'It is better to be hated for who you are than loved for who you are not.'

Autumn Leaves, André Gide.

Chapter Four: Silence.

'The gift of hindsight must be an incredible power. Bella would imagine it to be one of the most coveted, and God knew she could have done with it right now.

Cullen, the creep who abducted her, had started 'training' her. He wanted to get a feel for the extent of what she could do, and she had gone and given up the ghost right away. She could only imagine her desire must have been to intimidate him or something because she wasn't normally that kind of person. After all, she'd been raised her entire life to be untrusting considering the fact she'd grown up in the foster care system and had been homeless. The situation itself was eerie because she couldn't remember what happened, why she'd agreed so easily when it was so against her character, just that he'd asked and she complied.

For a total of six weeks, Bella had been in this stupid facility that she couldn't find a way out of, mainly because she didn't know where she was. Her power was unstoppable when she knew where to send it, but she had no feel for the place, and she wouldn't know how to get out her way without causing the structure to crash down around her.

She had a strong feeling that the facility was underground, as it seemed to have a high-tech ventilation system that nobody would invest in unless it was vital for it to work correctly all of the time, like if they were far underground. But the vents weren't big enough for anywhere near a child to fit through never mind her. And yes, she could fight her way out, but she had no idea how big this place was or how many staff there were or what abilities they might have.

Everyone here could do messed up things that were so messed up. A guy that could cut off all of your senses, his twin that could kick your pain receptors into overdrive.

Jasper is an empath; he can mess with emotions. She didn't know what Rosalie did, but Bella had noticed that she always wore a strange material of gloves and if that had anything to do with it.

"You've lost another twelve pounds since last week. This hunger strike is immature and idiotic. You were already underweight when you joined us, and if you continue like this, you will die." Dr Daddy Cullen stated factually. She didn't know if Dr DC was Cullen's father or his brother, but she did know their names were the same. Dr DC was older, you could tell that, but did look different besides core similarities like eyes and nose and those little things that just ran in families. Dr DC was slightly shorter, thinner, had blonde hair and a more gaunt face. Still attractive, just in a more niche way than most people.

"I don't think 'joined us' is the right term to use considering that I was drugged and thrown in a van and most definitely do not want to be here." Bella spat, tears threatening to sting her eyes but she willed them away. Fuck, she'd thought that sleeping on the streets was the worst thing that had ever happened to her.

Dr DC sighed, pausing in his paper fiddling to grip on to the table so hard she thought it would crack. Was he going to hit her? Bella studied him carefully, his teeth clenched but it seemed more like the appearance of someone who had touched a burning stove and was resisting the screaming instinct to remove their hand, despite the pain. "You have peers here that could understand you if you let them, people, willing to help you train your powers-"

"For what? Shouldn't that be my decision, whether to use them or not? What exactly could I even use them for down here?" Her questions were desperate. She'd lived on the streets long enough to know that to survive you had to make yourself as uninteresting and unuseful as possible. "I don't hurt people, things. I can't even hit a bee if it stings me. I haven't eaten meat since I was six." It was all true, but she'd happily snap Cullen's neck for daring to fuck with her.

"You'll learn. I'm giving you 24 hours to eat a meal, or I'll be forced to update Cullen on your little strike and believe me it is better for both of us if he doesn't know."

"He can't force me to eat." Bella protested. "I refuse to become his little puppet."

Dr DC regarded her with tired blue eyes that flashed with something she could only uncertainly claim as hopelessness before he said. "Believe me, he can and you will."'

\_/

Bella liked to sit on the roof at night. It wasn't something she did a lot because then the maintenance would catch on and change the lock, but she liked to do it on clear nights which were rare in the city. She brought a crappy little lawn chair up with her and sat looking at the stars for hours.

Kylo had been here awhile, just contemplating with her. He was leaning against the wall next to her chair, breeze blowing his cape around him. She wondered if capes were a thing where he came from or if he was a misfit in wearing one. She pondered over a lot of things about him.

"What's it like where you come from?" She asked, tilting her head back in her lawn chair to look at him. He looked a little taken aback by her question like he expected her to ask him something else.

