Rey's head was throbbing with a painful intensity that she had never felt before. She attempted to move her hands but to no avail as they were bound quite tightly along with her ankles to the chair she was braced up against. It took her a moment to clear her thoughts as she tried to remember what had happened before she passed out. Running through the woods, hiding from the enemy, firing her blaster, trying to defend herself against the masked knight….

"Where am I?"

"You're my guest," replied the man crouching in the shadows before her, in a tone that wasn't as threatening as it should have been.

It suddenly dawned on Rey that there was no one else in the room besides herself and Kylo Ren. There weren't even stromtroopers guarding the room from possible intruders. She felt so uneasy despite the lack of threat the Knight currently posed to her… She felt vulnerable, and she hated feeling that way!

Where was Finn? Han and Chewie? Were they alright?

"Where are the others?" She asked a calmly as she could, hoping for the best but secretly bracing herself for the worst.

If you've hurt them, I swear….

"You mean the murders, traitors, and thieves you call friends? You'll be relived to hear I have no idea."

Oh, thank God!

"You still want to kill me," Ren said, tilting his head ever so slightly. It wasn't a question really, because he would have already known the answer, but more of an amused comment.

"That's usually what happens when you're being hunted by a creature in a mask…," Rey spat to the Knight unflinchingly. She felt braver now that she knew for a fact that her friends had escaped from Kylo's grasp.

Without another word, the knight moved his hands to the sides of the scuffed up mask and released the latches. Drawing up to his full height now, which seemed miles above Rey's petite body, his helmet was removed in a swift, fluid motion to reveal pitiful, dark eyes and an even darker mop of hair.

This… this was not what she was expecting. She thought that beneath that mask would've been a disfigured, horrifying creature, hardly human and incapable of feeling any kind of emotion other than the hatred and anger that fueled them. But this… This was a boy! And not even a threatening looking boy at that… just a boy!

The Knight deposited his mask with a resounding THUD in a pyre filled with the ashes of what she could only assume was his late grandfather.

My God, he truly is obsessed!

With slow, long strides, Kylo stalked toward the restrained girl, his eyes locked onto hers. Who was this girl? She must have some shred of importance to her if the droid allowed her to view the map. But how could that be? She was a scavenger… A nobody! Probably earned her daily bread through pawning off scraps of metal like most everyone else on that godforsaken wasteland of a planet. She didn't look as thin and malnourished as he was expecting her to, so she must have been good at what she did.

Focus!

"Tell me about the droid."

Without hesitation, Rey answered, "He's a BB Unit with a selenium drive and…."

"And it's carrying a section of a navigational chart," Kylo interrupted, not allowing her to distract him, "We have the rest… Recovered from the archives of the Empire but we need the last piece and somehow you convinced the droid to show it to you. You… A scavenger. You know I can take whatever I want…," He said so gently that it made goose bumps spout on Rey's arms.

The Knight moved in even closer to the girl now, so much so that she could feel his uneven breaths prickle against her neck. He raised his hand and nearly touched the side of her face as he began his work.

He was probing her, digging through her memories, filtering through the darkest recesses of her mind to find what he wanted… But instead he found something else.

"So lonely…," Kylo muttered softly under his breath, "So afraid to leave. At night, desperate to sleep you imagine an ocean… I see it... I see the island. And Han Solo…," Rey recoiled as he mentioned the space pirates name, "You feel like he's the father that you never had… He would've disappointed you!"

"Get out of my head," the scavenger demanded fiercely though grit teeth.

The Knight was in front of Rey now, arm outstretched, fingers reaching out towards her in attempt to locate the information he desired. She was strong; he'd give her that. Maybe it wasn't even strength, maybe it was just her stubbornness. Even after appealing to her emotional side, she still refused to break.

"I know you've seen the map… It's in there. And now you'll give it to me."

Though he was stood tall and confidently, his voice quivered.

Rey felt the invisible strings of the force pull her towards the Knight's outstretched hand and though she tried to resist, his grasp on her was strong.

"Don't be afraid, I feel it too," Kylo whispered as he delved even further into the scavenger's mind.

Where was it... Where was the map to Luke Skywalker?!

"I'm not giving you anything," Rey exclaimed through gasps of breath. She truly was a fighter!

Kylo smirked in response, "We'll see!"

The Knight certainly admired her unyielding resistance towards him but he was becoming impatient. He needed the information and he needed it now! He knew that if he didn't get the map out of the girl, the First Order would, and by much more savage means. Why couldn't she just cooperate?

Rey's head was hurting now more than ever! Kylo's strong grasp on her mind was making it feel like it was being torn apart from the inside. As each second passed, Rey found that it was becoming increasingly difficult for her to breath. Was Kylo becoming so frustrated with her that he reverted to using the force to choke the information out of her? Well if he was, it would not work... she would not break!

A sudden pulse of energy surged through Rey's fragile body. She could feel... Something. She didn't know what it was or how it suddenly came to happen but it was taking control of her, making her feel powerful... More powerful than the man before her!

The Knight must've felt the surge as well because his face looked strained as he attempted to keep his control over the scavenger. Suddenly, he felt as though his own thoughts were becoming bare, like the girl could see into his mind just as he could with hers. But that was not possible... all of the Jedi were slaughtered! This girl... This scavenger... This inconsequential junk collector from Jakku could not be strong with the force! It simply wasn't possible!

And all at once, everything was laid out for Rey to see... All the fear, the anger, the disappointment, and even the surprising admiration poured from the Knight's mind into hers as she felt the power of what she now understood to be the Force pulse through her. She was fighting back now, pushing against his advances on her and cornering him to where there was nowhere to hide, not even inside his own thoughts was he safe anymore.

"You...," she hissed to the cowering Knight, "You're afraid… afraid that you will never be as strong as Darth Vader!"

She could feel Kylo's retract his grasp on her mind immediately, leaving them both exhausted and panting from the experience. The Knight stumbled backwards as he tried to process what had just occurred. She had bested him... HIM! The leader of the Knights of Ren, the last of the Jedi, the protégé of Supreme Leader Snoke, and commander of the First Order and he was overpowered by a scrawny little no-name from a junkyard planet!

He needed to know more about this girl... She could've very well been a key asset in the First Order conquering the galaxy. Perhaps once his training with Supreme Leader Snoke was completed, he could take this girl on as his apprentice, and then who knows what could happen! The possibilities were endless….

Without another word, the knight grabbed for his mask and took a single look back at the still panting, sweat drenched girl bound to the integration chair before quickly dawning his veneer and slipping out of the room.