14. Chapter 14: Killer

14. Killer

"I have a few," the trader said comfortably, pulling a crate full of blasters up on the counter. "What are you looking for?"

Kylo hadn't used a blaster in years, not since he was a little boy and Han had taken him out to a field and taught him how to shoot straight. He didn't know what kind of blaster Han had had, so he just looked at what was in front of him for something familiar, trying to seem knowledgeable. He hated this kind of thing. Increasingly, he was forced to rely on things he'd learned from Han and Luke, things he'd convinced himself weren't important. That was hard, because that meant remembering the rare days spent with Han learning how to tell if someone was packing a hidden sidearm, how to shoot, how to pilot a ship, how to do his hair, how to bargain with a trader who was full of shit. He'd told Rey he didn't hate his father, and that was true. That made remembering dangerous.

"This one," he finally said, setting a heavy black blaster pistol on the counter. It looked like Han's, but was heftier.

"Alright." The man, like everyone else on this planet, gave no indication what he thought of the decision. Kylo hadn't managed to learn that yet: how to keep his face shuttered and empty.

He handed over the credits expected of him and turned away, blaster in hand. It felt foreign. He wanted his saber, but knew it was long past time he had a weapon he could actually use without drawing attention to himself.

"You want a holster for that?" the man said, suddenly.

Kylo stopped, and a picture sprang to his mind, unbidden, of Han with his cocky grin and low-slung holster. "I've got one," he said shortly, and kept going.

The route back to his house was a winding one through a village of ramshackle shops, bars, and stands. He'd learned quickly that here, like so many other places, thieves lurked around every corner. They were just subtler here, and most of them were children.

He ducked past the entrance of a bar, where an old grey bird with three red eyes sat croaking softly to itself. It was always there – he thought it was supposed to be some kind of ward against bad luck. Some of the locals were very superstitious.

Just as he passed this bird, the Force hummed a soft warning, and Kylo snapped out his hand and caught a skinny wrist sliding into his pocket. He turned, lips curling in a dangerous scowl. "Hands off," he hissed.

The pickpocket, a Twi'lek girl with pale grey skin, yanked hard on her arm, staring at him in a mix of alarm and defiance. He twisted her wrist and pushed her a little away from him. The Force twisted cold in his gut and he knew he should teach her a lesson she wouldn't forget.

He saw she knew what he was thinking, because she went still and met his eyes, hers silver-blue and resigned. They stood like that for a moment, the Force crackling like the wild beast it was, before Kylo shook himself and let go.

The child took off running, and he lifted and lowered his shoulders uneasily. Behind him, the bar's guardian bird let out a shrieking cry like an angry woman, and Kylo, without even thinking, swept his hand to one side and felt the bird's spine snap.

No one in the bar seemed to have noticed, but Kylo hurried the rest of the way home nonetheless, feeling unsettled. Not because of the bird, but because of the child. He put his blaster down next to his other things, his books and clothes and bandages. Then he sat down on his bed with his book of forms, flipping through it to try to find what he could use to teach Rey. Instead, he found himself fixating on the memory of the girl's eyes, so resigned to the idea of pain. Like Han's, like so many others'. He closed his eyes and reached out with the Force for a familiar feeling, trying to find Rey, to find their connection. But it was out of reach, like a room in the back of his mind he couldn't quite access.

Why he wanted her, he wasn't sure. Maybe because she acted like he was worth something? Because she was one person he didn't want to hurt? Because she looked at him with hope instead of that awful, awful resignation?

Here, by himself, there was no one to blame but himself for the way that girl looked at him. No one twisting his arm, no one pushing him to hurt, and he did anyway. He broke things and threatened people and killed things and that was just him now. Just what he did. And pretending otherwise was childish. He'd killed Han because he'd needed to, because the deepness of the Force was intoxicating and he wanted more. He'd hurt FN-2187 because he could, because he'd gotten in his way. He'd wanted to kill Luke, and he'd killed his fellow apprentices for no other reason than because he felt he had to. They were children, several much younger than him.

This was who he was. He'd saved Rey, and she thought he was worth something, but that didn't make him anything other than a killer. To pretend otherwise was a delusion.

