knight come knocking on the door looking for a next of kin, it was to tell Mrs. Scifo that Finath was dead. But Flynn couldn't be…. His vision blurred.

The woman's lips moved, but with the blood rushing in his ears he didn't make it out. "W-what?"

She took a tight breath, obviously frustrated with him. "I said, Lieutenant Flynn is in the hospital."

He'd been so filled with panic that when it left all at once, he didn't have the strength left to stay standing and slumped against the door frame. "Oh." Thank heavens.

"The hospital administration wants you to come in." She gave him another once-over. "I don't think they need you right away, though."

"I'm coming." If Flynn had been injured, no hangover in the world would stop Yuri from checking up on him.

He started to leave the room, but the woman held up a hand. "Perhaps pants, first?"

Yuri looked down at himself. "Oh."

Ten minutes later and fully dressed, Yuri was walking toward the castle with the knight, who turned out to be named Sodia. All things considered, Yuri had made better first impressions in his time. His tongue still felt like sandpaper and walking around in the bright sunlight made his head throb, but he could push those worries aside and focus on Flynn.

"So, how injured is he? Is it serious?"

Sodia frowned. They were crossing the public quarter now and she hadn't volunteered any information until he had gathered the fortitude to talk. "I'm not sure the extent. I was told that he was conscious when they brought him in, at least for a little while. He's expected to recover."

The news kept getting better. Sure, Flynn had been hospitalized, but he'd started the morning panicking that Flynn was dead, so in comparison, this was fantastic. "What kind of monster was it?"

"Hm?"

"What got him? Was he gored by a boar, or mauled by an eggbear, or what? How did his platoon fair?"

There was another long pause as Sodia sought an answer. "It… wasn't a monster attack."

Not a monster attack? But Flynn's primary duty was leading his platoon in defensive measures against monsters in the Mayoccian Plains. What human opponent would he have even come across? "Who?"

"I don't know," she said in a clipped voice that left him wondering what information had been clipped out.

"Bullshit. Last I heard, Flynn's standing orders kept him in the field fighting monsters in southern Ilyccia. Was it bandits?" It was hard to believe Flynn could be that badly hurt from a run-of-the-mill bandit, but he couldn't think of anything else. Sometimes knights had small fights with guilds, but never anything serious for fear of provoking actual war and never so far from border areas.

They started up the stairs toward the royal quarter. Sodia kept her eyes pointedly ahead. "Lieutenant Scifo has been missing in action for the past month. Members of the Schwann Brigade brought him back to Zaphias last night. He was taken directly to the medical ward of the Knighthood's headquarters at the castle."

"Missing?!" Yuri grabbed her shoulder and spun her around to face him. "How the hell did he go missing? Why wasn't I told?"

She brushed his hand off her shoulder with a curl to her nose that said she feared he'd get his dirty drunkard cooties all over her. "About a month ago, Lieutenant Scifo and five other members of our brigade left on a mission. The rest of us weren't informed about any details. When they didn't return, he was reported missing in action. After our captain submitted the report, I didn't hear anything about the situation until last night. I don't know why you, as next of kin, weren't informed and I don't know anything else."

She started walking again. Yuri spent a few seconds processing this and then hurried to catch up. His throbbing brain wasn't the best at puzzles, but even it could shuffle these pieces together in some semblance of order. A secret mission, followed by utter silence when he didn't return? He'd been back since last night but still no one had told Sodia where he had been or who had injured him? This was so much worse than a monster or bandits; this was politics. Someone obviously didn't want the details of Flynn's mission to go public.

They couldn't reach the castle fast enough. Sodia led Yuri through a side entrance to the Knight headquarters and then down some corridors to the medical ward. Knights, nurses, and orderlies bustled around, only a few giving Yuri more than a passing glance.

"He's in here." Sodia stopped beside a door. "I have other work to do, so I'll leave you with him. A nurse will be with you shortly."

