Alright so this one was a long time coming and for that all I can do is say sorry… I had come major problems with this one but with a lot of help (thanks Thugs-4-Less) I did finally get it done and here it is.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed the last chapter, please keep them coming, I like to know whatchya'll are thinking. :)
Kayla.
Chapter 10: 'My Way Or The Highway'
Coming to after passing out is never a pleasant experience. Coming to after having passed out in Butcher Bay comes with its own unique set of horrors. The questions: am I alive, can I move, in what way have I been taken advantage of or abused, am I surrounded by a gaggle of thick headed assholes here for multiple murders and rape, all spring to mind in quick order and send your heart racing toward tachycardia.
I had to resist the urge to sit bolt upright, attempt to pull my feet under me and move as quickly from where I was as was humanly or otherwise possible. Yet something more then that primal instinct that told me to flee kept me still on that hard, somewhat lumpy prison mat.
My panic left me with a heartbeat so loud I was sure that it could be heard clean in another planetary system but my head was finally clear enough to allow myself time to try and answer some of my own panic questions. I slowed my breathing and listened closely to what was around me and from what I could gather there wasn't much.
There were voices off in the distance, to me they sounded like murmurs, hardly there and therefore far away. Until I actually sat up and had a look around, I couldn't know for sure but I couldn't help but feel a little more secure. The only other real sound nearby was of falling water, not much, probably just a trickle but it was there.
As for my own bodily condition, that was easy enough to feel out. I hadn't been hardly touched since I passed out. There was a dull, throbbing pain that was steadily growing in my left shoulder. The kind of pain that makes you feel more than a little groggy and I had the sudden urge like I wanted to be sick.
You fucking stupid little girl! I half screamed at myself mentally as I lay there trying to figure out what my next course of action was going to be. I was missing my weapons, I was more then likely going to move somewhat sluggishly because of the pain in my shoulder and although my shoulder had been relocated I was not going to have the full range of motion that I would need.
I was completely and totally fucked! Ioan was god knows where, Riddick had been pissed enough to try and take a chunk out of me and I had gotten myself totally fucked up. Between the guards and an angry Riddick I was in no condition to move anywhere on my own without becoming a victim.
Shit! There was nothing for it, I had to take stock, lay low for as long as I could and then try and make contact with Wasp and Ioan.
Come on girl, think! I hounded myself as I let my right hand travel up to my shoulder, gently probing at the flesh around it. It was tender but as far as I could tell there had been no great damage.
With my hand still pressed to my shoulder I sat up and swung my legs over the side of the cot, my boots touching the ground with a low hollow sound that made me look quickly to my left and right, I was getting sloppy. But I came face to face with Riddick.
He was sitting in an old beat up chair, arms crossed across his broad chest, his face totally impassive. He sat there, all calm and sedate, looking right back at me like it was nothing. He hadn't changed much, maybe only a line of age here or there, across his forehead or at the corner of his mouth or eye. Otherwise the same solid lines were there, unchanged.
It was Riddick's way to be unchanging. Even the standard black pants and sturdy boots of the prison uniform didn't look out of place, especially when you noted the fact that the sleeves had been ripped from his t-shirt to make a custom wifebeater, the sleeves probably hadn't fit his arms properly in the first place.
I couldn't help but wonder what I looked like to him in that moment, had I changed at all? Who really cared anyway, all he would see was the weakness in me. The pale sheen I knew I got when I was in pain always made me look weak, the defensive way I was sitting, my right hand still pressed against my aching joint.
"What's the plan, Jack?" His voice filled the room even though he barely spoke above normal level, but that was Riddick. For as long as I was around him, he had had a voice that penetrated no matter what level he spoke at.
"Now you want to know if there's a plan?" I gave him a level look as my tone sounding even a little sullen to me. Hell, here I was being offered the chance to have a conversation with him and I was too pissed off and tired to be anything but juvenile.
