A/N: Another chapter. I'm currently publishing these close together as I have up to chapter 7 basically ready to go. Blah, blah, blah, garbage fire, blah.

As Kylo strode towards her, Rey gathered her wits and got to her feet, slipping behind the couch quickly, gripping the back of it tightly.

"I know you paid a lot of money to get me back here," she stated, keeping her chin high. If he didn't pay for a performance, it was more than obvious by his predatory approach that he thought he had paid for her to entertain him in more sensual ways. She had intended to kiss him earlier in the evening, as she considered him to be the most eligible man in the club, but now at the thought of being bought by him, any positive thought she might have held for him was gone.

Don't think about the heat in his gaze, how he had parted his lips, Rey.

"Yes." He looked at her expectantly, watching her with a wary eye as he paused mid-step.

By the way he paused, watching her carefully like a stray animal caught in a trap, she must have looked as likely to bolt for the door as she felt.

Whoever he was, Kylo Ren, she knew one thing about him: he wasn't to be trusted. The fact that he had paid so much to get her alone was one thing, but the restless energy that seemed to roll off him in fumes was another. Even in that moment he sent every instinct she had learned living on the streets screaming. A man with too much money was something she knew how to handle. Kylo Ren was more than a fool bachelor throwing around money as easily as he threw around insults and she found herself struggling to navigate this new uncharted territory.

"But that doesn't mean you can take whatever you want from me," she murmured sweetly, a false confidence tinting her words even as her heart fearfully thrummed in her chest. "You paid for a performance, you get a performance."

A smirk twisted on his lips before a slight snort of laughter escaped him. It was sharp, and if not for the upturn of his lips, she would have mistaken it for a sigh.

Her brows furrowed as she stared at him for a moment before her eyes flickered to the only exit, the heavy oak door she had just walked through. It was only for a moment before she was looking back at Kylo, but he had seen that she had left it cracked. It was just a sliver, the dim gaslight a welcomed glow. If she had to run, she could make it even with the tight gown that hugged her body. She had made more daring escapes. Even in the event that he somehow managed to beat her to the door, she could scream, and someone would hear while the door remained open.

"Let's get something straight, I could take anything that I wanted from you." His smirk faded, but he didn't approach her as he maintained his distance. He spoke nonchalantly, the words falling from his lips easily as if he were casually informing her of what the weather was like outside. "Whether or not you want to give it, if you had something I wanted I could take it, easily. So, you can keep inching your way towards the door, or you can sit down."

"If you could take anything from me you wouldn't have tossed so much money Maz's way," she bit out through clenched teeth as anger got the better of her. She should have remained composed, thought of some way to charm her way out of the room. The armoire across the room was a hidden bar. With a sweet bat of her eyes, she could have offered him a drink and attempted to get him too drunk to do whatever he intended. With his claim and his certainty of it, any sensible idea she might have had was chased away by rage. At the back of her mind, a memory long hidden threatened to rise only stoking her desire to leave the room. Her mother taking men to bed for the promise of water, more precious than coin as the dry season hit the desert. "Men like you overcompensate with money because you've got nothing else to make people want to give you the time of day. Because if you didn't have money, you'd be a nobody."

He finally took another step forward and she took it as her cue to make her escape before he could touch her. Hiking up the hem of her dress to her lower thigh, she bolted for door only to watch it close with a soft thud and a gentle click of the lock. Her hand went for the knob, jangling it to no avail as her heart raced, realizing she didn't have a key... And that the door had closed and locked seemingly on its own.

No, she told herself. That was impossible and an insane thought to have. He must have had an accomplice who had been waiting outside the door. His companion from before must have followed them back. If someone was outside the door, having made it past Maz and Finn, watching and waiting on the other side of the door, she was trapped.

She spun on her heel to face him, her fingers clutching the silk cloth as she pressed her back to the door.

He gestured towards the couch with a curt nod, his jaw set with a tight impatience before he took a deep breath through his nose.

"Sit and let's talk," he murmured with an unexpected warmth in his tone followed by a pause. "Please."

"I can talk right here," Rey replied quickly, not moving from the door.

"I'm sure you can, but I'd rather talk to you like two civilized people." She could hear him forcing patience in his tone like a parent dealing with a difficult child.

"Civilized people don't hurl insults or threaten one another when neither has been called for." First, he attacked her singing and then he implied that he would force her into whatever situation he had decided he was paying for. "You can't charm me with a simple 'please.' Not after what you said."

