These Violent Delights

Chapter 19: Silence

WARNINGS: Vomit, blood, angst.

—

You couldn't keep still.

Legs crossed, you twitched your foot as you tapped your fingers against the bench outside of Hux's office. You were all alone, but you could hear the bustle down the corridor that led to the command bridge and could see everything happening in front of you. When you first got here, Kylo would look in your direction every so often, but now you doubted he remembered you were even alive. He was speaking to someone on his datapad, while Hux threw daggers at the Knights of Ren for making themselves at home in his office. When they had first stepped inside, they were picking up things on his shelves and flipping through documents, but now they were using various surfaces to stretch and warm up—as though they were preparing for something.

You gnawed at your bottom lip. Preparing for what? What the fuck is happening? Even though you were situated right outside with a clear view of everyone, you still couldn't decipher what was going on.

"Tea, while you wait?"

"Ah, fuck!" you gasped, jumping as Ava appeared out of nowhere. With your hand on your chest, you peered around her. "Do you always just spawn out of thin air like an NPC?"

"No, I'm a real person, I promise," she said, chuckling. "Sorry, Miss. I've been taught to be silent so as not to disturb those I am serving. I didn't mean to scare you."

With a sigh, you leaned back against the wall and slunk down. "It's okay. It's my fault for not paying attention." You nodded over to the office windows and muttered, "I was too busy trying to learn how to read lips."

"That's quite alright," she said, giving you a dazzling smile. She pivoted toward her cart. "May I offer you an iced tea?"

"Thank you, but I shouldn't. Caffeine makes me jittery, and I'm already on edge while my ass is Force-glued to this bench."

"Don't worry, it's chamomile—your favorite," she assured, grabbing the pre-poured glass on her cart, extending it to you. "After I heard you burnt your tongue last time, I made it iced just for you."

You hesitated, and Ava's smile faltered as she pulled it away. "Oh, um, please forgive me. I shouldn't have assumed you liked iced tea," she said, her cheeks reddening. She started to back her cart up. "I...I will go remake it for you right now, hot and—"

Ah, fuck. "No, please, don't go," you said, grabbing her wrist. "Iced tea sounds amazing, really."

She sucked on her bottom lip. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, absolutely," you beamed, leaning forward to grab the glass off her cart. You took an enthusiastic sip. "Ahhh. This is—wow," you blurted, pulling the cup away to look at it in awe; you had never tasted anything so delicious before. "What in the galaxy is in this? This is better than sex."

"Oh, um, it's starfruit syrup. I ordered it last week, but General Hux thought it was too sweet." She giggled when you hummed at her and slurped it down. "I'm thrilled to see it won't go to waste."

You wiped your mouth after pulling the glass away, and looked at her with a dopey smile on your face. "I would gladly down the entire bottle right here and now, if you had it."

"Next time, I'll bring it just for you," she said, winking and grabbing the handles of her cart. "You have a great day now, Miss."

You just smiled at her, enjoying the rare moment of genuine human connection in a place full of apathetic First Order psychos. As she headed toward Hux's office, you called out to her. "Hey, Ava?"

She pivoted toward you. "Miss?"

"How...how do you do it?"

"Do what?"

"This," you said, gesturing to Hux's office. "You're so warm and gentle, unlike any First Order recruit I've met. How do you not lose your mind?"

Ava cocked her head to the side. "Why would I lose my mind?"

"Because you seem like a nice girl, but you have to work here with General Hux and the Supreme Leader and all these uptight assholes," you said, scoffing and shaking your head. "I doubt you receive kindness in return."

Silence, then something hardened in her face. "Working for General Hux is a privilege. One you would never be worthy of, nor understand."

You jolted back. "Oh, shit," you muttered, your lips turning up into a half-smile. "Looks like I misread the room, huh?"

Her nostrils flared. "Indeed."

"My bad," you said, shooting her a guilty smile as you slumped against the wall. You nodded at Hux's office. "Go on, girl. You push that privileged cart of yours."

You kept on smiling as Ava glowered at you, but the moment she spun around in a huff, you made a what the fuck face behind her back. As she breezed through the doors of the office, a burst of heated conversation from inside spilled out into the waiting area. The moment they whooshed shut behind her, silence chased the noise away just as fast.

You swirled the tea around in your cup, amused at how Ava had strut into the room with stars in her eyes and rainbows shooting out of her butthole. She held herself with an eager-to-please grace, even though all six of the Knights of Ren were prowling around like beasts locked in a cage, and Hux was about to burst a blood vessel as Kylo jabbed a finger in his face. It looked like mayhem in there, and yet, Ava hung back and patiently waited to dote on her General. Something you realized now to be true, unwavering devotion.

