The Darkest Evening of the Year
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
By Robert Frost
She tore through the underbrush as exposed branches dragged across her skin and pulled at her clothes. Her sneakers slipped on damp leaves, but she had no time to pause, to think. He was coming for her, and between the pounding rush of her own blood, and the snapping of the branches around her, she heard the monster that pursued her.
It was dark; she was a fit runner, surely if she just kept going-. The sealing darkness abruptly gave way as Rey emerged from the woods onto the edge of the lake. There was no moon, but the midnight sky was lit with stars, and she could make out the lapping waves of the lake. The town was just past the cove. It was only a brief moment before she decided against fleeing to the water. The fall air was cool, and she was still not a good swimmer.
Her momentary pause at the lakeshore brought her tall stalker closer, and she could make out movement in the shadowed woods. Dashing down the shore, she attempted to escape back into the cover of the dark wood.
She was ripped off her feet as thick arms took her from behind. She screamed; she practically roared her fear and anger. Her legs flew out from under her as she kicked out to dislodge him when he hauled her up around the waist.
"Stop fucking moving!" He tightened his grip around her middle, and she felt the air being compressed from her lungs. Steal banded arms secured her, and she felt keenly what she had already known. He was strong, unnaturally strong.
"Fucking bastard!" she cried, and she tried to go limp and slink to the ground, but his hold merely kept her in place.
"You can't fight me, Rey. So go ahead, wear yourself out, and then we are still going back to my fucking truck in the end." He spoke more calmly than she thought should be possible as she jerked and fought. Eventually, she ceased her movement, and a frustrated tear broke free over the round of her cheek. She blinked back any further traitorous cracks in her mask of anger and waited. She was going to die if she went with him. She could almost feel it. Whatever she did next would decide her fate. She willed her body to relax as much as she could and tried to take a calming breath but was greatly hampered by his hold.
Ben must have felt her body still, and he slowly eased his grip. "Good girl," he condescended, though he seemed relieved. Yes, she was a very good girl who always carried her pocketknife: the one Han gave her. He said, you never know when you're going to need one. Of course, at the time, he was showing her how to use it as a makeshift screwdriver.
As Ben's vice-like arms untangled themselves from around her, she carefully brought her right hand up to the pocket of her red zip-up, the one Ben was so thoughtful to dress her in.
"Alright, you just stay calm, and you might make it out of this." She said nothing in reply. Instead, she searched for the slight indent in the blade that would let her raise it to open the pocketknife. He grabbed her by the upper arm and began to direct her back down the shore of the lake to the small footpath they had emerged from initially. "Head back that way."
Her feet moved along the debris-ridden shore, and with a bit of force, she dug her foot into the damp earth and spun, lunging. She raked the blade up, but he dodged her blow—almost. Only the tip grazed him up the jaw and over his right eye. She couldn't be sure of how much damage she actually inflicted because as he took a step back, hand to face, she jerked herself free and took off again, determined to seek her freedom and her life. Rey was lost in a sea of sharp black shapes and ominous shadows. She needed a car. The town was dangerous, but she could get a car. There was no telling how much of the town was involved, but none of them could be trusted. A moss-covered rock caused her to slip, and she barely caught herself, and, unfortunately, as she rose, a shadow stepped across her path.
"You bitch!" He cried, but this was not Ben. His fist came swiftly after, and her head felt like an explosion went off inside of it then black.
A rumble shattered by painful jostling as they drove over a dirt road was her welcome back to the world of the living—or conscious. A groan escaped as she attempted to right herself from her position slumped against the door, the seatbelt tight across her body. The truck was hauling, and the headlights illuminated the seemingly endless dirt road surrounded by thick woods on each side. There was not a light or sign of civilization. Rey glanced over to the driver's side and made out the large frame of her tormentor. Ben's eye appeared intact, but an ugly slice had split his skin.
She took these things in silently as pain radiated across her face and pounding resounded in her head. She felt off balance even sitting down. Most likely, she was concussed. She tried to move her hands only to find them bound with a cord. She pulled but felt no give. How was she going to get out of this one? She had felt lucky a few times during her childhood, but even when things were bleak, she managed. How could she get out of this one? Surely women who are knocked out and bound, driven to some backcountry nowhere, have a predictable fate. She had tried to run, to fight, so now what was left, to beg? Was there anything she could say to convince him to let her go?