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. It just was, and he didn't understand how it had taken him so long to realize it. This was what happened when people delved too deep into the Force. They became things like Snoke, like him. Rey would tell him that was something he could change, but she wouldn't understand why he didn't know whether he wanted to change.

He sighed and closed his book carefully, setting it down on the floor. He was planning to take his blaster and practice with it (something to let the anger out), but just as he stood up with the weapon in hand, one of his neighbors, Rehc, barreled into his house. "Raid," he said sharply. Kylo nodded and grabbed his things, running outside after him. He slammed his door hard enough to shake it off its hinges as he went.

"Raid" meant the First Order or some other hostile group was coming through. The entire village would make their homes and places of business look as abandoned as possible, then go to their village's shelter. No one seemed able to tell Kylo who made the shelters, but they were underground and, due to their metal-lined walls, hid the life signs of the people in them. There was a rule in the shelters that you didn't cause trouble, because everyone's safety relied on secrecy.

He and Rehc went by two more houses on the way, striding straight in and putting out fires, shoving belongings at their owners, and moving on. They reached the shelter just as Kylo sighted the first ship on the horizon. It was the First Order again, almost certainly. They were looking for him. But unlike him, most of the First Order remained unaware that Batuu was populated now, and the entire planet needed to keep it that way.

The shelter's entrance was a small hole in the stone, which Kylo leapt through after Rehc. The shelter was already mostly full, so he wandered over to the nearest wall, dropped his bag, and sat down next to it. Like most of the other villagers, he held his blaster ready against his knee. There was little chance of anyone finding them, but it was best to be prepared. The last three people slid in, swinging the entrance door shut over their heads with a solid thud.

Then it was just time to be silent and still and wait. A few stray animals bounded around inside: several three-tailed blue dogs, one of the guardian birds from outside the bar, and some little light-footed creatures with silky white whiskers and big, bulbous red eyes. Kylo had noticed that all the native animals of Batuu had red eyes, although he wasn't sure why.

Without even thinking much about it, he got his book out, careful of the burnt paper and leather, and opened it to a fresh page… before realizing that he had no pens and no ink. There was no use in wanting to write anything if he didn't have pens.

He could hear ships vaguely overhead, passing back and forth over them, searching for signs of life. If they'd done their jobs right, there wouldn't be anything to find.

Kylo knew the First Order was looking for him. It didn't surprise him. He was dangerous to them if they couldn't control him, so he doubted Hux would stop searching for him for a long time. Batuu would just be one stop in dozens among the Outer Rim planets.

He spotted the little girl from earlier seated amongst a group of friends, all of whom were probably also thieves. They were a bedraggled, scrawny, restless bunch, lounging against each other or kicking each other in the shins. With nothing else to do, he took to watching them play some games involving sleight of hand. After some time of this, the Twi'lek girl looked up, as if she sensed him watching them, and their eyes locked. Kylo waited for the flash of fear, for her to look away and warn her friends. Instead, she lifted her chin and glared at him. Somehow, that relieved him, not to have to see fear of him on her small face.

He smiled, just a little, and that appeared to surprise her. He broke eye contact first, reaching into his bag for his book of forms to try again to make a plan for what to teach Rey. This time he was a little more able to focus, and he read his way through three pages of information before a disturbance interrupted him, a ripple in the Force and a sudden shout.

"Give that back you little bitch!" A muscular Lorrdian man lurched to his feet as one of the children ran away from him and back to their group of friends, clutching something in his little fist.

Typically, if something like this happened, everyone would wait till the raid was over to settle the issue, but the victim of the theft apparently wanted his dues now – enough to break the unspoken rules of the shelter.

And the Force, moving dark and close around him, told Kylo that he would not be reasonable or merciful. The Lorrdian started towards the children, and Kylo, catching the eye of the Twi'lek child again, pushed himself to his feet and rushed across the shelter.

He felt the delayed moment when the other people realized what was happening, felt some intending to come help him, but he focused on the man because he was the only one who was going to get there fast enough.

