Chapter 9: Riddick

Right away things were different then I had thought that they would be, than Riddick had led me to believe that they would be. You want me to start at the beginning? Oh, yeah, the guards were thugs. Big mother-fuckers with more brawn then they knew what to do with and weapons that they would never be able to use to their full potential but deep down they were gutless; not the monsters that I expected to meet. They hid behind their paramilitary weapons. Without those weapons they would be nothing! Nothing more then fear filled ex-bounty hunter types that hid behind their weapons and their cocks.

And fucking hell I hated myself because I understood them. It was easy to get lost behind the power of a weapon, to glory in the destruction that its power achieved and the instant respect they could garner. In that way I was probably no better then they were but then I always figured that it was a very thin line between the law enforcer and the convict.

You want me to continue with the bullshit that Riddick planted? Butcher Bay, a no daylight slam, somewhere where you couldn't see your hand an inch in front of your face? Bullshit! I could see clear across the divide that separated the cells on my side of the block to the ones on the other.

What else had he lied about? Had he lied? Had things just changed?

I guess he had never figured on it mattering if what he told me was real or not. I was never supposed to end up in a Slam with him. As he proved himself, he was ready to get thrown back into Slam rather then lead anyone on a chase that might take me down with him.

Being angry with him changed nothing. By my own choice, I was sitting in a cell in the middle of a triple-max slam and here I was going to stay for at least a week or whenever Wasp decided it was time to pull the plug on this little mission of mine.

I sighed then took a deep breath. I had walked voluntarily into whatever shit I was in and I was fully capable of dealing with the consequences. It was time I forgot about being angry and got on with the job at hand. Put my mind back into the game that I was going to have to start playing if I wanted to survive. And survival wasn't a joke.

I had two Wangs in pieces and who knew how much time to put them together. All I knew was that I needed at least one before Goldilocks' Big Bad made his way back to his cell. Bastard!

If the guards figured he was enough of an arse to do as punishment for my attempted assassination of Scarface, I was going to have to hope that he recognised a Wang and chose to leave me alone because of it. If not then I would have to hope the human race wouldn't miss one lone convict. I wasn't about to hesitate in killing him, not if he threatened my life.

So I set to work quickly, tearing open the hidden pocket in the lining of my jacket and finally opening the compartment in the sole of my modified boots. I would have to make sure I thanked Colin later for the modifications. They were definitely going to come in handy and he not only built the hidden compartments but the other modifications that I had requested.

Whatever Wasp and Ioan thought of him, the worm was worth having around.

Ioan!

I clenched my jaw as I quickly set about sorting out the pieces of my weapons and started their assembly. Where had they taken Ioan and what had they done to him? I hoped he'd actually use the sense that I knew he had stored in him somewhere and had done as he was told instead of acting like a prick like I had.

It had never been a secret that I didn't always know what was best for me. And all I had to show from my latest bout of stupidity was a splitting headache and a roommate that could appear or disappear at will and was bastard enough that the guards didn't bother with him too much.

Big Bad.

Everything screamed to me that it was Riddick. Everything! Maybe I would strike it lucky for the first time since my encounter with the guards. Maybe, just maybe they had put me right where I wanted to be. Knowing myself and my luck however, I knew that it was about as likely as being handed an aspirin.

It took me a little over half an hour to get the first Wang completed but it was still powering up and going through system checks when the before mentioned 'Big Bad' walked in.

He wasn't so much big as built like a brick shithouse with a beer belly. He was probably only about 5'10'', maybe 5'11'', at a rather large push. Maybe it was because of his girth, maybe it was just the position I was in at the time but he appeared to me to be the most physically intimidating man that I had ever encountered.

He looked at me.

I looked right back, my lips curling into a silent snarl. He didn't have much hair but what he did have was a light brown and his skin was pale, a little too pale. The muscles on his arms were criss-crossed with pink scar tissue. Even his face looked pretty fucked-up to me. I guess I shouldn't have been judging, the last time I had gotten a look at myself it had been an uninspiring sight to say the least.

