Rey's sleep was exhaustive and unpleasant. Instead of the comforting dark shadows, she saw flaring, dancing red blades. Her lover and her friend, at arms. She was shackled, unable to move, to help. A white light in the distance fading to gray, and then black. Searing anger. Impatience, boiling up in shallow water until suddenly her eyes came open.

"Ben?" Rey gasped. He was over her, his hand on her knees, roughly pulling them apart. He collapsed on top of her, pinning her down, crushing his lips to hers. He was hot, slick with sweat, pulsating with rage. She kissed him back, holding his face between her hands, bringing herself out of her sleepy state to match his passion, to sate him. She wiggled, trying to get her legs to wrap around his, but he wouldn't budge.

Rey felt the heat emanating off of him, but it wasn't lust, as she initially thought. He grabbed both of her wrists in one hand and deepened their kiss, his tongue sweeping into her mouth. Rey turned her head to breathe.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

His other hand tugged at the sheet until he could grab her waist, her hips, then lower between her legs. Rey's head pressed into the pillow from the sudden rush of pleasure. He was getting better. The back of her mind was worried, but Rey ignored it.

"I need the map, Rey."

So that's what this is about. He went to kiss her again, but she turned her head away and bit her lip. She held her breath a moment to keep the rejection from manifesting too fast.

Love doesn't make me weak, she thought desperately.

"This does." his hand pushed more urgently against her, gliding over her clit in that way he knew she liked. Rey's back arched in response, pressing her body tight to his as he kissed her neck.

"I wish you wouldn't toy with me." She whispered. He pulled his head up enough to survey her expression. She stared pointedly away from him, at the blank wall. Her lip quivering.

Damn her. And her dewy doe eyes. Kylo stopped and rolled off of her. He stared out the window over his bed into the vast stars of space and sighed.

"You can give me the map." He finally said, his voice detached and cold again, like it was back in the interrogation room. "Or I can kill your friend."

Rey shot up. "What? You promised you'd help him esca-"

"No." He corrected her. "I promised I wouldn't hurt him."

Her head began shaking. He wouldn't look at her it made her crazy. "Ben, you can't. Don't. Please, I... " She scrambled, searching her memories, trying to come up with a single coherent thought to put into words.

When he finally looked at her, his dark eyes lost all expression. He was an animal on edge. Watching. Waiting. He's probably trapped, she thought. He needs a different option. He's asking me for help.

"Help him escape!" She threw her hands on his chest suddenly. "No one will know. Or I'll do it, let me out and you can just say that I slipped the cuffs while you were sleeping. I know the trooper routes now, we won't get caught and-"

"You care for him."

While she was babbling, worried about Finn, Kylo Ren's eyes began to boil while he listened to the thriving concern in her voice. She fell silent.

"He cares for you." Kylo pressed.

"We're friends." She said. Her voice sounded nervous.

He tore his gaze back up at the stars. "I saw his mind."

Rey's gaze darted around the room.

"What if I told you he loved you?" He stared at her intensely.

For a fragment of a second, the corner of Rey's lips twitched upward.

"Ben, I-"

"My name is Kylo Ren." He snapped, then stood up. "Ben has been dead for a long time."

Rey yelped as he grabbed the top bun on her head and yanked her to her feet, dragging her out of the room. She flailed, one foot in front of the other, grabbing at his hulking arm as he half-dragged her down the hall, passing staring stormtroopers.

"Stop," Rey gasped. She tried to stand up, but he kept her in her half-crouch. "You're hurting me!"

They turned down some halls, all the while Rey tried to press into his mind but he kept her out. That hurt more, but she grit her teeth and kept trying.

Finally, he opened a door and threw Rey inside. She landed on her stomach on a cold, metal floor. She heard a solid bang of the door close and looked up - she was at Finn's feet.

"Rey?" He stared down at her from the same restraint device she was put in when she was first brought on board.

"Stay down." Kylo said when she started to get up. The Force pushed her back down and she fought it, knowing it was useless, until with a final grunt of submission, she lay her head back on the floor. Kylo walked around her, but kept his gaze fixated on Finn until he came to lean against the gray metal that held him.

"You know I can make her do whatever I want?" Kylo said, finally breaking the lingering silence.

"Yeah, you said that already. That's messed up." Finn glared at him.

