Chapter Two: Stowaway Pt. Two

"Give it to me." Ren bid her again, punctuating his words with an extra jab into her subconscious; driving home the fact that he had been at best, merely skimming the surface and that he was barely even trying. "I won't ask again."

Every awful wave of him assaulted every one of her senses and overwhelmed her in a way like nothing Arra had ever known. It was true what they said about him, the strength of the force in him and how easily he was able to use it; how he could overtake anyone he so chose in the bat of an eye as though it were nothing more to him than simply drawing breath. How he could, and would, weave himself deeper into her like a virus; some foreign being tearing holes right through her and tugging at whatever it needed with far reaching tentacles from which there was no escape.

Just a touch, she told herself. She would give just a little and just enough to satiate him … As though it would be so simple to stem the flood and keep what needed to be close to the chest with him thumbing around her brain.

Every second he pressed a little more and every second, Arra could feel what loose grip she had left slip away a little more. She had to give him just a taste and she had to give it now, before he managed to steal it all.

"Skipburn …" She hissed, fingernails digging perfect crescent moons into her palms as she tried to ignore the feel of him working her over. "Skipburn … It's Skipburn!"

Ren relented and pulled himself back momentarily to give Arra brief reprieve; a sick reward for forced obedience.

"I don't know it."

"I told you so." She fought to regain frantic breath as it caught in her chest. "I told you it wasn't important."

"I said I didn't know it in that it's common enough there's simply nothing of note about you … I didn't say you were right, did I?"

"Whatever."

"There's absolutely nothing of note about you … But your family … That's a different story, wouldn't you say?"

Arra shifted her eyes away from him again and bit back a wave of distaste.

"They were a part of The Rebellion, were they not? Your parents?' He cooed matter of factly. "You'd have hidden that from me too if I would have let you. Maybe you don't think that important either."

"Maybe I just don't care."

"Ah, but you do."

"No, I don't."

"Your father was a pilot, wasn't he? A good one at that … Better than good … Maybe even one of the best … Isn't that what your mother used to tell you?" Ren continued, ripping at the scab on the wound Arra didn't want to admit still existed. "Killed on Endor, before you were born. You might have never known him, but she used to tell you all about him every time you asked. Every story and every praise … You couldn't get enough."

Arra swallowed the lump in her throat and choked back the swell of emption, sending it back down into the pit of her gut.

"She told you all the time, how much he would have loved you. How proud you would have made him had he survived … Maybe if he had survived, things could have been ."

"Irrelevant." Her best attempt at rebuttal seethed past clenched teeth. "You're really awful at this, you know that? You're fucking wasting your time."

It really came as no surprise Ren managed to hit at the most tender spot imaginable straight off the bat in order to wear her down. Weakness was weakness, after all. She, above anyone else, knew that it was to be exploited wherever and whenever possible. He had hit her where it hurt and in all likelihood to Ren, and everything he had at his disposal, her weakness may as well have been embroidered on her sleeve; bright and clear as day, begging to be torn apart. Weakness was weakness, and while it wasn't exactly a surprise he had struck there first, it didn't mean it didn't catch her off guard.

"No." Ren dismissed her deflection. "I don't think so."

"Yeah, well you can think anything you want … It doesn't make it the truth."

"How about if I feel it? Is it the truth then?" Ren's demeanour softened again, and his tone shifted borderline sympathetic; more genuinely this time, not just as a means to an end. "I do, you know. I can feel it in you. I can feel everything … I can feel that pain that was left behind … That scar on your soul. It's tainting every single thing you say … I can almost smell it."

"Fuck you."

"I can feel how hard you try and shut it out … How desperately you try and ignore the weight of that sadness that's settled in your chest for as long as you can remember."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You can lie to yourself if you really want to … But you can't lie to me." A strange consolation passed his lips. "Don't be ashamed of it. It's all right, I understand."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Arra reiterated, unrelenting in her refusal to acknowledge anything he made light of; regardless of whether it was the stone-cold truth or not.

"Don't you?"

"No."

"You don't ever think of everything you never had? Everything you were so robbed of even as a child? You don't occupy your time with anything, or anyone that holds your attention just long enough to make you forget?" His voice dipped softer. "You don't think about how happy your life could have been … How easy it could have been … If only?"

"Shut up."

"You reminded her of him … Every day."

"Stop."

"Every time you spoke, every time you looked at her." His tone reverted to its previous state, cold, flat, unfeeling and unsympathetic, at the drop of a hat. "Every time you smiled, every time you laughed … With everything you did you reminded your mother of him.

Arra pushed against him, trying to force out what lingering grip he had over her mind. She tried with everything she had to shut him out, to stonewall and rip his satisfaction out of his hands, but it was pointless. His proverbial fingers grazing so skillfully through her thoughts, the eerie calm and hypnotic sound of his voice and the way he hovered so very close to her … She was caught in his snare now and she had no hope of getting out.

This is what he wanted.

