CHAPTER 54
ALWAYS A TEAM

SHE really wasn't sure how she always got herself into these situations.

Raena's arms were bent behind her back, bounded together with a pair of stun cuffs. Kylo had placed her right near the entrance of the cockpit, just far enough that he could ignore her, but also see her. Cold sweat dripped down her brow as she struggled against the restraints, though she knew it was a faulty plan. She watched him drive the ship wildly through hyperspace. His face contorted slightly; his sanity was dipping over the edge.

Raena ground her teeth together as she tried to think of a way to get herself out. If she could calm him down ... Surely, that would help, right? It could give her enough time to knock him out.

"Can we just ..." Raena tilted her head to the side, hoping to gain his attention. "Can we go over your plan for a second?"

Kylo didn't answer. He kept his eyes straight ahead, twitching slightly at the sound of her strained voice. Raena felt like she was burning up. Nerves riddled her entire body.

"So we get to Exegol and you find Palpatine," she continued. "What then? You'll help him kill Rey?"

His brows crossed. Raena noticed his grip on the wheel go tight. His knuckles were turning a ghostly white, as if he was dying before her eyes. "The exact opposite," he finally choked out. "Rey cannot kill the Emperor alone or she'll become him. She'll inherit the throne and continue his legacy."

Judging from the look in Rey's eyes on Kef Bir, Raena had a feeling that Kylo's prediction could come true. Her mouth went dry. "That's what you want, right? His throne?"

Kylo rubbed at temples. His whole face was turning pale. "He knew I'd never be able to kill her. He knew she'd come to him all on her own," he whispered, and Raena wasn't sure if she was supposed to hear.

"And you're going to keep me cuffed in here while a war rages out on Exegol? The rebels will all be following Rey and fighting against the fleet that you have stationed around the Emperor." Raena watched him breathe heavily and ignore her. She huffed angrily. "Answer me, Kylo! Is that what you plan to do or what?!"

"Raena," he called anxiously. His tone was hoarse and broke faintly, as if a sob was clogged in his throat. If Raena hadn't been introduced to the monster that lurked beneath his skin, she would've almost thought he cared.

She swallowed hard. "What?"

"After this is all over, we're going to fly away," he promised, and she felt her skin crawl. "A place where no one knows about, where no one knows who we are. And we can start new. We'll be together and that's all that matters."

Raena's teeth began to chatter as they exited hyperspace. She could see the dark hue of Exegol reflect against the windows.

"We're a team," Kylo whispered. "We'll always be a team."

She shook her head. "You're going hysterical." Raena yanked at the cuffs wrapped around her hands and clenched her jaw. "I will not be your prisoner again, Kylo!"

He stayed quiet. Kylo zoomed through the stormy desert as gunfire began to pierce their ears. Raena looked outside and wanted to cry at the war erupting below. Her friends were out there. Her one last hope for a family. There had to be a hopeful ending to this.

She turned back to her captor. "Kylo –"

"It's Ben."

Raena blinked, not expecting that answer. After running from a name for so long, she never thought he would return to that identity again. She wondered what suddenly came over him on Kef Bir. Had he finally broke? Was his mind in shambles?

She breathed deeply, "Ben ..."

He smiled quickly at the sound of that name falling from her lips.

"Let me out of here," she pleaded, "and I can help eliminate the Emperor."

"No," he barked out, "you'll stay here where you're safe."

Raena pulled at the cuffs once again as Kylo landed the ship softly on a mound of black sand. She shrieked at the top of her lungs while stomping her boots on the floor, "I'M NOT SAFE HERE!"

The shuttle sank a little into the sand. Raena felt the weak impact. Kylo quickly unstrapped himself from the pilot's seat and walked out of the cockpit. She breathed heavily through her nose, trying to push away from him, but only backed herself further into the wall. He kneeled in front of her and pinched her chin between two fingers.

Kylo searched her eyes. His expression went soft as he recognized the fear in them. Instinctively, he raised both hands to cup her cheeks, rubbing circles across her flushed skin. He whispered, "This is safe."

Raena's mouth opened, but she was left speechless. She forced a wall around her mind so Kylo couldn't hear the panic she was expressing inside.

