Rey didn't bother with an answer. She ripped her hand out of Hux's grasp and ran flat out in the direction of the nearest fresher, barely making it before her stomach contents expelled themselves at speed, leaving her heaving only bile. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, bowing under the pressure of her thoughts until the cool metal grille of the floor cushioned her cheek. It was a visceral kind of sadness. Where excitement had once stirred in her belly, now there was nothing but nausea; betrayal and grief churned her guts. Tears slipped unnoticed down her cheeks to pool in glinting splashes.
Nothing she had been told was true. The trust she had been so wary of giving was smashed underfoot. Ben had lied to her, looked her in the face and lied over and over again. He had never wanted a second chance, never wanted to repent and come back to the light, his only desire had been a selfish one – to have her at his side at all costs. The part that made her really sick was knowing that had he not proven to be unfaithful, had he not been revealed as the lying snake he was, she would probably have ended up at his side anyway. She had slept with him, she was more than halfway to loving him and she'd believed he loved her back. Now she was certain that he didn't.
What Ben felt wasn't love – this was obsession. This was an emotion so selfish it didn't care what she wanted, it didn't care that some monster in the darkness had pried around in her mind to read her thoughts. Maybe he had done more than that. Kylo's new master had said he might be able to make Rey 'more receptive', whatever that meant.
She pushed herself up on one elbow. What had been done to her mind? How far had this malign influence spread? Was it possible that the reason she had initiated that very first kiss between them on his flagship, the reason she had rushed into taking her clothes off in an attempt to seduce him was that Darth Vader had poked around in her thoughts to make her 'more receptive'? Was that the reason she had gone to bed with his grandson in the first place – why she had run out into a hotel corridor and begged him to stay with her?
Her cheeks flamed with the memory and she sat up straight against the wall. She was a victim here. She had been betrayed, let down at every turn by someone she had trusted, someone she had allowed into her heart and into her body, someone who had never deserved anything she'd given him. Now she saw him for who he really was, a weak, pathetic man, so desperate for affection he would prostrate himself at the feet of a monster to get what he wanted. Kylo Ren was vulnerable to a specific type of persuasion, but Rey wasn't the only one to have seen this – his dark side puppeteers were well aware of his vulnerabilities too.
She lifted her chin. He would never have the chance to hurt her like this again. Anything she had felt for him was a lie, manufactured by the dark side, put in her head to manipulate her and she locked it up, sank the grief in a place so deep it would never surface. No one would ever have the chance to hurt her like this again. She was used to be being alone and she needed no one.
She scrambled to her feet. The sickness inside her curdled, calcified, became a hard lump of anger in her guts. She couldn't hate him – he was too pitiful to deserve her hatred and that would only lead to a place too dark for her to go. But she could seek retribution. She could ensure he made amends for his mistakes. Kylo Ren would pay for what he had done, and he would pay in blood and in pain. She might not be able to kill him, but she could certainly make him hurt, even worse than he had hurt her.
She keyed the door of the fresher, strode out into the corridor full of a new resolution. The sound of raised voices drifting from the passenger cabin halted her in her tracks.
'How do you know that? Have you asked her about contraception? That's not the sort of conversation I'd dare have with a Jedi.'
'She slept with him. Even if she isn't pregnant she's already compromised. She can't be trusted.' Rey recognised Rose's voice.
'You can't seriously be suggesting we get rid of our most effective weapon?' Poe sounded incredulous.
'She's not a weapon. She's my friend, and she isn't going anywhere.' Finn's loyalty could always be counted on.
'I'm not suggesting getting rid of anyone. All I'm saying is that maybe she should take a break until we can sort all of this out. We're in a mess. There's a fleet in the Unknown Regions too well equipped for us to destroy, our enemy knows the location of all of our major bases and our headquarters and we've got a couple of hours to work out how to stop our armada and all our allies from being totally obliterated.' Perhaps Rose was just being realistic – she sounded perfectly reasonable.
'That's exactly why we need Rey. We can't win without her.' Rey could imagine the stubborn set of Finn's jaw.
'I don't think we can win with her. Didn't you watch that recording? She's had Darth Vader in her head – who knows what he put there? That might be why she keeps giving away our location. That might be why she nearly crashed that Dreadnaught and froze the oceans on Dorumaa. That might be why she ran off and slept with Ren. Maybe she's been brainwashed onto the dark side and she doesn't even know it. I'm not blaming her, I just don't think we can trust her.'
