“Then you’re protecting the one who has.”
“No, sir, I was—”
“Enough.” Grey didn’t yell the word, but it had the same effect.
He scanned at the rest of the tyros. “Who here thinks Parry is the guilty party, and he should be punished for his betrayal?”
No one lifted their hand.
“We can’t know for sure until we interrogate him. Who will volunteer to wrest the truth from him?”
No one moved for a second, then a blonde girl at the end stepped forward.
“Freya.” Grey looked at Mace then at the blonde girl. “You volunteer to interrogate Parry?”
“No, sir.” She responded keeping her head high.
“Why did you step forward?”
“I was the person who left yesterday.”
Grey didn’t respond. A boy stepped forward. Grey looked at him. “Ketchen, explain yourself.”
“I was the person who left yesterday.”
After he said the words, more stepped forward, echoing his sentiment without being asked until the whole group had declared they were the ones who’d left.
Once they’d quieted, Grey said, “Return to your positions.” They all scurried into two neat rows. Grey looked at Mace. “I’m going to let Commander Mace take over from here.” He stepped back and Mace took over his place.
“What is the first thing I made you say together upon arrival?”
“We are a unit,” they spoke in unison.
“One of you forgot that yesterday. Don’t forget it again.” He glanced at the end of the group. “Freya, what interrogation method did Grey use to discover the truth?”
The girl startled, then stared straight ahead, flushing, reminding him of a brunette with curly hair. Mace clenched his fists. Even in a fucking exercise, he couldn’t keep his mind clear.
“He exploited a weakness,” Freya said quietly.
Mace’s eyes flicked to Parry in the back row, also red in the face, eyes straight ahead. “The relationships in a unit are sacred. No one person is more important than another. Relationships can also be weakness. They can be used against you.”
Words he’d said a hundred times to different groups of tyros, but this time his stomach swirled with nausea.What the fuck?
“The whole of the unit is more important than the individual.” He waited for the silence of the room to become annoying before he said, “Pair up. It’s time to get serious.”
The tyros broke their lines to match partners. Parry and Freya stayed far away from each other.
Grey rejoined him. “You didn’t go into the long-winded version this time,” he said. “That’s different.”
“Didn’t have it in me today for some reason.”
“You okay?” Grey asked the question as he turned to face him fully, like he was seeing Mace for the first time.
Mace ran a hand through his hair. “Fine, just preoccupied.”
“I can see that.”
A boy hit the mat with a groan nearby.