"I was born on a world called Chandrila." He started slowly, and it struck her that he was going over what truths he wanted to tell her and what he wanted to leave out. She turned in her chair to give him her full attention and his mouth opened to speak but he paused for a moment longer, regarding her, before he continued. "It is beautiful and tame. My mother was a high-ranking government official and my father a scavenger, and both were rarely around, so I had a lot of opportunities to explore. The weather is mild so sometimes I would leave the city and just go out into the forests and explore."

"What was the city like?"

"More advanced than this one and not as cramped. Everything was close but there was always an air of space. I'd compare it to your city but cleaner, less grey and without as many homeless." Bella snorted loudly, she did think New York was too grey and apparently New York thought the same thing with the number of glass skyscrapers popping up.

"And you?" Kylo asked and Bella's eyebrows raised in question but his facial expression remained the same, inquisitive, and she assumed this was a manifestation of his dislike of repeating himself.

"I was born in a different country to this one, Italy. I don't remember much about it but I only remember sun and grass and rolling hills. I lived in an orphanage there until I was five and an American couple adopted me and they brought me here. Shortly after my papers were finalised and I was officially an American citizen, they got into a car accident and died. Social Services tried to send me back to Italy but they refused because I had picked up English quickly and they were worried I wouldn't settle back in. So I just bounced from foster homes back into group homes until I ran away before I turned eighteen."

"Did you go back home?" Kylo asked and she shook her head.

"There was nothing there for me; I'm an orphan." She shrugged.

"And why did you leave the homes you had here?"

"The foster homes are families that take in kids and are their caregivers until they turn eighteen and become an adult. But a lot of people are only in it for the money they get from the government and don't look after the kids. I was in about three to five foster homes a year until I was fourteen and most of them were awful, the best case scenario was that they didn't beat the ever-loving shit out of you and the worst made you want to die." Her mind wandered to that night when she was fourteen and James had finally made his move. She was in her final home for three weeks with a married couple, his wife was a nurse and gone most of the time and James was a fucking creep. He would watch her and make any excuse to touch her, each day inching more and more toward inappropriate. She would lie awake staring at her bedroom door at night where he would pause each night by her door, sometimes standing there for almost an hour. Then, he started coming in.

"The group homes were better but still awful. They take like fifteen kids that have a whole variety of mental issues from unstable upbringings and they make them live together and expect it to all be okay. But anything I had was getting stolen, they'd constantly try to bait me into fights and I swear at one point they were putting drugs in my food."

"I've lived in a similar situation, not as hostile but I can sympathise," Kylo commented and Bella raised an eyebrow in question.

"My mother sent me to train in the force with my uncle, hoping it would push the darkness at bay, and he tried to kill me in my sleep."

"Shit," Bella breathed. "I still win the shitty upbringing category but you get serious points for that one." He exhaled a short chuckle and she yawned.

"So what's with the name? Kylo Ren of the Knights of Ren. Is that like a house or something?" Now that she thought of it the name sounded royal, although she didn't even know if they had royals where he was from.

"I was born Ben Solo. My current name is one I adopted after cutting ties with my family and the rebellion." The conversation lilted then, and she knew he knew he'd said too much and he was watching her intently, listening to her thoughts and gauging her reaction.

His mother was a 'high ranking government official' probably less government and more rebellion, but she knew he was high ranking now but if he'd cut ties with his mother he obviously didn't work with her. She didn't know how big his government was but from the way he spoke of it he didn't pass her in the hallways or see her much at all.

Had he switched sides from the rebellion after his uncle tried to murder him?

\_/

A/N: I had this written up on Monday but had no time to edit it, I'm

sorry. I've planned for an extra update soon

(My 'schedule' is once a week and preferably on a Monday so far.) I missed last weeks update because it was my birthday , I sat and passed my drivers test and had about 10,000 collective words of essays due. I'm a final year univerity student and I sometimes might be too busy having a mental breakdown.

Chapter song: Silence- Marshmello, Khalid, Rude Kid (REMIX) (better

than the O.G! All chapters are inspired by a song which will be listed here from no

w on. Chapter 1 was Alone- Halsey, Chapter 2 was Control- Halsey, Chapter 3 was Fences- Paramore.)

Thanks for reading. Leave a review if you liked it, or if you didn't. Or if you'd like to guess what the puppet thing was about.