*trigger warning: sexual assault*

"Ky! Ky! Just listen to me! Listen! Please!" Ap'lek jumped in front of me, his arms outstretched, showing me his palms.

I stepped around him. He had her. Hux had her. He was married to her, and the Official had drugged her before handing her over, Ushar had seen it. The million thoughts in my head of what he'd could've done to her, what he may have been doing to her would've made me sick if I'd eaten anything the past few days.

"Ky, please!" Ap'lek pleaded, matching my furious steps. "If you go to Arkanis, you are going to kill him."

"You're godsdamned fucking right I am." I growled, not slowing.

"Ky, stop." He jumped in front of me, again. "If you kill him and steal his wife-"

I snarled, baring my teeth.

"She's his wife on paper, Ky." He reminded me. "And, if you go there, if you take her, and you kill him, it will start a war, Ky. It will start a galactic war, not just with Arkanis, but with Cyrilla. Please, Ky, just think."

I was past thinking.

"You're not stopping me." I said, more threat in my voice than I'd ever used with him.

His blond eyebrows furrowed. "I'm not trying to stop you."

But, that did make me stop. "Then, what are you saying?"

"We can't take the Buzzard, we can't take a ship with your insignia." He said. "If anyone knows we're there, we're done. Have Ushar teleport us in, we get Rey, we get out."

"Ushar can't teleport that far, not carrying all of us."

"Then have Kuruk orbit just off of their radar, and he can take us down one by one. But, we have to leave Hux alive."

I growled and Ap'lek sighed. "After we have her back, and things settle down, you can go in and turn his mind to liquid, leave him drooling on himself for the rest of his existence, but Ky, if anything happens to him now, it will be traced back to you."

The ability to detach from his emotions to rationalize. That was what made Ap'lek a better King than I'd ever be.

Ushar landed us in a darkened corner of the grand ballroom, and began talking to the shadows in a hushed whisper.

I looked around. There were two massive staircases on either side. One led to the north wing, the other to the south. I didn't know where to start, which way to go.

I cleared my mind, reaching out, looking for her signature in the Force, and my eyes immediately popped open, looking to my left. There. Upstairs. In a bedroom down the hall. Not the ripple of her potential, but an ice cold, violent surge of...her.

Her power.

Terror and dread sluiced through me, ratcheting up my heartbeat as it pounded in my ears.

I launched myself toward the southern staircase, Ap'lek's steps close behind me as we hit the stairs and raced up, taking them two at a time. We reached the landing of the second level, and I pushed myself to run faster, until I slammed into the closed and locked door that had her essence behind it.

One swift kick, and the frame buckled, wood splintering as it flew open.

"Rey!" I screamed, scanning the room for her. The bed was empty, the duvet rumpled, but still in place.

Ap'lek rushed past me into the adjoined bathing room, then the closet, and the study, calling her name.

She'd fought. Pieces of a lamp were scattered about, and a chair was overturned, but every thought went out of my head when I bent down and picked a piece of blue organza off of the floor. It was a large piece ripped from the gown she'd been wearing the last time I saw her, and it was smeared with blood. Fear tightened my chest, so broad and so vast that I couldn't breathe.

She'd fought him with every scrap of strength she had, and it hadn't been enough. Her power had been unleashed, no doubt a reflex to the threat, to protect her, its blast still resonating in the Force like the glowing coals of a destructive blaze.

Ap'lek came back, his face pale. "She's not here."

"Ushar." I called, standing. He was by my side in an instant. "Where is he?" I asked, staring at the blood on the shimmering fabric at my feet. I didn't wait for an answer. "Take me to him."

The next second, we were in a sitting room, and I spotted him, seated in a chair facing a window, a short glass full of what had to be bourbon by the smell of it.

I hurled myself for him, but Ushar's hand glowing faintly purple on my shoulder stopped me. 'We have to know where she is.' He said, through the Force.

"Ut-oh." Hux crooned, the ice clinking as he swirled his glass. "It's the ex." He brought it up to take a drink.

"Where is she?" I demanded, wrath and undiluted terror making my voice guttural.

"Why don't you look into my head?" He asked, lowering his arm onto the rest.

Because I knew what I would find, and when I saw what he'd done to her, I'd destroy him, and reduce this palace to a pile of rubble before Ushar and Ap'lek would be able to stop me. They'd been able to keep me contained when I'd learned that Rey was gone, but barely. Ap'lek still had burns on his hands from my blast.

"C'mon, Kylo. Just one little peek." He taunted, looking over his shoulder at me, and I saw deep, angry scratches that began at his hairline, and ran down to his jaw. "You know that little noise she makes right before she cums?" He smiled. "That's my favorite."

My power rumbled, a behemoth tied to the fear and anguish ripping through my chest.

'Keep it together, Ky.' Ushar said, the shield under his palm glowing brighter.

"Where. Is. She." I repeated, and the decanter beside him started to rattle.

He put the glass down with a heavy sigh. "Well, since you won't look, I'll show you." He said, pushing himself up to stand.

"Don't." I warned, begged, some desperate mix of the two.

He turned. The scratches continued down his neck where they joined several set of others that disappeared under the collar of his shirt. His green eyes burned with cruel amusement as his unshielded mind sent his memory into my head of Rey bent over the desk in his bedroom, of him lifting her skirts and fumbling with the buckle of his belt.

The glass of the window behind him shattered, and blew out. I doubled over with a dry heave, my power gathering as the floor shook beneath me. He'd had his forearm across her shoulders, the weight of him holding her down.

Shadows pounced on him as the purple glow shifted from me, to him, and Ushsr was there, between us, holding that shield over Hux to stop his onslaught of memories. He went rigid, his back arching as Ushar lifted his hand, shadows skittering to the corners of the room.

The door burst open and I heard Ap'lek scream my name.

Hux smiled down at me, and I knew. I knew what he was thinking without having to see or hear it. "How does it feel?" He asked, voice straining against Ushars hold. "Knowing that I took the best thing that's ever happened to you?"

The room abruptly stilled as I reached out, reached into him with the Force.

"Kylo! No!" Ap'lek screamed.

I curled my fingers, and Hux went pale, his eyes going wide, his mouth falling open in a silent scream of pain.

"Like this." I gritted between clenched teeth, and yanked my fist back, his heart erupting out of his chest in a spray of gore and blood.