Anakin’s boots crushed the ash beneath his heels as he wiped the soot from his hair. Volcanic planets were many things, enjoyable wasn’t one of them.

  “What does this make? Eighteen?” Ashoka quipped next to him. Her outfit was a strange mix of black leather and belts, like a gothic teenager. Hopefully, something she would grow out of, she was still relatively young. Was she twenty-eight? Twenty-two? Age was something he always had a habit of forgetting.

  “Give or take.”

  His eyes met hers. Two pairs of eclipsed eyes stared back at each other. Such a useful tool. Some people were only useful on certain loops. Obi-Wan and Mace would only join him if he used the Light, but so long as he got Ashoka before Obi-Wan, then he could turn her with a bit of effort.

  Still, her eyes were oddly dilated. Drugs? Tsk, annoying, her will was already beginning to shatter. She just wasn’t meant to be a Dark Side user, it was tearing her apart inside.

  “Lord Skywalker, General Tano.” A man in black durasteel armour greeted from above an ash dune. His armour was thick, a higher quality compared to what Anakin was used to seeing, and the weapons he wore were numerous and near comically large. If it wasn’t for the internal temperature systems Anakin knew were in his suit, he would have no doubt been cooked alive within a few minutes on this planet.

  “Number?” Anakin raised a brow.

  “CT - 2224, Special Unit, Sith Slayer.” The clone saluted.

  They were one of the few units of clones Anakin had kept. Clones, after all, weren’t good for Galactic control, they weren’t people in the traditional sense. They were expensive, impersonal, and they were just a tool to be used and discarded. However, he wouldn’t say no to a few special units of Jango Fetts.

  “And your report?”

  “We found it, sir, definitely a contingency of his , though, it’s not what we expected.”

  “Explain.”

  “Better if we just show you.” There was a hesitance in his voice. Hesitance in a clone? Strange.

  The clone escorted Ashoka and himself through the ash. Although the heated air started to pick up, creating a storm of ash to flick around them like pests. The whole planet was nothing but a hot oven, which left nothing but ash and sulphur. Out of all planets, the last place someone would expect for life to thrive would be here. Palpatine, however, was rarely a man of sense.

  Eventually, the trio came up to the rest of the durasteel-covered special unit of clones. At the notice of their Lord approaching, Anakin could taste the fear slowly mix in with the sulphur in the air. Men who towered over Ashoka bent to their knees before her, splitting apart as they walked between them.

  “My Lord, the bunker.” CT-2224 gestured to an ash-covered metal square in the ground. Perhaps the only man-made thing on this planet. It was far too out of the known Galaxy for this place to have come across anything sense of life.

  “Traps?”

  “A few, we wouldn’t have brought you here if it hadn’t already been cleared.”

  Anakin only narrowed his eyes. Clones were only as loyal as tight as your grip on their inhibitor chips. There was always a chance they would go from the most loyal of tools, to a bunch of soulless betrayers. Still, Anakin sensed no lie, and as such gestured to the clones to bust the bunker open.

  Cool fresh air burst outwards from the opening. This planet might not support life, but this place did. How annoying. It looks like this would be one of his.

  Letting out an annoyed sigh, Anakin descended into the shadow of the bunker, quickly joined by Ashoka and his clone guards. The walk was silent except for the occasional quip from his General. Too bad the clones were scared stiff around him, and he wasn’t good for company either anymore.

  Thankfully, it would take too much longer, he could feel the Force signatures sitting inside the room waiting dully.

  “Oh god,” Ashoka murmured beside him, bringing her hands to her mouth in horror. He should’ve brought Barris, she was better for this kind of work.

  Anakin had come prepared for the horrors that came with immortality experiments. Twisted flesh, cybernetic scarred skin, even a cruel torture room would be better than this. However, while he suspected this was the case when he felt the Force coming from the room, he still hoped this would be wrong.