"I never threatened you," he insisted as his brows pinched together. He seemed confused at her claim, shaking his head as he moved towards the couch and put more space between them. Rey took a breath as she blinked in disbelief.

"You just said you would take anything you wanted from me whether or not I wanted to give it to you," she accused as she took a tentative step away from the door. "That's not a threat?"

"I said that I could… not that I would," he stated calmly. "I came here with no intentions of hurting you."

A moment a silence passed between them, their gazes locked as they both waited for the other to concede. As the door remained locked, Rey conceded, her mind still searching for a way out of the room.

"If I'm going to sit down, I'm going need a drink." Rey crossed the room to the armoire as she realized that he wouldn't be opening the door anytime soon. It seemed that she would have to get resourceful. Even if she was a pretty face in the Castle, she was still the street rat had done what she had to survive on the streets of Coruscant as a child. Like she had survived scrounging on the streets, she would find a way to survive this encounter with Kylo.

His words hadn't brought her peace of mind. Instead, all she could think about was how he had paid Maz thinking that she would easily lie with him for the evening. His promise of not hurting her had to mean that he meant to pleasure her. If he had approached her as a gentleman, perhaps… Rey pushed the thought away, resolute in escaping without giving him her virginity or letting him take it.

She opened the doors, revealing a well-stocked bar. There was everything from the finest bottles of vintage Alderaanian wine from before the city burned to the cheapest bottle of Corellian rum, smuggled in from across the border. Her hand paused on the bottle of rum for a moment, an ember of confidence starting to light inside of her as she remembered who had brought the very bottle into the Castle as she took it in one hand. She traced a hand over a bottle of red wine, cheap, never opened, and heavy. "Do you want something?"

"I'll have a scotch, please," he replied as he settled onto the couch, making a face at the rum as she held it up as if to offer it to him. He leaned against the armrest, his back to her. Swallowing, she began to pour a glass of scotch, glancing over her shoulder as she watched him relax to the sound of her pouring the liquor. From behind she watched as his shoulders began to ease from tight tension as he took a deep breath. She looked back to the bottle of wine as she saw a chance. She could club him, jimmy the lock with a hairpin, and deal with his friend on the other side of the door.

Quickly, she grasped the neck of the bottle before rushing over to the couch, ready to swing the bottle into the back of his skull. Rising to strike, she made her move to club him. Instead of the feeling of the weight of the bottle clattering against his skull, it froze mid-swing as if it had been stopped by an invisible force as Kylo twisted to face her. It felt like someone had caught the bottle by the body with a strong grip.

After struggling, Rey released the bottle expecting it to drop hard to the floor. Instead, it hung in the air before being flung across the room into the far wall where it crashed and clattered. Rey cried out, covering her mouth as dark wine stained the wall as the green tinted glass fell in shards.

Kylo rose to his feet, towering over her as his dark gaze burned. Suddenly, she felt her entire body tense, frozen just like the bottle had been moments before. Her mind began to race, stuck on his threat of taking whatever he wanted as she realized that no matter how she tried to move, she couldn't. In a strange way, it hurt to even attempt to move like she was pushing hard against a weight, straining her muscles even at the smallest attempt. As she tried to cry out for help, not even a squeak escaped her lips as her throat ached as if she had just screamed at the top of her lungs.

Frozen in fear?

He wasn't just a rich man with a dangerous air about him, she realized. She hadn't collapsed because of the heat of the lights, there was no one on the other side of that door, and wine bottles didn't just fling themselves across the room after hanging in midair.

"I've tried to play nice, but you seem determined to make things more difficult than they need to be," he seethed, trembling with an anger he seemed to be desperately trying to control. Her eyes focused on the wine still crawling down on the far wall as she remembered how easily it had been flung across the room. "I'm going to let you go, you're going to sit down, and I'm going to get what I paid for."

Just as suddenly as she had been frozen into place, she was released, catching herself against the back of the couch to keep herself from falling to the floor.

"I won't sleep with you," she gasped as she clung to the back of the couch as she tried to catch her breath. "So… So just… unlock the door and I'll make sure Maz gives you back your money."

Swallowing hard, she met his gaze expecting that angry fire to grow hotter. Instead, she was met with confusion. "I don't want to sleep with you. That's not why I'm here."

"You said that you… you didn't want a performance."

"I don't," he replied. "You've got a plain voice and you're an amateur talent. You were never born to be a singer. You can keep the money that I gave Maz and the money I promised her after I spend my time with you. All I want is to talk."

