Chapter Two
He could feel her heart pounding as she thundered up the steps, one foot in front of the other, all thoughts gone from her mind. He could feel her relief at not thinking of anything, nothing mattering but the steps in front of her, the pace she ran. He knew the feeling of that relief. Every time thoughts of her scattered across his mind, he retreated to the training room, the echoing cavernous metal room where he turned his attention to anything but her. The way her body curved. The way her lips turned up at the corners. How light she had been in his arms as he carried her onto his ship. He clicked his lightsaber on and turned to look for something else to destroy.
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"Faster." She heard Luke's voice whispering into her mind. He was at the top of the stairs, sitting at the hut. She had gotten used to the intense training, but that did not make it easier. She had not realized that the training would involve running up and down the hundreds of steps that led up and down the island, multiple times. The worst was that Luke would never tell her how much she had to do. She always found running easier if she had a goal. But each day was different. Some days he would have her run up and down only once, another day it would be ten times. Today she had already done seven. She ignored the sweat as it dripped down from her hair and went rolling down her chest.
"Water." She breathed when she reached the top and saw Luke waiting expectantly.
"You will not have water when you are running from the First Order." He replied calmly and motioned for her to continue. "Do not stop again until I say to, young Padawan." She growled low in her throat and turned back down the stairs. She wanted to fight, wanted to wield the beautiful crackling sword of the Jeddi. Not run flights of stairs to get in shape. Though she did admit that she would no longer feel self-conscious about her body. She would probably be the most fit girl on the surrounding six planets. Not that she had been self-conscious before, just….her mind drifted to Kylo's dark eyes drifting over her as she lay restrained in the interrogation room.
"Stop." She growled to him, making herself feel better as she said the words into space, not knowing why she constantly felt obligated to speak him away. As if he could hear her.
"You stop." The voice rang so clearly in her head that her foot stumbled on the sixty-third step and she went tumbling. She put her hands out, but it was too late. She dove down onto the concrete and her skin skidded crudely on the rough rock. She rolled down two more flights until she finally slowed enough to put her hands out and grab fistfuls of the mountain dirt from the steep hills. She rolled to a stop, the upper half of her body on the steps, the lower sagging limply onto the hills.
"Don't move." Luke materialized next to her. Rey jumped.
"How did you? You were just-"
"I said don't move." Luke ordered and Rey kept still. Then she saw the problem. A deep gouge in her arm made her stomach turn.
"That's a lot of blood." She mumbled.
"It'll heal." Luke replied quietly as he assessed the injury and slowly helped her to her feet. "I can stitch it up back at the hut." He began to guide her back up the steps, his silence making her suspicious. He was thinking about why she had fallen. She knew it.
"Clumsy." She muttered, making sure Luke heard, just to ease his suspicion away from anything other than human error.
"Mm." he barely acknowledged her statement.
"Clumsy?" the deep voice whispered to her again. "The Jeddi do not lie." Anger surged through her veins.
"You are not a Jeddi!" she bit back, as harshly as she could in her mind. "So do not lecture me on how to act like one! That is not your job!" she waited. Silence. She sighed, her weariness catching up with her. She needed a good night's rest. Though she doubted should would get that.
"You were not focused." Luke broke the silence and her head snapped back to look at him. "I warned you about focusing."
"I was doing just fine." She retorted.
"You could have fallen off the cliffs." He responded and pulled her harshly up the steps. When she hissed through her teeth at his firm grip on the wound, he loosened his hands and slowed his walk. "Do not worry me again, Padawan." His voice was softer. She saw his shoulders begin to relax. She had scared him.
"I'm sorry, Master." She ducked her head. "I won't do it again."
"Do not let your mind wander, and it will not happen again." He instructed. "Wandering minds are a dangerous thing. That is the secret of the Jeddi. They focus on one thing at a time, intense focus into what they are doing, no distractions. You will have to work harder than those before you."
"Why?" Rey asked defiantly.
"Those who are distracted by the things, can be distracted by the big ones." Luke sighed, sounding very tired.
"You mean the dark side," Rey read his eyes. "Master, that will not happen."
"I trust you," he sighed as the ground leveled out at the hut, "it's him that I don't trust." It came out as a whisper. Rey inhaled sharply at this. Did Luke know about Kylo Ren constantly appearing in her thoughts? She had done her best to keep up her mind barriers with Luke, but maybe she wasn't trying hard enough.
"What was that?" Rey asked.
"Nothing." Luke replied sharply and led her into the hut.
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Kylo Ren sucked in his breath as he watched the girl tumble and her arm rip open. That would leave a scar for sure. He turned away and closed his eyes tightly. He had to stop watching her, hanging on her words. She was trying to focus on her life. He needed to focus on his. And she was of no consequence to his life. None at all. Or so he had convinced himself.
"Stop." The girl's voice rang in his head. This time she had heard him. He had made sure she would.
"You stop." He had replied harshly, his pent up anger at her releasing in those two words. And then she had stumbled. In her mind, feet, and heart. He had felt it. She had not expected a reply. But he had given her one. Whether she wanted it or not. She acted like he was the one creeping through her thoughts, plaguing her mind, when in actuality, it was she that would not get out of his. She needed to be taught a thing or two about force bonds, which he assumed they possessed as the days moved on. Lesson one: it is two way, not one way.
"Selfish girl." He muttered to himself as he made his way to his room and started the water for a shower in the small commode off his room. "She realizes nothing. Ignorant." The insults rolled from his mouth, no guilt with them whatsoever. Though he knew that the only reason he kept the words tumbling was to make himself forget that he thrived on her dancing through his mind. He lived off of it. It made his skin crawl. He had never been so dependent on another person in years. He shouldn't be dependent on her. Why would he need her? Her of all people? "Peace!" he cried to the shower wall. "I just want peace!"
