Ana resisted the urge to cover her ears. Blaster fire rang in her ears, the clanging of metal, the whirr of Ren's lightsaber. Despite the snow that had slid between the seams of her clothes, she was too warm. Above her, a TIE fighter exploded after a Resistance X-wing shot it down. She tried to dodge the falling shrapnel, a scream clogging her throat, but there was a swirl of black and Ren's hand thrust out, stopping a piece of flaming metal maybe a foot above her head with the Force. He threw it away, stepping over the body of a slain Resistance fighter, and grabbed her hard by the elbow.
"Stay close," he snapped. "I can't look over my shoulder for you the whole time."
"I didn't ask you to," she snapped on impulse, face burning with the embarrassment of being saved by him.
"You're welcome," he shouted back, and then he cut down another Resistance man. "I thought you were going to make yourself useful?"
She scowled at his back, wincing at the grating sound of more explosions. This was a fucking war zone. She wasn't built for a war zone.
"I'm a thief, for fuck's sake," she muttered, trailing behind Ren. "I'm a fucking thief."
And an ex-whore, whispered a tiny, nasty voice in her head. And a survivor.
"Didn't give me a weapon." She followed the second strike team through the burned metal hole that used to be a door in the compound's nearest building, some kind of barracks. "They have blasters and I have—"
There were a group of fighters waiting in the hall, opening fire on the troopers, and Ana ducked down as shots flew. A trooper directly in front of her went down, a gaping melted wound on his chest; Ana knelt beside him, reaching for his blaster, while the other Stormtroopers retreated out of the hall to gain cover.
"Ana!"
Oh, how 4239 sounded like Elek when he said her name. Ana's fingers closed on the butt of the blaster, her body turning toward 4239—he had his weapon aimed down the hall but his head aimed at her. He should have been behind the doorway wall, like his fellow soldiers, but he was reaching for her, and guilt clenched her stomach. A shot of energy whizzed past her head, striking the doorway, and 4239 sidestepped into the doorway with a curse.
"Move and I'll shoot!" one of the Resistance fighters shouted, and it sounded so close. They had advanced on her while her back was turned. "Stay where you are!"
There were four of them, only four, but they had the advantage of cover and an ambush. Three Stormtroopers from the squadron were dead. But the First Order has Kylo Ren. Her eyes searched for his familiar black armor amidst the flashes of white she could catch from the other room where they had regrouped. Why wasn't Ren stepping forward and taking care of them?
His words echoed in her head: I thought you were going to make yourself useful?
She inhaled slowly, counting the footsteps that approached her from behind. She could feel the heat of their gun, and then she struck out. She pivoted on her left foot, sweeping her right leg wide and catching the Resistance fighter at the ankles. Her body lengthened, right hand coming up to catch them by the throat as they began to fall. Her arm tensed with power, her hand closed hard, and slam.
Just like she'd been taught.
It was like living in a fog. Her body seemed to move on autopilot, and when the mist cleared and her eyesight sharpened, she was holding a dead Resistance woman by the throat. Ana froze. The woman was young, maybe no older than Ana herself. Ana released her grip, stumbling upright, ignoring the way the dead woman's eyes stared blankly up at her. For a moment, it seemed she had stunned everyone present. Then one of the men regained his composure and fired at her with a strangled yell.
The beam from his blaster froze midair, and suddenly Ren was beside her and the fighter's face went pale. Ren jerked his head at Ana and after she stepped aside, he flicked his wrist. The blaster beam burst harmlessly into the wall.
"As you were," Ren said to Ana, and she could hear his smirk.
She focused on her breathing as the fog descended again. Each time she heard the click of a trigger, Ren dealt with it—other than that, he stayed visible but out of her way, and when she was finished three more were dead, she was sick to her stomach, and Ren was oozing with pride.
She felt unsteady on her feet, resting her back against the wall and sliding down it until she was sitting on the concrete floor. The Stormtroopers advanced now that the path had been cleared, marching past her without much ado. 4239 tried to stop, but Ren's presence forced him to keep on. Ren's cloak brushed over the growing pool of blood on the ground—she had smashed two of their heads together, her strength surprising even herself as bones cracked and caved like thin plywood. Remembering the sound made her stomach churn, a foul taste in her mouth.
"Get up," said Ren, walking past her. "There are plenty more where they came from."
Ren breezed down the hall and when he was far enough away, Ana turned her head, held her hair back, and allowed herself to retch. As she lost sight of Ren, she grabbed the dead Stormtrooper's blaster once more and swayed to her feet.
The buildings in the compound were less industrial than the Finalizer, or even Coruscant. They had lower ceilings, wider doorways, hardly any actual doors. The panels she passed seemed to be older tech than she'd seen, and she wondered dimly why the First Order was even having trouble if this was all they had to contend with.
She jogged to catch up with Ren and his squadron, turning a blind corner, and a shot hit the wall just above her head. She spun in a quick spiral, firing the blaster. Its kickback nearly knocked her to the floor, and there was a grunt as her attacker fell. She almost dropped her weapon, the strap catching on her wrist and smacking down against her hip. You're a survivor, she reminded herself, forcing her gaze forward. She didn't even look at the body.
Where are you, stupid girl?
The thought was quick and angry, and her first instinct was an equally quick reassurance: I'm here. She had only a moment to think about how irrational that response had been before he sent back, That doesn't make sense, damn creature, where are you?
She pressed forward, expecting to run into him at any point. The hallway split; she took a left, running into a circular room with the roof caved in and circuits sparking, and then backtracked. Surely the squad wasn't far off, the compound was relatively small, wasn't it?
