warning: violence against a child

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He held her by the mere scruff of her neck, she squirmed against his firm clasp with large rounding thrashes from her meager arms and legs, barely whipping his body with her extremeties like she had intended to. Holding this insolent child required a lot of strength, and his brow wet with sweat crinkled at every move she made. He wasn't a built man, never was, and his incarceration did not help with building any sort of body mass - so he figured he ought to make quick of this. He locked his elbow to keep her at the furthest distance he could create, and after receiving a scratch to his jaw, he puffed a hot angry sigh from between his chapped lips.

"Air us!" He barked, saliva ladden with haste and spleen spittered to the dusty ground below. Only a few subjects surrounded him, but the loyal few bucked from their stationary positions and their hands clammered around machinery. The man squinted at the girl, to both retain a mean composure and to block any sort of swirling dust around him, he did after all need to use absolute precision in his next moves. "Cease your wriggling you impertinent child, just like your father." He boiled at the comparison - the sole drive behind this bold move. She seemed to quiet down at the words, peering up at him with flashes of anger and desperation in those wide eyes. "This will be over soon."

"Let me go!" She shouted, her brows drawing together at the notion of this awful event coming to a close soon, scooping her arms as close to his face as she could get but with a cry of frustration she succumbed to dangling helplessly from his grasp.

Behind them lay a gulch. A once lively steep drop home to a raging river now was bare as a bone, a lone echo of a pebble dropped bounced off the walls, it came and went as it travelled far. This was his choice for his play, his beautifully hand crafted performance he had been mulling over in his mind for quite some time now. He had many years to plan this - and truth be told, it was something he often dreamt about even before the fall fo the First Order. His bony fingers gripped his blade in excitement, and he failed to notice the edge cutting into his withered skin. He wasn't one to take the beauty around him into account but today was exceptionally that.

"Contacting now." One informed him from the sidelines, holding a portable holo-projector. He requested to be transmitted to the 'resistance' HQ, now considered the hub of galactic democratic solutions for 'a better universe'. Located on a bustling new up and coming world named Jathea, it also harbored the biggest in ground jail the new worlds had to offer. Top of the line, it was where this man served his many years before birthing an extraordinary plan to escape, thanks to a handful of First Order loyalists.

Another looked at the man. "They're patching us through, where would you like the starting focus?"

The man jerked his arm to whip the child about with a thrash. "Start on my face, I'd like to see how they treat me before knowing I have their precious cargo." He pointed his direction to her. "And you - stay quiet or you'll be nothing but red mist."

He collected himself, standing up straight and sturdy despite his now natural composure being a curled up thin man. He sniffled and cracked his neck side to side, preparing for the moment he'd been rehearsing in his head. A woman appeared on the holo projector, but not the woman or man he had wanted. His brows twitched. "My name is Armitage Hux, and I suggest you redirect me to either Kylo Ren or the girl by Rey."

"Hux!?" The woman scrambled, fussing about the many screens in front of her face, desperation and confusion plaguing her. "Y-you should be on the lowest level floor of the graveyard!" A nickname given to the prison, often times because only the worst of the worst ended up there - and they were given nothing less than life sentances. "Where are you!"

"Like I stated, redirect me before I grow impatient. Tell them who's in need of contacting them - I'm sure they'll turn up."

He could see her swivel in her chair and murmur something in the direction of what he assumed were other personnel. She threw her hands up in confusion and waved them away, swivelling back to face Hux.

"We see you're masking your location." She tapped buttons rapidly. "I'll attempt to patch you through but I need your location. You can't get anything for free."

"I have someone whos life depends on the promptness of your actions. Delay this and they're as good as dead. That will upset both Kylo Ren and Rey. Who I assume are your superiors."

She looked over her shoulder for a brief moment before giving in and tapping away at her holo-keyboard. He assumed someone was giving her permission to allow him entrance into their system, she looked frightened and confused, exactly how people should view him.

It was almost thirty seconds later when they appeared on screen, at first they blurred in and out of focus as the connection raced to complete.

Hux stared at the girl. "Stay quiet if you don't want them dead. I mean it girl."

Her faced scrunched up in pain and anger but she listened, her once flailing limbs lay limp at her sides from cooperation and tiredness.

"Hux." Kylo Ren, now known as his birth name Ben Solo spoke with irritability and seriousness, his face stern when he glanced at the face of his old co-leader within the First Order. "How did you escape."

Hux heard the welp at his side gasp when she saw Ben before her, she tried waving at him for his attention but this mindless youngster didn't know where the cam focus was.

Rey stepped into the projection, an austere look etched into her features. Both didn't know or had any idea the power he held.

"Surely that's not your first worry is it?" Hux had the girl for hours now, she had been thrown in the corner of a broom closet in the shuttle that led them away from Jathea and her silly parents had no idea.

Both of their brows twitched at the implication and they scanned each other for an explanation, confusion striking them. Rey shook it off first and stepped forward in a threatening manner.

