Present day

Rey didn't remember walking down that hallway, nor waiting for the elevator, nor confidently striding out of Solocorp's building, nor running across the street to the parking lot, and didn't feel a little more at ease until she sat in her car and released the breath she must have been holding the entire time.

She glanced at the clock on her dash. It was almost nine o'clock but she could barely register the what it meant. She felt suddenly drained. Her hand trembled as she opened the glove box and found her burner phone. There were a dozen missed calls and many text messages waiting.

CALL ME

Are you okay?

Rey, are you safe?

Is it over?

How did it go?

Is everything okay?

Good luck – you got this.

Rey exhaled a heavy sigh and scrolled through her contacts to reach her mentor, who picked up before the phone could even complete its first ring.

"Rey!" the voice of Leia cried out. "Thank the Maker! You didn't check in! I was so worried."

"I know, I'm sorry. Everything's fine."

"Are you sure?" Leia's voice was tentative. "Did the rain give you much trouble?" It was her signal.

"Only clear skies here," Rey responded in her code.

A relieved gasp pierced Rey's ear through the tinny speaker. "Well, hurry up now. We're waiting for your report. Get back safe – and fast."

Rey was drained. "Roger, roger," she said, weakly, disconnecting the call. She tossed the phone on the passenger seat and dropped her head on the steering wheel.

His face kept replaying in her mind. The way he rose from the desk. The way he stared at her, studying her. The hot breath on her neck, the things she wondered that he could do with those long fingers and –

He's watching.

Unhurriedly, she lifted her head from the steering wheel. She slid the key into the ignition and as she backed out of her parking spot, she gazed up toward the imposing building. The fog had cleared quite a bit, and she could swear, just below the menacing red eye, there was a man looking down toward her. In her mind, she saw his tense form peering through the glass, trying to glimpse the tiny ants and cars below. But then he sensed her intrusion, snapped the curtains closed, and turned off the lights.

Her skin erupted into goosebumps. It almost felt like he was in there with her, but when she looked back up, the top floors of the building were dark and there was nothing but the steady pulse of the red, red light.

###

By the time she navigated through the late rush hour traffic via a jagged and confusing route intended to thwart any followers, it had been well over an hour since she had left Solocorp. She parked her car under a jacaranda tree of which its rich, lavender blooms were turning yellow in the autumn air. Waiting a few minutes to ensure there were no suspicious headlights or foot traffic nearby, Rey climbed out of car when it was safe to and started toward the safe house a block away.

She hugged her purse tight to her body. It was unusually cold for a Southern California evening, even for November. The only sounds she could hear were the noises of the nearby freeway and her heels scraping on the cement sidewalk. She felt on particularly high alert and mentally reached out in her general vicinity but could detect nothing of particular ferocity. Still, she felt scared and quickened her pace.

She reached the house, a midcentury modern home modest by comparison to others in the neighborhood. It seemed like such an ostentatious location to have a secret hide out, but perhaps that was the whole point was to make it appear to be completely unusual and therefore completely unlikely that this was one of the hideouts for the great minds behind HOTH.

Rey knocked a pattern on the front door, which opened just wide enough to receive her then slammed shut.

"I was worried sick! What took you so long?" Leia exclaimed, grabbing Rey by the shoulders. She meant not only the time spent at the meeting but also the drive back.

"I wanted to make sure I wasn't being followed," Rey sighed, kicking off the exhaustive heels. "Besides, there must have been something going on. A concert, maybe? Took me nearly half an hour to creep just a few miles at one point."

Leia set her lips into a tight line, displeased with that answer with a look of concern crossing her face. "That is unusual," she agreed. "But I'm glad you're here safe."

"I need a drink."

The two women headed toward the kitchen, where Leia grabbed a couple plastic red cups and a bottle of red. They took their drinks into a back room, where a couple others were waiting for the debrief.

"Rey." Luke nodded politely as the young woman flopped onto the old couch. His face was hard to read through his unruly and thick beard and shaggy hair, but his eyes were calculating and wary.

Leia closed the door and the room was plunged into near-darkness, save for the flickering and glowing lights from the arrays of computers and monitors haphazardly assembled on a couple of folder tables in the corner.

"How'd it go?" Finn flicked on a lamp over her head and Rey grimaced at the harsh light.

"What's with the interrogation?" she said lightly, as she accepted a cup of wine from Leia.

Finn grinned. "Relax, Rey. I'm not going to interrogate you like you guys did to me." He cast a look toward the twins, reminded of the time he surrendered himself to HOTH after leaving the Skywalker Enterprises's security detail.

"She's nervous," Luke said, more to Leia than the others. His sister had an expression that said "no duh." He leaned back in the folding chair and crossed his arms over his chest. "She's attracted to him."

Rey shrugged, resigned. She pretended to not acknowledge the slightly wounded look that came across Finn's face. She wasn't going to argue; Luke's skills surpassed hers. It was no point trying to hide her feelings.

"You mustn't let him win you over," Leia warned, putting a hand on Rey's knee. "He can be… charismatic in his own way, for certain. But you are strong. You are in the Light, where he has succumbed to such darkness." A faraway look appeared in Leia's eyes; sad, distant, and nostalgic. "There's still good in him, I know it, and if you can draw him back to it, even better." Her eyes darkened. "But don't let him pull you in with him. Don't try to save him and sacrifice yourself in the process."