"Thanks." He didn't wait for her to leave to push the door open. Yuri wasn't sure what to expect when he entered, but whatever it was, he was relieved to find Flynn not as bad as that. Flynn lay in bed in a private room with Knighthood-red curtains drawn over the window. A beige blanket had been pulled up to his chest, and at first glance, he might have just been sleeping. Then Yuri took a second glance. It had been a few months since his last visit with Flynn, but he still knew that face intimately and it wasn't supposed to be so sunken. A green shadow over his cheek hinted of a still-healing bruise over his eye and the thin arms out of the blanket ended in bandages wound around his wrists.

Yuri stared at Flynn for a few seconds and then sank into a chair against the well beside the bed. He massaged his temples and urged the hangover to do its thing and be done with so he could focus on putting the pieces together. Flynn had been missing for over a month, and none of his wounds looked to be inflicted by a monster. Obviously he'd been held captive somewhere, but by whom? And what kind of mission had he been sent on in the first place?

The door opened and a young woman entered, a nurse based on her yellow dress. "Hi, are you Yuri Lowell?"

"Yeah." He sat up but elected not to stand.

"I'm glad you're here. I never like to see a patient all alone."

"Do you need anything from me? Signing paperwork or whatever?"

"Not likely. He was conscious for a few minutes last night and the doctor expects him to wake up and be fully coherent again today, so there shouldn't be an issue with needing to make decisions in his stead or anything like that."

"What did he say last night?"

She folded her hands behind her back and swayed on her feet. "Hum, not much. He was very weak and exhausted and mostly just looked around and mumbled 'thank you' when I got him a blanket."

"Nothing about where he's been, then?"

The nurse shook her head. "Nope, sorry. We're all really curious, too, but if any of the knights know, they're not telling the medical staff."

"Man… what about the rest of them?"

She cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"The others who were brought back with him."

The nurse frowned and slowly shook her head. "No one was brought back with him."

Now it was Yuri's turn to frown. "Sodia said he set out with a handful of other knights. They couldn't all be…?"

She pursed her lips for a moment and then said, "I'm sorry. All I know is that Flynn was the only one brought in last night."

"Damn…." Yuri looked to Flynn's face. He looked peaceful in his sleep; did he know about this? He must. He'd been awake last night, and Flynn certainly would have asked about his knights as soon as possible. Oh, Flynn… losing all the knights under his command was certainly a more painful blow than any of his physical injuries. Yuri sighed. "Can you give me the run-down on his condition?"

"Yes." She brightened at the prospect of moving on from the sobering topic. "The most pressing issue is a crossbow wound on his chest. It's very recent, and some well meaning person took the bolt out. He nearly bled out from that, but luckily one of the knights that brought him back knew some healing artes and closed the wound as well as she could. So, he's pretty weak from the blood loss and also malnutrition. Wherever he was for the past month, he didn't get very much food or water. He has some superficial injuries - bruises, small cuts, things like that. It looks like he had some pretty significant bruising, but most of it has already healed. The other big problems is his leg. There's a clean break on his left tibia, but it seems to be about three weeks old. It was never properly set and has already begun to heal in the wrong position. He'll need surgery to fix that, but the doctors don't want to do it until he's stronger."

Yuri watched Flynn's face as the nurse listed all his ailments. It could be worse, Yuri told himself and thought of all the families of Flynn's squad who had also gotten a knight at their door this morning. It could be a lot worse.

"I'll leave you to it. You can stay with him until eight tonight, if you want. And visiting hours open again at eight in the morning. If you need anything, feel free to ask around."

"Thanks." He didn't look away from Flynn as she left.

Yuri sat quietly in Flynn's room for a few hours, waiting for his hangover to get bored and hit the road. The only time he got up was to get some water, but otherwise he remained by Flynn's side. The room was quiet and undisturbed for most of the morning, until the peace was broken by a young woman's shout on the other side of the door.

"You have to let me see him!"

"Miss, you must turn away. This is no place for you."

"But he's hurt! I can heal him!"

Yuri watched the door curiously as the shouting turned to muttering. Whatever discussion was had, apparently the young woman won her argument because a minute later, the door burst open and a flurry of blue skirt rushed toward the bed.

"Flynn!" A young woman with pink hair knelt at the side of the bed and rested her hands on Flynn's arm. "I've been so worried about you!"

Golden light erupted around her and Yuri grabbed her arm. "Maybe wait on that."