"Where are you, Hux, give up now and we won't add further charges."

"Further charges?" He cackled with a toothy grin. "Oh how kind of an offer that is, because further charges atop my life sentence would make my stay at the graveyard so much worse."

"I could find many ways to make it worse." Ben replied cooly, his stony glare staring daggers into Hux. Despite them not having seen each other since a little after the battle on Crait the animosity and tense hate for each other still thrived fruitfully.

"I doubt you'll want to do that." Hux spit through his teeth, anger pulsing through his veins like speeder cars, adrenaline adding to the mix. "Tell me, where's your child?"

Both their faces drew blanks, whiteness washing over them as they craned their necks to look at each other. Rey was immediate in her actions, she stepped back and shouted to someone else in the room. All Hux could hear from that was "...find her!" He sneered in delight, their faces were a sweet sweet luxury he had been salivating for. They cultivated the demise of all he had worked on his entire life - he was planning to do the same.

"I'm afraid you're too late." He squinted at the loyalist holding the camera toward him, alerting him to the change in focus they had previously planned out. Hux shook his arm to show off his prized possession, allowing her body to dangle almost lifelessly as she remained quiet under the threat of harm. "I believe this is the whelp you're looking for?" Ben Solo had stood in immediately attention, leaning in closer to the cam focus that was capturing his image. Hux could see the stress sweat begin to form on the mans brow and it almost made him foam at the mouth. Rey had gasped, covering her mouth for a brief second of pure horror at the revelation, that was of course before the course of motherly instincts and adrenaline enveloped her. "It was hard to decipher one child from the next, but having worked alongside you, Kylo Ren, it was easy to see which one sprouted from you."

"What do you want." Ben spoke through gritted teeth, his gloved hands gripping what Hux could only assume was the edge of the desk or a counter.

Hux thanked his lucky stars he was not in his presense in this moment, as much as he did not want to admit Kylo Ren was not someone he'd want to be trapped in a room with. Hence why he chose the furthest system in his capable reach and applied any applicable location scrambler. Rey was not another one he'd want to go toe to toe with - a strong adversary for Kylo Ren. Flames practically burst from her eyes and her nostrils flared angrily, like an animal being poked and proded one last time.

Rey leaned forward, choking back words. "Why are you bringing a child into this. Your battle is obviously with us so leave it at that and let her go!" Her voice wavered, it reached highs and halted at a low point where she wanted to scream the last words. Fear and anxiety gripped her body with a powerful fist, she shook with adrenaline fueled tremors. "We'll come get her, just let her go."

"And why would I do that?" He raised a brow in amusement at the couple in despair. The blue hue of their faces through the holograms did a decent amount of justice, and although he could not see the HD details of their faces in complete distress it was enough to quench his starving thirst. Their holograms fizzled for a brief moment, faces warping, adding drama to the already dripping situation. An avian creature soared overhead, squawing loudly into an otherwise silent moment. "There's no interest for me in letting her go willy-nilly."

The girl fussed in his grasp, reaching above her head to attempt to claw at his hand and forearm but her stubby fingers did next to no damage with the amount of power she could exude. Seeing her parents in sorrow was not something she was used to, or had seen at all in her small lifespan, so it kicked a new round of fear into the cogs of her brain. She shook around, thrashing about like a wild animal caught in a trap, her dark hair swirling around haphazardly around her shoulders and face.

"Enough fretting from you." Hux hissed lowly, digging his thumb and index fingers into the softness of her neck, earning a pained cry from between her lips. "Look at what you've made me do."

"Please! Hux, please let her go!" Rey cried out, anger draining from her system to make way for a tide of desperation to wash over her. Her eyes were wide in fear, and she too gripped the edge of the table they stood before. "Please we'll do anything."

Ben Solo stood behind her silently. Taking one last drawn glance at Hux before craning his neck over his shoulder to shout at bystanders. Something along the lines of 'track him, now!' Hux could see it in his eyes, when Ben turned back around to stare into his own, that Ben knew. Ben knew Hux was not toying around, and there were no negotiations. His only hope now would be the very small possibility of decoding their scrambled coordinates.

"I'm not feeling in a particuarly giving mood. You see - I was left down there to rot."

"For war crimes commited against millions ... billions of people-"

"Ah, I didn't know I was the only one guilty of such a charge." Hux leered, his arm trembling from holding this girl up for a prolonged time. The time was coming close, and both his anxiety of excitement bubbled over. "I waited months for Kylo Rens trial to finish and he was to be thrown in the cell adjacent of mine - it was the last and only thing I had wanted, was for him to suffer alongside me. If I was going down he was to be dragged down with me." His eyes twitched, blood vessels begging to pop for a release in pressure. "I never got that. Pardoned because he decided to join the winning side last minute."

"It wasn't last minute, the Resistance won the war from his help and intel he provided us." Rey stammered nervously, her brows nearly meeting in the middle with worry. "This was nearly twelve years ago."

"Twelve years too many." He replied coolly.