Riddick stood up so I had to look up at him as he moved across the room. He had that same predatory grace that I remembered, the kind of grace you saw in wild animals and he just kept moving until he was right in front of me.
"Yes."
Fucking trust him to be simple about everything.
"The plan is to get you the fuck out of here." I couldn't keep the smirk that clearly said, 'what else were you thinking?' off of my face. Sometimes I couldn't help being a smartass.
"No shit, Jack. But if that's all you got then I'm better off on my own." His was a low growl, like he didn't like me talking back. I wasn't for letting everything spill yet, hell, after the turn that our reunion had taken, I wasn't sure if I even wanted to get him out anymore.
"You always said you were anyway." I said in practically a whisper as I drew in a deep breath and looked away from him. That's when the bitch in me decided that there was no point in going back to being the teenager that he knew from before. I wasn't that person anymore. I clenched my teeth for a moment as I looked back at him. "This time you're going to need me and the transport that I've arranged with my employer to have waiting for us."
"Your boss?" He leaned right in close to me, his nose less then an inch from mine, his silver eyes boring holes right through me. "And the pilot is her's too?" I could hear the mocking tone to his voice and it made me bristle. I was no longer used to being mocked and I didn't like it.
"My boss. Her pilot. You don't want the help. Fine. You're not going to get a better opportunity then this." I leveled with him and shrugged. Either way I was out of here, he had the choice of coming with me or not and yet part of me wanted him to come with me so very badly, regardless of what had happened.
"Your boss, her pilot. Who can take us any fucking where they want!" Riddick's voice took on a harsh coldness that I didn't relish hearing. "What's the rule Jack? Always have an out, remember?" He moved in closer to me, before I could move I felt his breath on my neck. "You smell like the world." He paused and leaned a little closer, this time, taking a piece of my hair and lifting it, playing it through his fingers for just a moment, "Soft, weak meat for the taking, Jack. What makes you think I need meat's help to get out of this shit-hole?"
I couldn't help but be repulsed by him. For that moment, he reminded me of that scarred up jackass that I'd lost in the crowd. When had I made Riddick better then the likes of that man? Had I forgotten how cruel he really could be?
I went ridged and mustered up the coldest and most disgusted look I could find as I looked at his face. He was crowding me and enjoying the fact that he had got to me.
"I'm sick and fucking tired of being called meat. Fucking goddamned meat." I used the flicker of anger to control my body's urge to tremble slightly. I couldn't believe I had forgotten about his intimidation tactics. The games he used to play with the people that pissed him off. I had watched him so closely, at first I'd tired to emulate him and now I was letting him play those stupid games with me. God damn it, I knew better! "If you didn't need me you'd already be out of this shit-hole." It was my turn to growl at him.
"Temper, temper Jack." He stood up straight again with a fluidity and grace that came naturally to him. Then he backed off, not like in retreat, more because it suited him to do so. He never did anything that it didn't suit him to do. "You read my letter, I've got somethin' cookin'."
I leaned toward him even as he moved back; trying to hide the momentary wince that I was sure he'd seen anyway as my shoulder protested to the movement.
"Then what's the plan?" I couldn't help myself, he had challenged me, I suddenly wasn't afraid to challenge him right back. "It must be good; you've been cookin' it for years." I cocked my head slightly, feeling my own confidence come back the minute he was out of my breathing space.
He fucking turned his back on me. Turned right around so that he wasn't facing me anymore and started making his way back to the chair he'd been sitting on when I first noticed him.
"It'll be lights out soon, Jack. Maybe you should get some sleep."
That got my hackles raised. I hadn't been treated like a child for years and I was no-longer accustomed to taking orders from anyone when it came to my personal life. The last time I had, it had been because it was a question of Anna's welfare.
"What? That's it? That's the great plan you've been cookin' for five years? 'Get some sleep' is your way to get your ass out of Slam?" I couldn't help but keep the utter disbelieve off my face, fucking bastard wouldn't tell me his plan and I couldn't help but wonder if he even had one. "If I needed someone to tell me what to get some sleep I would not have come to Butcher Bay to get the advice. I would have gone for a holiday on New Mecca; Imam was always good at telling me what to do." I snapped.