He had never wanted answers, or rather, he had never wanted her to offer them to him freely … Or so it seemed. He wanted the challenge, he wanted her to resist. He fed on it. It wasn't just the way he could so easily tease everything he wanted out of her. It was the experience of the entire ordeal. He wanted to break her. He wanted her to be afraid, to feel pain, to feel anger, to suffer through every emotion imaginable.

He got off on it.

It was some sick game that got worse the longer it went on and he was enjoying every second of it.

This is what he wanted. To whittle her down to nothing.

With every rise of emotion and every empty denial from her lips, she was playing right into his hands … But she was powerless to stop it.

"You look so much like him. you act so much like him. No wonder she couldn't even bear the sight of you. She resented you for it so much … She hated you for it."

"I said stop." Arra's voice cracked a little; thick with emption she tried in vain to stem the heat in the corners of her eyes and seal the floodgates shut.

"You were so young, so confused when she left you."

Ren stiffened slightly, unable to keep himself from projecting his own anger and his own disgust onto the situation; his collected exterior fracturing as he started to give way to his own emption.

"When she abandoned you." He spat, disdain coloring his voice. "You … Her only child … She left you with people who were as good as strangers without a second thought because you looked too much like your father …"

"She left you." He spat, disdain coloring his voice. "You … Her only child. She left you without a second thought because you looked too much like your father. Because of who you were and how it made her sick to her stomach to look after you …"

"Please…" She strangled a sob, but the damage was already done and there was no tempering the tears that spilled forth over delicate cheekbones.

"She abandoned you … Your own mother … And still you care."

"No."

"Liar." A single finger hooked and dragged across her face to swipe away a tear. "Don't cry sweetheart, save it for someone who matters … Like you could have mattered to her … Like you should have mattered to her. She never cared about you … You were always just a ghost."

"Stop!" Arra's tiny, shaky voice reverberated off the walls around them.

She was strained and spent but in one concentrated surge of will, she tore herself free of his unrelenting grip. She snapped through it, shaking the unshakable so forcefully she rocked back and collided with the wall with a solid thud.

The bond was broken and a stifling, heavy silence hung in the air; thick enough to cut with a knife.

"Such fight in you … Even now … Even when your sorrow could swallow you alive." Ren spoke first after what seemed like an eternity.

Unanswered questions had started to stack one on top of the other. No one had ever resisted him before, not like that anyway. No one had been able to force him out. She was strong in a way she was completely oblivious too and in a way that only served to deepen his curiosity. There was a spark in her, the faintest glimmer of something buried so deep, secreted away in her psyche. It itched at the back of his mind. That spark she had buried deep down inside her, that strength and the resonance of it that rippled through him in kind and felt so inexplicably familiar; pieces to fit together in a puzzle the girl had no idea she was even in … And neither did he.

"Such resistance. Such defiance. Such strength … Through everything, you fight so admirably… But I'm growing tired of this game."

Arra could do nothing but glare at him while he toyed with her the same way a cat toys with a mouse before snuffing it out.

"You're hiding something."

"I'm not hiding any-"

"You are. You just don't know it yet. I can find it … I can show you."

Fingers outstretched, he moved closer to her primed and ready to drive full force past her defences and bend her will to his.

"No more games … You'll give me what I want. Even if you force me to rip you apart, you'll give me what I want … It's your choice to make."

"Get away from me …" Arra growled, pulling away from him as best she could with her back to the wall. "Don't you fucking touch me!"

A gentle touch was something Ren no longer had time or patience for. Not now, not after having his curiosity driven to a fever pitch. He hadn't the time or patience to deal with a random, stubborn girl who continued to oppose him and didn't expect to be handed a swift and painful retribution.

Lunging for her, he rooted her to the spot, tightly holding her in place with no hope for escape, and in one fluid surge he seared his way back into her; fingers now pressed against her skull at the point of her wound and digging into it so as to split the skin for a little extra enforcement and discomfort.

Arra yelped and flailed against him. What had until then been uncomfortable, what she had thought was already horrible enough, now proved to be the tip of the iceberg. A gentle, oddly courteous display of his abilities that vanished in a flash and left only agony in its wake.

All the flashes, all the breadcrumbs, he pried free from her in rapid succession to lead him to his intended target.

Flashes of her and her mother at first during happier times, under the guise of the happy home life of a loving family. Flashes of happier times that quickly shifted to flashes and feelings of the torment at turmoil, the devastation she'd felt at being cast aside and thrown away with such little regard.

Flashes like picture books of everything in her life, and the wreckage it had been, that drew any sort of raw emotion and left a lasting mark. Memories she cherished and memories that haunted her. Images and snippets of conversations with people she held dear and with people she would have rather put a blaster hole clean through. The good, the bad, and everything in-between … Ren ripped his way through it all and everything he managed to ascertain was useless. Nothing he could glean was what he sought. Nothing he could filter out brought him any closer to that which he was dying to uncover.

She wasn't allowing it. She was blocking him.

No matter how much she crumbled now, she still resisted with everything she had. She fought him with every ragged breath and every pained sigh that ripped through her body. Even if it was all for naught, she was still stronger than she understood herself to be. That much, Ren would give her credit for.