Poe said, 'She nearly didn't come with me when we left Dorumaa. She wanted to go back and save him. I almost had to drag her onto the ship. I didn't push her into bed with him Finn, honestly I didn't. That was her decision, and she doesn't seem to regret it.'
'She's always been a bit… different,' Kaydel spoke up suddenly. 'She scares me sometimes.'
'That's just because she's so powerful. As long as she keeps it under control there's no need to be scared. She's never threatened any of us, has she?' Finn was trying to be loyal, but Rey didn't entirely care for his desire to assure people she thought of as friends that she wasn't a threat.
'I don't think she's under control, Finn.' Rose sounded resigned. 'You saw what happened on Pasaana. It was obvious she was calling Ren and she didn't even know she was doing it. She hasn't been right since Leia died. I think we're putting her under too much pressure. I think she should go away for a while until she recovers. It might be better for her.'
'It might be better for everyone,' Poe too sounded like he was coming to a decision. 'We're going to be fighting the First Order soon, I need to know I can count on everyone without question. If Rey needs time to get her head straight then we should give her all the time she needs. She's our friend, we owe her that.'
There was a long silence, broken by Finn. 'Where do you suggest she goes?'
Rey's shoulders slumped briefly, until she caught sight of Hux lurking around the bend of the corridor, eyeing her with interest. He padded over on silent feet.
'Don't blame them,' he whispered. 'This isn't their fault.' He tapped at his pad for a minute. 'Kylo Ren is on Kef Bir.'
Rey nodded to herself. The location didn't matter, should she want to she could find him wherever he was in the galaxy, what mattered was what she was going to do when she saw him again. She took a deep breath and checked the position of the two lightsabers on her belt, the only friends she needed. Then she strode into the cabin, Hux close on her heels.
'I'm going away,' she announced, before the guilt on their faces could fully recede. 'It's better for everyone. I'll go back to Ahch-To - maybe I can get in touch with Master Luke. I have some things to think about.'
Finn opened his mouth as if to lodge a protest and then closed it again. Rey felt tears prickle her eyes. 'How long will you be gone?' he asked.
She shrugged. 'As long as it takes. Drop me off at the nearest base and I'll borrow a ship.'
'I'm going with her,' Hux made it sound like no one else had any say in the matter.
'You're going nowhere. We need every piece of information on the First Order we can get, so right now, you're my new best friend.'
Hux took a few steps closer to Poe and turned over the collar of his uniform, pointing out something that only the other General could see. 'The Order already know where I am. The longer I stay with you, the more danger you're in. I suggest you let me out as soon as possible.'
Poe swore under his breath. 'Damn trackers. Rose, find us a good place to leave Rey. General Hugs, let me introduce you to the escape pods. You'll be getting to know one of them quite well.' He marched the other man away down the corridor.
Rey followed, returning to the room she used without meeting anyone's gaze, slung her belongings into a bag and straightened her bunk. No one knocked on the door to say goodbye. No one came to tell her how sorry they were she was leaving, or to try to talk her out of it. Words skulked through her memory, and although she chased them away, they kept coming back. Eventually they will turn on you, they will abandon you, they will cast you out. He had warned her, the traitor she had trusted, and his doleful voice echoed in her head. You think you're part of something now but you don't really fit in. You'll always be alone. She didn't want him to be right, and she'd thought when he'd said these things to her only yesterday, that she was invincible – her life was going to be so different from the way his had gone that she could only feel pity for him. A day later she was packing and it was all his fault.
She had no intention of running back to the Jedi temple, no intention of raising Luke's ghost and admitting that she'd spread her legs for his nephew and lived to regret it. This was a problem she'd have to solve herself.
The Falcon landed on an outpost whose name she didn't know and didn't care enough to find out. There was a quick embrace from the Resistance hierarchy, none of whom could properly meet her gaze, some muttered farewells and half hearted promises to check in in a few days and then she hopped in a surplus transport and set a course for Kef Bir. She was numb. She ate, she drank, she slept, but she felt nothing, tasted nothing, dreamt of nothing. She went through the motions of her life mechanically, because she had no energy left for anything else. It took all the resolve she had just to maintain the walls she'd put in place. She didn't want to think. She didn't want to feel. She wanted only to seek justice, to watch him make amends for his crimes and then forget the whole sorry episode.