"My, my, my... I heard they brought me meat, but they didn' tell me it was small, helpless, and had a pussy." He said, his voice grinding out in a rasp like he wasn't used to using it, not to mention that it was a fraction higher then I thought it should be. There was also a hint of some weird, singsong accent that was almost enough to leave me with the urge to laugh.

"Small, I'm not as small as some. Female, I most defiantly am. As for helpless, you don't know me at all." I shrugged tucking the nearly ready Wang in my belt behind me before the slow moving brown eyes clocked onto it. He seemed mildly shocked that I had even spoken back to him instead of running to a corner and cowering in it just at the sight of him.

"Just about everyone's helpless when they cozy up to me, darlin'." He crossed his bulky arms, his muscles flexing in a somewhat menacing way, as if he was imagining wrapping them around my neck and squeezing until my neck snapped. I was no fool, if it came down to a contest of sheer strength he had me more then beat. If it came down to that then I would just have to rely on my speed and the razor-sharp edge of Riddick's shiv which Wasp had given my on the sly.

"You're not particularly smart are you?" I unfolded my legs and placed both feet firmly on the floor. Soon I would be on my feet, I had always been taught that you defended yourself better on your feet then not but I didn't want to look like I was anything but relaxed.

I had one plan and one only that I had thought through completely. The plan – to keep him talking long enough for the Wang's targeting computers and basic systems to boot and the charge in the power cell to be engaged in a useful way. I knew well enough that plans didn't always work but I had to hope on this one, there was too much of a chance that he would get the upper hand in a fistfight.

"I on the other hand." I started talking again when I got no reply from the buffoon. "Am not particularly stupid. And it's my brains that keep me from being helpless you'll find. That and the people that I know just about everywhere."

"Whoever you think you know… they don't mean shit down here in the dark." He chuckled. I guess my bold statements did sound kind of funny coming from a girl stuck in a triple-max cell with a rather large and imposing man in front of her.

"If the rumours are true then one of them just might. One that has a very particular interest in my survival and state of being." I stood as he took a step closer to me, my hand reaching round behind my back and grasping the handle of my shiv.

"Who?"

"Does the name Richard B. Riddick mean anything to you?" I watched him hesitate for a moment but he didn't move any closer to me. I had to keep him talking, keep him distracted and keep distance between us. Throwing in Riddick's name seemed to have helped somewhat.

"Why the fuck would Riddick want ta do anythin' but cor' your ass out?" He gave me a sceptical look.

"I've often asked myself that very same question. Why me? But I've never really been able to come up with a satisfactory answer and he never gave me one. All I know is whenever it came to moving on; I got dragged along for the ride." I smirked at him. "I was at the very least useful to him in someway or another."

"Oh, I think I know what way. The same way your goin' to be useful to me, meat. On your knees, your back… whatever fuckin' way I want'cha'." He was obviously over his initial shock.

"I'm sure that would not be a smart move on your part." I grinned as I heard the light bleep that my weapon made when it had finally powered up sufficiently enough to be used. At least I hadn't made a mistake putting it together. If I had things may have ended up a hell of a lot more messy and I was in no mood to clean up a mess.

"Enough talk, meat." He started forward, this time with purpose. My hand released my shiv and gripped the Wang bringing it up in time for the mouth of the weapon to meet his forehead dead centre.

There it was, that little surge of confidence, the realisation of the power that I held and that I was as close to an expert as I could be in the use of that power. I grinned at him as he stopped dead in his tracks, nearly over balancing so his skin pressed tight against the weapon and his eyes slipped over me with a new appraising glint to them.

"Didn't they tell you how I liked to kill? A shot right between the eyes and you've walked right into it." I said softly cocking my head slightly. The predator in me loved having control. "You see, I meant what I said when I said I wasn't helpless. Do you think that Riddick would ever train anyone and then leave them completely helpless?" I said calmly and took a step forward and he took a step back. "How long has it been since you lived in the real world?"

"Ten years." The reply was a growl; he obviously didn't like the tables being turned on him by the female that he thought he was going to be able to get a good fuck out of.