She startled and noticed him sitting there for the first time. "Ah - what? I'm just going to heal him."

"Right, but the nurse told me his leg is healing wrong and is gonna need surgery to fix it. If you use a healing arte on him now, you might just make it harder to fix later."

"Oh…." Her enthusiasm deflated and she gazed at Flynn with a weary expression to which Yuri related. "Thank you for warning me. Um, who are you?"

"Yuri. Flynn's friend."

"Oh! Yes, I've heard of you. You used to belong to the Imperial Knights, right?"

He shrugged. "Just for three short months. Who are you supposed to be?"

The girl seemed taken aback, clearly not used to needing to identify herself. "I'm Estellise. I'm Flynn's friend, too."

"That right? Guess he managed to find someone to talk to in the castle after all. Do you know anything about where he's been or what happened to him?"

She shook her head. "No, no one will tell me anything. He told me last month that he was going to be gone for about a week but that he couldn't tell me anything about where he was going. And then he never came back, so I tried asking other knights and they were either just as ignorant as I was or refused to say anything about it."

"I'm sensing a theme here. I do have some theories, though."

"You do?" She rose from the ground and sat on the side of Flynn's bed. One hand rested on the back of Flynn's and she gently rubbed it with her thumb. "Even if it's just a theory… I'd take any information."

"It's mostly piecing together what we do know with some logical conclusions." He had no idea who this girl was beyond that she lived in the castle, so he wasn't sure what conclusions she would know to draw. She seemed a bit younger than him and Flynn, at the very least. "Look at his injuries." Yuri gestured to the bandages around Flynn's wrists. "Twin cuts on the wrist are unusual unless he was handcuffed. Bruising, broken leg - but the nurse said it was a clean break. Sodia said this wasn't a monster attack. It's pretty clear that he was held prisoner by someone."

Estellise nodded while still watching Flynn. "I did guess that."

"And no one will tell us anything. No one told Sodia anything either. So, he got sent on some top secret mission, but he got caught. Maybe the people who caught him wanted to know what he was doing there, which is why it sounds like he got beat up."

"Who could have done this, do you think?"

"Hard to say…. Some group from the Guild Union, maybe."

Estellise gazed forlornly at Flynn. "I hate to think that Flynn was got hurt, and I hate to think that someone did it to him deliberately."

Yuri clenched his fists. "If anyone ever tells me who did this, I'll break more than their legs."

Flynn gave a soft groan and both of them snapped their attention to his face. His eyes cracked open and he blinked a few times before turning his head to look at them.

"Flynn!" Estellise's face burst with a fresh smile.

Yuri nodded at him. "Morning, Sleeping Beauty."

Flynn stared at them for a few long seconds and the mumbled, "I must still be dreaming if you two are in the same room…."

Estellise shook her head. "You're not. We've been waiting for you to wake up."

Yuri leaned toward her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "You've been in a coma for five years, Flynn. Estellise and I are married now and are expecting our first child soon."

In Flynn's confused, barely-awake state, he seemed to believe it for a few seconds if the shock and horror on his face was anything to go by. Estellise had to ruin it by blushing and pulling away from him.

"N-no! It's not like that at all."

Flynn closed his eyes again and sighed heavily. "I was going to say it's good to see you again Yuri… but I think I changed my mind."

"It's only been less than a day since you were brought in," Estellise supplied. "Do you remember coming in last night? They said you were conscious."

Flynn turned his head away and stared at the ceiling. "Yes."

"Oh, good." Estellise pulled herself off the ground and sat on the edge of the bed. "So, where have you been? What happened?"

Flynn's eyes remained fixed on the ceiling for a prolonged moment.

Yuri finally broke the silence to say, "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to." Estellise glanced at him, and he shared her frustration. He was dying to know where Flynn had been, but getting hounded for information probably wasn't what Flynn needed right now.

"I'm in the castle?"

Yuri was about to speak, but Estellise got there first. "That's right. In the medical ward in the Knight's wing."

Flynn nodded slowly. "Good." There was another protracted silence. With a crease in his brown, Flynn asked, "Seligo…?"