She was blocking him of her own accord … But she was also blocking him by way of anything but. Something else was at work, something bigger, something stronger, something far beyond her own conscious efforts. It was intentional and it was far above either of them. He was blocked, locked out. He hit a wall in her mind that had been placed to barricade whatever lay just beyond it; whatever spark that piqued his interest so badly he could barely stand it. He hit a wall in her mind that was intentionally placed to secret whatever lay beyond away, never to be realized again.

It was placed there intentionally, of that Ren was certain.

What he couldn't decide, however, was why it had been so placed. What was lost on him at first blush was whether it was placed as a barricade to keep people such as himself at bay, to keep whatever it was to be kept at just out of arm's reach … Or whether it had been placed there, in the depths of her mind, to keep Arra herself from being able to glean it. He couldn't decide whether it was built so intentionally to keep something under lock and key to protect her or whether it was built to protect others.

Not that it mattered, of course. Ren wanted it. He wanted to know everything about it and there was nothing, that he knew of anyway, that stood a chance at stopping him from doing just that. The block, the barricade was strong … But he was stronger, and he would dig past what layers remained and he would rip what he wanted free of its prison if it was the last thing he did.

With a fresh surge of his own will, he dug his fingers against her skill a little firmer as he pressed his way through her thoughts with even more force. Ignoring unspoken pleas for him to relent and shutting out her pain that now radiated unto him, Ren had Arra right where he wanted her as the fog lifted and presented a bigger, clearer picture. She was hiding something, and she didn't even know it and on top of that she was hiding something, many things, she had been all too desperate for him not to see … And now he had her trapped with a proverbial knife at her throat, ready to take the kill.

This hadn't been her first visit to The Finalizer … It was not her first stay within its walls. She'd been with The Order before, through the haze of everything else, Ren was able to grasp. It wasn't clear how, or why, or when. All he could suss out was self-imposed buried memories tangled with notes of fear and doubt, shame and hatred and beyond that, something more.

She had been with The Order before, but older things buried even deeper punctured through. Older thoughts and older emotions at the center of which ties to The Resistance sparked and lit up the dark; dim and faded but none the less still just strong enough to make out, like a beacon breaking the hold of a mighty storm; ever present and beckoning her home.

Neither revelation stood alone, and Ren wasn't lucky enough to pick the shards free from each other and put them back together in a way by which he could make sense of. They were intertwined, heavily knotted and bound to one another in an infuriating way that could not be undone and left him without any sure-fire way to swiftly sort the whole mess out. Curious revelations … Dangerous revelations even if only just barely hinted at. All things that would need further exploration, further answers to curious questions on top of curious questions of which he was so desperate to nail down the answers to.

It was frustrating. She was frustrating him.

She was hiding things, so many things, he needed to know and now, beyond the rat's nest he had started to stir up, the wall had begun to fall; cracking and spiderwebbing, a brittle barrier soon to be nothing more than a pile of rubble for Ren to stomp his way through. … But Arra was about to break, he could feel it; he could feel the way she faded under the pressure with which he plied her.

She had had enough.

"Enough" for her was more than he could have or ever would have expected from anyone and as impressive as that fact was, he couldn't chance another push; even a gentle one to get what he wanted and have it in hand to soothe the itch in the back of his mind. He had brought her to the brink and any more stood a very real risk of killing her and leaving him robbed of solving the newfound mystery. Ren had done all he could for the time being. She was shattered before him despite the strength she had so valiantly displayed. An overwhelmed wreck of a fragile little bird at the mercy, at the pity of her predatory host … If there was any pity to be had at his hands.

Reluctantly, begrudgingly he bit back his irritation and lifted his hand from her head to break the bond again and withdraw, this time of his own accord. Arra slumped against the wall as he did, choking on her breath; fingers flexing against the panels trying in vain to lock her grip on something, anything to give herself an ounce of strength to shift herself back more upright.

"Oh, there is something there … So many things." Ren hooked a finger under her chin and tilted it upward. "And I will have them … One way or another, do you understand?"

She trembled under his touch, weak and helpless; barely able to keep a hold on her consciousness as he dipped his head lower to rest alongside hers.

"You're going to tell me everything, even if I have to carve it out of you." He half whispered, melodic lilt in his voice and the chill of his mask grazing against her cheek. "You will tell me. You will give it to me, you .thing … But not tonight."

Arra trembled under his touch, weakened, shaking, dazed and breathless; every scrap of physical strength she had nothing more than a fleeting memory. With one last lingering stare, Ren pushed himself to his feet and turned his back to her to leave her as her vision darkened and the sound around her faded and echoed about the cell.

"See to it she's tended to. Keep her well enough to keep her alive … Nothing more." He shot a casual order over his shoulder. "She sees no one without my say."

"Yes, sir."

With that he was gone, just as effortlessly as he had appeared.

With that Arra was left to her own devices, alone in the cold confines of her prison cell to recover.

… And in some manner, left on her own to navigate the mindscape of her own personal Hell.