"I'll be back," he said, getting to his feet. "I promise."

Her eyes widened as she watched him head for the exit. Raena began to slide her butt across the floor. "You can't keep me here. You can't. Please!" She blinked away tears when he looked at her. "BEN!"

He sent her one last regretful smile before running out of the ship, leaving the door slightly ajar. Raena smashed her fists on the ground and screamed obscenities at the top of her lungs. Her last hope of getting out of here vanished without looking back. That fucking – No, it wasn't time to yell or curse his name into the ground, although it was very tempting. She needed to focus on finding a way out.

Raena was a bounty hunter once. She could get herself out of anything. That's what us Nhagy's do best, her uncle once said.

She had been able to connect to the Force before. It had shown her things she didn't know yet, and hard things she didn't want to be reminded of, but she harnessed the will to connect with it. If she had the strength to find the Force now, maybe that was the only way to unlock her stun cuffs.

She closed her eyes, trying to calm her eager heart, and focused on simply breathing. Meditation had been helping her in the past couple of months, but she wasn't too confident that it could break these cuffs. She took in a deep breath, and then let it out. Instead of focusing on her anger, like Kylo had instructed, she did the opposite. She just breathed. Raena repeated these actions for a few minutes before she felt the cool rush of the Force float around her, and her mind plunged itself into the darkness she knew so well. Except, this time, there was no red string on her finger. Only a sliver blackness surrounding her, while the bright light invited her in from just a foot away, beams reaching out to her fingertips.

Raena swallowed hard and turned to the light, allowing it to pull her in. She was blinded as the light gripped her hard and yanked her body into its warm embrace. Raena breathed in deeply and asked, "I need help. Please, please, get me out of here. I need to find Rey and the rest of the Resistance. I need to do good and help them."

The silence was deafening. Raena couldn't even open her eyes, in fear of the light burning into her very irises. But she didn't need to see to know that it was real, that the light held her without turning away.

"You are good, Raena Nhagy. Never forget that," a calm voice spoke out. Raena didn't recognize it. "As you wish ..."

Her eyes snapped open, and just like that, Raena heard the click of the cuffs releasing her. She looked over her shoulder and watched them collide with the floor. Her mouth opened in shock, and she rubbed at her wrists nervously. Raena had been able to get them off. The Force helped her.

There wasn't enough time to marvel at her growing abilities. Her mind felt like it was swimming as she got to her feet, but Raena found enough strength to kick the exit open and sprint off the shuttle. Exegol was a stormy desert that reeked of death and decay. TIE Fighters X-wings rammed into each other across the sky, while screams reached the heavens from elsewhere on the desolate planet. Raena looked ahead and saw exactly what she was looking for: the gloomy battlement of the Sith Citadel.

Lucky for her, Kylo had landed the ship just a mile shy of the temple. It wouldn't take long for her to reach the entrance, but that also meant Kylo had a much better advantage getting there before her. Raena sprinted as fast as her legs could carry her. She tried to ignore the sand that was piling up at the bottom of her boot, due to the incessant hole she had never gotten fixed on the heel. Exhaling quickly, Raena picked up speed and hustled towards the citadel, but as it got closer, she found six figures waiting for her.

The Knights of Ren stood patiently in front of the entrance to the Sith temple. Leta Solari waited confidently at the front, while the rest of her fellow knights had their weapons drawn. Despite their vicious appearance, Raena did not slow down. She advanced towards them with one hand on her holster, ready for a fight.

Ushar, the tallest knight, shouted, "SEIZE HER!"

And then, they were running towards each other, facing the other side head-on. The Knights reached Raena in a matter of seconds and surrounded her in a circle, but she would not cower in fear. Each one advanced at her with their own weapon of choice, whether it be a melee weapon or vibro-blade, and Raena fought them off. She had two blasters in her hands – one from the holster, another from her secret hiding place – and used her legs and elbows to shove off her attackers.