Sensors in her ship picked up the signature of First Order technology as she approached the moons of Endor, although the signal was nearly lost in the confused blur of a pattern which was similar to that of the ruling military but subtly different. The closer she got the clearer the distinction became, a visual scan indicating the presence of the Supreme Leader's command shuttle perched on wreckage far out in the middle of an ocean, wreckage so vast it reduced the ship to an insignificant speck. There was only one life form present, which would make this task less complicated. Rey had no wish to land her craft next to his, and no desire to pilot it over the waves after she'd completed her mission so she searched for the nearest landmass to the wreck and parked there instead.
She stood behind the pilot's chair for a second before she departed, tightened the arrangement of her hair, loosened the sabers on her belt, pulled up her boots and checked her reflection. Although pale, her face betrayed no sign of weakness, and the determination in her eyes did not falter as she peeled off a leaf of memory and concentrated on Kylo Ren. This memory was as fresh as yesterday morning, from the moment she'd collapsed panting on his chest, his heartbeat thundering in her ear, the smell of his sweat on her skin, the hot warmth of his orgasm seeping between her legs.
She focused and the blur of travel through the Force clouded her eyes for a brief moment.
She ignored the black cloaked back immediately in front of her, scanned the room for entrances and exits, tactical advantages and threats. She was in front of a large round window, its supports broken or missing; the entire floor beneath it sloped sharply downwards. The remains of a chair base were visible to her left hand, the wiring exposed under the seat, one of a slew of bits of equipment thrown in an untidy pile around the edges of the room.
Ben turned, and she reminded herself sternly that he was not Ben, she had never known Ben, this person was an enemy to her, and a dangerous enemy at that. He didn't look much like an enemy though, because his head jerked up the minute she materialised and when he turned, his face collapsed into relief, his arms opening as he approached with hurried steps.
'Where have you been? Why did you leave? I went back to your room and you'd gone and I…'
She ignited her lightsaber, the blue light directly under his chin and he pulled up short, frowning. 'Rey? Are you alright?'
'I spoke to Hux.' She made sure her voice was level, unemotional. 'He was the mole.'
He became very still, very quickly, his dark eyes fastening on her face.
'He showed me a recording of what happened when you met your grandfather.'
The blue light cast his features into unfamiliar relief, the mouth she'd kissed forming an ugly line, his expression that of a stranger. He dropped his hands, but didn't draw his own blade, swaying fractionally closer to the death she had pushed against his throat instead.
'You're here to kill me.' He didn't sound concerned. 'You can't, and I'm not going to fight you. We should discuss this like rational adults.'
He didn't seem to realise the danger he was in this time, how swift the justice he was facing. He knew she couldn't kill him outright, and he also knew that any pain she caused him would reflect straight back on her. But he'd underestimated the extent to which she cared about the consequences, the extent to which the threat of physical pain could influence her to do anything, when the hurt he'd already caused was so extreme. Nothing that happened now could possibly be worse than what he'd already done. And besides, she always had other options.
She closed in, pressing her advantage, the hum of certain death filling her ears. She felt the temptation build, a voice somewhere inside her urging her on. If the Force bond was as rare as he'd said, how could anyone possibly know what would happen if one partner tried to murder the other – how could anyone be sure? In just one strike she could decapitate him and there would be no pain, relatively little mess, just a few short seconds and the whole thing would be over and she could go back to her old life and forget he'd ever happened. Everyone she knew wanted him dead, she'd be doing the galaxy a service. She might even get a medal.
The bulk of his chest filled her vision. Up close, he smelled of oil and rust, the sharp tang of old metal filling her nostrils from whatever he'd been handling in the wreckage. His hair fell into twisted patterns, framing the flat planes of his cheeks, the scattering of freckles across the pale skin familiar. She bared her teeth, the weapon so close to his neck that if he swallowed he'd do the job for her, but he didn't move, didn't speak. He looked at her with eyes that held no fear, only remorse and in the corner of her vision she was aware of his arm raising, slowly and carefully, unthreateningly, until a fingertip pressed to the back of her hand.
The bond wrapped her in its comforting embrace, bringing with it a power and a certainty that both supported and soothed. This wasn't a stranger she faced, but someone who knew her inside and out, someone who would stand by her no matter what, someone with whom she shared tremendous power. There was no need for argument between them, together they had a connection that no one else would ever know. She couldn't stand against it, couldn't retain her focus in the face of the link between them, however much she might want to try for retribution and without a conscious decision her posture sagged and her arm fell to her side.
He released a long held breath and stepped back as she replaced her lightsaber on her belt and she could tell from the way his shoulders relaxed that he thought the threat had been averted. But the Force bond wasn't the only power she possessed. It wasn't her only option. There was another way.
She unclipped the Sith blade from her belt.