"It's amazing." Kylo smiled down at Rey like he didn't even hear Finn. "Stand up." her body flung to its feet. She stared at Kylo Ren, her heart pounding hard and fast in her ears. He was gripping her more tightly now than ever, she felt the Force of his will like a blanket wrapped around her skin. Almost suffocating. Tucked against every curve, tensed and ready to ripple with the speed of thought.

In her subconscious, one foot slipped into that scary dark place of total submission. But then her eyes darted back to Finn and she clung to remnants of control however she could.

"What do you want to see her do?" Kylo asked Finn, leaning in as though they were two buddies. "If you could make her do anything, absolutely anything. Stand on one foot? Touch her toes?" Rey moved like a puppet as he instructed, her heart filling with humiliation. "Jumping jacks. Rub her tummy and pat her head?" With each task he gave her, Rey felt her other foot inching out from under her. She clung desperately to resist, to control... but the temptation to submit was even more alluring now.

Kylo's sadistic grin abruptly fell from his face. "You care for each other."

"We're friends." Rey gasped. Kylo Ren wasn't hearing any of it. Without saying a word, the Force dragged Rey across the room. The tops of her toes slid against the smooth floor as she hurled towards Finn.

"Give me the map, Rey."

"Don't do it." Finn blurted out. "I'm not worth it." He shook his head, his dark eyes pleading with her, trying desperately to give her strength. It reminded her of the way he stared at her back on Takadona, before he left the resistance by going off with the smugglers.

But he came back.

The collar turned on, sending a deep, strong pulsation to her lower belly and Rey threw her head back, then shook it violently back and forth. "Please, don't." She begged Kylo. "There's nothing here."

She hated saying the words, only because she saw that flash of heartbreak cross Finn's gaze. It was quick, but it was enough to make her will slip a little more.

"The resistance is more important." Finn encouraged her.

"You can have her." Kylo Ren offered.

It was Rey's turn to feel the heartbreak. She stared at him, wide-eyed, disbelieving. Struggling against the pleasure pulsating between her legs, hot with conflict.

"She's a person." Finn said.

Kylo nodded. "And she could be all yours. Give him a kiss, Rey. Show him how badly you want him."

"No!" Rey dug her heels into the floor. "Stop. Please-" her jaw clamped shut as she reached out from his grasp and put her hands on Finn's chest, struggling to keep herself away. Finn stared at her.

Rey's hands slid down on Finn's forearms. She dug her nails into his skin with the effort of resisting the instructions. Tears had welled up in her eyes as she fought to keep her head down. A small part of her wanted to apologize for hurting him, but she whisked it away, confident that he at least empathized with her struggle.

Her body slammed against his, their hips crashed together and she felt him through his pants. She recoiled with anger, disgust. Hate towards Kylo Ren. Hot sweat pooled on her neck, down her face, mixing with tears. His will was bearing down on her harder than it ever had. Rey felt she might snap in half.

"I'm sorry," she said, her voice a whisper. "I can't fight it."

"It's okay." Finn comforted her, wanting to hold her. Kylo Ren was a monster. If ever there was doubt of that, in this moment it was gone. There was no redemption.

As Rey stared at Finn, she saw his compassion. There was no lust or hope there, just empathetic resignation. As she leaned in, slipping from control, he clenched his jaw and turned his face away from her so her lips fell only on his cheek.

Relief and gratitude washed over her like a tidal wave, threatening to manifest as another sob.

"You're sick." Finn said to Kylo.

"I thought you wanted him." Kylo spat, ignoring him, his lips curled over his teeth. "You were begging me to save him. To help him escape."

"That's not fair." Rey blinked.

"You said that you loved me." Kylo said, his voice low and hurt. "But you do nothing to help me. You fight me every step of the way. You demand I release my enemies. YOU-" he reached out and grabbed her arm, tearing it off of Finn's with such intensity it left two parallel scratch marks - "dare to tell me what to do without knowing-"

I'm being pulled apart, his thought finished, searing into her mind like a burn. A switch had flicked in Rey's mind.

"You can still help him. You can still escape Snoke." She said, too quickly. She glanced desperately at Finn, then back to Kylo. His control over her nearly evaporated. "Come with us! No one will even know we're gone until-"

"What?" Finn frowned at her, shaking his head, disbelieving.

His opinion mattered little to her right now.

