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“The accumulated fine is ten thousand -”
“Yes, yes, you told me already!” The man across the desk glares at Hux and points a large finger at him, stabbing the air with it. “I’m not paying it.”
Hux blinks at him and shakes his head. He has a nagging feeling he shouldn’t be looking at the man straight on, but to observe him from the corner of his eye. That his outline would be sharper that way. He is tall and broad and dark-haired, strikingly handsome in a peculiar, intense way. His eyes are bright and intelligent and sharp , making note of every detail of Hux, looking right through him, as if listing all exploitable weaknesses. He’s dressed in black slacks and a button-up because what else would he be wearing? Certainly not the long robe made of swirling shadows Hux’s imagination wants to deck him in. His eyes refuse to take in any details of the man’s appearance, his gaze keeps flitting over and past the large frame, yet some primal part of his brain is acutely aware of the man’s presence and is pressing a panic button and screaming danger, while another part of Hux’s psyche is cancelling that order and logging all new information in the file Hux digs out when he wants to have some quiet quality time with himself.
Hux steels his spine and forces the irritating fight or fuc- flight instinct away. He points at the sign perched atop his desk. “Borrowing a book from a library means agreeing to the terms and conditions,” he explains, as if to a child. “We charge a fine if a book is returned late. There are other people wanting to read that book too.”
“I very much doubt anyone would be interested in this particular volume.”
“Be that as it may-”
“Are you telling me there’s a waiting list? For Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management? ” The man nudges the frayed tome laying on the polished surface of Hux’s desk. His nails are painted black. “Borrowed from this library in 1870?”
“Well -” Hux keeps thinking about teeth, for some reason. Teeth, and shadows, and blood-red fire. He presses his lips into a thin line and steels his resolve.
“Besides,” the man presses on, ignoring Hux altogether. His voice is deep and velvety, but underneath the pleasant surface there’s a barely-there growl which makes Hux shiver. "I know you can only charge the fine from the person who actually borrowed the book and since time machines do not exist, I cannot possibly be them, so there!”
He looks all too smug and pleased with himself. Hux scowls at him and opens a drawer to his left, pulling out a pair of cotton gloves and a bright orange lanyard with one small key attached to it. He circles his counter and strides past the infuriating man to a small glass cabinet where some bits and bobs of the library’s long history are proudly displayed. Hux dons the gloves, opens the cabinet door and reverently removes a frail, large ledger. He cradles the book in his hands and resists the urge to blow a speck of dust from its cover.
“What’s that?” a gravelly voice asks right by his ear. Hux jumps and yelps, and whirls around to see - no-one there, no-one where he can see, but always behind his back and he can’t run, and he can’t hide – that the man has sidled over to peek over Hux’s shoulder at the item in his hands.
Hux takes a deep breath to calm his rabbiting pulse. “This,” he begins and clears his throat because his voice sounded so hoarse and strange to his ears. “This is one of the few surviving ledgers from Victorian era. This might tell us who borrowed that book.”
The man raises his eyebrows and scowls, but Hux does notice the fleeting moment of uncertainty in his eyes. He takes his place behind his desk and lays the book carefully on the shiny surface. He opens it and turns a yellowed page after a yellowed page until he finds what he’s looking for. “There!” he proclaims triumphantly and points at a faded cursive at the bottom of a page. “ Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management , handed out to a Mr Kylo Ren on 21 st May, 1870, to be returned four weeks from thence but never marked as having arrived. What did you say your name was?
“I didn’t.” The man eyes Hux suspiciously. “What would you do with that information anyway?”
“If you are related to this Mr Ren, and have therefore inherited the book in question, I would be within my rights to hold you responsible for the fine, which stands, as I’ve already said, taking in account the inflation over the years, at ten thousand -”
“And I’ve already said I’m not paying it!” The man leans over the desk and Hux can see shadows closing in with him, thick, inky tendrils of unspeakable horror, sucking out all light and air from the room. Hux’s vision tunnels until all he can see are the man’s glowing eyes, pinning him in place, a predator ready to deliver the killing blow on its prey. Hux is gasping for breath and his knees are buckling under him, and he’s getting embarrassingly hard in his trousers. His mind scrambles to make sense of the situation and offers up the time-honored incantation to banish away any and all evil spirits lurking in his vicinity.
“Please be quiet in the library.”
“What?” The man’s voice booms in the vacuum he’s created.
The shadows recede in an instant and light and sound return to normal. Hux’s heartbeat slows down and his breathing evens out. The tight, hot coil in his lower belly that appeared there when the large man focused his entire, intense attention on him does not ease up. Instead, it pulses and makes Hux tremble.
Yet, there is such a thing as decorum, and deference to rules.
“Shush!”
The man casts an incredulous look at Hux, then backs down, his wide shoulders settling, and mulls this over for a beat. “Kylo Ren,” he says slowly, forming the words carefully. “My name’s Kylo Ren.”
Hux feels a surge of triumph, and only barely restrains himself from exclaiming something stupid like “Ah-ha!.” He taps the page in front of him with his index finger and raises his eyebrows.
The man, Kylo Ren, flicks his eyes over the bookshelves and the few patrons browsing the selection, as if trying to find an answer from the fixtures. “Are you seriously telling me that I’m the same person as the man who visited this establishment 140 years ago?”
Hux feels a pang of uncertainty but ploughs on, for the principle of it. He narrows his eyes for effect. “Can you prove that you aren’t?”
“Excuse me?”
“It was a straightforward enough question. Can you prove to me that you are not the same Kylo Ren who borrowed that book?”
“Can you prove that I am ?”
They stare at each other, the old books laid side by side between them. Kylo Ren licks his plush lips, the sharp tip of his tongue blood-red against the paler pink of his mouth. His eyes rove over Hux’s body, at least over the parts that are visible from behind the high desktop. He leans one elbow on the counter and leers a horrible, toothy grin that should disgust Hux. It doesn’t. Ren extends one claw – finger – and traces it down Hux’s cheek and below his chin and tilts his face up a fraction.
“Perhaps we can come to some kind of agreement about that fine?”