Rey didn't answer. She took a hearty swig of her wine and gnawed on the rim of the plastic cup. "He said he'll call me. Tomorrow. He'll have his answer then."

Even that surprised Luke.

"Tomorrow?" Finn echoed. "Hardly a day and you mean-"

Leia frowned and got to her feet. "This is escalating faster than we had expected. We need to move some things ahead of schedule." She glanced down at Rey, who was still nursing at her cup of wine. "Rey, what happened? What took so long?"

Rey furrowed her brow. "What are you talking about?"

"Your appointment was at six."

"Right, and I was there maybe 20 minutes? Took me an hour to get here, I already told you. I was worried I was followed."

"Rey." Finn's voice was low. "It's a quarter to eleven. You were there for over three hours."

Rey almost choked on her wine. "What are you talking about?" But that horrible feeling came over her again. The clock on the dashboard. That time hadn't registered with her then.

"Rey, you need to tell us what happened. Everything you can remember." Luke's voice sounded more concerned than she had ever heard before.

Slowly and painstakingly, Rey retold the story, from flashing her identification at the front desk, to taking the elevator, to being escorted by the guard, to seeing him. Sensing him, speaking with him on a whole other level, absorbing the smells and emotions that emanated from him. She left out the dirtier bits, those intuitive feelings she picked up of his and the ones she felt, because she didn't think Finn needed to know.

"I really only thought I was there for maybe thirty minutes, tops," she murmured, refilling her own wine cup. "But I could barely remember the walk back to my car."

Luke and Leia exchanged glances and spoke in a silent way that only the siblings knew how, with their eyes and thoughts.

"You've been compromised," Luke stated.

"Thank the Maker we didn't tell her more than she needed to know," Leia gasped, clapping her hands over her forehead.

The fog was lifting from Rey and her energy was returning. A sudden wash of disgust crashed over her and she wanted to throw up by what those words meant. "What do you mean?"

"He got into your head," Luke responded. "And maybe more."

Rey bristled and slammed her cup on the ramshackle coffee table. Some wine splashed out and stained the cover of an older copy of Time magazine that had the recently-deceased Anakin on the cover, standing behind Ben like a nefarious shadow. "What are you implying? That you can't trust me? That's I'm so weak-willed?"

Leia's hands reached for the back of Rey's neck, who instinctively cried out and recoiled at the touch.

"Well, at least her clothes aren't inside out," Leia commented, dryly.

Rey clutched at the neckline of her own blouse. It was a stupid, professional, frilly thing that she loathed wearing but it made her look the part. Now, she just wanted it off. "You're saying he raped me?!"

Luke shook his head. "No, not in that way." He hesitated. "Probably not."

Leia could see Rey's anger flare. She sat on the arm of the couch and tenderly rested her hands on the young woman's shoulders. "Rey, listen to me. You were scheduled to meet him at six. The sun was setting then. By the time you left, it was dark. You said the car's clock read nine. You called me shortly thereafter and it took you over an hour to get back here. What happened in those three hours? Something had to have happened."

Tears unexpectedly sprung to Rey's eyes and she angrily rubbed at them, furious her emotions were getting to the better of her. "I don't know."

Luke frowned. "Leave us."

Leia and Finn rose and left the room without a word. Luke pulled his chair closer to Rey, who was now fiddling her fingers in nervousness.

"Rey, I need you to open up to me," Luke said, softly. He reached over to take her hands in his. His gnarled, thick hands, with their calloused palms were strangely soothing when wrapped around hers that were smooth but trembling.

"What have I done?" she whimpered in barely a whisper.

"It was nothing of your fault," he assured her, stroking his thumbs over the tops of her hands. His voice was gentle, calm, and hypnotizing. "Rey, you need to relax. You're safe here with us. Let me in."

Rey's will faltered and her hands grew limp. But just as he was about to prod her memories, Rey's head whipped up and she pulled away.

"No," she hissed. "I'm done for tonight." She pushed away from the couch and tore the door open, startling Finn and Leia who were sitting outside.

"Rey—" Leia started.

"No! I'm done. I'm going to see him tomorrow, as we planned." Rey shrugged away Finn, who tried to reach out and grab her, and stormed out the front door.

It was colder outside, but the heat roiled inside her and Rey quickly made it back to her car. It was coated in the dead blossoms felled by the jacaranda tree. An irritable rage surged through her and suddenly, as if the car were rocked by an invisible force, all of the stupid flowers poofed away and dropped to the ground.

Rey unlocked the car without touching the fob and climbed in. The engine roared to life and she took off for home, her home, the shitty apartment away from here, where she could be alone with herself and away from them.

"She's leaving." A man in a black car a few spaces down spoke to an unseen listener. He tilted his head and watched as her car squealed down the street. "Should I engage?" He paused, listening for a response. "Understood. I'll keep my distance and keep you updated." He shifted into gear and tapped the display of his car's touchscreen. A little dot palpitated as it moved north, leading inevitably toward Rey's apartment. "Tracking is engaged. I'm on it."