"So you won't recognise this baby then. It's called a Wang-Liu. Lovely piece of technology really but it's often over locked by professionals because of it's associations with the hard-nuts and mercs. But don't doubt that one squeeze will decorate the walls with whatever you've got in that pretty little head of yours." I gave him a thoughtful look. "To tell you the truth I don't want to kill you, I have no reason to want to kill you, yet. But you mean nothing to me and I will not hesitate to kill you if you cause me trouble, I've killed people who deserved it a whole lot less then you do, so don't doubt me."

"I think you're fulla shit." The crazy fuck actually grinned at me. "No fuckin' way you snuck a gat' in here past the guards. I eat little models like that for breakfast."

I slipped the shiv from its resting place and laid the cutting edge against his throat with lightning-quick movements. His eyes widened as the edge bit just deep enough to cause blood to well around the metal.

"But this," I grinned back at him, "Is very real." I brought the Wang close. "Flare. Low."

I pointed my Wang at the ceiling and squeezed the trigger. A low-light flare, blue-green in color, burst from the aperture beneath the main barrel. I could practically smell the fear burst from the man's pores along with the sweat.

"Nine-milly," the Wang beeped and I returned it to its former resting place. "You want breakfast now."

He growled, with much more bass than I would have given him credit for, "What do I gotta do?"

"Two things." I replied.

Lock down finished an hour later, or as close to an hour as I could figure. From that moment on the game was under way. My scarred and prison tattooed cellmate and I headed out quickly. First on my agenda was to find Ioan and the idiot with me said he had passed the cell that he had been put in.

He hadn't been wrong. He knew where Ioan was but where Ioan was, a large crowd had gathered. The motherfucker was in the middle of a raging fight, not with a cellmate but with one of the burly looking prison guards. They were fighting in the middle of one of the round recreation areas that were scattered randomly throughout the tiers of cells. It was a fight that was being watched with amusement by a handful of armed guards and more prisoners then I cared to be around.

"Fuck, fuck and fuck again." I muttered under my breath as Ioan over powered the guard by sheer skill and four of his friends descended upon him with shock sticks.

I can't begin to describe the kind of control it took for me to stand and watch the guards beat into him and finally, when he was still fully conscious but barely able to move, hoisted between two men and dragged away. I knew that to survive myself I couldn't draw attention, not from the guards or from the other prisoners that were too intent on the goings on at the time to worry about a lone woman in their midst. So much for him being there to help me and watch my back.

I moved around the crowd a little ways, long enough for me to catch my friend's eye as the crowd moved out of the guard's way and then folded back in on itself. The inmates quickly dispersed. How I managed to live through that first dispersal I don't know. A lot of it I figure was down to sheer luck and quick moving on my part.

One or two certainly saw me but I was gone before they were able to get a real good look or work out where I was headed. A few more became blocks between me and those who had noticed me, thinking me, from what I could tell, one of the younger, slighter young men who were probably as likely to become prison bitches as I was. I was certainly black and blue enough to disguise my feminine facial features if not the curves.

I thought that I had gotten away clean. I had lost my scarred cell companion in the mix-up, not that that mattered all that much to me, I figured that I could always find him if I needed him again, but I also found that I was very much out in the open. I had two things however in my favor or so I thought.

One, I was fast and agile. Two the light, although not the pitch black that I thought I would be faced with, was dim enough that shadows were cast everywhere. There was enough hanging debris on the walkway to create shadows for me to hide and move though. Unfortunately those shadows would only help me so much, they would never hold up to proper scrutiny.

But like I said, these were only the things that I thought.

A man grabbed my bad arm from behind, twisting it sharply behind my back and I felt the cold sharp steel of a shiv press into my back hard enough to make a superficial break in my skin and for me to feel the warmth of blood start trickling down my back. I stiffened and tried to stop only to be shoved forward again, the man behind me setting a pace that if I tried to stop I would fall back on his blade and not only be paralyzed but also be killed. There was no way that I would be able to reach my Wang and survive the maneuver so I kept moving, hoping that when he got me where ever he wanted me I would be released long enough to bring my gun into play.

