Chapter Two: Explosion
Kylo Ren hated to admit his failings, but he could see he was still underestimating the girl trembling in barely-checked ire before him. Takodana had led him astray; there was nothing familiar about her response now. As she raised her arm, revealing a detonator clutched in her white-knuckled grip, his miscalculation sharpened into painful focus.
NO!
She clicked the device's head without pretense or hesitation, another of his mother's brainwashed Resistance fools, and the world erupted in a clamorous roar of blaring light and sound.
Kylo reacted immediately, spurred by an unknown instinct. He surged forward and slapped the now-inert apparatus from her hand. It didn't matter. The damage had already been done.
Shockwaves of simultaneous explosions barreled into them, and he grabbed Rey roughly by the waist, divesting her of her stolen rifle in a wrenched pull and leaping back for the platform. She bore the brunt of the blast, shrieking as flying heat scorched her exposed skin. Smoke overpowered the filter in Kylo's mask, trapping it within until he almost choked. His eyes stung as he fled down the hall he had entered through, hoisting Rey to his shoulder and beating out the tendrils of flame creeping up his cloak.
She passed out immediately from the sense-robbing sear, limbs and face blistered red, and her signature in the Force began to flicker. Kylo ran as the entire base shuddered around them, heading for the nearest ship hangar rather than pause at a wall terminal for a status report. A warning to leave screamed shrilly behind his temples as the foreboding groan of stressed metal reverberated everywhere.
What have you done, girl?! He seethed inwardly. We're on the eve of victory. I'm about to win.
The floor heaved beneath his feet, and he pushed his legs harder, sprinting with his awkward load. Rey bobbed heavily, and he had to circle his grip high up on her thighs to keep from dropping her.
You WILL give me the map to Skywalker, and I'll make you PAY for this day.
She stirred from his shoulder, murmuring almost in protest, and Kylo frowned. She was a contentious thorn even while unconscious.
No matter. The unspooling mystery of her—glimpsed threads of Force without answer or end—wouldn't stay his wrath for long.
He just needed that blasted map.