Estellise looked to Yuri in confusion, and he gave her a tiny shake of the head to indicate he didn't know either. She asked Flynn, "Seligo?"

"Is she here?"

Yuri's chest tightened as he suspected he knew where this was going. "She was one of the knights who went missing with you?"

Flynn nodded slowly. "She was still alive when the Schwann Brigade came. I thought… if we made it back in time, she might…." His voice trailed away as he took in Yuri's tight expression. Nothing else needed to be said, so he closed his eyes and turned his head away. "I see."

Estellise held Flynn's hand. "How are you, Flynn? Are you in much pain? Is there anything we can do for you?"

Flynn opened his eyes to think long and hard about this, and then he shook his head. "I'm fine."

Yuri and Estellise exchanged another glance. Yuri said, "You seem to be in decent shape, at least, all things considered."

Below the blanket, Flynn's legs shifted, which caused a wince. "My leg isn't in a cast yet. It's still broken, isn't it?" He didn't make a movement to sit up and push the blanket away, but if he had a recent crossbow wound on his chest, Yuri could understand being reluctant to sit upright.

"They said they'll get to it," Yuri assured him. "When you've gotten some strength back, they'll do surgery to re-position it and get everything sorted."

Estellise pouted hugged herself. "I'm so sorry I can't do anything about your leg yet. If I ever catch those kidnappers who shot you, I'll… I'll… give them a piece of my mind!"

Barely paying attention to her, Flynn murmured, "It was someone from the Schwann Brigade who shot me, actually…." Then he seemed to realize what he'd said after both Yuri and Estellise gave him startled expressions.

Estellise creased her brow. "But why would the Royal Guard shoot their own-?"

"Forget about it." Flynn closed his eyes again.

"But-"

Yuri touched Estellise's shoulder. When she met his eyes, he shook his head again. Estellise bit her lip and then nodded.

"Flynn…" she said softly, "would you like us to leave you alone? So you can rest?"

"If… if you wouldn't mind, Lady Estellise."

"Ok." She rose from the bed and grabbed Yuri's arm. "Let's go, Yuri. We'll come back later."

Yuri followed Estellise out. In the hall, she pressed the door closed and stood for a moment with her hand still resting on it. She said, "He's in pain, but he won't admit it. He got shot by our own knights - why? He won't tell us where he was. I really tired of all these secrets."

Yuri rubbed the back of his neck. "Tell me about it."

"I'm going to talk to his captain. Do you want to come with me?"

"Absolutely." The pair set off on their mission. Yuri wasn't sure where to go, so he let Estellise take the lead. As they want, he asked, "How long have you known Flynn, anyway?"

"About two years now. He used to be in charge of guarding me before he got promoted to lieutenant, and we continued hanging out after that." She looked to him thoughtfully. "He talks about you a lot. I feel like I already know a lot about you, even though we've just met."

Yuri rolled his eyes. "He should keep his comments to himself."

Estellise laughed. "They weren't all terrible or embarrassing stories or anything like that!"

"Not all… but some?"

She smiled secretively and just said, "It sounds like the two of you had an interesting childhood."

After a few minutes of walking down corridors, they stopped at a door, knocked, and waited to be called in. They entered a small office where a knight in a captain's uniform was finishing up a letter before looking up at them.

"Oh, Your Highness!" He rose to his feet and gave a quick bow. "Please, sit down. What can I do for you?"

Yuri glanced at Estellise. Highness? Not just any castle noble, then.

Estellise lowered herself into a chair across the desk while Yuri remained standing with arms crossed behind her. "I was hoping you could tell me more about Flynn."

The captain frowned. "Ah. I thought I might be something like that. But, excuse me, who are you?" He directed the last part at Yuri.

"Yuri Lowell. Flynn's friend. The hospital called me in as next of kin."

"Ah, yes, I see. I'm sorry I didn't write to you immediately when he went missing."

"Yeah, so am I. That is Knighthood policy, isn't it? Next of kin gets notified if someone goes missing or gets killed or wounded, right?"

The captain's frown deepened. "Truly, I am sorry. I was ordered to keep quiet about the situation by the commandant himself. Princess, I apologize for not answering any of your questions this past month. Anyone who had information about Flynn was ordered not to speak of it."