I'll be damned, you thought, as you brought the glass up to your lips, I just thought she was a good actress.

You greedily sucked down the rest of your drink—brainwashed wacko or not, Ava made a mean cup of tea—and continued to watch the chaos unfold in the room as though you were viewing a holodrama on mute. Just as you set down your empty glass, two male officers came trotting down the corridor from the bridge. With their stiff posture, gaunt cheekbones, and an air that said, I, too, enjoy this stick up my asshole, they looked like clones of General Hux—physically and energetically. That alone was enough to put you on high alert, but your stomach churned when you noticed they were walking more urgently than usual. You sat up straight.

Something is definitely happening.

An agitated Hux barked at them when he received them at his doors. "Speak."

"Yes, sir," one of them said, nodding. "The weapon is charged and ready to fire, sir."

Hux peeked around his replicas to look at you, lips curled into a cruel smile. "Excellent."

Hux held your gaze for a beat longer before leading his officers down the hall. Pulse irregular and mouth drier than the sands on Tatooine, you watched them march down the corridor until they turned the corner out of sight. Your gut twisted. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

You heard the office doors open again, and you turned your head to see Kylo's mask locked on your face. He took up the entire frame, but the glass walls revealed his knights beside him—three on each side—looking directly at you. Whatever had happened, or was about to happen, must involve you or the Resistance.

"Kylo..." you started, swallowing, "what's going on?" Silence hung between you. He didn't move or respond. Just stared, making you feel hot in the face, panicked. He moved past you without a word, and you felt the Force-hold keeping you trapped on the bench fall apart. You sprang to your feet and ran after him. "Kylo, please. What's happening?"

Still, no response. You heard a burst of footsteps behind you, and you whipped around to see the Knights of Ren following close behind. Alarms sounded off in your head as you directed your attention forward again to see Kylo making a left onto the bridge.

You tried to keep up with him, but the moment you stepped onto the command floor, you were overwhelmed with bustling, high-energy commotion. First Order personnel strode past you in all directions, while the officers seated in the lower-level stations vigilantly spoke into their headsets and swiped through datascreens. Although there was a clear divide in strata—with higher-ranking officers patrolling the upper deck and non-commissioned officers below—everyone seemed to work together, and well.

And whatever they were doing, it wasn't good.

Desperately swimming through the swarm of officers, you spotted the knights hovering by the corridor you had just emerged from, twirling their weapons in their gloved hands. The sight of them made you feel sick to your stomach. Actually, everything made you feel sick, you realized, as all five of your senses suddenly felt heightened and triggered. You wrapped your arms around your midsection as you trudged through the sea of moving bodies. Focus, you told yourself, but it was too busy, too chaotic, and the steady whirring and beeping of the equipment made your head pound.

You tried to stagger forward but couldn't figure out how to put one foot in front of the other. You stopped in the center of the pandemonium, dizzy and trembling as everyone breezed past you like you weren't even there. Am I even here? Where am I? What am I? Thoughts bounced around your head, thoughts that made no sense, thoughts that you didn't recognize as your own.

Stability. Find stability, you heard over the fragments of words swirling in your mind. With a heavy swing of your head, you looked left, then right, trying to find something to lean on. The walls would do, but they were too far away, so you gravitated toward the edge of the upper deck. It was a battle to get there; your legs protested the movement as though they'd never moved before, but you finally made it to the side with a cry of relief.

There wasn't a railing, but there was equipment there that worked just as well. You leaned your weight against a holoscreen, drawing deep breaths through your nose as you looked down at the First Order officers working in their sunken stations. You could see their lips moving around words you could hear but barely understand.

"Thermal oscillator stable."

"Excellent, confirming transfer to manual control."

"Affirmative. All precincts live."

"Configured for discharge."

"Discharge..." you mumbled to nobody, "discharge for wh—ahhhh!"

With a strangled yelp, you tried flailing your arms to grip the holoscreen. You had been so engrossed in what the officers were saying, you didn't realize you had been sliding, slowly but surely, off the fucking thing. You curled your fingers around the bottom of the glass and smashed your face against it to keep yourself upright. How am I here? Why am I here? Why is there so much chaos?

The harder you tried to remember, the harder your head pounded. It was too hot and stuffy with all these bodies and all the commotion. All you could remember was how a sinister smile had crossed Hux's lips outside his office, his eyes lighting up with a wicked gleam...

