Chapter Twenty-Five: Resolute

Rey returned to the wall, putting herself in front of the panel. "Why not?" She demanded. "I won't ever give you BB-8's map piece." She watched Kylo Ren wrestle with himself, his face a stage of conflicting actors. "You say your plans for me have changed—."

"Oh, you were listening," he cut in. "How convenient to say so now."

She crossed her arms, completely forgetting the need for caution. "I'm not the one who has a problem picking and choosing which parts of reality to uphold."

"No?" He accused. "Just the timing those parts are acknowledged then?"

Rey's mouth fell.

"And my plan hasn't changed that drastically," he informed. "You will lead me to Skywalker."

"I won't!" She said shrilly. "You'll have to rip it from the last firings of my dead synapses."

Kylo Ren scoffed. "That's not how reading memories works."

Rey tried to drop her gaze, but couldn't look away. There was wit and reason among the simmering irritation in his eyes—she'd been wrong about his manipulation skills. When he kept hold of his temper, he was annoyingly not stupid. "Well, you claim you won't string me up like those gorgodons, and here I am, vowing I won't betray the Resistance," she declared. "It doesn't leave you with many options."

A new actor won out in his face as a sly look took centerstage. "Ah," Kylo Ren said. "You don't know, do you?"

Rey frowned.

"Luke Skywalker isn't part of the Resistance," he revealed. "He abandoned them years ago, his family and friends, turning his back on the mess he made of his nephew."

Her eyes narrowed.

"Ben Solo was one of his first protégées. A padawan for an ill-equipped, never-crowned Jedi Knight."

"Master Skywalker—."

"Is NO master," he finished. "He was never awarded the rank." Without warning, Kylo Ren advanced again, cornering her in a handful of steps.

Rey gulped. The top of the panel peeked out over her shoulder. She had to keep his attention or he would see how poorly it hung. She glared up instead of shrinking back.

"Titles are just empty trappings—," she began.

"That many put stock in," he interrupted. "Including Jakku trash rats who use them even for people they've never met."

Rey's glare grew thunderous. It was getting hard to think, hard to be clear. This Kylo Ren—with his quick retorts and lack of body space—was a different beast from the one who'd found her among the collection of thrumming thermal oscillators. "So I'm an awful, force-inept, trash rat," she growled. "Why keep me around? Release me!"

"No." He shook his head, sending his black hair everywhere. "You—lowly, undeserving you—will have an unrivalled privilege. I'll give you the master I never had. You'll learn the ways of the Force with a far better guide than Luke Skywalker."

"I don't want to learn from you!"

He waved her away. "You will."

Rey fought for calm, inhaling deeply. She wasn't being careful at all. He was too much—too big, too calculating, too dangerous—and he was going to see the evidence of her tampering. Groping for a lifeline, she asked, "What if I'm the one who changes you?"

A strange thing happened as the question left her lips. Kylo Ren's conviction faltered, folding in on itself almost instantaneously, and indignation was a curtain call in his face.

"What?" He hissed.

Rey didn't understand why she'd had such an effect. She'd said something similar before. Now—somehow—she'd hurtled him onto a precipice. He seemed to teeter, and she wondered if she was pushing or pulling. "You said my whispers are powerful," she continued. "They claim I can save you. What if I'm the teacher you need?"

Kylo Ren's mouth twisted in a snarl. "Your overconfidence is as unearned as Luke's," he spat.

"Or maybe he and I just know something you don't," Rey ventured. "Something your dark side has no sway in."

"There's NOTHING it—!"

She gave him a knowing look. She was definitely pushing. "Sounds like I'm not the only one with learning to do."

Kylo Ren's eyes bulged, before livid hostility screwed them up tight.

Rey straightened, bracing herself for an enraged assault, but the leader of the Knights of Ren, infamously fallen son of Han Solo, deft practitioner of the dark side, simply staggered back. With a furious glare, he turned on his heels and stormed from her quarters.