TW: Gore, dead body (very minor character), snakes.
"We should have something to eat. If we're going to make it, we need to be clear-headed and ready to move."
"What do you need me to do?" Rey put her arms around him.
"Pack your satchel, and keep it with you at all times. But essential things only. That means no textbooks. We can always get you new ones."
"Got it. What's your plan?"
He shrugged. "I'm making this up as we go along. I think I should check first of all that there's no-one hiding near us, aiming to take us out when we leave. Then we head to town. I'll make a couple of calls, we go across the mountains to Sorgan and hide out there. It's a tiny outpost, about the same size as Corellia, very private."
"We can't keep running."
"It's not as if we did anything wrong." He held her for a moment. "Just because your grandfather ran most of the rackets in Naboo doesn't mean you're guilty of anything. No, it's just to keep you safe until we find out what's going on."
"You think they're still after me?"
"When your grandfather dies – and he will die, most likely – there will be a turf war. You're his only grandchild." Ben kissed her forehead. "Even if you don't want to take over the Family, there will be people who think you're better out of the way."
"Idiots." She stood back and put her hand on his cheek. "Right – so how long do you think you'll be outside, checking?"
"Give me an hour. Bar the back door after me. When I come back, the same rule applies."
"If you call me Principessa, it's a trap." Rey nodded. "I have some things to do too. Be careful, please."
"I still want to keep you safe. That means I'll be careful." He turned his head to kiss her hand, then headed out.
The anticipated blizzard was starting. The snow was already falling in fat flakes that would build up rapidly. He cursed – they couldn't leave until he checked everything to make sure it was safe, but by then the snow would block most of the road. At least he could make sure they were secure for the meantime.
Checking under his rental and inside the trunk, Ben found no added devices, no carefully-taped explosives and no extra wires heading to the ignition. He took the opportunity to put the snow chains on – if they needed to make a fast getaway on this lot, he didn't want to have to stop and do it while they were running. A quick circuit of the house revealed nothing obvious. He hadn't seen any footprints at the front when they came back the previous afternoon, nor any new car tracks in the mud and snow, but then there hadn't been any fresh snow then, unlike now. It was quite likely they'd hidden their tire and footprints by driving carefully over his.
Nor had he spotted a car hidden near the cabin. Whoever it was may well have come out, gone through the house then left again. Panicked at the implication, he ran straight back to the under-house storage area, but the lock was in place and showed no signs of tampering. The food they'd eaten last night had come directly from town, but they'd had no ill effects from breakfast either, so either they had been lucky in their choices, or the supplies in the cabin hadn't been interfered with either. Yet. And the cabin hadn't been burned down or blown up. It made no sense.
Scanning the area around the cabin, he took note of the slight dip in the snow over the septic runoffs, and the snow starting to pile up around the chimney. Heading around the back, he verified that the covers to the water tanks were untouched and still covered in the last snowfall. A slight tang in the air gave him pause. There was no further sign of anyone else around the porch, but something was making his nose wrinkle. Turning slowly, he looked up the hill, and spotted a shape beside the woodpile.
His gun out, he made it up the hill in seconds and approached the pile with caution. There was something staining the snow and half-covered by the new fall; a form that might have once been a human being, but was now a sprawl of bones and blood and scraps of flesh. Ben sighed, realising what it was that the coyotes had been scavenging the night before. They usually wouldn't attack a live human being, but they wouldn't waste all this meat when it was just presented to them on a platter. But that meant the person had been dead when the coyotes came investigating.
Ben had seen plenty of dead bodies in his work. You didn't associate with the Mafia for four years without having to see the end result of some of the more gruesome deaths possible. After one particular incident involving Snoke and his deputies, Ben still found it difficult to use a power drill. Here, though, it seemed that most of the damage had been done post-mortem. While there was blood spilled on the snow, it was not spread any further than the pieces of body. No blood sprays, no great pools that would indicate a shooting, a stabbing … The body was face-down, and Ben reached down and pulled the shoulder until it rolled over. The face was still fairly intact, and frozen in a shape Ben had seen before. This person had died quickly and horribly. The hives over the cheeks, the improbably-swollen lips and eyelids, and the blue cast to the skin indicated some sort of allergic reaction that must have occurred rapidly.
