Ben Solo was used to the solitude. He preferred it. But tonight, something was different. Beneath the deep blast of the foghorn, a sound—thin, desperate—cut through the storm's roar.

A human cry.

He pulled on his oilskin coat, the heavy fabric still damp from his last check of the grounds. Outside, the wind tried to tear the door from his hands. Rain and salt spray stung his face as he descended the slick steps carved into the rock, his lantern swinging wildly, casting frantic shadows.

And there, among the jagged black stones and slithering kelp, he saw it.

A body, half-drowned, tangled in seaweed.

His hands find bare skin. Cold. So goddamn cold. A woman. She's wearing nothing but a tangle of torn, soaked fabric that might have been a dress once. Her face is pale as bone, lips blue, and there's a gash across her forehead, black in the lantern light against her white skin.

He hauls her up out of the water, her weight dead in his arms. She's too light, too thin, and the wind screams around them like it's furious to lose its prize.