Chapter Twenty-Six: Dread
She had caught something amidst his rage before he'd hastily withdrawn, nearly tripping over his brain-responding feet in his rush to leave; a glimpse of fear that changed his entire face. It banished the angled cruelty until only the soft angst remained, making him look more like the boy he must've once been than the man he'd become.
Rey stood in her now-empty room, stunned.
That was the precipice, she realized. He was afraid.
She blinked dumbly.
Are the whispers actually… right?!
Kylo palmed his forehead, gloved fingers digging into flesh.
He knew he could be stupidly expressive; he'd been so since he was young and toddling. Rey had to have caught his reaction. Something about her biased faith in Luke—and herself—made an acrid bile rise in his throat. And the fact he found it upsetting left him with a more potent dread. What was she doing to him? What was happening?
Where's my mask? Kylo tried to work through his embarrassment and shame, but their familiar censure swelled up, bombarding his temples. Idiot, he berated. You shouldn't have let her get away with so much. You should have hurt her.
He wanted to break things – send ship parts flying, slice swathes of the hull off with his saber, shatter every overhead light until glass was everywhere.
He gripped his temples tighter, struggling to breathe.
First, he needed his mask.