He strode across the room so quickly I almost didn't have time to prepare myself, to stop myself from moving away from him on instinct and it was only by the grace of some other power that I managed not to flinch. "Obviously you do need the advice. You're slow, weak and so tired it's makin' you stupid. Maybe I'll tell you in the fucking morning. Now sleep before I make you sleep."
"You already did that or can't you remember? Shall I refresh your memory?" I glared at him, I was so angry it made my chest feel tight. "As I remember it, there was a shiv, a fucking wall and all I got out of the deal was a dislocated shoulder and a death threat."
If his plan was to have a very angry Jack on his hands then he was going about it the right way. I was pissed and not because he was treating me like some kid that needed to be told what to do. No, I was pissed because he was right.
I was exhausted. I was in pain. I was weak in comparison to him, in his world. And maybe I was a little bit stupid. After all, hadn't I willingly incarcerated myself in a fucking triple-max Slam? Perhaps it was the way I had always been, but I hated being wrong, Wasp had pointed it out to me on a hundred occasions, always said it made me hard to teach.
"No threats this time." His voice was level, totally neutral. His whole tone told me that I could argue with him as much as I wanted but he wasn't going to be goaded into a fight with me. "Not my fault you fucked your shit up. You need sleep if you're gonna be worth a shit. So you're going to sleep. Easy or hard, Jack. You know the score."
"You don't know what I'm worth." I snapped but the aggression was gone from my tone if not my posture. He gave me a level look that said it all. He didn't need a come back for me to know exactly what he was thinking. "But it always was your way or the highway." I couldn't keep the irony from my voice, part of me wanted to laugh at it all. "I should have seen that one comin'."
"You should have." He moved away from me again and settled himself on the cot opposite me, stretching and I found it hard to keep the mental image of a big cat out of my head as I watched him. "You're in my world now. Follow my lead and we might get out alive."
"You're taking me with you?" It was a comment made half out of curiosity and half out of challenge. The longer I spent in Butcher Bay, the more I knew that I needed him to come out on the other side alive. Without him I was fucked. He knew it too.
"All depends on you." He said, settling back so his head was resting on the wall behind him. "Sleep."
Sleep doesn't come easy in a place like Butcher Bay. Sleep doesn't come easy when your body protests to the way you lay. Sleep doesn't come easy when all you can think about is the throbbing in your shoulder that makes you wonder if you'd be able to function when it came to a time when you needed to.
This was a little mess that I had not anticipated. Imam had been very wrong. Riddick had obviously gotten wind of me extremely quickly after I had arrived, before I had even had a real change to go looking for him. He had gotten the element of surprise that I had wanted for myself and he had used it to great effect.
But even with the feeling of Riddick's eyes burning into me, and the pain that plagued me, my body soon succumbed to my own exhaustion and I slept. It was the kind of sleep that makes you wonder if that is what it's like when you finally die. Eternal darkness, peace. There were no dreams to disturb my sleep.
It was the noise of purposeful movement that woke me and when I woke it was pitch black. So black that you couldn't possibly have seen your own hand inches in front of your face if you had tried. For a moment I questioned if I had even woken up from my dreamless land of darkness, that was until I heard Riddick's breathing and caught the slight shine of his mercury eyes across the room.
The sounds of other inmates moving around out side of the Riddick's cell had suddenly increased massively. Part of me couldn't help but feel suddenly nervous, I was at a disadvantage in the dark and that made me completely at Riddick's mercy but at least I wasn't half as groggy as I had been before.
"Your weapon is on the floor beside your cot. You might want it, it's time to move." His voice was low, dangerous and without thinking I sat up and fumbled around on the floor for a minute until my fingers closed around the grip of my Wang. Then I got to my feet and waited.
Survival time had come.
