...Part of him had been hoping to avoid that question, as inevitable as that would have been. But Badd wanted to know. Byrne sighed deeply, gearing himself up for the explanation.

"They--" He hesitated, loosening his fists. When he spoke again, his voice was much softer than it had been before. "During dinner, they took me to an isolated room and restrained me to a chair. The doctor there, she looked and sounded just like Calisto Yew. Had her act down to the tiniest detail." And that had been torture in and of itself. Of course, that was the whole point. "She gave me an injection in my neck that caused a hallucination, but I...I didn't know that until her experiment on me was over."

Didn't excuse anything. He felt his face getting hot again. He didn't want to think about this. "Kay was there. They brought her before me and started torturing her right in front of my eyes. And I didn't--I didn't know it wasn't real! I thought she was really there, that they were really hurting her, and--!!" Damnit, his voice was cracking. Calm down, take another deep breath. "...They offered me a choice. Between her and the Yatagarasu."

And that choice was the part he really hesitated to admit to Badd, even though it wasn't surprising for a father so devoted to his daughter to choose her safety over his own. In his mind, giving in to their plans was better than seeing her get hurt anymore, even if it might not be the right thing to do as far as morals were concerned. He'd chosen her over his ideals, and had made that promise.

And then she hadn't been real. How the hell was he supposed to feel about that?