He was dying.
She's say it so easily, if he asked her to do one thing for him; like clean up after herself, or not go out after dark, she'd say 'you're killing me Riddick.'
"Jack … you're killing me Jack." Another round of bullets sprayed into the room, making Swiss cheese out of the thin walls and further shattering the broken glass. Riddick ignored it, in fact he couldn't even hear it.
Her chest heaved as she fought to live, struggling furiously against her slowing heart. Forcing it to beat.
She'd always had a strong survival instinct, just as much as him.
"Ridd-" she tried but blood bubbled up out of her throat and she began to choke on it.
Which meant her lungs were fucked. With the way her eyes widened in panic Riddick knew she knew as well. "Don't leave me," he begged, the words should have sounded foreign to him, it had been a long time since he's begged for anything, but they came out naturally. And he was too desperate to care.
She'd always threatened to leave him; if he worked her too hard, bossed her around, or pushed her away she'd say she would ditch him and then he would see how far in life he would get without her. 'You couldn't manage an hour without me,' she'd taunt.
"I can't," he confessed, "you're right, I can't. I can't - I don't want to." She had no idea what he was talking about, she was beyond being able to hear him, beyond anything now, but he kept both his palms over as many of her bullet wounds as possible. His own injuries, one on the stomach, two in the leg and one high on the shoulder, were bleeding copiously. He looked down and saw that their blood was mixing.
She was going pale, her eyes locked onto his silver gaze and instead of stilling like most people she began to thrash, fighting till the very end.
Then her body went limp.
More bullets tore into the room, it hit the bed and the cheap foam inside the mattress flew everywhere. If it hadn't been stained and dingy it might have looked like fake snow. Might have looked pretty even.
"… Jack?" He shook her and her body gave no resistance, it just slumped this way and that like a rag doll.
"Yeah … where will you go?"
Jack grinned and her eyes slid out of focus as it always did when she thought about tomorrow, "somewhere amazing … I won't have to run anymore, don't have to be scared of no one. I'll get a job, my own place, become filthy rich and live entirely on chocolate, ice cream and pizza." She paused and gave him a pointed look. A hint to go shopping no doubt. "I'll sleep in late and never workout ever again, in fact in my house the words 'Jack, lets spar' will be both illegal and immoral." She'll thank him one day for making sure she didn't grow up to be 300 pounds with clogged up arteries.
Riddick snorted, tried to look like her words hadn't hurt. "Sounds nice. This place."
Her smile was impish and knowing, "don't worry big guy, wherever I go, you go too. Sucks to be you huh?"
"Sucks to be me."