[Warning: Just thought it'd be wise to warn that this chapter does dip into the graphic side of things.]

Thicker Than Water

Chapter Eight

"Pixy," the harsh voice cut through her sleep like a sharpened knife. There'd been no dreams, just darkness. As she opened her eyes to frown up at Riddick, she had to blink sweat from them. There was a small draft from behind him, the opening into the main part of the cavernous prison. "Time to go."

"Go where," she asked as she sat up. The world spun for a moment, and when it stilled again it left her looking at her covered wrists. Blood had dried on the towels in reddish-brown splotches. She knew she'd have to rinse them to avoid infection. He dropped a pair of boots next to her. They were small and looked heavy.

"Put those on," he ignored her question, "We'll be running and you'll need something on your feet. Get some water, rinse those bandages, cool yourself off and get ready. I'm not slowing down for anybody once we get out there. Not even you."

"Where are we going," she asked him but he was already gone before she could finish. She stood with her hand on the wall for support and bent down to get the boots. Her trip to the small water source was hazy and slowed with the receding traces of sleep. She sat the boots on the water's edge and knelt next to them. She untied each of the towel halves and rinsed them in the water. The stains stayed but when the flaky feeling was gone from them, she laid them across the boots so she could rinse the wounds. The ache was gone but they stung when the water hit them. No blood welled up this time and the skin had begun to heal around the edges. It made her frown. The wounds were caused by titanium, they shouldn't have been healing that fast.

She leaned in and splashed the water along her arms and over her face; it cooled her down enough to stop the sweating. She dipped her head forward and let the water run over her hair, bringing it back dripping. The bandages were tied back into place before she began to braid it into the floor length tail that drug on the ground slightly behind her. She tugged on the boots, laced them up, and leaned against the side of the passage to give herself a few more minutes of the cool air. Her breaths were slow and calm, her muscles relaxed with the feeling of the cool mist sticking to her skin.

"Hurry up," Riddick spoke impatiently from the passage opening. His voice drew her eyes open again and she pushed away from the wall. She stooped to pick up the wrench she'd left behind when she'd gone to rest and tucked it into the side of a boot. It waggled within the small space it had with each step she took.

As she stepped back into the open space she spotted Riddick and a few others staring up at the small room from which they'd been lowered. She moved closer and stared with them in silence for a few moments. But as she opened her mouth to ask yet another question, a host of gunfire erupted in short pops and flashes from above. There was the undertone of yelling and things falling as well.

In the midst of it, a figure came sliding down from the rope that still hung from earlier. They'd made it about halfway down before they stopped, landing them right in front of Laramie and Riddick and close enough for her to see their face. It was Tombs, abandoning his team in whatever chaos lay above. His eyes landed on them and his face twisted with disgust. Laramie's mouth twitched as if she'd smile but the expression was left unfinished.

A blast echoed down from the room and all gunfire ended abruptly. It was silent, peaceful, and, if not for the man hanging in front of them, it was almost like it hadn't really happened. But there he hung, all eyes turning to him. His eyes were for Riddick only, and the disgusted look was seeping into one that was fearful, horrified. Some terrible realization reached. Riddick stepped back and bent himself into the mouth of a small passageway, one hand gripping each side of the opening. Tombs made a small, heated grunt.

He used the grip to propel himself forward and he ran and threw himself from the ledge, lunging at the rope. "Riddick," Tombs yelled, "Nooo!" Laramie's lips parted slightly in a surprised look as he smashed into Tombs and almost fell if it had not been for a single hand left clasping mercilessly at Tomb's vest. He used the hand to pull himself up so that he could look Tombs in the face.

"You shoulda taken the money, Tombs," he said, and began to climb. He stepped on Tomb's head on his way up. Laramie stood and watched until he'd vanished into the room above, wondering how she was going to follow. A man tapped her as he rushed past, jogging up the spiraling staircase. There were a few others in front of him and her gaze lifted to where the stairs led. There was a door, and she was betting it would take them wherever Riddick had gone to. She followed them as fast as she could, trying to make up the distance between her and the small group. She kept her feet moving and her breaths coming calm and slow as she moved. On the way up Kyra closed in beside her and they made the rest of the trip abreast.

Two barred doors lay open at the top. Laramie ushered Kyra through first and followed slowly. She wasn't tired but she wanted to keep it that way so she slowed her pace. The doors opened to a very short flight of stairs. They stretched up into a small, barred passageway that led into the room that'd hovered above. It was dark, except for the brief flashes of electrical sparks from ruined machines and the blue glow of rotating emergency lights.

When she finally stepped in, everybody had guns in hand. She was perfectly fine with her wrench for now. There didn't seem to be any immediate danger. "Don't bother," came Riddick's voice, "Guards ain't there." There was the sharp buckling sound of his restraints hitting the floor as he walked past them and into the room with its flashing lights. "They figured out the Necros are comin' for me. Plan was to clean the bank, ghost the mercs, and break wide through the tunnel. And then somebody got a lucky shot off with this rocket launcher here…" He slid the launcher along the floor with his foot. "…and took out the sled. Guards took off on foot but rigged the door so no one could follow."