"Hey, waaatch it," you slurred when somebody crashed into your back. You turned around, ready to fight, only to find that nobody was there. The floor was busy, but no one was close to this side of the deck—just you. Your eyelids felt like cement as you blinked. Get it together.

"Together," you mumbled to yourself, clomping away from the edge. As officers hurried by, you tried to flag them down to ask what was happening—with the First Order and with you—but you couldn't open your mouth to speak. Confused, you were so confused as your feet stumbled below you, moving you forward until your eyes landed on General Hux. He was standing opposite from you, looking down at the lower-level workstations, and even from your vantage point, you could see the maniac grin on his face. You blinked again, vision starting to blur, and watched as his gleeful grin turned into a vile scowl.

"FIRE!"

The lights flickered, an ominous, pulsing alarm throbbed overhead, and as you lost your footing and stumbled to the side, you finally saw him. Kylo Ren.

Shivers swallowed your body whole. There was something chilling in the way he stood, perfectly calm and composed and still as tightly controlled chaos unfolded behind him. He was alone at the far end of the command bridge, standing in the exact center of a long strip of trapezoidal windowports, looking out into space. Your heavy limbs carried you toward him even though your head was spinning, your heart was pounding rapidly in your chest, and you could feel flashes of heat and coolness battering your face. Something was wrong with you, so wrong, but you...you couldn't piece together why. Every time a thought entered your head, it left just as quickly.

All you knew was you had to get to Kylo. As you fought your way to him through the blinking lights and pulsing alarms, your unsteady gaze dragged the length of the windowports. To the right, there appeared to be a bright red star, to the left was a cluster of three planets. Once you blinked enough to focus, adrenaline slammed into you. Your heart jumped to your throat. You knew that system. It was the Ileenium system, where your team and the entirety of the Resistance lived on D'Qar.

Your eyes darted to the right, to what you had initially thought was a star—but no, this thing consumed stars. You knew that now, as your eyes locked on the red energy beam that burst through the firing cylinder of the monstrous weapon the First Order had created.

Starkiller Base.

It used to be a planet, but then the First Order turned it into a superweapon and obliterated the Hosnian system and the entirety of the Republic with it. Even though it happened before you joined the Resistance, you had known all about the pain and suffering it had inflicted on the galaxy. And when you found out that some of the members on your team contributed to its ruin by blowing a hole in its thermal oscillator, you felt proud to fight beside them.

But now, here it was again, primed and ready to destroy the system you called home. Hysterical breaths tumbled through your lips. You tried to sprint forward to get to your captor, but it felt like you were running through glue. Weak, so weak. You had to clutch onto a holonet station as tears blurred your vision and burned your cheeks.

"No," you croaked, but it was too late. The red energy laser shot across space, flooding through the windowports and basking the entire command bridge in a blood-red haze. As it passed directly in front of Kylo, his head followed the trajectory. But you couldn't watch. No. You glared at the back of the Supreme Leader, and as he turned his helmet to the side, the tilt of the viewport allowed you to see his reflection in the glass. He looked as he always did—cold, brutal, and unsettling—but now, as the red glare hugged the curve of his mask, you were reminded of who truly took you as prisoner.

A monster.

Hot, dizzy, and swaying from side to side, you didn't tear your gaze away from the reflection of his mask, but that didn't prevent you from seeing the destruction in your peripherals. The ports' visibility was so vast that you could see the laser split into three beams to target each planet, and it wasn't until they reached their destination that you closed your eyes. But the flash of the explosion still penetrated your eyelids, and you braced yourself for the resounding aftermath of such a catastrophe. You waited, tense and unsteady, but after the red-hot blast simmered down, nothing happened.

No more alarm, no more hushed, urgent voices. No vibration or ripple from the disintegration of an entire system. Just...silence. And when you dared to open your eyes again, Kylo was looking right at you.

Hatred thrummed through your veins. You had bit your tongue for the last ten days and behaved for him, even craving his company at times like earlier today, but now you wanted to run at him, to rage and scream and hurt him. Only to find...you couldn't. After taking two steps forward, you realized your legs were full of sand, and an imaginary rope kept your arms fixed to your body. You crashed to your knees as though an anchor was attached to your waist, sinking hard and fast into the pristinely polished floor.

You collapsed into yourself. Head hung low, you cried and cried and cried, but all around you there was an eerie stillness. Quietness. Three planets full of life were gone in a blink of an eye, all because a command bridge of First Order officers decided to push a button as they sat comfortably in their stations, unbothered and detached. But you? You were a mess. Broken, tired and afraid, and so, so dizzy. So sick. Sick with grief and sick with this pain gnawing at your insides. You wanted it to stop. Please, make it stop.

