Freya regretted her words almost immediately. With his own attempt at lightness to match hers, she thought Kyle didn’t intend his response to be a threat. Probably. The way he talked, both at his most neutral and now with a little too much precision, lines blurred. At any given time, nearly everything he said was half a step away from menacing, even now that they were on more mutually assured ground. He might as well have read her mind for the effect his words had on her, zeroing in on the thing she feared most of all. Her secrets, and their discovery.
How she kept that fear from radiating out into the Force was a matter of training. Jo’s, specifically, not anything she’d learned from Rey or another Jedi. Years of working with the more experienced spy were an education unto themselves, though being Jo’s support meant learning through observation rather than practice or direct instruction. No one controlled her emotions better than Jo, and through close, Force-augmented study Freya discerned clues and developed strategies to emulate her, more out of professional interest than necessity. For a long time, she’d had no reason to be very good at it (and still wasn’t, especially around Kyle), let alone close to her mentor’s level. Now everything depended on it.
And, somehow, she managed it. Her heart said panic – she blinked once – and her mind downgraded it to annoyance. A more likely and less suspicious emotion, very in character and hardly revealing at all. She’d often been annoyed with Kyle during their time together, though it happened less frequently now. And no doubt that would be a satisfying reaction to his retort, one that wouldn’t prompt more curiosity, especially when it was accompanied by a press of her lips together and a silent tongue. Let him think he’d gotten the better of her this time. It was safer that way.
That she was a step behind him again helped her project a slightly nettled air and nothing else; that he immediately said something else which took her by surprise in an entirely different way helped even more. Good posture? In a public school? In Boston?
Freya couldn’t help it. She snorted.
“Okay, that tells me all I need to know about your education.” Catching up again, she glanced sideways at him, then turned her attention to the endcap displays as they passed by. Screen adaptations, the latest in romance, classics republished under a particular imprint with new covers all in the same style. The last almost escaped her notice, until a particular book caught her eye and sparked an idea.
Without missing a step, she grabbed it and slid it in her bag, perfectly aware of what it looked like she was doing. Not stealing, though, so much as concealing – she’d pay for it later, but for now, her impulsive and no doubt puzzling decision ought to be enough to divert him from things she’d rather not let linger.
“Some combination of home-schooling and a military academy, right?” Freya continued as if nothing had happened, looking back at him with an ambiguously raised eyebrow as she ducked into the mystery aisle and started looking for the Fs. She spoke to the books now, half distracted and peering closely at the shelves. That, in its own way, was also safer. Her heart rate was slowing back down, but it was still a little too elevated to be completely innocent. At least that could also be blamed on her open display of petty theft. “And there’s nothing wrong with it, just…”
She drifted off, trying to put into words something she’d noticed unconsciously and hadn’t bothered to think much about until now, and shrugged. “Walking like that makes you look older than you are. That’s all.”