CHAPTER THREE
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Rey can't sleep. She lies in bed, her own loneliness and Ben's restlessness keeping her awake. She can sense him, a cold presence in the Force, pulsing with every beat of his heart. His pain is sharp, his guilt suffocating, and she closes her eyes against feelings not her own.
She gets out of bed, dresses, and heads downstairs. Flashes her security clearance card at the guards and presses her thumb to the print-scanners. Rey hesitates when she reaches the door to his cell. With so little space separating them, she can feel Ben strongly now. Senses the hope and interest that flares within him when he realizes she's come to see him.
Rey opens the door and steps inside the clinical, colorless cell, so spare and spartan, brightened by white lights. She can't help but remember the last time she visited Ben. How she saw him naked, his strong body damp from a shower. Every inch of him was beautiful: his powerful shoulders, lean stomach, long legs. Just thinking of that sight makes her shift where she stands, suddenly uneasy.
He's pacing his cell, that commanding stride of his made purposeless by confinement.
"I need you to go to sleep," Rey says. "I can't rest with you awake and worrying yourself sick."
"Don't you think I would if I could?" he asks.
"You know what you have to do; you just don't want to do it." Rey takes a wary step toward him, then another, carefully closing the space between them. "Cooperate with us and you can bargain for your freedom."
He stands still, lets her invade his personal space, wary but wanting. A scant few inches separate them now, and Rey feels a confusing mix of his emotions and hers, made more prominent by their proximity. She touches his chest, presses her hand to his heart and savors its rapid beat against her palm.
Ben's breathing grows staggered, and she can sense him weakening. Rey knows with a strange sort of certainty that it's tenderness, not brutality, that might break him. This is why she stands up on the tips of her toes and kisses his neck. It has nothing to do with her own want. It's strategy, not yearning, that drives her to taste his fragile pulse point, to suck at the sensitive skin of his throat until he gasps.
"Please," he begs, but Rey doesn't know whether he's asking her to stop or keep going.
She slips a hand underneath his grey shirt, splays her fingers across his stomach, and marvels at the heat of him. Plays with the coarse hair below his navel, then follows the trail of it down to the hem of his pants. Ben bucks against her, panting. "You're crueler than I realized," he whimpers.
He's such a beautiful wreck, cheeks flushed and lips parted, shivering under her hands. What a mess she's made of him with so little effort.
Rey touches his thigh and finds him hard, cock straining against the fabric of his pants. For a moment she feels a surge of power and a warmth low in her belly that's startlingly similar to lust.
But then she remembers what it actually feels like to have a man inside of her, and before she can push it away, she's remembering a cold night on the outskirts of Niima Outpost: the bruising strength of that scavenger's fingers digging into her hips, his rough thrusts and heavy breathing, the white stars looking down on the violation of her body like a thousand unforgiving eyes.
Rey scrambles away from Ben on unsteady legs and asks, "Are you going to talk or not?"
He gazes at her with such undisguised desire that it thrills and frightens her. "No," he says. Maybe he means to sound defiant, but all Rey hears is breathless brokenness in that one word.
She leaves, hurries from the cell before she does something even more foolish. Once two floors and a dozen doors stand between them, Rey rests against the wall of a disused room and beats her fist against the duracrete.
What's wrong with her? She put her hands on that monster. Kissed his neck and caressed his stomach. Made him hard and enjoyed doing it. If she hadn't been so forcefully reminded of the man she sold herself to back on Jakku, she doesn't know what she might have done.
Now Rey shifts, uncomfortable, because her sex throbs with want. She feels too guilty to ease the ache with her own fingers, but she's wet between her legs, wet for Ben. She finds herself whispering his name aloud, just for the simple pleasure of tasting it again.
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Rey keeps away from Ben, but she still feels him in the Force with relentless awareness. No matter how she tries to clear her mind, to meditate or focus mindfully on a task the way Luke taught her, she can't stop sensing his mercurial moods, his roiling emotions. He's like a live wire, charged with energy, as dangerous as he is powerful.
She resists for a full week before returning to his cell. It's the middle of the day this time—not that it much matters ten levels below ground, in a windowless room brightened by lights that never dim. Rey wonders how he keeps time down here, or if he even tries.
Ben stirs from sleep when the metal door slides open. She knows because she can feel his presence blooming into wakefulness, but he doesn't turn over to face her. Just remains settled on his side, those long legs of his curled up in an incongruously childlike manner. He's a bit too big for the cot that's been given to him, and Rey takes stock of the other petty cruelties that have been built into this cell. The toilet and 'fresher shielded only by transparisteel stalls, no doubt meant to shame this prideful man. How the air stays too cold for comfort, while his stiff mattress is relieved by neither a blanket nor a pillow. And, of course, the stark whiteness of the ever-brightened lights, chasing away any hope for restful sleep.