Then, through the silence, Kylo said your name.

Your head snapped back to look up at his mask, tears bleeding down your face. "Why?" you choked out, your voice just a hoarse whisper. You couldn't stop your neck from rolling side to side. "Why...why did you do this?"

"Why wouldn't I do this?" Kylo's deep, modified voice rang out. He towered over you, his massive frame drowning in black, as the shadow he cast consumed you. "This is war, M421."

"My friends, my team, my whole life," you quavered, and another imbalance of weight tore you to the right. You swayed. It was so hot—why is it so hot? You placed your palms beside you, trying to stay steady as you stumbled over your words. "Dead...all dead...and gone, and destroyed and—"

You crumpled to the floor, landing hard on your side. Pivoting to lay on your back, your head spun as Kylo kneeled down beside you. You had to look away; the way his mask hauntedly swung above you made you nauseous. You stared past him to focus on something stationary, but the gun-metal pipes bulging from the ceiling started to warp before your eyes too, and with a guttural groan, bile started to rise up your throat.

"Kitten?" Kylo rasped as he cupped your face. "What is it? What happened to you?"

"You...happened...to me," you slurred, trying to push him away. "I...I hate you."

Hux's voice swirled around you. "My, my, your prisoner has always been dramatic, Ren, but this is quite the show."

"Something is wrong," Kylo said, tone low and alert. He pushed the hair out of your face and said your name, soothing you. "Medic. We need a medic. Now."

A voice from far away called out. "Right away, sir."

Something gurgled in your throat, and you flipped over just in time, vomiting all over the floor. Propped up on your hands and knees, you repeatedly heaved, spewing a warm, viscous liquid through your lips. When you opened your eyes, you saw red. You had vomited blood. You wobbled above the mess you made. "I'm dying," you stammered in shock, right before you collapsed into the blood, chest first.

"No, no—look at me," Kylo demanded, turning you over on your back. Your head lolled to the side, and he tugged your chin in his direction. "I won't let that happen. Do you understand me?"

Blearily, your eyes tried to focus on him, but a red film covered your vision, not unlike the crimson glow that had streaked across his mask only moments ago. "I...I can't see, Kylo." Your bottom lip trembled. "Why can't I see?"

"It's okay, help is coming," he said hoarsely as he secured his arms under you, pulling you against his chest. "You're okay. Everything is okay."

"No, it's not," you cried. Clutching onto him, you realized that you were dying, and although you had often made a joke out of death, you had come to the conclusion that you didn't find it funny at all. "I...I don't want to die. Not like this."

He hushed you as he stroked your hair. "You won't."

You didn't believe him. Not when you could literally feel the life drain out of you, bleeding from your every pore and sinking into Kylo's tunic. Your desperate hands tried to grip his shoulders, but you were too weak. You went limp in his arms.

"MEDIC! WE NEED A MEDIC!"

You knew he was screaming, but all you could hear with your ear smashed against his chest was the thump thump thump of his heart. You felt so warm, so comfortable in the arms of this cruel man, this monster who now cradled you and told you everything was going to be okay. But it wasn't going to be okay. This absolution washed over you as you felt your mind detach from your body.

Floating untethered, unbound from the prison of your flesh and bones should have felt freeing, but you didn't want to leave. It wasn't your time. Not yet. But you felt cold, ice-cold, as everything faded away around you. Footsteps, the Supreme Leader yelling, urgent voices from First Order officers...the harder you tried to hold onto your surroundings, to your consciousness, the faster they slipped through your fingers.

"Kylo," you whispered, the sound reverberating all around you as if you spoke into a vast, never-ending void. "I'm afraid."

"Don't be. I'm here," he said, his voice drifting to you in that hollow, dark space. "I'm here."

You heard his words, but you couldn't feel him. You couldn't see him. Why is he lying? Why isn't he here? You didn't understand. "Please come back," you sobbed. "Please don't leave me here. Please, please..."

The last restraint keeping you grounded in reality snapped. At first, you were afraid, beyond afraid, but then you saw him. Not Kylo Ren, but a boy with gentle, brown eyes holding his hand out to you. You didn't know this boy, but your soul did. You felt it. You could feel him. As tears streamed down your face, you smiled. "You came back for me."

"I haven't left," the boy's lips twisted to say, but the voice didn't belong to him—it was too deep, too modified. "Hold on for me, Kitten. Hold on."

You grabbed his hand, and everything felt okay. "Thank you."

You slipped into darkness.