"I don't understand…" She slowly rounded her way from the back of the couch even as he took another chance to insult her.

"That's obvious," he sighed as he once again gestured for her to sit. "I just want to talk, Miss…?"

"It's just 'Rey.'" There was no last name. Her parents have left her with nothing that might lead her back to them including a surname. As long as she could remember she might as well have been 'Rey Back-Alley.' As she sat on the couch, she couldn't help but be curious to why this man wanted to speak with her. "Why?"

"Okay, Miss… Rey." He tested the name on his tongue before seeming to decide that he liked it. He settled across from her, leaving a cushion between them even as he leaned towards her. Just as it had before, intensity lit his eyes. "I want to talk because of what happened in the club. Mainly, because of the energy between you and I."

"There's no energy between you and me. There's just… you and your... your tricks." Had she found him attractive in the club when she was performing? She had picked him for a reason and she had been drawn to him, but beyond that, her feelings weren't mutual.

There's no energy, she insisted to herself as wished that there was more than a section of couch between them. You chose him out of every man in the club because he was handsome. Nothing more, nothing less.

"You're not so naïve to claim that you don't feel it," he snarled as he dug into his jacket pocket, pulling a folded piece of paper as he started to unfurl in haste. It was one of Finn's posters featuring her. "It's been driving me mad since I saw this… this damned poster on the street while I was… I was searching for someone. Instead of finding them, I find myself tethered and drawn to this place. To you, Miss Rey."

All his composure, his careful control seemed to disappear as he glanced down at the poster. This had all begun just because he had seen a poster on the street, she realized. It was such an insignificant thing, this ad, but he seemed to think that it was a sign. She pitied him. Surely, he was some lord's mad son who had escaped his manor and wandered onto the streets.

"I'm sorry, but I-I don't feel anything. So, I think you should unlock the door and leave... You're obviously a very, very ill man."

"Your entire being was shaken when you touched me," he insisted so fiercely that Rey couldn't deny that the man truly believed what he was saying. "Your very essence rose to meet me as if it had been waiting for me. You can't deny that."

"I can because you're absolutely mad. You might be some sort of magician with tricks—"

"Tricks?" he hissed. "What do you think that you just saw? What do you think you just felt?"

"Sleight of hand," she replied, her wavering voice failing any conviction in her answers. "Confusion resulting from a head injury from when I fainted on stage?"

Oh, but the pain… Even as she sat there, faintly it clung to her slowly fading like a dream.

"Sleight of hand?" Kylo repeated. "And a head injury? That combination would create what you just saw?"

"We had a magician a while back who could do amazing tricks all with lighting and sleight of hand," she said with a firm nod. "That was until he… he ended up having a drinking problem and couldn't manage their sleight of hand. An entire deck of cards fell onto the stage from his sleeve while a flock of doves flew out of his trousers."

They had been wanting the next great stage act, someone who could charm and fool the audience, who was creative and daring. Instead, they had gotten a drunkard who could barely stand on their feet for half a set. Supposedly, Maz had owed the man a favor, but when it came down to it, he was bad for business and she had to let him go.

"Stage magicians are charlatans at worst and entertainers at best," he waved her off as he turned the conversation back to his magic and the fated draw he thought that they had. "You've seen what I can do… and you have the potential to wield the power. It's been within you all your life, probably buried and muted."

"No," she laughed uneasily as realized that he was serious. If magic had caused her fainting spell during her performance, it was his magic. Not hers. She hadn't spent most of her life on the streets unknowingly holding a secret power within her. She hadn't struggled and starved when all her problems could have been fixed at the twitch of her nose or the wave of a hand. Her mother didn't trade her in when Rey had the potential to save them both. "I am a performer. I sing, I dance, and I act. I don't… I don't 'wield power.'"

"If you don't learn how to control that power, it could destroy you," he insisted as he came closer to her, closing that distance between them on the couch. She scooted back only to meet the armrest against the small of her back. "You need a teacher, someone who can help you grow and nurture this talent." He kept his gaze steady on her as he spoke, the seriousness of his words sending a shiver up her spine as he reached over to take her hand into his own gloved.

"No!" she snapped, pulling her hand away before the cloth of his glove could even brush her skin. Her heart raced at the suggestion of spending more time with him, of spending more time with his delusions of magic and power. Something in her found him intoxicating despite herself. She told herself it was out of fear, but deep down she wasn't sure if it was fear or if the idea of spending more time with him excited her. "Even if I did have… some sort of power, you would be the last person I would let teach me. Not just because you are sputtering madness, but because you've treated cruelly since I've entered this room." She took a shuddering breath as she rose to her feet. "I'm sorry that you saw that poster, but you're confused. Go home, Mr. Ren. Sleep off your night of madness and… and don't come back here. It was obvious by your stiffness during my performance, as well as your cruel criticism, that the Castle doesn't suit you."