The man was grasping a revolver in his gloved right hand, but it was what was on his left that answered the question. The head of a rattlesnake, blown off from the body part way down the neck, had embedded its fangs through the expensive leather and deep into the man's wrist, quite probably delivering the venom directly into his veins. Whether the head had been separated from the body before the bite or afterwards was a moot point – it had followed its natural instinct in either case and bitten hard. Usually rattlesnake bites affect the limb and become worse over a day, but some people were more sensitive than others.
Ben looked over the body again, searching for anything that would give him an idea who this was. There was no phone. The man's city overcoat and fine gloves gave him some clues, but the wallet proved it. Ben looked from the license to the man's swollen face and back at the picture, trying to see the similarities between the bloated features and the photograph. He knew the name – Gideon Hask – one of Snoke's minions who had joined the Family two years previously. He recognised the picture, but had trouble finding a resemblance to the corpse. Finally, Ben pocketed the wallet and left the body. There was little he could do until he called the whole situation in, and it wasn't the right time. Not yet. A slight slither from the woodpile reminded him that any threat might be enough to aggravate the occupants. He had no intention of falling victim to them as well. With the slowest of non-threatening movements, he withdrew from the scene of carnage. They would probably have more coyotes that night, and he had no inclination to drag the grisly carcass down the hill and stash it under the house. The effort would probably annoy the snakes, and he did not want to be near them for that. Besides, under the house, the rats would get to it, and that would be worse. And he needed the undercroft to be clear.
But the appearance of the body led to another question. Ben doubted anyone would have been dropped off at the turnoff and walked the mile and a half to the cabin. They must have been driven in, which implied a second person. He tried to remember what the man they saw in town looked like, but then he realised the timeline wouldn't match. For that person to have left someone out at the cabin and then be back in town to be seen by Rey without Ben noticing them driving onto the property was impossible.
But what if there were three?
The cold of the day struck him again, his trainers completely useless against the chill of the snow and his shoulders becoming damp. Ben scurried down the hill and banged on the back door, calling for Rey. She took a minute to reach him, opening the door and giving him a look that was part suspicion, part interest. He stumbled into the kitchen and around to the lounge room, shedding his trainers and leaning them against the fire screen. His socks, again soaked, were quickly removed and placed beside the others to dry, and he dragged on a finally-dry clean pair while Rey put more wood on the fire then crawled up beside him on the sofa. He noted that she was wearing her satchel. Clever girl. Woman.
"You found something." She used the statement as a probe.
"Before I tell you, I have to ask. When you put the food away last night, did you notice anything odd? Packets opened that hadn't been, or the bins left ajar?"
"It was all fine." She wrinkled her brow. "I think I would have seen if stuff was moved. But that means someone was here? All night? Watching us?"
"No, not watching us." He pulled out the wallet and held it for her to see. "Have you ever met this person?"
Rey looked over the photograph on the license. "I don't think so. I didn't tend to meet a lot of Poppy's lower ranks. I mean, I didn't even meet you until you turned up to bring me here, and you'd been working for him for years."
"Yeah, he tended to keep the two halves of his life pretty separate. It's a safety mechanism. If one part gets exposed, they can't betray the others." Ben stretched his toes out to the fire.
"Did you kill him?"
"No." Ben shook his head and took back the wallet. "He was already dead."
"Who?"
"The snakes. He must have been checking out the woodpile. Maybe to hide there until we came home."
"But we're still not safe."
"There must be others. One. Maybe two. They're not going to take his death very well, even if it was entirely his fault … what?"
Rey had gone still, her face so white he thought she was going to faint. "I know who the man in town was."
He put his arm around her, holding her until she was ready to speak, When she did, it was with the face of a young child, finding out that the world is not safe, not logical, not there to look after you.
"It was the lollipop man."
"From Maz's?"
"He must have worked for Poppy. I always thought he was from the Coucil. But that was fifteen years ago and I've not seen him since then." She looked dazed, and he held her tight. "I know what he was doing. I found out in school – we did a unit on genetics. He was getting my DNA."
"Probably. I can't see your grandfather accepting you without a test."
"But why did Poppy send someone to find me then? Why not earlier, when my parents died? But you said he wanted me dead then? Why?" She was tossing her head to and fro, seeking answers that were beyond her sight. "And why now?"
