Jack was dreaming. She knew she was dreaming, but she couldn't make herself wake up. She was walking back to her house, the same route she always walked. Stupid, she knew now. Predictability was one of the seven deadly mistakes, but in the dream she was the old Jack who didn't know any better. There was the market she'd loved to browse, but that day she hadn't stopped to look. She'd wanted to get home fast so she could tell her mom about her new friend -- the first friend she'd made since Tam disappeared. She was ahead of schedule, and not stopping in the market meant she was going to get home nearly an hour early.

What it really meant was that it would be an hour and a half before anyone suspected she was missing. Knowing it was coming only made it worse.

As she crossed the mouth of the alley the hands grabbed her. That was how she remembered it. The hands, like they were living things without a body. It helped if they were just hands and not a person. Made it easier to live with. Jack didn't lie to herself about what really happened. She knew who had grabbed her, but thinking of him as a person gave her something to hate, and Jack didn't want to hate him. She wanted to not care at all.

The hands didn't waste time covering her mouth, they just squeezed her throat shut. Jack knew how to break that hold now. Riddick had shown her the way to force the elbows to bend and loosen the grip, but it didn't change the dream. She still had to wait the three minutes it took her to black out. Jack had this dream so often she was almost used to the feeling of strangling. Almost.

The dream changed and she was blindfolded, tied standing up stretched out on her tip-toes. She was freezing cold -- he had thrown a bucket of ice water on her -- and she mercifully couldn't feel her hands anymore, or her broken fingers. The cuffs had been too tight and chaffed her wrists while she struggled. Doing so had only made it worse, naturally, but Jack didn't know to bide her time then. She didn't understand that it was better to take the abuse and save your strength for the moment when escape is a real possibility. She ruined her own chances. After three days, she was waiting to die.

She'd told him the truth: she didn't know where to find her brother. Tam was gone and no one knew how to find him, but the merc didn't believe her. She wasn't sure if the rape was part of the plan, or just the sick bastard's perversion, but the door opened, and closed, and a moment later she felt his fingers slip into her. He bit her neck hard enough to draw blood, worked himself for a minute or two, worked her for a minute or two, and then he was in her. Jack cried out -- only once -- but she didn't cry.

As always, when she woke up from that, her palms were bleeding. She'd clawed herself with her nails. When the dream started, Jack had religiously bitten her nails to the quick before she went to sleep, but that left her with bloody fingers instead of bloody palms so she stopped after a week or so.

Riddick didn't ask any questions. Her business was her own. He tossed her a roll of gauze and let her dress her hands. Jack was intensely grateful Riddick never made her explain. Her mother had asked about it when she came out of stasis. She told Jack the doctor had informed her of her injuries -- all her injuries. Jack had answered, "He wasn't much." It was true, but it was also a lie. Her mother never questioned it because she didn't really want to know, but Jack didn't think she could lie to Riddick if he asked her. Thank God he never had and she didn't think he ever would. They both understood. Some things you just don't talk about with anyone.

When her hands were wrapped up, Jack took her place in the copilot chair. "So we're going to Centurion?" The space station was rendered holographically above the control pad. Riddick looked over at her in mild surprise. "What? You didn't think I'd recognize it?" She didn't laugh like she normally would have. It still hurt too much.

"My mistake," he said, leaning back in his seat. "We're going to stop and refuel there. Stock up on med supplies." Jack nodded. Her bullet wound was healing, and they'd had enough supplies to properly keep it on the mend, but they'd also seriously depleted their medical stores to do it. She'd spent the last two weeks in bed and had begun walking around only two days prior. Riddick had taken advantage of the down time to teach her about propulsion systems from basic combustion engines to nuclear generators and gravity converters.

Jack had never been more motivated to recover from an injury in her life.

Riddick's hand glided smoothly across the key panel. Centurion disintegrated. "Our new registration is going into effect in seven standard hours. From now on this is the Ziggurat. We're from the Duggar system. Your name is Sydney."

"Sydney?" Jack looked at him with disgust. "Really?" As always, Riddick was unmoved. She heaved a sigh. "Okay, sorry. Shouldn't have interrupted." She squirmed a bit in her seat as if the name itself had made her uncomfortable. "So who are you if I'm Sydney?"

"I'm your Uncle Robert."

Jack sat back up in her chair. "Well, at least I'm not the only one with a stupid name." The faint smile she usually wore surfaced again. "What are we really doing there?"

Riddick appreciated Jack's curiosity. An active mind was the best defense and Jack was an attentive, if cheeky, pupil, but sometimes her annoying tendency to see even what he wanted to hide drove him nuts. She didn't need to know his business, and if he told her so she'd back off. She'd also know there was something to back off of and her little radar would be scanning the whole time they were docked. Judging by the acutely attentive stare she was boring into him, her radar was already up and running so the only way to keep her out of his hair was to incapacitate her.

He briefly considered letting an infection set in to keep her in bed, but then she'd be a sitting duck if anyone tried to jack the ship. On Centurion, that was almost a likelihood. She'd end up in the sex trade. Waste of time, really. He certainly didn't have the creds to buy her so he'd have to kill a bunch of cock suckers to get her back. And she'd probably be pissed he let it happen instead of grateful he saved her scrawny ass. Better to get her off his back now.

"Lights, ten percent." Riddick lifted his googles so he could actually see her. She always looked best in ultraviolet and he knew she loved to see his eyes. "We're going to see a contact of mine from the old days. From before I was a con. He won't want to see me."

"But he's gonna anyway," she grinned.

Riddick smiled back at her. "That's right."

Jack's expression sobered. "What do you need me to do?" Curiosity sated for the time being, she was ready to follow his lead for the moment. He knew if he didn't bring her, she'd end up underfoot for the actual meeting. Her curiosity was momentarily sated, not permanently. He considered the possibilities on how to best use her. If she was coming along she was going to pay her way.

Or... she was going to pave the way. Like a gift from Imam's god, the plan bloomed in his mind fully constructed, each angle considered. It was perfect.

Riddick put on his most congenial smile. "I need you to be my bait." Her expression immediately flashed to shrewd. That's my girl, he thought. "Dave just can't say no to a cute kid."

She narrowed her eyes and spun to face him fully. "A cute kid?" She waited for him to nod. "A cute kid who's about to have sex with him or a cute kid with a gun to her head?"

"A cute kid with a gun to his head."

Jack broke into broad grin. "Oh. Well, that's another thing entirely."