  “What is this?” Ashoka's fingers curled around one of the cribs.

  It was a nursery. There were about eighteen babies spread around the room, all being cared for by numerous medical droids that seemed to ignore Anakin and his men, too focused on caring for the babies. How problematic..

  “We ran the DNA. They are his, all of them.” A Clone said, handing over a data pad. Sure enough, it was all there. Medicolorian count, age, condition and even who the egg donor is. He didn’t need to look up the sperm donor; he already suspected.

  “Do any show any sign of adult cognition? Palpatine could have transferred his essence to them.” He said, handing back the data pad back before walking up to one of the cribs.

  “He always did seem like a giant baby,” Ashoka smirked, though her eyes were shaken, her breath a little too quick. Fear came off her like a thick stench. Foolish women, if he could sense it so easily, then so could Palpatine. If the Sith were really one of these children, she would be nothing but a weak-willed maiden too blinded by stupidity to see him for what he is.

  He ignored her, instead choosing to focus on the small human-twi’lek hybrid. She was so small, so fragile. Big blue eyes awoke to stare at him with the curiosity that only someone who hasn’t experienced the Galaxy could have. She was too young to know how cruel this Galaxy was. Anakin reached down into the crib, feeling the weak resistance of the pillow. Palpatine must have set an automatic timer before his death so they would be available for essence transfer.

  “Shhhh, it’ll all be okay.” He hummed a soft lullaby to the baby. He would offer this child a kindness he never could receive.

  “Anakin, what are you doing?” Ashoka's voice broke.

  The baby screamed as he pushed the pillow over the head of the baby. The muffled cries howled through the room until it didn’t. Slowly, he removed the pillow, revealing a glassy-eyed tiny corpse.

  “No, how could you?” Ashoka whispered, looking down into the crib. Easily, it was a baby. Not too difficult to put a pillow over one.

  “Burn them,” Anakin commanded, taking his leave to find whatever data on this place he could. He doubts this would be the only nursery, but perhaps this one had clues to the others.

  “Yes, Lord Skywalker.” The Clones saluted. That was another reason why he liked clones, they weren’t afraid of doing the dirty parts of war. They couldn’t help it, they were groomed for it.

  A hand gripped his wrist. Strong, calloused, stained with unseen blood.

  “We can’t.” His general begged, her eyes losing that heated glow from the Dark Side. We can’t, though? Since when could he not ever do what he pleased?

  “Any of them could be a vessel for Palpatine,” his eyes met hers. Why was she being difficult?

  “This is too far.”

  “You’ve cracked planets, betrayed the Jedi, your actions have led to the death of millions of children throughout the Galaxy, but now that it’s in front of you, you waver?”

  She held her tongue, though he could see how badly she wanted to argue. Argue what, though? He was right, as always. Still, she had a conflicted look of defiance, a sign of weakness. He would ask far worse of her in the years to come, he could not have her falter here.

  “ Burn. Them .” He growled, the Dark Side leaking off his voice like honeyed poison. Sweet yet burning.

  “But-“ She never got to finish her sentence as he ripped his hand from her grip.

  “That is an order Tano, you are either part of this or…” He towered over her, looking down on her with eyes of hate. “You are not.”

  Her own fear-stricken eyes flicked between the babies and himself. Such a poor, broken child. The Light Side always clung to her too dearly, too bad for it, Anakin had deep claws.

  “Yes, Lord Skywalker.” She murmured with a bowed head.

  She found him an hour later in the observation deck of their ship as he sipped Nabooian wine from his throne, watching as plumes of ash erupted from lava spewing fissures in the ground. He hated these sorts of planets, sand and soot clung to him far too much for his comfort, causing an almost compulsive need for showers.

  Her own face was covered in soot, eyes wide and staring at him, carrying a distant look. The strong scent of death sticks stuck to her, carrying a foul stench with her every step. He would need to call in a few cleaners to follow her all the way to her room. He couldn’t have ash in every corridor she pouted around.,

  “Did the clone provide you with the records?”