"I can tell you some of it." Ben stroked her head until she stilled, calmed into his arms. "You had an uncle. Your mother's brother. He was a part of Palpatine's operations, being groomed up to be the successor to the Family when the old man retired or died. His name was Dominic, although his nickname was Dooku. And he was an idiot. Nothing like you, or your mother." Ben kissed the top of Rey's head. "He thought he could take the position early by having your grandfather taken down. So he arranged to hand over a folder with enough evidence to put Palpatine into prison for life to a previous undercover agent."
"He got caught?"
"The agent was on the take, made sure word got back to Palpatine. Your uncle disappeared sixteen years ago."
Most likely uncle dear was now a part of the structural elements of the tunnel under Lapine Square – the works were going on at the time and there were enough huge concrete pours that wouldn't notice the addition of an extra inclusion. Ben had heard Pryde and some of the older Family members make the joke every time they drove the tunnel.
"Your grandfather lost his son, and he must have regretted arranging for the death of his daughter. He sent people over to Britain to find you, and they did."
"And now?"
"Now it's not your grandfather doing the searching. I don't think he has much power any more. The man up the hill was one of Snoke's. Your lollipop man may well be as well. And he won't be the only one."
"Are we safe here then?"
"We can't get out until this snow clears a bit. The car won't cope." He sighed. "The good thing is that no-one can get in either, or at least not easily. I think we stay here tonight, make sure the house is locked up as tightly as we can. The walls are too thick for them to shoot their way in. It's too cold, wet and massive for them to easily set on fire. I want to double-check our supplies, and show you something important. I know this weather – there's a warmer spell coming in. We should get rain shortly that'll help wash a lot of the snow away."
"I've made plans too."
"Tell me about them."
"Later." She reached up to kiss him, then pulled him off the couch. "We need to check the supplies."
To her obvious surprise, he led her not to the kitchen but to the stairs.
"Ever wondered why the fifth stair creaked, even though all the rest are solid as a rock?" He walked up onto it, and it make the expected groan.
She said nothing, glancing around the stairs then looking up at him expectantly. He stepped back down, reached under the stair lip on the far right side, then lifted.
The stair, and the riser below, lifted up in an arc, revealing a dark space below.
"Dad was a smuggler, back in the day. His father was a moonshine man. So Dad insisted on a hidden compartment." Ben closed the stair back down carefully, holding it just above its position then dropping it the last inch. It made a satisfying snick as it settled back into place. "Go far enough back, and there's a hole through the base that goes down to the foundations. Crawl around to where the tools are and you can reach the combination lock from the inside."
"You? I think you mean we." Rey ran her fingers along the stair tread until she found the latch. "If anything happens, we'll need to get away in the car, and I can't drive."
"All right then. We."
They hit the kitchen and went over the supplies, deciding that caution was a wise move. Using only those groceries Rey had bought the day before, they made a sketchy lunch. As the light disappeared under the rush of wind-blown snowflakes outside, Rey declared her inability to study under such conditions, and unearthed a jigsaw puzzle from the bottom of the lounge room cupboard. Spreading it out on the dining table, she commenced sorting the pieces by colour and shape, and Ben sat at the table to help, slowing turning the side pieces into a useable frame.
"I did this one already."
"Yeah, but twenty years ago. Did you finish it?"
He declined to answer, and the afternoon slipped by slowly, marked only by the dimming of the light outside and the gradual revealing of the picture, a pattern of blue butterflies. When he'd finally completed the wings of one large specimen, Ben stretched and groaned.
"This table is the wrong height for me."
"Yeah. And that's the third time I've tried to put that edge piece in the middle. I'm not thinking very well." Rey turned the piece in her fingers.
"Shall I put the light on?"
"Please. Then go make dinner, and I'll keep going."
He left her to it, and once more made use of the tinned soups. They abandoned the jigsaw, and drank the soup from mugs while curled up in front of the fire with only the flames to light themselves up.
"Do you think … Will his friends come back tonight?"
"I have no idea."
"Do we sleep?"
"In shifts. We need to have one of us alert just in case."
"Then I'm sleeping with you." Rey's face was determined, and he did not want to deny her.
"Just sleeping."
"I know. We can't get distracted." She put her mug down. "It would be terrible if we were doing anything when they showed up."
"Such as?" Ben put his own mug down as Rey reached her arms up around his neck.
"Well, just in case, we should probably sleep in our clothes. And we definitely shouldn't be kissing. That could lead to things."
"Definitely." He leaned down and touched her lips with his own. "And besides, I think you're stressed. I have a plan."