Crossing her arms to her chest, she glanced towards the door before closing her eyes tightly as not to witness any of his so-called magic.

"Could you please…?" She kept her eyes averted from him as she heard the lock click and the door gently open. With quick strides, she moved towards the open doorway.

"Miss Rey—"

She paused, looking back to catch a bewildered expression his face. As if he couldn't believe that she was walking away from him. She couldn't believe that he was so surely steadfast in his delusions that she would have found anything past his introduction inviting.

"You know, if you had approached me with any semblance of civility, you would have never had to pay for this conversation as odd as it was," she said, her hand resting on the doorway. No words passed between them as she turned away from him and back into the warm light of the hall.

"Have a pleasant evening, Mr. Ren." Rey didn't look back as she hurried out the door before he could lock her in once more, the tremors of residual adrenaline still flowing through her.

Poe Dameron rushed through the back of the house, sidestepping the glances he got from various performers, only replying with a cocky grin that seemed to make every one of the scantily clad dancers swoon. It was a practiced trick and just one of many that he kept hidden up his sleeve when it came with dealing with the performers.

If Kylo Ren was paying for an extra performance from Rey, that meant that Hux wasn't too far behind. In the darkness of the club, he had mistaken them for two patrons that had decided to spend the evening at the Castle. Vaguely, he had thought that he recognized the pair from somewhere when Rey turned her attention to Kylo, but he had never thought that two of the highest-ranking members of the First Order would wander into the night club.

The sect of the New Republic that he privately served, the Resistance, had gathered information on the men. They were the very reason that the New Republic would need such a sect. As their Order gained power, there was a shift in the air of not only the city, but the entire country that threated to engulf every country around them. There were even rumors that they had tapped into weapons and knowledge that had been lost years ago. They were men searching for more power, serious and strict.

Nothing that they had gathered had indicated that the men frequented night clubs like the Castle. Rather, they had been madly searching for a man long thought dead and gone who may have that knowledge that they so desperately seeking. If they had come to the Castle, did that mean that they thought that the man could be there? As he practically had begun to live there, Poe knew that there wasn't a chance that Skywalker could be hiding within the walls, so why would the pair of men bother to come there? And why would Ren pay so much just to speak to Rey?

As he exited through the back door into the alley, he placed his hand on his jacket pocket, reaching for his gun.

Cold metal of a gun barrel pressed roughly against the back of his head as he heard the click of hammer. Of course. He had intended to hunt down Hux, but he ended up as the one with the gun to head.

Time to think on your feet, Poe.

"Put your hands up, Dameron," a cold voice sneered. "I had always heard that Organa's favorite pet was a notorious playboy, but I never expected to see it firsthand."

"So, we finally meet, Armie," Poe chuckled as he rose hands in the air. He was met with a rough blow to his head as Hux smacked him with the butt of the gun. "Shit!"

"Don't speak to me so casually," Hux growled against his ear, his breath against his neck. Perhaps it was the blow to his head, but Poe couldn't help but thinking that he liked the other man's cologne. "You're the one with the gun against your skull, Dameron!"

"And you're holding me captive in the back alley of a night club where cast and crew frequently come out to smoke, so do you have a plan here, or were you just waiting for Ren and happened to get a lucky break?" he asked. "Do you know how much money he's throwing at that girl, by the way?"

"Money?" Hux seemed to be fazed by that.

"He's paying to rebuild that whole club. I saw the cash and…" Poe whistled long and loud.

"Shut up!" he hissed as he lowered his gun to his back. "And start moving—"

Before he could force him down the alley, a rapid series of vicious barks began to fill the alley way. A grin spread across Poe's lips as he heard Hux cry out and his gun hit the stone of the narrow street. Kicking the gun away, Poe grabbed his own and turned to face Hux. Glancing down, he saw his faithful Dogue de Bourdeux with his massive jaw locked into the ginger man's leg.

"Hands up, Armie," Poe smirked.

A/N: Holy shit, did Kylo blow it. Well, come back for another chapter if you want to see whether or not he ever pulls his head out of his ass and to see if Rey can just fucking calm down. Thaaanks.