There was a sudden rumble and a loud crack, and the roof behind her fell in with a great cloud of dust, and she was plunged into darkness.
"What have you gotten yourself into, Anavexi?" She tripped over rubble, scraping her leg on jagged metal that tore through her pants like tissue paper. "Should have just agreed to guard the fucking ship."
A strong hand was yanking her to her feet, and fear spiked in her chest before a recognizable voice growled, "I thought I told you to stick close."
"Ren," she breathed.
"You're almost more trouble than you're worth." He towed her forward, out of the darkness, out of the building entirely—his soldier's had cleared it and were moving on the hangar, where a few X-wings remained pilotless. The other squadrons were emerging from what she assumed to be other cleared buildings; she tried not to think about the countless dead bodies that lay inside.
"It's nearly over," said Ren. His lightsaber was clipped back at his hip. "I must say, this has been more successful than I anticipated."
Ana held back a dark shudder. Two Stormtroopers marched forward, throwing a struggling, bloodied man at Ren's feet. The man glared up at Ren, one eye swollen shut.
"Monster," he hissed.
Ren lifted his arm quick as a flash, fingers curled, and Ana felt the air thicken as he stopped the man short with the Force.
"How nice of you to join us, Major Brance," said Ren, and her skin crawled at the sickeningly polite tone. "I was hoping you'd be able to make it."
"How did you find us?" the man, Brance, demanded. "What do you want?"
"How'd I find you?" Ren repeated. "The First Order always knew about you, Major. You have never eluded us."
Liar, Ana thought quietly. Ren's shoulder's tensed; he must have heard her.
"Though I must say," he went on, "putting a Resistance base on your own home planet is a bit of folly on your part, don't you think?"
What was the point of this? To scare him? Weren't they just going to torture him anyway?
Ren could definitely hear her. His annoyance seeped out at her. Shut up.
Kill him if you have to but for heavens' sake, Kylo, don't play with your food.
Stop distracting me. His annoyance was evolving into something much more dangerous, but witnessing him toy with this man's life was making her squirm.
The black mask moved to stare at her, though his power kept the man frozen on the ground before him. "You had better get used to it," he said, continuing their conversation aloud. "This is your life now, pet, and I won't listen to your incessant whining about it. You are mine, to do with as I please, do you understand?"
His words had barely registered when the movement in her peripherals caught her attention. He was so furious, so focused on her and on the man he was trapping, that he didn't even notice. He didn't see it. How did he not see it?
The shot from the blaster ripped a scream from her throat. She had been shot before, hit by Ren's own men, but this pain was newer, higher, harsher. This pain was in her shoulder, her chest, excruciating and white-hot, and her vision cut out. She came back in a snap, but the sky was darkening and the world was sideways.
"Stupid girl!" Ren was shouting, cursing, barking orders at someone. There was a dead Mon Calamari soldier lying in the snow, his weapon dropped beside him. Was that an assault bowcaster? Had she been hit by a fucking assault bowcaster?
Major Brance was hanging limp between two Stormtroopers, dragging him back to one of the transporter ships, and Ren was kneeling in the snow beside her.
"Damn it," he snarled, and then he was lifting her and fuck, that was awful. She was lightheaded but leaden, her legs were numb, hair damp, fingers tingling, and there was a nothing but pain in her torso and her heartbeat thudding so loud. Each step Ren made hurt, and she was crying and woozy and groaning—
Something comforting and warm touched at the outer limits of her mind, leeching her pain away. Her chest cleared and her breath came easier. Ren carried her over the slope in large, clunky steps, into his shuttle where a medic was already waiting. Ren dumped her onto the first surface he could; her fingers clenched around the fabric of his cloak, skin feverish, and then released.
She faded in and out of consciousness, once even dreaming Ren had sat by her bedside, a cool, soothing hand on her forehead while the medic cauterized her shoulder and she screamed. Silly, she scolded herself tiredly, and in the next dream it was Elek holding her hand, stroking her skin with his thumb, and Thena smoothed a cool damp cloth over her cheeks.
She woke in the medbay of the Finalizer, squinting in the bright white light, picking up the last remnants of a conversation between two medics as one of them whispered incredulously, "She protected the Commander?"
Was that what they were saying had happened? Ren must be furious to have his ego bruised in such a—
Wait.
What?
It had been so quick, her memory scattered and blurred. Ren, distracted—the center of a bowcaster leveled at his back—his back.
So how did she get hit?
She pushed for the memory, dug deep through the mist and the vague details. She had stepped up, given him a shove, and he had dropped the major with rage in his shoulders, and the shot had flattened her before he could retaliate.
She tried to tell herself that she had shoved him out of anger; they had been arguing, after all, it had been an accident. She hadn't meant to protect him—but now that she had unearthed the details she couldn't force them away. She had been worried, she had been scared that he wasn't noticing in time.
I would have done it for anyone. She rationalized it, tried to calm her frantic heartbeat. It doesn't mean anything. It doesn't change anything.
She let out her held breath. He probably won't even acknowledge it. His pride won't let him.
I would have done it for anyone.
A/N: I've been really inspired lately, so I was able to crank out this chapter rather quickly. Ana's caring instinct seems to have gotten her into a bit of a fix now, hasn't it? The consequences for this will be revealed in the following chapters!
Thank you to everyone who has reviewed and favorited so far, I'm so grateful to all of you. Please leave me your thoughts on this latest chapter!