  “Yes, Cody gave me the briefing. He is nothing if not a man of results.” She sneered, looking out from the viewing deck where smoke could still be seen spouting out from the cellar like a chimney, carrying a distinct smell of burning flesh.

  “Don’t call them by those false names. Names are given by parents with love, but they give each other lies out of insecurity. Don’t indulge them. Do you understand?”

  “They were children. They could have been more than ash.” She said with down trodden eyes, either ignoring his question or not hearing it.

  Anakin let out a deep sigh. Here it was, her will beginning to break. If he were her, he wouldn’t have wasted time with all this talking and instead just put a lightsaber between his ribs, but she didn’t have his experience. Shame, she would die for it. His own hand fell to the lightsaber on his waist, the cold metal greeting him. It was a lonely greeting, but the only honest one he had received this loop.

  “Any of them could’ve been Palpatine. He is a master manipulator, if he needed to act like a child to survive, then we would never know. He’s too capable at tricking people.”

  “Still, we could have tried. This guilt… It’s crushing.”

  “Guilt is passing, remember your first kill? It’s a phase, it will pass.”

  “No. Guilt is important, it keeps us accountable. Consequences are what makes life, life. Without consequences, what meaning do our actions have?

  None. However, there was only one consequence that mattered, and that was the death of Palpatine. Till then, nothing had any meaning, for everything would be reset again and again and again. There are no consequences for an immortal time looper. Killing a child is no different to saving one when it all gets reset.

  “Get CT-2224’s squad to check the ashes to execute any survivors. We cannot waste a moment, we have lots of safe houses to find and burn.”

  “No.” She growled. Such defiance in such a small woman.

  “Tano, think carefully about who you are disobeying.” His eyes narrowed.

  “This guilt is the consequence of murdering babies,” her fingers wrapped around her lightsaber. So he would have to kill her too, so be it. “Your consequence is you won’t have another executioner to kill any more innocence.”

  Instead of bringing her lightsaber to her battle stance, she instead brought it up to her temple. “Goodbye, Skywalker. It was… horrifying.”

  Even now, she could surprise him. She truly was a wonderful woman.

  If Vader was hot passion, then Anakin was a cold malice. Despite the annoying return of his emotions, he had held that leash tight on himself, allowing him to dip into the Dark Side without becoming blinded by Vader’s lust. Pinching out an ember of singed hair, he dusted off the rest of his clothes, which for the most part were covered in burned holes as if someone had held up a lighter. Areas where his absorption was weaker had left the fabric scorched and his skin burned red, making him look like some strange spotted lobster.

  “Halt!” Anakin recognised the voice. Turning his head, he noticed two white figures quickly approaching him like Casper the strangely aggressive ghost. These were the two temple guards who had provided the holo for him.

  “Anakin Skywalker, put your hands up and get on the floor.”

  “Come on, you don’t want to do this. We are clearly in an emergency.”

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Skywalker, you are currently resisting arrest. Comply or be taken by force.”

  Or that, he supposed. Cracking his neck, Anakin let the medicolorians, which saturated his body, sing into the Force, attuning his cells to the flow of the Force. It wasn’t a beautiful beat of the Light side, one where everything felt in harmony, which would have allowed him to dance to the beat of all things. Instead, the sound was like grating steel. Ugly, forceful, rushed. A cacophony of horror.

  Anakin leapt into combat. He was outnumbered, without a lightsaber, against two of the temple guard. His only chance was leading the combat. Like a conductor controlling the flow of the music, he swapped positions with his dance partners loosely as if they were his playthings.

  When outnumbered, the common thought was to put your back to the wall. Once the attacks come in two directions, then it’s over. Even a world-class fighter can be taken down by a few people, so long as they have the advantage of positioning. That was the thought process of someone who wanted to live.