Kuruk lunged for her and swung around his blaster rifle, but he was too slow. He wasn't used to hand-to-hand combat, and Raena knew it. He liked fighting from a high vantage point, covering an assault for the other Knights. Raena blocked his aim, lifting her leg and kicked his blaster out of the way. Kuruk doubled over, allowing a sliver of skin to be visible between his helmet and collarbone. Raena yanked on his arm while holding off another knight, Ap'lek, and aimed her rifle for the exposed skin, pulling the trigger instantly.

She looked over her shoulder, brows furrowing at the sight of Leta Solari. She was hesitating at the edge of the circle, looking at her fellow knights with attentiveness. Before Raena could ask what she was doing, Leta wrapped her arm around Cardo's neck and put him in a chokehold. Both Raena and the knight were caught by surprise.

But then Raena turned, and instead of blocking off Ap'lek's next attack, she was engulfed by the sudden pain of a bullet from Kuruk's blaster sinking into her stomach. "SHIT!" She screeched, slipping out of Ap'lek's tight grip. She fell on her knees and clutched her stomach, putting pressure on her wound. Ushar stepped in front of the knights, asking them to hesitate, before he enacted a final blow with his vibrocleaver that would hold her off for a little while longer.

After sucking in a long breath of air, Raena felt the pain vanish. She pushed herself off from the ground and cocked back her blaster rifle. Ushar looked down and watched the blood on her shirt slip back under her skin, as if it was never there in the first place. Raena smirked and aimed the rifle at the breathing tubes on his helmet.

"Looks like you didn't get the memo," she quipped, before knocking a bullet right into both sides of his ridiculous mask. It cut off the anti-ox filters he needed to breathe, and suddenly, Ushar was choking on the ground. "I'm immortal, assholes."

Kuruk growled underneath his mask, "YOU BITCH!"

Raena shrugged. "I've been called worse."

As she lunged for Kuruk, Raena noticed Cardo drop head-first into the sand. Leta bent his good arm back, and once he was on the ground, she was stomping her spiked book into his arm cannon, and then his helmet. Blood leaked from the dents in his helmet and into the sand. Leta met Raena's start with a grin underneath her helmet before attacking Ap'lek and Trudgen.

When Raena turned back to Kuruk, she realized how stealthily he had slipped out of her fingers. She cupped a hand over her eyes, trying to ignore the death and destruction cracking against the clouds, and found Kuruk and Trudgen running for her shuttle to escape. "Oh, come on," she scoffed, cocking back the rifle. "The least you could've done was fight me back." With one single blaster bullet in the spine, both were sent to the ground. Raena shot them a few more times for safe measure.

She swung back around, aiming the barrel of her blaster at Ap'lek, but was welcomed with the sight of Leta plunging Ap'lek's own vibro-ax into his gut. He fell into the black sand at her feet as Leta lifted her head. She breathed a sigh of relief and raised her hands, hoisting the helmet off her head. Dark curls spilled down her back, and Raena lowered her blaster just to admire Leta's beauty for a short second. The helmet sunk into the sand, right next to her boot.

"Several years I've been wearing that," she snarled, sweat dripping down her face, "and several years I've been leading these sick fucks around. I'm done."

"Then, you need to get out of here," Raena said, motioning towards her shuttle. The wind whipped her braid across her cheek. "Go on."

Leta raised a brow and wiped at her forehead. "You're allowing me to –"

"Take the shuttle. Leave."

"But what about you?"

She shrugged. "I'll find a way." She always found a way. Raena smiled softly. "Now, go. Run while you still can."

Leta nodded, but didn't look back as she sprinted for the parked shuttle a mile away. Raena did the same, immediately taking off for the temple just a few feet ahead. She slipped down into the entrance and allowed the ghosts around to be her guide. The Force would lead her to where she needed to go, to find Rey. Instead of helping Kylo this whole time, Raena needed to save Rey before she was fully engulfed by the dark, and if that meant facing the sinister Emperor Palpatine, then so be it.

Leia was right: the only thing that mattered was how she perceived the good in herself, and Raena knew the only way she'd be able to know is if she rid the world of the person who caused so much evil, so much destruction. This was it. The end was coming.

She was going to kill Kylo Ren, and not even the Emperor could stop her.

•••

A/N: honestly have no words to say but..........hope y'all are excited!!!