I found myself in the dark hallways of the processing facility on Kadavo, the smell of ash and smog, and the putrid stench of rotting flesh filling my nose. I ran from room to room, sprinting down the hallways, through doors, finding each one empty.

The corridor ended at a dark doorway that slowly opened as I approached, and I darted inside, skidding to a stop when I saw her, laying on her side in a growing pool of blood.

I screamed for her, rushing forward, falling to my knees at her side. My hands were trembling as I moved her matted hair out of her face, her vacant eyes unfocused as they stared at nothing.

No breath. No pulse. No light.

I clutched her lifeless form to me, sobbing into her chest, begging her, pleading with her. No. No. No. No. No. Rey, please. Please.

My hands were wet, and I looked up to see them shining with dark red blood.

With Rey's blood.

I screamed, jolting awake. My chest heaved as I brought my hands up, seeing that, though they were shaking and covered in cold sweat like the rest of me, no red marked my stark white skin.

My throat was raw, my hair soaked and sticking to my face, my neck, my shoulders as I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to tell myself it was a dream.

Rey's wide, hollow eyes stared back at me, and I sprang up, falling off the bed and slamming into the wall before I hurtled into the refresher, and heaved into the toilet.

There was nothing, I couldn't remember the last time I'd actually eaten, but I retched again and again and again, hugging the cool sides. When it subsided, I fell onto my side, my bare skin against the chill tile floor as I focused on my breathing, my chest too tight to take enough air in.

Dream. It was a dream.

The woman we'd found wasn't Rey. The body we'd found wasn't Rey. But, that meant she was still out there, it meant I hadn't found her. The weight of my guilt was so heavy, I was convinced it would crush me. For a moment, I wished it would, and free me from the pain of not having her, of not protecting her as I swore to, of knowing that I loved her, and that a stupid promise that I'd made about a dead man had kept me from saying it to her.

I knew myself well enough to know that I was unraveling, and that my method of self medication was costing me more than I could afford. But, the guilt, the regret, the worry, it all mangled together into pain that I felt in every fiber of my being. Every sharp gasp of breath was like a lash against my chest, cutting jagged lines into my already hemorrhaging heart.

It was agony that I couldn't handle.

My arms trembled as I pushed myself up, the pain in my head throbbing so I thought it would explode. I put my feet under me, holding on to the wall as I stood, and forced my legs to move forward, toward the bottle on my nightstand.

There was a part of me, deep in the depths of my battered conscious that knew that when this bottle was empty, I'd go to the next, and the next after that, and Rey would still be gone. Hux's demented thoughts would still plague me, as would the knowledge that I was slowly losing my brothers respect. This poison was just a bandaid over a festering wound, only numbing me enough to barely function.

I grabbed the bottle by the neck and turned it up.

After a shower, I was informed that the girl we'd saved on Kadavo had woken up, and was asking to see me. When I approached the door, I found Ap'lek waiting for me.

"Only a handful of women have been allowed in." He told me. "She's too terrified of men to even let the doctors near her without going into a fit."

"But, she asked to see me?" I asked.

He nodded once. "You, specifically."

I looked at the door and swallowed, before turning the knob and stepping inside.

The sterile smell of antiseptic greeted me, and she stirred, her large brown eyes widening when she saw me. I closed the door, and pressed my back to it, trying to put as much space between us as possible. The bacta had healed most of her injuries, though there would be permanent nerve damage to her face from being left untreated in the cold for so long.

I cleared my throat. "I will arrange transport to anywhere you'd like to go, when you're well enough. When you're ready."

No response. No indication that she'd even heard me.

"Home." I said. "Wherever home is, if you want. Or, if you want to stay on Dantooine, I'll arrange an apartment for you, and anything else you may need."

She stared at me, utterly still. I wasn't even sure she was breathing.

"Alright, well." I pushed myself off of the door, and grabbed the handle.

"F-fifty-s-six." She said, her voice cracking from obvious damage to her vocal cords.

Fifty-six? The day Rey was taken, I kissed her, and the last thing I'd said to her was fifty-five. My stupid fucking number game that she'd let me use so that I could avoid actually telling her that i loved her. A chill ran through me, and I gasped, turning to face her. "How do you know that?"

"S-she t-told us." The woman croaked.

I braced myself against the wall behind me to keep from falling over.

"T-told us y-you w-were c-coming." She held up her hand, offering it to me, her eyes shining with what she couldn't say.

I stepped forward and took it, her cold fingers wrapping around mine.

Her mind was frail, a chaotic mess of people and places, but she focused on her memory of Rey in the middle of a circle of women.

"Zaugustus has already started to evaluate the facility." She whispered. "If any of you are able to get away, Kylo is coming. Tell him where we are."

"He won't believe us." One girl said.

"He will." Rey promised, and then sadness clouded her eyes. "Ask for him, tell him fifty-six, and give him your hand. He'll see."

I pulled away, and took several steps back, needing my thoughts to be my own so that I could process. She'd looked exactly as I'd last seen her, with clean streaks down her face. But, the thing that was different, the thing that answered what I'd been driving myself crazy trying to figure out for the past two weeks, was the thick silver choker around her neck.

That son of a bitch put a collar on her, a black market suppression collar to block her abilities. That's why I couldn't feel her in the Force, that's how he'd been able to vanish with her.

"Where?" I asked, looking back up at the woman.

"Zygerria." She rasped. "B-but I will g-give y-ou the n-name of ev-ery p-planet in h-his ring."