"But why?" Estellise asked.

The captain glanced to the closed door and said, "Well… now that he's back, I think I can be a little more open… though I would appreciate you not spreading it around that I talked to you."

Estellise bobbed her head. "Yes, of course."

"Last month, Commandant Alexei requested that I recommend him a lieutenant and five knights that I considered the most skilled and dependable. I nominated Lieutenant Scifo. The commandant had a brief meeting with Scifo and those knights, but I don't know what was discussed. The next day, Scifo informed me that he had to take those knights on a confidential mission, and he would return to Zaphias in one week. He didn't show up at the appointed time. I waited a day in case he was delayed, but after that I reported him and the rest of the knights as missing in action. The commandant came in person to discuss the issue with me and told me to not say anything to anyone else and that he would handle it. I haven't been kept informed, but from what I understand, Captain Schwann directed a raid yesterday to recover him in Tolbyccia, and had him brought back to Zaphias."

Yuri took a deep breath. "Ok. I see what happened."

Estellise looked to him curiously.

"Alexei sent Flynn to do some espionage, but he got caught. But espionage is illegal, so Alexei couldn't publicly admit Flynn had been sent to the Union on his orders. He wanted this kept hush-hush, pretend he had no idea Flynn had been sent on a mission, and not have anyone asking questions."

The captain nodded slowly. "That is the conclusion I've drawn. But you didn't hear that from me."

Yuri and Estellise thanked the captain for his time and left the room. They wandered aimlessly down the hallway for a minute until Estellise said, "Do you really think Flynn was spying? He doesn't seem like the type to do sneaky work like that."

"I think Flynn would do next to anything if the commandant told him to."

Estellise hung her head. "You're probably right."

Yuri rested a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. Flynn is home safe. The worst is over, and now we just need to wait for him to heal and things will be ok then."

Analise Seligo was the kind of woman who owned a dozen spears and was always eager to talk about what made each one awesome in its own unique way. She could out-drink men twice her size and was always the first one up after a night of partying to get coffee and breakfast ready for everyone else. She had bright red hair like Sodia's, but shorter and curly, which caught the sun and turned into waves of fire sticking out under her helmet. She was nice. She was fun. She was loyal. She was dead.

Flynn told himself not to be surprised. Her leg had been so badly mangled after they forced it into the massive gears and made a crunch only drowned out by her scream. All that blood and shattered bone, on top of other injuries…. She'd been fading fast, he remembered, but she'd still been alive when the Schwann Brigade arrived. He'd hoped that the two of them would make it home together, and that at least one of his knights would live.

Flynn lay in bed and inspected the ceiling beams. The pillow was soft and the room was quiet - so different than the cell he'd grown accustomed to. He was warm, and safe, and knew that his friends would be back to show him more affection later… and he wanted to get rid of all of it. If the universe was fair, it would let him trade places with Seligo, or Horitz, or Morin, or any of the knights who had set off with him. He was the lieutenant; he was supposed to be in charge. What kind of leader lived when all the knights under their command were killed? What did that say about him? Coward. Selfish. He should have saved them. There was no respectable reason for an officer to come home alive with no one under his command.

It had been a long day. He tried to nap through most of it, because being unconscious was preferable to dealing with being awake, but the deep and throbbing pain in his chest and leg made that difficult. He'd spoken with doctors and nurses who gave him long lists of everything wrong with him, and promised that as soon as he stopped feeling like total crap from almost dying of blood loss, they'd break his leg all over again so he could start feeling like crap over that. It would be a long time before he was fit to rejoin his brigade… but maybe that was for the best. No one else should ever be placed under his command. They might end up dead, too.

It was evening. Flynn sat upright in bed, though getting there had been a painful trail. He swirled soup around the bowl on the tray on his lap. In the past month, his stomach had probably shrunken considering how rarely meals were provided. He hadn't eaten anything hot since being captured and even the creamy soup seemed too rich and filling for him.

The door to his room opened. Flynn's spoon clattered onto the tray and his gasp made his chest wound throb. For two seconds, his brain screamed, what are they going to do this time!? before he remembered where he was and that this wasn't a captor barging in to drag him out for more misery.