A bushel of lonely discarded wires and dried out creep vines tumbled by without a care in the world, distracting not one soul to it.

"Please, I'm begging you to let her go and deal with us personally." Frantic now, the begging and scrounging surfaced. Rey could feel the pinpricks of tears begin to sting at the back of her eyeballs. A man called out behind her that there was still no luck with getting any sort of hint at the location of this planet. "She knows so little of the past."

"Let's enlighten her!" Hux drew her closer, his hot breath breathing down on her face, pricking at the small cut fresh on her cheek, red swells engulfed it. "You see daddy there?" Hux pointed his left hand toward the hologram where Ben stood, their faces twisted in horror when they saw he clutched a blade in his hand so forcefully he drew his own blood into his hand. He could hear them shout at him but he ingored them with a grimace. "Daddy isn't a good man - even if he pretends to be." She watched Hux's mouths form words in horror, peering between her yellings parents and this man with confusion. "He's killed a staggering amount of people. Hmm, do you even know what staggering means?" He shook her some more. "He's killed lots and lots of people."

"Please let me go." She whimpered pitiably, brushing the hair out of her face to shine her big wavering brown eyes in his direction. It was seemingly the only tactic she knew how to use, and maybe it worked with her parents but he was not one to care for a pitiful child.

"Pathetic." He tossed her to the hard ground below, sending her crumpling into a pile of confusion. Before the runt could scuttle away with nifty little legs he ran his fingers through her locks of hair and lifted her up that way, she screamed at the action and thrashed her arms against his arm but the adrenaline blocked his senses from feeling anything. He nearly dribbled at the thought of what he was to do next. Hux focused on his prey, Kylo Ren and Rey for one last moment. "Unfortunate, isn't it. I suppose now would be the time for goodbyes."

"Hux." Ben spoke, his voice unwavering, but it was on the brink of a crack. Hux immediately knew Bens facial expressions, they were ones he'd worked with for years, and this one is usually followed close by a breakdown. "Do to me as you wish, but let her go."

With a chuckle, Hux merely shook his head as a reply to the agonizing father. He thought how miserable Kylo Ren had become. Hux could not imagine being tied down to emotional bonds.

"I could not care less about you in particular, anymore." He fought against the writhing child, who screamed against his grasp, and her insufferable mother yelled as well. "Physical damage to you was a long lost dream. Mental anguish that I've suffered through ... Now you get to endure."

"Hux-!" Ben stammered, lurching forward into the holo projection as if that would warp him to their location. But it was a pipe dream. His blue figure fuzzled the closer he had reached to the cam, Hux heard him continue to shout but he drew his attention elsewhere now.

He raised her higher up, her strong tresses of hair digging into the thin webbings of his fingers now but it would all be a sacrifice that paid off tenfold.

She attempted to kick him with both legs and threw her arms around wildly, hoping to hit him but she failed. She was a small girl and he was a very tall lanky man. "You didn't behave like I asked, remember my threat?"

"Let me go!" She shrieked, flashing crazy wild eyes. Hearing her parents yell and scream for her only five feet away scared beyond belief, not knowing what to do to help them and to help herself she continued reaching for any kind of extremity she could grasp of his.

"NO!" Rey howled painfully from the sidelines, tears streaming down her face like a powerful stream. "Please dont do this, please please please!"

Hux twirled the blade in his cut hand, relishing the sweet feeling of complete control and power. Although the blade stained in blood already, still was destined just for her.

In a brief memory, he recanted the first seedling of a plan he mustered in his cell. His loyalist, who had infiltrated the graveyards guard and leeched to him outside information, regretfully informed him that Kylo Ren had become a father. On short notice, it seemed, last he heard him and the girl had left Jathea to sneak off together. They'd only returned back to HQ to deliver their bouncing bundle of joy. That day she was born was the day Hux wanted her life to he cut short.

The parents yelled but he blurred them out. She screamed and wiggled but his grip on her mess of hair was tight. The blade glimmered under the hot sun. It was a beautiful blade. One he favoured as opposed to those light sabers he'd grown sick of, a traditional weapon would do. He rolled it around his fingers before steadying his wrist, squinting at the flesh of her neck and ...

whick.

A thin strip across her nape opened wide, blood pouring over the opened skin like overpouring a drink in a glass. Her eyes wide with bewilderment, now closed partially, unconsciousness before death swooping over her with haste. Her limbs went limp, and with a scoff of disgust, Hux let go of her hair with a sideways jerking motion, effectively catapulting her body over the edge of the gulch.

He intended to listen in for her small frame meeting the hard crust of the terra below but the blood-curdling screams of her parents took precedence. Unfortunately.

xxxxxx

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I hope I conveyed what I wanted to! If there are spelling mistakes, please be lenient, as I wrote this on my phone partially with no autocorrect.

Also, my continuing fic called Blackbird is following the same timeline, the story of Rey and Ben becoming a couple and all that. No need to read that first or at all.