We passed quite a few inmates, right past them and although they leered at me, on further inspection of the man behind me they just let us pass on by unbothered. Curiosity killed the cat in my case. I tried to turn my head to see who was behind me and was only given a rough shove and a deeper nick in my back for my trouble.

When I tried to go right instead of left at a small junction, all I got for my trouble was a cruel twist on my arm, enough for me to feel the joint start to protest and move into a somewhat unnatural position, not that it took much force to dislocate my left shoulder anymore. If he used much more force he was easily going to dislocate my arm at the shoulder, if he twisted much more, probably at the elbow too.

I was terrified!

After what felt like hours (only five minutes at the most of course) I was shoved into a cell and unfortunately for me, I was not released. Instead I was walked right to the back wall and pressed a little roughly against it.

"Well, well, well." His voice growled into my head as he twisted my arm a little tighter behind me and I whimpered against the wall that my body was being ground into. "Not as smart as I thought you were." His voice stayed low but I knew it. I knew it very well.

Riddick!

He used one of his feet to kick my feet apart so that I was standing spread eagle. "Get the fuck off of me." I ground out but I was only pressed harder against the wall and my arm was twisted sharply. I felt the pop that my shoulder made when it was dislocated and I gritted my teeth against the pain, keeping my moan as soft as I could. I was not going to scream or cry out. I would not prove to him that I was weak. Instead I let my eyes flutter shut as I tried to pull myself away from the brink of unconsciousness. At least when a joint dislocated as easy as my shoulder did, it became just as easy to relocate.

"Not going to happen. I want to know why you're here." He hissed in my ear.

"And you think I'm going to tell you while I'm pressed up against this wall? You don't fucking know me anymore." I said resisting the sudden urge that I had to cry like a baby. "You know I'm not going to tell you. If you seriously thought that I would then I'd have to say you're a whole lot fucking stupider then I thought you were." I snapped at him.

"What if I said I'd kill you if you didn't tell me?" He answered the hint of a threat real in his voice and I shuddered.

"If I didn't know you better, I'd call you for bullshitting." I answered, whimpering again as the position I was in ground my dislocated joint into the stone of the wall. "It's a shame that you aren't the person that I thought you were. I never stopped defending you. Never said one fucking bad word against you even though people kept telling me that it was alright to tell them how it really was. They wouldn't believe me when I tried. I'd rather be killed by you then go back and have to eat all those words Riddick." I hissed out his name for the first time.

"You always did idolize me a little much."

"Fuck you." I replied. "Fuck you!"

"Tell me!" He roared in my ear and I hated myself for the fearful sweat that broke out all over my body.

"Over my dead body!" I yelled back.

"God damn it Jack you were always too stubborn for your own good." He stepped back, releasing me and putting distance between us. I didn't think. I reacted. I turned to face him, my good arm whipped out my Wang and I trained it on him, my lips curled back from gritted teeth in a vicious snarl. I didn't care that it was Riddick in front of me; he had gone from the man that I had come to save to one that I actually wanted to kill.

The realization shocked me for a moment, for a split second I actually wanted to kill him. He realized it to, I think as he looked at me, I mean really at me, his silver orbs penetrating my very soul and he saw my intent. He saw my anger and fear and recognized that I actually wanted to kill him in that fleeting point in time.

"What you gonna do Jack? Pull the trigger?" He looked at me scornfully and I felt shock settle into my bones. "I dare you. Pull the trigger."

Riddick moved toward me as I started to feel light headed, the pain in my shoulder was beginning to get to the point of unbearable. I had to act now if I was ever going to act, I knew that and yet I felt so very dizzy. He kept moving toward me, perhaps a step quicker, I couldn't be sure, all I knew was that I was swaying slightly and I suddenly couldn't stop my eyes from rolling into the back of my head.

"Didn't think you could," was the last thing I heard him say as I pitched forward the darkness taking over but not before I was scooped into his arms and the scent that I had always associated with him engulfed me.