He glanced over at her then. "You had to make this complicated," he started. His eyes slipped from her to the road again. "You couldn't just –just fucking come with me!" The weight of his eyes fell on her again. "You weren't supposed to fight back," he ground out as his voice escalated and his grip tightened, "you weren't supposed to get hurt-fuck!" In his anger, he slapped a hand on the steering wheel: Rey flinched back.
"I didn't want this either, Rey." He glanced at her again. His agitation was a third presence in the cab of the truck. "You were supposed to agree to come to the gathering because you have shown up at every—every—other fucking thing your little gang of friends asked. But—no—this time, I had to drag you out of the woods after Vicrul nearly knocked your fucking face in—after I nearly lost an eye!" He gestured angrily to his face.
His yelling, along with the pounding of the uneven road, was only making Rey's head swim, and awash in a deep well of pain, she remained quiet. Ben had grown nearly still again, but his grip on the steering wheel tightened and loosened sporadically. He slowed the truck sharply, and Rey tore her eyes from his face to the road. They were in some sort of makeshift parking lot deep in the woods. Cars were tucked in beside trees and in half-hazard rows. It seemed like the end of the road.
Ben maneuvered the truck into a space and threw it into park. Rey felt chills rack her body as she glanced out the windows in hopes of having some clue what was happening. Ben still hadn't moved. She could hear the sound of approaching cars and spied two more trucks, black—the ones that had been at her house. Their arrival seemed to spur Ben onward as he moved to open his door.
"Did you kill your father?" She was in pain, having difficulty pulling together clear thoughts, but this she would ask. Han had been like the father she had always wanted, so if Ben had taken his life, she wanted to hear it. He owed—someone—an explanation, and it wasn't like she had much more time anyway.
Ben, for his part, turned back to her quickly, boring into her with his eyes. He gave her no reply.
"Did you hate him?" She refused to relent. There was more quiet, and then the sounds of men talking near the bed of the truck spurred him on.
"I didn't hate him," he replied simply, firmly. He exited, and she felt no relief at his answers. If Han was dead, surely she stood no chance. He was by her door quicker than she expected. She shrank back as he flung the door open and reached for her seatbelt. Hands pulled and yanked, and though she fought and squirmed and shrieked, she still found herself flung over his shoulder, blood pounding in her veins across the tender flesh of her well-bruised face.
They began a trek through the dark, flanked by the others. Ben's grip was firm and unforgiving, and her hands were still bound. It was after some time, moving about in the dark on a path the men seemed to know well, that light began to flicker up ahead. Torches lit the edges of the path now, and Rey could hear the murmur of people ahead.
The woods grew thick, and they passed through a lane of bowed branches only to emerge to a lit clearing.
Rey was cast, most unceremoniously, to the ground. The wind was knocked out of her for a moment, but she quickly moved to roll off her side and try to raise herself up with her bound hands. It was a crowd of faces. Here they were, peering at her like she was the prize pig that got dragged out at the county fair. These were the people she had seen every day for months. She ate with them, drank with them, she had babysat their goddam children. Now here she was, and there they were before her in a semicircle, most standing, but some sitting on stone pews arranged in a half-moon.
She scanned over the faces and eventually found Fin. He appeared unhappy about something.
She turned her head slightly to scan through the rest of the crowd. If this was some sort of execution, she might as well see the faces of her executioners. She heard some noise go up from the onlookers as she turned face bared her badly swollen cheek.
"What the hell happened?" The shout came from Fin, who was now being restrained by Poe. Poe's staying hand seemed enough to keep him in place, but he continued shouting, seemingly at Ben. "She wasn't supposed to get hurt!"
"Then you should have gotten her here," Ben all but growled from his position standing over her.
Poe was whispering to him now, but Fin continued to repeat himself until another voice cut through.
"Enough!" This time it was Leia who stood near the center of the semicircle. She let her eyes land on Rey for a moment, but Rey saw no pity there. There was a schooled vacancy, and she spared Rey no more than a glance before returning her eyes beyond Rey.
"Yes, enough indeed." Rey whipped her head around. Behind her, stretched tall and thin, stood the Minister Snoke. His black-clad frame seemed frail and long, while his cheeks sank with age and eyes bulged with malice.