Laramie turned over her shoulder at the sound of grunting. Tombs climbed up through the hole in the floor and looked around at his fallen comrades. "They'll take the one ship in the hanger," he continued, as if he didn't hear Tombs come up, "And leave everyone else here to die."

"How come you know all this shit," he gasped, some of the guns were pointed at him now, "You weren't even here."

Riddick answered without looking at him. "Because it was my plan." They took Tombs beneath the arms and drug him off with Riddick in close tow. Laramie stood, looking down at a still figure that had caught her eye in the flashing lights. It was the woman from the ship, the one who'd traveled with Tombs. She was awake and looking up at Laramie with a defiant glint in her eyes. Riddick paused on his way out and looked at Laramie. "I left her alive," he said, "Because I knew you wanted your revenge. The others are dead and Tombs is mine." Laramie turned to Riddick and looked him in the eyes, her own eyes gone cold and blank. His breathing faltered momentarily as she reached up and slid the curved knife from its sheath along his hip. His lips twitched into a smile. "Enjoy," he growled and moved on after the others.

The woman chuckled at Laramie as she moved to stand in front of her. "Little girl," she breathed, "Put that knife down and go home to your mommy. This game's for grown ups." Laramie bent down and grabbed onto the woman's pant leg, right over her knee, and ripped it. The woman gasped but the look in her eyes remained defiant and mocking. Laramie smiled sweetly at her, a smile that left her eyes full of dark delights. She felt the woman's knee with her fingers and, when she found the spot, she shoved the curved knife into the woman's knee joint. It sawed through the tendon on entry.

She screamed, low and pained, but not nearly as loud as she was going to scream. Laramie angled the knife to wedge it between the kneecap and the thighbone. She applied pressure on it until she felt the two bones pop apart. The woman screamed again, louder, and shorter this time. It was a chopped sound; almost panicked. She was beginning to realize just how bad this was going to be. Laramie pulled out the knife and repeated the procedure on the other leg. The woman was breathing in short gasps, letting out small sounds with each one. Laramie leaned in to her and looked at her face as she struggled past the pain. "Don't," the woman said, but she didn't finish.

Laramie brought the knife up and gave the woman a quick, shallow stab to the front of the throat. It shredded her vocal cords and, this time, when she went to scream, it came out as a low, choppy whistling sound. The woman brought her hands up to hold the wound as Laramie grabbed her by her hair and drug her over to the hole in the floor. The woman was still making the whistling sound when Laramie made the first cut across her throat. It wasn't a deep cut, just enough to get the blood pumping and hurt. The blood came out in a slow stream and the woman was making sounds that probably would have been whimpers if the vocal chords hadn't been ruined. She brought the knife around for the second cut and kept cutting until the woman dangled, gurgling, in her hands. Her neck was almost completely severed, the top half hanging on by not much more than spine. Her blade scrapped against the hard edge of spine and she stopped. The woman's body began to shiver and convulse and the blood flow from the wound slowed. The blood had abandoned its red hue for one closer to pink.

Laramie's heart had gone gentle and calm in her chest, her breaths came slow through parted lips and she savored the slight taste of blood on the air. The convulsions stopped and she stood, bringing the almost decapitated corpse with her. She turned its face so that she could stare into the wide, dead eyes. Her heart skipped because, in that gaze, she remembered her mother's own corpse, left to rest on Hades. She remembered those dead eyes staring up at her for so long, until they'd gone brown and dried up with decay.

Another face slid into her view and she looked up to see Kyra staring at her, eyebrows raised in a question. Laramie turned over her shoulders to see the others gathered into the doorway. She let go of her grip of the corpse's hair and it slid boneless through the hole to fall into the depth below. Riddick was the one to come forward while the others stared at her like she'd sprouted an unsightly second head. He bent down and pressed their foreheads together so that they were eye to eye. "Give me the knife," he whispered, softer than he'd ever done.

She moved away to look down at the knife still grasped in her hand. In its bloody surface she caught her own reflection and found her face still set in its child-like lines but with a hint of something new, something callous. She brought the blade closer to her face, wanting a better look at her eyes in its bloody reflection, but Riddick's hand closed around hers and brought her gaze back up to him.

She pulled herself together and let go of the blade. "Sorry," she whispered, "I got it dirty." He stared at her for a long moment and wiped the blade on his shirt. As he slid it back into its sheath he leaned in and kissed her forehead. It was a simple gesture, one he'd given her before but only when she'd done something he had never expected her to do. It was like a small reward from a pleased teacher.

[Author's Note: I offer my sincerest apologies for my absence. Life has been busy and I haven't had much time for writing, but I got this one in and hope to get another chapter up within the next several days or less. I hope you enjoyed and I thank you for reading.]