The manacles still hurt my wrists. There is still torture. The pain Kylo Ren inflicts on me is unimaginable. Sometimes when I scream I see him flinch. Maybe what he offered me to take over the universe together he craved the belonging as much as I had.
It is cold in my cell. I don't remember when he stopped hurting me with the electricity. But I am sobbing so hard my eyes burst with colors. I can't see and I can barely feel. But as I cry I realize I am crying into something. Did he take off my bindings?
No. I still can't move.
But as sight comes back to my eyes I see that he is close to me, he has untied my head and I am sobbing on his shoulder. His arms are around my shoulder and neck. His hands hold me tightly as if I am going to slip away from him.
Honestly I couldn't pull away from him even if I wanted to.
"Why did you have to scream like that?" he is telling me, over and over again those words echo in my ear. I mumble back into his cape.
"Like what?"
"Like you were screaming for me. Like it isn't my fault." He answered. I am less numb now, I am more coherent. I don't really understand what he is saying. I was screaming because it hurt like hell. I was screaming because I wanted it to stop. I try to look up at his face, and as I do a single teardrop falls onto my cheek and slides down with the rest of the tears. But this tear wasn't mine. It was his.
"Honestly Rey, I don't know how much more of this I can take." He tells me. He is crying. For a second I find humor in that. He can't take much more of my being tortured.
"Then let me go." I say quietly. "We can run away from here. We can kill Snook." His grip tightens on me and his body stiffens.
"You would do that, you would help me?"
"If you would come back towards the light," I tell him.
"Don't ask me to be on the side of Luke Skywalker, don't ask me to be on the side of the light."
"I'm not asking you to be," I tell him. "I am asking Ben to." He yanks away from me. I can see the betrayal laced in his eyes.
"I killed Ben because he was weak." Kylo hisses at me. "You don't make this deal with him, you make this deal with me."
"I will never make a deal with you." I spit. I try to stand to my full height. "I will only deal with Ben." Kylo raised his hand to strike me and I stare unflinching into his eyes.
"But Ben is dead. Ben was weak, I destroyed him to make room for me."
"Ben has always been stronger." I tell him. I wish he would just strike me, seeing his hand up in the air ready frightens me more than the blow would.
"Why do you say such things?" he asks quietly. And his hand slowly goes down to his side.
"Because it is true. You would have never gotten this far without Ben." He is searching my eyes now, trying to tell what I mean. I can see he is confused. I figure Snook whispered the lies to him that Ben was weak. Luke was right telling me Ben was who was strong. He was always strong. A tear slides down his cheek and I watch it fall to his cape.
"That is a lie." He says so quietly I almost don't hear him. It is like he is trying to reassure himself. I lean forward, but I can't get very far with the manacles.
"You know it's not." I say gently. "Snook is using you, he is using Kylo Ren because Ben is too strong for him to control. That is why Snook tells you Kylo is the better because he cannot lead Ben." I can see he wants to believe me. He is studying the floor and I can tell he really wants it to be true. He looks up into my eyes and for a split second I see him: I see Ben and who he used to be, I see it is not Kylo Ren's tears on his cheeks. They are his. For a split second I can see Han clapping him on the back and ruffling his hair. I hear Han's voice: "Alright Champ, what's all this about delusions of grandeur and thinking you're a Jedi?"
I am back in the present as Ben slowly fades into Kylo Ren's hard angry face.
"You are wrong." He says. I am angry at him, I could scream at him for being so stupid. But I don't, I sink back into the torture chair and heave a heavy sigh.
"I wish I was. It would hurt you less." I turn my eyes away from him and close them. I feel his body come closer to mine, and a gloved hand gently pushes a curl away from my forehead.
"It would hurt less." He tells me with a shaking voice. "But I can't stop it. I have gone too far, Ben cannot come back." I turn to look at him and his face is inches from mine.
"It is never too late to come back to the light." I tell him quietly.
"I want you to be right." He says back in a whisper. I look into his eyes. I can't stop looking into them. I want to tell him it is right, and that I can save him.
I think he is turning to go, but he can't move his feet the way he wants too. He looks over at me, his hand waves out in front of him. My manacles fall off. I have no energy to stand, I simply fall out of the chair and into his arms.
He sweeps me into his strong arms.
"You might not be right," he tells me. "But I am not going to let you suffer anymore." I close my eyes and grip his cloak weakly. I faint in his arms.