"Welcome, Miss Johnson." His tone was not welcoming, and his frame cast a shadow across her that felt like a threat. "Now that our guest of honor has arrived, let us begin."
Rey found herself being roughly jerked to her feet. She tore her eyes from Snoke to Ben. He paid her no mind as he hauled her up and seemingly from nowhere produced a knife. He cut through her bindings without a word.
"You're a monster," she cursed him.
"I am," he returned in a low tone, grabbing her forearm dragging her forward to fully face the black-clad minister. Snoke, for his part, grinned slightly, one corner of his grizzled mouth pulled up.
"As I was saying, we shall proceed," Snoke spared her one last look before raising his gaze to the onlookers. "Here on the darkest evening of the year, we celebrate our good fortune under the vigilant guidance of the bright goddess," he pronounced his words carefully, and the last s was drawn out enough to resemble a hiss. "Before this auspicious night, Sister Maz was gifted a vision. In this vision, the Bright One bade us welcome Miss Johnson into our midst on this very night so that we may finally have our answer." He spared her another glance now. "Does she belong with us or not?" A tremor ran through Rey as ill-intent dripped off Snoke like mud off a pig.
"We can still let her go! It's not too late!" It was Fin. He seemed to know just as well as she that her fate was not safe in the good minister's hands. His voice grew quieter, and there seemed to be some sort of scuffle before Fin was silent once more. Snoke was nonplussed by the interruption and instead reached behind him to the stone altar and produced a dagger that appeared even older than his decrepit form.
Rey jerked in Ben's hands, an immediate reaction to the dagger's sight. He merely gripped her firmly and kept her like a lamb to the slaughter.
"Your hand, girl." Snoke intoned, proffering his open palm for her to take. She would sooner lop the damn thing off. Ben gripped her forearm and brought it forward, but Snoke did not step forward to take it. Instead, he smiled his warped smile and beckoned for her to come with the crook of his finger. Rey resisted; she had no intention of giving her hand no matter how pointless her resistance was, and yet, she found her arm extending, and slowly as her center of gravity shifted forward, her feet dragged along as if on their own accord. Then, quick as a viper, he lashed out and snatched her arm at the wrist. "There now, was that so difficult?"
Rey looked from her wrist up to his face in horror. "You bastard!" She cried out and raised her left to swing at him, but as it drew near his face, she felt it wrenched back to her side by an unseen force. What the bloody hell was this?
"Enough, Snoke! Get on with it." This voice was not Fin. Leia, Ben's mom, the mayor of this strange place. Rey felt a stab of betrayal. She had looked up to Leia; she had felt a kinship there. She had felt envy that Ben had a mother like her when Rey had none. But, she supposed, every one of them was not what she had thought.
"Yes, yes,-let's see now," Snoke waved her off with his knife-wielding hand. He gripped Rey's wrist tightly and turned it over until her hand was palm up. With slow precision, he ran the blade over her palm, freeing a well of bright red. She gasped in pain, unable to pull her arm back, and as she did, she could almost hear the bones of her arms creak in protest. She had not budged Snoke one bit. He dragged her to the shallow pool of water gathered at the rock formation base. One clean pull, and she was on her knees, bloodied hand extended over the pool of water. After catching herself awkwardly with her left hand, Rey glanced up, for the first time catching sight of the strange carving in the rock face. It appeared to be a wolf, and from its mouth trickled a steady stream of water, but as the drops of her blood hit the surface of the pool, a strange, overly bright red bloom diffused. It's color a shade you could paint the devil with.
"There—our answer. She calls for life," Snoke declared triumphantly. A panicked murmur went up from the crowd. Rey wrenched her eyes off the pool, but as she moved to look back at the madman, something caught her attention up the rock face, high above on a bit of outcrop, obscured by sparse branches. Were those eyes? Before she could think about that further, she was yanked up and cast back to the ground roughly. She staggered to pick herself up, Ben Solo's obnoxiously large shoes nearly touching her nose.
"Ben Solo, son of light and of darkness, strike her down and appease the Bright One. Honor our oaths and claim your throne as leader of this pack."
AN: As you can tell this began in medias res, but the next chapters are going back three months to how this all began! So sit tight! I would love to know what you think of it so far, so review! Thanks for reading!