Send a Prayer Up Above

Chapter 13

A/N: This is a little bit shorter chapter, but I promise, Chapter 14 which will be up on Wednesday, will be longer. Thank you for reading <3

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Kylo and I were eating from a restaurant of my choosing, delivered via Postmates. I told him that Finn had heard he's in a mafia and he grunted 'good, the kid will know to watch his back'. I rolled my eyes to which he scowled. Luckily everyone at the housewarming party had written off Kylo's surprise entrance by being a crazy-ex. He apparently 'had that vibe', so I went with it.

"What did you and Vinny talk about?" Kylo asked after a moment of silence. He sat above me on his black couch and I was comfortably on the floor.

"Why did you come back with someone's blood?" I retorted.

"I asked first. Answer." He grumbled.

I swallowed the bite of burger down slower than necessary. I decided to play dumb again. "Vinny?"

"The bartender. At Mustafar the other day." Kylo had a nonchalant voice, but I could hear the slight sharpness in his voice which he tried to hide. Did he know? Did he have a gun behind his back this very moment? His right hand was behind his back, it looked like he was scratching an itch but he might as well have been clutching a gun, ready to fire if my answer gave me away. Would he do it? The steel in his eyes at this moment told me he would. I swallowed again. In a TV show once a character tried to teach the other one how to lie convincingly, and it went something like the most convincing lies are the ones closest to the truth.

"He thought I was your 'girl'." I started. "I said I wasn't, then he made the assumption that I was your whore and I didn't correct him. I think he felt sorry for me, I saw him eyeing my uncovered wrists."

Kylo pulled his arm behind his back and I couldn't help but flinch. To my relief, he had a piece of paper in his hand instead of a gun.

"Vinny has always been too soft." Kylo murmured.

"Why do you have him on then?"

Kylo swatted the air. "He's good at recruiting foot soldiers because he makes people feel like he sympathizes."

"And he doesn't?"

He smirked. "Everyone's got their dark side, Rey."

What have they made Jude do? I couldn't help but feel a little sorry for him now. He must've had to do awful things to prove his loyalty. But then again, he got into this willingly – I did not.

"Except me," I said, looking at my half-eaten burger. "I don't have a dark side that tells me murder is okay."

Kylo's fingers suddenly appeared on my jaw, stroking it slowly. "People have different kinds of darkness," his forefinger dipped to circle the bite, "I think yours is that you enjoy this a little."

I slapped his hand away. "Are you thick? Of course I don't enjoy being bitten!"

He dipped his jaw to look at me under his brows, and a dark little smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Whatever you say, scavenger."

I took a big bite of the burger to suffocate my scream. I wanted to scream because Kylo was insufferable and because even though I had been drunk, I knew what I felt at the bottom of my stomach when his teeth connected with my skin, when his belt encircled my wrists and when his lips left bruises on my neck. But that didn't mean I wouldn't deny it until the end of times.