Black Hearts | Kylo Ren [1]

X. "we'll see."

She swallowed. "It's you." Letha had mixed feelings, she wanted to hug him and tell him how much she'd missed him but at the same time she felt repulsion towards him when she thought about the past events at the Jedi temple.

"You sound surprised." Ben said. "If you're wandering, I missed you too. Ever since the day you ran away I've been looking for you."

"I don't believe you." Letha said, placing a strand of hair behind her ear. "Roman and I spent years running away from the First Order because they wanted to finish your job, they wanted to kill us."

Her words cut him like a knife. "I never meant to hurt you."

"But you did." She lifted her wrists, making him see the bruises the handcuffs had caused. But the emotional pain he had made her suffer didn't compare to the scratches and bruises that covered her body. The blind trust that she had had in him was now gone.

He came forward, kneeling in front of her, wrapping a gloved hand around her wrist. Letha flinched at his touch, expecting him to be rude, but his hand held hers gently like he once had done it.

"Letha," he changed the subject. "Tell me about the droid."

She looked away and swallowed. "It's a BB unit, he has a ball shaped body, he's very sassy but helpful—"

"I am familiar with how the droid looks like, Letha. What I want is located in its memory. It's carrying a section of a transgalactic navigational chart. We have the rest, recovered from the archives of the Empire. We need the last piece. Some how, you and your friends convinced the droid to show it to you. How is that?"

She looked away.

"I know you've seen the map," he repeated, his grasp getting tighter. "It's what I need. At the moment, it is all that I need." When she maintained her silence, he almost sighed. "I can take whatever I want."

Her muscles tightened. "Then you don't need me to tell you anything."

"True." He rose and let go of her hand, resigned. "I would have preferred to avoid this. Despite what you may believe, it gives me no pleasure. I will go as easily as possible—but I will take what I need."

She knew that trying to resist him physically would only be useless, he was way stronger than her. So she remained motionless and silent, as his hand rose toward her face.

As she strained to resist the probe, he pushed into her, brushing aside her awkward attempts to keep him out. While he investigated her mind, he spoke softly.

"You've been so lonely," he murmured as he searched for what he needed. "So afraid." A thin smile crossed his face. "You try to move forward, but you can't forget what happened that night in the temple."

Tears were streaming down her face from the effort she was making to withstand him. Increasingly desperate, she did try to strike out. But just before, her body refused to respond.

"You know you are guilty as well," Ren continued relentlessly. "You left your friends to die, you killed them too."

All the rage and terror bottled up inside her came out as she turned to meet his stare.

"Get—out—of—my—head."

It only made him lean in closer. "We both have black hearts." He said, enhancing her feeling of complete helplessness. "Letha—you've seen the map. Don't be afraid."

Where the strength to defy him came from she did not know when her voice grew a little stronger. "Fuck off."

His response reflected his unconcern. "You know I'll get it."

Narrowing his gaze, he locked eyes with her. She met his stare without trying to look away. She should have looked away. It would have been the rational thing to do. The sane thing to do. Instead, she just glared, trying not to flinch, not to blink. And her heart ached because the person she had known so well was now a total stranger.

Then he encountered a barrier that stopped him cold. And it was he who blinked. It made no sense. He pushed, hard, with his mind—and the probe went nowhere.

A look of amazement replaced the fear on Letha's face as she discovered herself inside his mind.

"No," she heard herself saying clearly, "you're the one who's afraid."

His hand pulled sharply away from her cheek as if her skin had suddenly turned white-hot. Confused, rattled, he stumbled back from her. Her gaze followed him. Her eyes were the same, but something else had changed—something behind them, in her stare and in her posture. He moved to leave and, at the last moment, gestured powerfully in her direction. The restraints that had held her wrists snapped back into place and she felt into a deep sleep. Then he once again donned his mask and was gone.

In the corridor, a stunned Kylo Ren found that he was breathing hard. That in itself was unsettling. He did not know what had just transpired in the room and was left uncertain how to proceed. He was spared further bewilderment when a trooper appeared, coming toward him. Straightening, Ren gathered himself.

The trooper halted. "Sir! The Supreme Leader has requested your presence."

Ren nodded and headed off in the necessary direction, accompanied by the trooper. The latter did not pay any attention when the tall figure he was escorting looked back over his shoulder.