"I understand your struggle," Rey pleaded. "It doesn't have to be this way." She opened herself to him, revealing the familial love of her new friends, who she missed dearly. Letting him in so he could witness the bonds of love outside of this horrible, dark place. Hope streamed out of her skin, reaching for him, desperately struggling to bathe him in the refreshing sunlight.

He darkened away from her, shutting down the heavy door between their minds. Before it closed, one word pulsated between them, lingering in her: weakness.

He still saw her as weak. The love he felt for her made him weak. Her submission made her weak. Her connection to Finn made her weak.

I'm not weak, she grit her teeth, clenching the anger she felt from his ignorance.

"You are." Kylo nodded, resolute. "Your love for me makes you weak."

"Then so does yours for me." She bit back.

"I don't love you." Kylo lied. Rey knew it was a lie, she could taste it seething off of him. If she wasn't so sure of it, his words would have stung. "And it's about time I proved it to you," he continued. His lips snarled over his teeth. "Take off your clothes."

Rey's arms shook from her resistance, she dug her nails into Finn's arms to keep herself from obeying Kylo Ren's demand. It was easier to resist this one. She could afford some energy to think of an excuse, a reason - and then it hit her.

"Do you really want him to see me like that?" the words gushed out of her mouth. She pulled up thoughts of being with him, all the mental images of her that Kylo had projected into her head. Her hands on his face. The way she sounded when she moaned his name. Her body shaking, wrapped around his, pulsating, the way they moved together in those dark, intimate moments. His grip on her loosened. It was working. She was his, he was thinking. She belongs to me. She recalled her interrogation, the intensity of the first time she saw his face. The first time he saw her, first time he touched her. The tense agony of waiting, wanting, knowing the wrongness of it, but not caring. Succumbing together, pouring himself into her soft, warm -

I don't want him how I want you, she thought at him as his grip on her slunk down to a simple touch.

Finn was sweating, sensing the energy that passed between them. He was staring at Rey's face as her hands nearly drew blood from his arms.

"Stop." Kylo Ren said, his voice low. All at once the tension dissipated and Rey fell back on her feet, rebalanced. She gasped to steady her breathing. Kylo swooped towards her. He grabbed one of her arms and swung it around behind her, then grabbed the other.

The cuffs were released.

Rey spun around to look at him, but Kylo had already opened the door and walked out.

She stared at the door a moment, feeling faint and ... strangely empty. She turned back to Finn. Time to focus. "Come on, we don't have much time."

She undid his bonds and opened the door to peek out before starting down the hallway. Ben was nowhere to be seen. Her heart sunk, she wanted him to come with her.

"Where's your ship?" She whispered.

"This way," He bolted across the hall into a branch. She followed him, ducking into crevices and storage closets until they reached a cargo hold. "We're almost there, come on." Finn grabbed her hand.

Rey remembered back on Jakku, when they were running from TI Fighters to protect BB-8 and how he kept grabbing her hand to run with her. How that had irritated her. It didn't, now. But it was too friendly. Perhaps he was offering her comfort. Rey chewed on the inside of her cheek. Each step she took dragged her further away from Ben and it hurt. Like no pain she had ever felt before.

Well.

She recalled a ship flying off into the sky. Her parents.

Like a pain she felt only once before. But this time, she could stop it.

"I can't." She planted her feet. "I have to go back."

Finn glanced at the collar. "Can he still control you with that?"

"I don't think so. Not my actions as much, but other stuff."

"I'm sure we can get it off."

Rey clasped his arm. "It's not that. He was right. About everything." She looked away awkwardly.

"You're being crazy. You've been here for too long, you're not seeing things clearly. Come back with me." He puts his hands on her upper arms and squeezed her, trying to convince her. "You're not safe here. I know you think he loves you but…" He shook his head.

It felt weird to talk about, all of the sudden. Even if she could put her connection with Kylo Ren into words for Finn, she knew he wouldn't actually understand. She didn't even understand.

"It's-"

"Complicated." Finn finished, then rolled his eyes and shook his head. "Alright. Whatever. Fine, then. So glad I came here to rescue you." He turned on his heel and started away, still shaking his head.

Rey pulled her lips between her teeth and bit back the pain. She turned her back to Finn and ran up the stairs out of the bay to the floor where Ben's room was. The tears had started streaming down her face and she wiped them furiously with her arms and the backs of her hands. Patrols passed and, being used to her presence on board, they ignored her.