Trapped by Alex Wheeler Read Free Book Online Page A

something more, for a long time. The pain was no longer raw. It was tolerable.
    Div scowled at Ferus. “Fine. The kid’s out of the way. So here we are. You want to talk? Talk.”

    â€œHelp me carry him?” Ferus said, kneeling before Luke’s body. It was beyond lucky that he’d been able to sense Luke’s presence in the Firespray. The Force was strong in Luke , very strong. “It’s not safe out here in the open.” Together, they lifted the unconscious Rebel and carried him toward the small shelter Ferus had been using as his base. They worked in silence. Ferus kept his head down but spread his attention, absorbing every detail of Lune with his peripheral vision. He had a feeling the boy wouldn’t take kindly to being stared at. But it was tempting to do so.
    It hurt seeing himself reflected in Lune’s expression. The boy had once looked at him with respect, trusting, with the innocence of a child—the ignorance of a child—that Ferus would protect him. More than once, that trust, that duty to protect Lune, had been the only tether keeping Ferus from a bottomless fall into the dark side of the Force. But now...Ferus could feel Lune’s disgust, his dismay at seeing what his old friend had become. How soft and flabby Ferus had grown over the years. How old.
    How cowardly.
    Lune couldn’t be expected to see beneath Ferus’s disguise, to understand that he’d spent decades hiding in plain sight, pretending to be a harmless, senseless courtier. And Ferus couldn’t explain it to him, not without explaining why it had been so imperative to disguise himself. Not without revealing the secret of Leia Organa, the child Ferus had been sworn to protect. Anakin’s child.
    Leia was the second child Ferus had sworn to protect, the second “galactic hope.” Lune had been the first.
    He’s alive, Ferus told himself. That was something.
    But it wasn’t everything.
    Ferus had long ago accepted that his mission would mean losing the respect of all around him, even Leia herself. Only Obi-Wan understood who Ferus truly was, and Obi-Wan was dead. This, too, Ferus had finally accepted. Much as he might have craved it, he didn’t need Lune’s admiration. So what hurt the most wasn’t the look on Lune’s face; it was the look in his eyes.
    As Ferus had grown soft, Lune had grown hard. The boy Ferus remembered—sweet-tempered, mischievous, preternaturally smart, hopeful—that boy was gone. The man who appeared in his place shared many of his qualities, especially that quiet, intensely watchful mode that had seemed eerie in a young boy. But this man was cold and rigid, as if a layer of thick, tough scar tissue had crusted over his soul.
    Suddenly, Lune looked up and met his eyes. “Take a holopic,” he suggested caustically. “It’ll last longer.”
    Something else the man had in common with the boy, Ferus observed: He still saw more than anyone expected.
    â€œIt’s been too long,” Ferus said softly. “I’ve thought of you often over the years. You and—”
    â€œHow do you know Luke?” Lune asked sharply. “What are you doing here on this cursed moon? What are we doing here?”
    He doesn’t want me to say Trever’s name, Ferus thought. Because he can’t stand to hear it? Or he can’t stand to hear it from me?
    â€œFair enough,” he said aloud. “I was an acquaintance of Princess Leia Organa on Alderaan. After the...disaster, I found the princess again, and came to know several of her friends. Good people.”
    â€œApparently not good enough for you to tell them the truth about who you really are.”
    â€œIf you’ll let me explain, I think you’ll see why it’s important Luke not know I’m a Jedi,” Ferus said, stalling for time. What was he supposed to say: I’m keeping the secret because the ghost of a dead Jedi Master