Even as the children started to scatter, Kylo cut in front of the oncoming attacker and, without pause, pressed his blaster pistol to the man's head. The Lorrdian jerked to a stop, his eyes dark brown and full of shock. For just a split second, they looked at each other, then Kylo fired his blaster twice. The blaster bolts scorched the wall on the opposite side of the shelter.

The Lorrdian dropped to the ground and Kylo's focus expanded to include the rest of the people around him. Everyone looked shocked, probably because this level of violence didn't happen in the shelters.

Kylo looked back at the children, who stared at him and their wannabe attacker like they weren't sure what to think. Suddenly self-conscious, Kylo strode back to his things and sat down, avoiding everyone's eyes.

He didn't look at the dead man. He wasn't sure whether this sort of thing ever happened – Batuu's culture relied on a kind of trust among its people. No one really knew anyone else, and some may steal from each other and cheat each other, but especially here in the shelters there was an implicit agreement: they all helped each other stay alive and hidden.

"You have a short fuse, Ben."

Kylo glanced over to meet the eyes of the Ho'Din who'd been tending to his injuries. Oolism had a frog-like figure and red tubular hair. In truth, Oolism was a bit grotesque, but she knew about healing, which was good because one of Kylo's injuries was infected. He hadn't done well at keeping them clean.

"That shouldn't be news to you," he said wryly.

"People won't like this. It's not the first time this has happened, but not in the shelter. Not when we're supposed to be united." Oolism made a strange clicking noise with her tongue like two twigs tapping together and rocked back on her gaunt heels. "But it's permissible for the children."

"The thieves."

"Mm. Most of us here are thieves, Ben, or something else we're not supposed to be. You come here with five blaster wounds you can't take care of and you talk about thievery like it's so great a sin. You're the one who saved them."

Kylo shrugged. "I just mean… What's the reasoning? Why will people defend the children but let them go on thieving without helping them? That's a poor kind of protection."

"Dinegia, Ben, you're a strange one."

"For asking?"

"Not exactly." She eyed him carefully, up and down. She reminded him of a plant, not just in appearance, but in the way her emotions affected her movement and the way she deliberated on things, slow and careful. "You came into my house angry, like a storm, and demanded my help. You shot that man twice without blinking. But you saved the children and you ask why no one helps them."

"And?" Kylo said, somehow wanting to know what conclusion she came to.

"Do you know of Dinegia?" she asked him.

Kylo had no idea what that was, although he did know it was an exclamation she liked. "No?"

She nodded. "It's…" She seemed to search for a word. "The world. Nature. The force that controls all of it. Sometimes I can hear it, and it's loud around you."

Was this her idea of the Force? Or something else? Kylo decided to just go with it – if he had to guess, he'd say it was her religion. "And?"

"And I wonder why," she said simply. "Dinegia isn't often concerned with people."

"How do you know?"

"I just do."

A useful answer. Kylo sighed. Religious people were at times incredibly infuriating (not that he never said anything cryptic like that), but it was interesting that she seemed to have some kind of Force sensitivity. He knew little about the Ho'Din, only that they were good healers. He'd never been good at Force healing, so when he'd heard about Oolism, he went straight to her. "Will people still do business with me?"

"If you don't shoot anyone else, yes," Oolism said, smiling. She had no teeth.

"I'll keep that in mind," Kylo said.

He wished he could talk to Rey. She always seemed to know exactly what to say, even if her certainty came from a certain amount of naïveté. Right now he just wanted to explain things to her. Maybe then it would make sense.

Maybe.

A/N: The goal for this chapter is, if I'm completely honest, to make you feel a little uncomfortable. XD Kylo, for all that I love him, is... a bit not good. I believe this is why it's called a redemption arc. ;) I really don't want us to forget he's kind of deliberately chosen to be what he is, outside influences aside. This little chapter's important though - I feel like with the mask and with Snoke Kylo can kind of remove himself from what he does. When he takes off the mask and is him, he has to face things and accept them and so before he can begin to feel remorse he has to accept everything he did as his own action. Where he goes from there is important.

Don't worry, next chapter we get some Reylo again. Probably gonna be pretty angsty tho tbh.

I wrote this chapter while I was driving to and from Chicago to see Hamilton (!), and it was kind of a difficult trip so that might be why it ended up a little dark.