  Anakin didn’t. He wasn’t someone frightened by death. Common practice didn’t apply to him. When death didn’t matter, suddenly combat became freeing. He could take risks most people couldn’t. He could dance along the blade of a lightsaber, he could get in close, he could take the riskiest bets, and he was someone who could fight like someone with no consequences. People always fought with the end in mind, playing safe to not lose an arm for the rest of their lives. Rules like that didn’t apply to him.

  The temple guards with their pikes had never faced someone who gleefully ran into their sabers. They had never seen someone treat lethal attacks like a handshake. Throwing his back into one of the guards, Anakin waltzed along to the flow of the battle, his smaller frame complementing the large battle-robed clad guards.

  Their pikes, their robes, even the small corridor in which they fought left the temple guards limited as Anakin kept the three of them close and tight together. One of the guards tried to strike him, swinging his pike in a wild arc, desperate to hit something, or at the very least push Anakin away where their pikes would have an advantage.

  Sparks flew, and the ceiling turned red-hot and malleable as the heated yellow plasma came down atop him. Fear would have sent a weaker man back, experience told him to leap forward. Anakin caught the handle a few short inches away from his clavicle, but with a twist, he rotated the blade so now the handle was pressed horizontally between their chests.

  “How about we make this threesome a little more personal?” Steeling his grip, Anakin thrust his body against the pike handle. With this other hand, he reached out to the other guard, his unprepared Forceshield shattered beneath Anakin’s will, empowered by the Dark Side, and a strong pull sent him flying towards them.

  “No!” The temple guard pressed against Anakin, screaming as he thrashed, unable to fully pull out his pike from the shared grip between him and Anakin.

  A gasp escaped from beside them as the heated plasma of the pike impaled the guard Anakin Force pulled. In seconds, blood turned into steam and organs into a fleshy liquid.

  The scent of fear radiated off the guard Anakin had been pressed against. Foolish, the only thing that mattered in a battle was the death of your enemy. Anything else was just a distraction. A brutal knee separated the two of them, sending his opponent into the wall while he fell over the corpse of the other guard.

  Cold metal found his fingertips. Tsk, he hated pikes. Too long, better against enemies that couldn’t close the distance. It just happened that the enemies Anakin had to worry about were all superhuman warlords.

  The temple guard who wasn’t dead seemed to gather himself, shaking off the impact of the wall. In a furious rage, the guard leapt forward. Lightpike flying in a sudden overhead arc, cutting through the ceiling, aiming to bisect him in two.

  Anakin activated his own lightpike, deflecting the overhead blow, colliding his shoulder into the guard’s own. The guard had more mass to him, and the heavy robes only added to the collapsing weight that threatened to topple him. With gritted teeth, he held, pushing his own mass into the guard, fighting the pull of gravity.

  Bringing up the pike, the blade cut through the handle of his opponent's pike, severing circuits and sending spikes flying. In a clean movement, Anakin took the fear-sticken opponent by his robe before unleashing a point-blank Force push into his ribs, cracking at least four of them in the process.

  The guard shot back into the wall like an arrow hitting the metal with a wet thud, bouncing off with the slackness a human body shouldn’t normally have. He had no time to waste, the rhythm of the Dark Side demanded a perfect end, a cruel coda to finish.

  “You wasted my time.” Anakin spoke, holding the edge of the pike to his throat close enough for the robes to start to steam. A voice whispered to him, a seductive hum which sang to the tune of murder.

  The guard could still attack while his back was turned, he could run to Yoda, he deserved to die. He was in his way, wasting valuable time. That was a crime worthy of death.

  “Go,” Anakin spat, ignoring those demons in his head. He really hated relying on the Dark Side, these voices would only get worse with time.

  Despite his scolding, the guard didn’t move. He was still looking at his dead friend in horror.

  Guilt.