Rey approaches him, says his name. Ben keeps quiet and still, even though he must know that he can't feign sleep. Not with her. She touches his shoulder, and at the contact he stiffens.
"Come to bother me again?" he asks, still facing the wall.
"I'm tired of this," Rey says. "I want you out of my head."
Out of my heart.
Ben finally sits up, faces her. He sets his feet on the floor, long legs on either side of her, and before she can step away, he wraps a strong arm around her waist, holding her in place.
"You always come alone," he says. "Even my mother brings an entourage when she visits. But not you."
It's difficult to focus on his words when she can feel his fingers slipping beneath her shirt, caressing her back.
"I don't need protection from you," she says.
"You're right," he whispers. "You don't."
Ben rests his head on her chest, his cheek pressed to her softness, and she knows he can feel the racing beat of her heart. Rey runs her fingers through his thick hair, cradles him against her breast. He holds her between his hands, his thumbs teasing the crests of her hipbones, his fingers splayed across her bottom. Maybe the intimacy of this embrace ought to frighten her, but it doesn't. She already feels the inner workings of his heart every moment of every day, and nothing could be more intimate than that.
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Leia must know about Rey's visits to her son's cell, but the general doesn't remark upon it. She's thankful for this, because she doesn't know how she might explain her daily treks to the bottom floor of the base. How she could justify spending hours at a time with Ben in the middle of the night, talking, kissing, simply holding one another close. She still tries to convince him to cooperate with the Resistance, but this is no longer the purpose of her visits. Now it's the selfish desire to feel his arms around her that drives her to his cell.
Tonight, she's beneath him on his hard cot, because there isn't room for them to lie side by side. Ben kisses her neck, his full lips soft and teasing. She's still startled by how gentle he can be, this man who's known throughout the galaxy for his violence. Rey wraps her legs around his waist, runs her hands beneath his shirt, feeling the strength of his broad back.
Ben's mouth wanders lower, sucks at the curve of her breast until a red bruise blushes on her sensitive skin. She should chastise him for marking her, but Rey can't bring herself to do it. He has no influence beyond the confines of this cell, and she can't blame him for wanting her to carry some evidence of their embraces into the outside world.
"Rey," he murmurs, his breath hot against her. "I want you."
There's no mistaking his meaning, not with his cock pressing hard between her legs.
This isn't how she'd prefer it to be, with Ben dressed in prisoner's grey, on a bed too small and stiff for comfort, those damned lights so bright and exposing. But Rey wants him too, and she's tired of waiting.
She pulls her shirt over her head, then her breast-band. The cold air makes her nipples harden, and goose flesh stipples her skin, but somehow she's still flushed, feverish with need. Ben pulls her pants over her hips, down her legs, then off of her. Hooks his fingers beneath the fabric of her plain underwear and asks, "Can I?"
Rey nods, takes a deep breath, and lets him remove her panties. She's utterly naked beneath a clothed man for the second time in her life, and memories of her last encounter are too close at hand for her to relax. She looks at Ben, at his scarred face, still so handsome, to remind herself of where she is and who she's with.
He puts a hand between her legs and caresses her, his large fingers rubbing slow circles on her sex, sending shocks of pleasure through her with every touch. Rey whimpers and bucks up against him, needing more, needing everything he can give.
She pulls at his shirt, clawing it over his head, forcing him to stop touching her to take it off. Ben throws it to the floor, impatience and frustration showing in his sharp movements, and pushes his pants and underwear down to his knees, baring himself to her. Rey opens her legs wider, unconcerned with how desperate it makes her look, how lewd. His dark eyes rove over her body, drinking in the sight of her splayed before him, and she has to close her eyes against the passion in that knowing look. Then he's settling on top of her, between her legs, guiding his cock to her wet sex.
It hurts, if not as badly as the first time. He thrusts into her, going slowly and carefully, but it doesn't matter. She feels stretched to her limit, tender and aching. Still needful, but her desire is overwhelmed by discomfort. His body is so big and broad that Rey feels trapped beneath him, unable to breathe, just like before. She gasps, claws at his back, panicked, because suddenly she tastes blood on the back of her tongue, and the coldness of this cell feels just like the night air on Jakku.
Ben pulls out of her, but not away, holds her tear-streaked face between his hands and makes soothing noises. "It's all right," he says. "You're all right."
