I watched as my former best friend and sister backed away from my husband and smirked, feeling fulfilled as I did after every successful mission, giving myself a high five in my subconscious. My idiot husband turned and left the room with a naive and ignorant grin on his face. "You win," she admitted that I was the more powerful sister, the older, wiser, more capable one which I always knew was fact from my many experiences of coddling and consoling her, but she only now realized it as I held her frail, pitiful, trembling body in the palm of my hand. However, for some indiscernible reason, her confession wasn't as satisfying as I'd imagined, probably because it was a product of her grating voice which now caused me to cringe any time I heard it. "YOU WIN, OKAY?!" She screamed at me as she whipped around to face me, forcing me to wince even harder. Although I wanted to cup my palms over my ears to protect them from the sound of her screeching, I couldn't let her see that anything she did irritated me, even though everything did. I had to make it appear as though her existence was so insignificant to me that nothing she did could make me acknowledge her presence. Besides, she'd use anything she knew annoyed me as a weapon, she was petty enough. "You've turned the entire Rebellion against me, you've taken away my friendship with Ash, YOU WIN!" I stole her friendship with Ash? She stole my marriage with Ash! He was staring at her as if she were the most beautiful, mesmerizing creature in the universe, as if nothing and no one else mattered to him, the way he used to look at me. If she didn't notice that, she wasn't even worthy of his friendship in the first place. Besides, the bond of marriage was far more precious than the bond of friendship, she knew this and had witnessed this many times in the past when I'd prioritized Ash over her. I clearly had a better reason for being upset. "I'm stuck here at the castle just like everyone wanted!" Oh, yeah, I thought as I remembered her unfortunate situation. Sweet revenge, I was grateful to the force she was getting what she deserved. For once, the force was on my side. "So just go on living your life as Miss Perfect," she flicked her wrist in my direction, shooing me off and turning her nose up at me. She thought I was the one who was acting as if I was the perfect sister? All kinds of revelations were occurring today that were untrue and only revealed her shallow-minded perspective of our relationship. "And leave me alone because our friendship is over." She folded her arms over her chest and turned her back on me as she sniffled. Her statement was partially correct, our friendship was definitely over, but there was one thing she was wrong about and that was the timing of the termination of our friendship. I began walking toward the door, contemplating whether or not to inform her she was wrong. "Our friendship was over a long time ago, Rebel," I said darkly as I glared at her from over my shoulder, twisting the knob to the door handle to exit as I twisted the knife. "It just took us an eternity to realize," I said exhaustedly without even enough energy nor the patience to watch Rebel's reaction as I stepped through the doorframe and shut the door. Her response didn't matter to me anyway, it wouldn't have altered my opinion in the slightest, nothing would. I quickly located Ash by the trail of chaos he often left in his wake and marched up to him as he stood, facing the opposite direction of me with the children huddled around him. "We're leaving," I announced, seizing his hand in mine and dragging him in the direction of my ship. "What's happening?" He asked, leaning back as he resisted being pulled, but he was no match for my strength. He also wasn't struggling very much since he trusted me. At least some trust still existed between us. Whatever was left, I was going to exploit to my advantage in order to get the result that would save our marriage. He wasn't ever leaving my side again, I can guarantee that. He's going to resent me at first, but we'll slowly rekindle our bond of trust as we have in the past. "Where's Rebel?" He asked, swiveling his head in every direction to search for her and took heavy footsteps in an attempt to slow me down as I continued dragging him. I ground my teeth together in response to merely hearing the mention of her name. "Rue, talk to me!" He yelled, his trepidation rising as a result of my failure to reply as he tried to wriggle his wrist out of my grasp. "Where are you taking me?" His questions persisted as he now tried to pry my fingers apart and infiltrate my firm grip. I ignored him, however, all his questions would be answered soon enough. I led him up the ramp to my ship and pulled the lever on the wall downward to retract the incline. As the ramp was rising, Rebel ran out of the castle and skidded to a stop, her eyes darting every which way to find what she was searching for. She suddenly locked eyes with Ash and her bottom lip trembled as he flung his arm away from me, effectively jerking it out of my grip. "You chose her," Rebel whispered loud enough to be heard just as the exit to the ship slammed shut. Evidently the two of them had a conversation previously relating to this situation that I was not aware of, although, whatever had been said between the two of them would soon be forgotten by Ash. He bolted toward the door and pounded his fist against the metal. "Blast it, Rue!" He cursed as he spun around and I saw the pain on his face which made my insides boil with rage for my sister. Now she'd corrupted him just as Palpatine had. He blindly accepted she was a person to feel sorry for, that it wasn't all just an act, that she wasn't capable of rescuing herself. "We have to go back for her, we can't leave her there, you know that!" He thrust his finger behind his back without glancing in that direction as he pointed at where Rebel had stood. I tossed my chin up to the ceiling and shook my head as I rolled my eyes at his ignorance. "What is wrong with you?!" He criticized me as I turned my back on him and headed toward the helm to initiate the flight sequence. "She's your sister," he reminded me. "Show some compassion!" He urged me and that's what made me freeze in my tracks as I came to the realization that he was blinded by more than trust. He was blinded by love. Nothing else would make him react this irrationally or allow him to criticize me. He always insisted I had no flaws because he was blinded by love for me in the past, now he'd lost that love and it had been endowed to Rebel. I didn't know when this shift had occurred, but perhaps his reaction to my realization would give me a clue as to when exactly he'd stopped loving me. "You love her," I muttered despondently as I spun around slowly to face him. "What?" He stumbled backward in shock and squinted at me confusedly. "Of course not, why would you say that?" He asked incredulously as he shook his head vehemently. He'd declined such an accusation so quickly as if he hadn't even thought about the possibility, perhaps that meant my assumption was actually incorrect. There was only one way to find out. "Kiss me," I demanded as I took a step toward him and grabbed his shirt collar, tugging him down to meet my eyeline which he would normally find endearing, but this time he cringed and attempted to squirm away. "What? Why?" He asked as if kissing me was an unthinkable act. It didn't matter if he welcomed it or resisted it, it was happening, I needed an answer now. I rose up on my tiptoes and pressed my lips to his, but he winced and didn't pucker his lips to unite with mine. I kept my eyes open to watch his reaction and his eyes closed as if to imagine it was someone else he was kissing rather than to fully immerse himself in the moment. It was only after he closed his eyes that he tried to kiss me more passionately, but I pushed him away. "You kiss me like you'd rather be kissing someone else," I whispered through a gasp as tears filled my eyes.