  That is… strange? Guilt… it had been so long he almost seemed to forget how it felt. It felt heavy? How could emotions be heavy? Shit, how long was he going to have these for? They better not last for the next loop, that would be problematic if he was actually trying to finally end the loops.

  “Never mind.”

  “Can you stop?” Padme groaned as she watched Obi-Wan finish his fifty-first lap around the council room, expecting the fifty-second to come soon.

  “I should be out there helping.” He growled more at himself than anyone else.

  Instead, he was stuck here protecting her as if she were some poor maiden who couldn’t defend herself.

  “Go.” She repeated again. What number she was on was a mystery; however, she knew it would be nearing the twenties.

  “And leave you?”

  “Yes?” She said bluntly.

  “What if you are attacked?”

  “Then you finally get your wish of being rid of me.” She sneered, causing Obi-Wan to turn his head back on her.

  “Will you… Stop it with that!”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you!”

  “I’m trying to protect Anakin, and you are upset at me for it!”

  “You don’t care about saving Anakin!”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You have a messiah complex,” he sighed.

  “Messiah complex? That’s rich coming from a Jedi. Mr Savour of the Republic, Slayer of Sith, Obi-Wan the Pretentious.”

  “The difference between us is that if I had a button that would save Anakin right now, this very second, but under the condition he could never know about it. I would press it while you’d hesitate.”

  “I wouldn’t!” She lied.

  She wanted it. His attention. She wanted it more than she knew she could want something. She didn’t know how long ago she wanted it, she didn’t know how much she was willing to do to keep it. What she could forgive of him. Anakin was far from sinless, but for that desire she craved, she would take on those sins like a martyr.

  “I want the best for you, too. Truly, I do. Anakin, out of all of us, deserves to know how it feels to be loved. But right now… I can’t work with someone who would put his hand in boiling water just to be the one to take it out”

  She at least had the shame to look away. However, before she could argue, a child’s scream echoed through the corridors. His eyes darted to her, a silent beg.

  “I promise I won’t leave, go.” He didn’t need to be asked again this time.

  He darted out of the room at a speed that made her remember just how quickly they could move. They really weren’t comparable to normal people? No wonder they never participated in politics. They weren’t human. Politics was for people who couldn’t get what they wanted, but with those abilities, it would be so easy just to try to use brute force.

  Alone again, she waited in the silent room by herself. Forced to listen to the sounds of screams and blaster fire in the distance, echoing through the Jedi Order Halls. Just a lonely girl in the quiet room, except for this sound of a distant humming. Obi-Wan’s lightsaber lightsaber? No, it was different to the high-pitched hum of plasma. It was a low rumble of an engine.

  Slowly, a metallic dome peaked around the door. So that was the humming. A X-0X unit? She had always seen a few of those floating around when she did interviews with reporters. Someone was filming this riot, she supposed she shouldn’t be surprised. Where something awful was happening, there was always someone with a camera.

  Almost like a lost puppy, it scanned the room before noticing her, almost jumping with joy. Strange droid.

  It zipped into the room, scanning her with its large central lens as it beeped and booped around her. She had to resist the urge to reach out and pat it. Whose droid was this?

  “Obi-Wan, huh, you sure do attract dangerous people.” A blue man smirked, resting comfortably against the door frame, dressed in what Padme assumed was a terrible Halloween cowboy costume. “However, Jedi are ever the predictable bunch.”

  She supposed that would be her answer as to the droid owner appeared at the threshold of the room, another X-0X unit by his side. Similar to her previous analogy, like a puppy, the other droid zipped over to him, gleefully coming to the side of the other droid by his side.

  “Don’t mind them, they are just here to record. Most clients are just satisfied with a finger or something, but some freaks like to watch. I’ll of course cut the part of me calling them freaks out. Besides, they have their uses.”

  With a push of the button, that child's cry echoed once again from one of the droids. Padme couldn’t help the sneer appear in disgust. No good could possibly come from someone who has a recording of a child screaming at hand.