It was a knight, though one wearing a decorated uniform sans armour that suggested he didn't go into the field very often. "Good evening, Lieutenant." The man stood by the side of Flynn's bed with a clipboard lightly in hand. "I apologize for interrupting your dinner."

"It's fine." He dabbed the puddle of spilled soup on the tray with his napkin.

"My name is Lieutenant Deagle from Internal Affairs. I want to ask you a few questions about the past month."

Flynn froze in his cleaning attempts. He'd known this was coming, but that didn't mean he was ready for it.

"I spoke with Captain Schwann, who led the rescue effort. However, he claimed to not know how you ended up in Union territory. I was hoping you could illuminate me."

Flynn consulted his soup and spoke quietly. "Commandant Alexei directed me to lead an intelligence gathering mission. We were to investigate what the Union knew about…." How much could he say about apatheia? What would Alexei want him to divulge? He swallowed heavily. "A potential power source they might know about."

"What sort of power source?"

"I'm… not at liberty to say."

Deagle repeated himself in a less friendly voice. "What was the power source, Flynn?"

Anxiety raced along worn grooves in his heart and he folded his hands together to keep them from visibly trembling. But he said, "I'm sorry. That's classified information." He had gotten good at holding his tongue under pressure.

"Uh-huh." Deagle pursed his lips while flipping through pages on his clipboard. "And how did you come to be in a place called…." He consulted his papers again. "Ghasfarost?"

"Commandant Alexei sent us. We were attempting to find information about this power source in Ghasfarost but members of the Blood Alliance caught us." He supposed it was ok to tell this much, if Deagle already knew he'd been in Ghasfarost.

"I see. How did the other members of your unit die?"

He should have punched Flynn in the gut to be kinder. The blunt question caused a dozen memories of torture and death to flash before his eyes and the prospect of explaining all of them felt like an impassable mountain. "They… were executed."

"By the guild in residence at Ghasfarost?"

Flynn nodded shortly. "Correct."

"Why? It seems that live hostages would be more useful to them. Why did they kill the others, but not you?"

As if Flynn hadn't been asking himself that question every damn minute since he woke up in Zaphias. That was a philosophical question, though. He knew the practical reason why they'd been killed, but the thought of telling this clinical knight with his clipboard and impassive face was impossible. "I… don't know."

He raised his eyebrows. "You don't know?"

Flynn gave a tiny shake of the head.

"You have no idea why they were killed?"

"No." Damn, he was so bad at lying. If he'd been any good at feigning ignorance to a question he didn't want to answer, maybe the others would still be alive.

Deagle watched him for a heated moment to see if he'd say anything else, anything damning. Then he said, "I see," in a tone that said what he was seeing was a pile of bullshit. "Five knights are dead, Lieutenant. Their families want answers." He nodded curtly. "Good evening. I'll return if I have more questions."

When the door shut, Flynn stared at the wall across from him and tried to calm down. He might as well not have been rescued. He was still lying in pain and dreading another interrogation sometime in the unspecified future. The only difference was the lack of restrains and locked doors, and that meant that this time, he had a chance to escape. Flynn pushed the tray with soup off his lap in a spurt of energy. He didn't know his plan, just that the idea of being interrogated again made it hard to breathe and he would do anything to not be here. He clutched the bandages over the wound on his lower chest and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was already trying to stand before the pain struck him and beat him over the head with the reminder that his leg was still broken.

Flynn fell back on the bed with a gasp. The pain blinded him and for a minute he could do nothing but breathe and wait for it to abate. By the time he could think straight, the burst of panic that had pushed him out of bed had faded. Think rationally, he reprimanded himself. He hadn't done anything wrong. All Deagle had to do was ask the commandant about the mission to get his answers. It would be clear that this wasn't his fault….

Except that it was. Part of it, at least. He hadn't decided to go to Ghasfarost, but he had failed to avoid detection. He'd bungled the mission and got all of them captured, and because of his mistake, five comrades had suffered and died. Families demanded answers. When the truth came out, they would despise him.

Flynn leaned forward and rested his face in his hands. Everything would be better if he'd just died with the others, as he should have.