He presses gentle kisses to her forehead, her cheeks, and something about the softness of these touches calms her. She's still crying, her breath coming short and staggered, but she's more aware of her surroundings, of the man on top of her.
"Rey," he whispers, his big hands skimming down her arms, like he's afraid of holding on to her too tightly. "What's wrong?"
I'm ruined, she thinks. And she has nobody to blame for it but herself.
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Rey spends most of the next day in bed. She has no missions, no on-base assignments or meetings, so she curls up under the thick covers and sleeps. When she can't rest any longer, she lies on her stomach and wills herself to think of nothing.
It doesn't work, of course. She recalls her brief, disastrous coupling with Ben all too well and hides herself further beneath her blankets, as if that can keep him away. But he must feel her regret, her shame, because Rey can sense his own anxiety and self-loathing with sharp, cloying intimacy. She's tempted to visit Ben, to explain that he did nothing wrong—because she can tell that he's furious with himself, certain he did something to hurt her—but cowardice keeps her from relieving his worries. Rey doesn't want to tell him that she sold herself, that she bargained her virginity for the low price of eight portions, and now she can barely be touched without thinking about it.
Hunger drives her out of bed for breakfast the next day, and that's when she hears about the upcoming meeting: a council of the highest-ranking Resistance officers will vote on what to do with the general's son. He's been an uncooperative prisoner for months now, refusing to share a shred of information. If he won't give them anything useful, why should they keep such a war criminal alive?
Rey is invited to the meeting. She and Luke are the last remaining remnants of the Jedi Order and their words carry weight. She wonders what her master will say, if anything.
Three days later, Leia seats herself at the head of the table in the war room. She invites Luke to settle at her right, Rey to her left. At the opposing end sits Lieutenant General Heli Tsann—a grave, middle-aged man who's been vocal about the gentle treatment of Kylo Ren since he was captured. First he advocated for torture, now he seeks capital punishment. Many of the officers in the room sympathize with this way of thinking, but just how many, Rey isn't sure.
Tsann introduces himself—as if anyone needs a reminder of his name or rank—then says, "The man who calls himself Kylo Ren has been a prisoner of the Resistance for four months now, and in this time he hasn't volunteered a single piece of information on the First Order, his master Snoke, or the Knights of Ren. I propose that, unless he agrees to cooperate with us, he should face execution for his many crimes."
Easily a third of the officers nod their heads and make agreeable noises, like an assenting flock.
"What about a trial?" Leia asks. "My son is entitled to that much."
"Your son is gone, Leia," Tsann says, not ungently. "And Kylo Ren is entitled to nothing. A trial would be a waste of time when half the galaxy has witnessed to his crimes."
"It's not as if he denies what he's done," says Colonel Junoh.
"He's no use to us dead," Rey says, hoping that a practical appeal might speak to the undecided amongst the officers. "Time could still break his resolve, and if he cooperates he could be a great source of information on the enemy. Is vengeance worth losing that edge?"
Tsann smirks at her. "Is that truly your concern? Or is your interest of a more personal nature?"
"Excuse me?" Rey asks, even though she knows what's coming.
"It's no secret that you've visited Kylo Ren more than anyone else. Far more, even, than his own mother," Tsann says lightly. "Before you deny it, keep in mind that we have records from the print-scanners that prove the truth."
"I wouldn't think to deny it," Rey says, sitting up straighter. "Ben isn't the man you believe him to be—"
"Ben?" asks Junoh, frowning. The lines that bracket her mouth deepen, making her look older. "That's awfully familiar."
Rey feels herself flush, and she knows she isn't doing well. That a man's life hinges on her ability to convince these people, but she's always been a woman of action, not words.
"It's his name, Junoh," Leia says evenly. "I ought to know; I picked it. So let's not fault Rey for using it."
"His name is a moot point," Tsann says. "Unless anyone else plans to speak on Kylo Ren's behalf, I suggest we take this to a vote."
Rey looks across the table at her master. She meets Luke's weary blue eyes, willing him to speak. For Leia, if not for his nephew.
"Ben was a child when Snoke stole him from us," Luke says. "A boy who struggled against the dark, but just a boy nonetheless. My failings as a teacher have brought us here, as much as anything else—save Ben's own poor choices—and knowing this, I can't in good conscience condone his death."
Tsann nods and says, "Thank you for your words, Master Skywalker."
Then comes the vote, a tally of raised hands, and the result is as simple and straightforward as it is horrific: thirteen to nine, the majority in favor of executing Kylo Ren.
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