  “Who are you?” She asked, slowly but surely reaching around to the blaster around her waist. “You don’t look like a person from the media?”

  “Media? No, no. Only a man of opportunity.” He took slow but measured steps into the room. “You, however, are something special. Almost didn’t recognise you with that huge scar running down your face. Shame, there is nothing worse than an ugly woman.”

  “Well, aren’t you charming?” She had to resist the hand that was resting on her blaster, hidden behind her, coming up to her face to cover her scar. “So a sexist cowboy, then. What? Was the racist pirate taken?”

  “I can see why people want you dead,” He smiled, it was ugly and crooked.

  “And you can see how that has turned out for them. So why don’t you hike up those knock-off Jimmy Choo leather boots and ride off into the sunset on whatever fathier you rode in on, ‘kay partner’?” Her Frontier Galaxy drawl could do with some work, but the look of disdain on his face was worth it.

  Her blaster came out in a flash, but his was quicker. From his hip, red-hot plasma came out, knocking the very blaster out of her hand.

  “Now ma dame, that bolt could have just as easily gone through your heart or head. So I suggest instead of the next stupid ploy, which you all do, no point in denying it. You take a moment to think about why I didn’t put you down.”

  “'Cause you got fuck all for aim?” As of challenged, his next shot turned half her left ear into a heated hot mess. Screaming in pain, she tried to hold the side of her head, but couldn’t as her fingers burned from the heat.

  “‘Cause I deal in death, ma dame.” A strong grip pulled her head towards him. She hadn’t heard him approach from her screaming. “And you’ve made some enemies.”

  The next ten minutes felt like ten hours. She tried to scream, but something in her throat must have been broken, as what left her lips could have only been described as hoarse cries. When she had tried to run, he dragged his vibroblade across her legs. When she tried to punch him, he broke a finger. When she cried for help, he broke her nose.

  Cut after cut, she cried more and more. They were shallow, painful, careful not to kill, only hurt. Though shallow, they were cruelly deliberate. Slow and agonising. She never knew how excruciating laceration could be, or just how depraved humanity could be. There was a sick education to his abuse. The hands, thighs, neck and ribs. He was targeting where these cuts would burn the most. A practised surgeon in pain.

  Those puppy-like driods were now more like mosquitoes buzzing around her, that annoying hum just adding to the misery as it zoomed in on every agonising incision.

  “If it helps, I take little pleasure in this.” The olecranon of his elbow came down on her leg, bending bone to the point it threatened to break. Another hit like that and she would need a cast. For someone who took so little pleasure in her torture, he sure didn’t seem bothered by it.

  She tried to kick him in the but he grabbed her by the ankle, pulling her harshly back to him. Her fist came up, but he was faster, smacking the blow away before plunging the knife into her thigh, causing her to once again try her hoarse, false attempt at a scream.

  “Is this enough? Can I kill her yet?” He asked, and she wanted to beg yes. But his eyes didn’t look towards her, instead, he faced the droids who were recording her misery. No, puin was clouding her thoughts. Why would he ask if it was a recording?

  This was not just recorded, she realised, but live-streamed. Shame rose up as the thought of some sick freak got off to her torture. Why was she always so pathetic? The ship and now two riots she had needed to be saved from. Why could she never be the hero?

  Without a response from the droid, he gave her a shrug, ‘Bosses, am I right?’ Arsehole. The knife rose again, dripping with her own blood, micro-vibrations spitting blood like a viper.

  Crack.

  What was that noise? Was she going delirious from the pain? No, the Duros also looked confused.

  Crack.

  Both their eyes were drawn to the sound coming from outside the room. Not from the corridor but rather from the outside of the building, where only a window separated the cold, freezing air of upper Coruscant and the inside of the Jedi temple.

  A shadow hanging off the side of the window frame, his left hand holding up the weight of his body, while his right drew back from the window, leaving dripping crimson spider-web cracks of glass.

