THE APPRENTICE ➛ Kylo Ren

⁽ ¹⁵ ⁾ ❝ ғᴏᴏʟ's ɢᴏʟᴅ ❞

"Jana..."

The name - her name - poked at Jana's mind. Should she answer?

"Get up."

Ooh. Whoever it was sounded agitated. Jana mentally protested as she felt sleep slip from under her body.

She heard a hissed, "For the love of god!" before the warmth was abruptly and unexpectedly stolen from her limbs. Her muscles clenched and she instinctively shriveled into a ball.
Then she pulled an eye open, shocked to see Ren standing in front of her bed.

Holding her sheets.

"What are you doing?" She questioned with a gravelly voice. If she was surprised that her mentor was in her room, she was even more surprised that he wasn't wearing his mask. He rarely was more than a few feet away from it.

"I'm waking you up," he answered bluntly, his deep voice invading the silence like a thick liquid. "Since you decided to be incapable of doing it yourself today."

Jana wanted to speak the rebuke she harbored on her tongue, but she decided it was simply too early to engage in another argument with this man. Besides...he would probably win.

"Now get up," Ren continued, tossing the blankets to the foot of her bed. "You have much to make up for. And I'm not letting you fall behind any more than you already have. I don't care if it breaks you. You will learn what I teach you. And you start today."

As he turned, Jana began to make a face at him, but stopped when he swiveled sideways in the doorway.
"Besides...I would think that you would be cold in that. Don't you want to warm yourself up?"

Jana bolted up, eyes snapping down to her short black nightgown, then grumpily crossed her arms over her chest.

"Maybe I wouldn't be so cold if you hadn't taken my covers," she mumbled hostly.

Ren gave her a deadpan stare. "Maybe I wouldn't have had to take your covers if you had gotten up in the first place."

Jana opened her mouth, but couldn't think of a response. Ren noticed, and smirked. Jana felt the temptation to stick her tongue out at him.

"Fine," she spat. "Just get out of here so I can change...Master."

Ren paused a moment before turning and leaving.

Jana's scowl died down after the man left. She rubbed her eyes, dreading the day before her. But deciding that it would do no good to stall, she rose and quite literally stumbled to the dresser, pulling out her training suit. She sighed upon seeing it.

"So," she muttered. "We meet again."

✧ ✦ ✧

When Jana arrived at the training center, she was confused to see it completely empty. The vaulted metal ceilings were dark, the cleated black floor was barren of activity, human or mechanical. The black walls reverberated with her slow footsteps.
She didn't feel threatened as she ventured deeper into the room. Even so, her left hand hovered over her lightsaber. The one that she'd been given to train with. It was bugged, and only let her activate it when she was in the facility. Ren had insisted on her having a saber, but Hux had highlighted how dangerous it could be. So she was given the fixed one instead.

Jana was still wondering why she was alone when she felt his presence behind her.

She froze.

For some reason, her hand would not move to grasp her lightsaber.

For some reason she did not recoil when she felt his breathing on her neck.

And for some reason...she enjoyed it.

"Did you really think it would be that easy, Jana?" He whispered in her ear.

Jana's breathing became unsteady, hitching as his hand wrapped around her left wrist, pulling it away from her weapon.

"I...I don't know what you're talking about," Jana replied shakily. It was a lie. It was such a horrendous lie. They both knew that she had every bit of an idea what he was talking about. She'd been dreading this day ever since she began her training.

"I think you do," he responded, his other hand brushing her dark hair away from her neck.

Jana exhaled, her body becoming paralyzed with chills.

"Did you think that you could fool me?" Ren said as his lips lightly touched her neck. "Did you think that by pretending to join the First Order, you could deceive me into believing that it was for any other motive than the true one? The one you wished to hide?"

Jana's eyes closed. She was going to break in front of him.

"No," she finally admitted. The grip on her arm tightened painfully, causing her to wince. "Why did you do it, Jana?" Ren asked, his other hand grasping her right wrist and applying the same amount of compression that was being given to the left.

Jana held back a yelp.

"Tell me," he insisted.

Jana gritted her teeth. "Because I thought that it could help me escape," she relinquished.

"Say it all," he hissed.

Jana bit her lip, but then gave in. "I pretended to join you in the hope that it would help me find a way back to my sister."

Ren only hummed in response, but she could feel the anger oozing from him, covering her and burning her mind like hot coals.

"And just how exactly were you planning on doing that?"

At his words, his fingers began bruising her arms. She groaned in pain, quickly saying, "I didn't know! I was desperate to get to her so I was desperate to try anything! But I could accomplish nothing in that prison you call 'living quarters', and the only way out was by accepting you!"

"You tried to trick me," he summed up.

Jana was about to reply when her head suddenly became heavy, her knees going weak and a voice filling her ears. It screamed and whispered at the same time.

"Jana! Turn!"

"You can feel it, can't you?"

Ren jarred her out of the trance.
She felt his icy lips against her ear as he whispered the words.

"You can feel the Dark Side calling to you. Just like it did on the day I found you."

"You mean the day you kidnaped me," Jana snapped back, ignoring the hurting in her wrists and the shuddering sensations rippling through her body at his touch.
Ren laughed, quiet, deep, and dark. "Ever the one to fight back. But you don't have to. Give into the Dark Side, Jana. Join me. Join me for real this time."

The way he spoke made it sound so unbelievably simple. But in truth it wasn't. Jana could hardly breathe as she shook her head, taking her lip between her teeth again.

Ren sighed. He released her arms and pulled away, moving to face her directly.

"Then you leave me no choice."
Jana frowned, suddenly fearful. What was going to do? Torture her? Use some trick of the Force to hypnotize her?

"Hux gave me orders not to tell you this. He feared what I did: that it would distract you from your training. But now that we both know the truth, there is no reason to any longer keep it hidden."

He locked gazes with her.

"Your sister is dead. There was an attack on a First Order base this morning. She was killed during the fight, along with all your other Resistance friends. You won't be seeing them or her again any time soon."