  Crack! His fist struck again, causing the thin hands of the spider-web to reach further out.

  Of course, she was such an idiot. This whole time, she had been by the door of the council room. Expecting Anakin to come to her through the halls, but during all this rioting, that would have taken too long. Why would she wait by the door when the fastest way to her would be to scale the building?

  Crack!

  Cracks continued to spread like an infection as bloodied knuckles knocked on the window again.

  Crack!

  “Crazy idiot.” The blue man put his vibroknife away instead to unholsyer his blaster.

  With a flick of a red-soaked index and a middle finger, a council chair flew from across the room, cutting off her line of vision from him.

  The barrel of the bounty hunters' blaster rose, but he wasn’t quick enough. The two of them became deafened from the sound of shattered glass and rushing wind. Glass became hail as large shards were drawn to the wall facing her like gravity. Large shards hit the floor around her, and she heard the chair protecting her get impaled over and over again

  The Duros wasn’t so lucky. With the reflexes only a professional shooter could have, he covered his eyes. A small protection as Anakin’s Force powers lifted him off his feet, leaving him to turn into hail amongst the glass.

  Only after the glass stopped raining did Padme dare to lift her head above the chair, and what she saw was devastation. Chairs upheaved, tiny shards of glass sparkling like reflective sand, and a creature of malice standing alone amongst the wreckage.

  Crack, crack, crack.

  Boots crunched over the glass, revealing the true form of the intruder. He looked as if he had crawled through hell with his skin a bright red and burned clothes. His fingers red and sticky from his own self-inflicted injuries.

  “Anakin,” she murmured.

  He looked painfully familiar to that creature she had seen in that dream. He was not shrouded in black, nor did he wear a similar bone-like mask. However, he still kept those hideous eclipse eyes. She hated those eyes. Like molten lava, they took the rare passion Anakin showed and fucking burnt it to ash, leaving only the cinders of emotion.

  “You’re late,” she scowled.

  His eyes flickered to her. Would he do it? Would he cover that short distance between them in a second and finish the job? Anakin had always made it clear he had no emotion towards her, though in his eyes, she could always see a glimpse of something. That was gone now; only hate could thrive in the heat of his hatred. Instead, those eyes of molten fury flicked away from her back to the blue man.

  “I know you, boy.” The bounty hunter stood up, covered in his own blood as the glass had left him looking as if he had been scrubbed against a grater. “The bodyguard, it was all in the file.”

  “Quite the civilian killer, but I suppose that’s what separates us. I kill men of importance, while you kill the rats that happen to pass by.” The Duros scoffed. “You think you’re tough because you’ve got a few kills under your belt? You ain’t a man. Men don’t run from their problems. You failed as a Jedi, you failed as a gambler, and just look at the Senator. You sure as shit ain’t no bodyguard. If you like, I could take you to some Hutt brothels, with a pretty face, maybe there would be something you are good at. Men earn a living on their feet, whatever you are, earns a living on their back.”

  Those hideous eyes closed as Anakin took a deep breath in. She had watched him breathe more than she cared to admit, those nights she observed that chest rise and fall. Except for a few moments of surprise, his every move was measured. Like an actor following every cue in his script, down to his very breath. But for the first time, he breathed like he was letting go of a huge weight. Finally able to go off-script.

  “You remind me of someone. He, too, killed his best friend, left his son on a distant planet while aiming to spread his name through fear and corpses.” Cad Bane's eyes opened wide at the mention of his son. Did Anakin know him? Was the Duros so famous?

  “You’ll die like him, too. Unloved, alone, broken.” Those hideous eyes opened again, tendrils of fire reaching up to an eclipse-like pupil which did nothing but suck in any warmth the room had. A sick, twisted smile slowly made it onto his lips, a cruel, ugly perversion of his usual teasing smirk.

  “And then I’ll kill your son too.”