Chapter 47: We Few, We Happy Few, We Band of Buggered
Jack watched Nara leave, feeling the drugs take hold. Some of the intensity of the moment and a whole lot of the pain faded.
Riddick locked the door behind Nara because of course he would. He brought her a glass of water. "Drink."
She took the glass and drained it. "Thank you," she said. She rolled her shoulders, only then realizing how tense they were.
He took the glass away. "Want another?"
"Not right now." He set it down on the table with a click. Came up behind her and gripped her shoulders. Without thinking, she scooted back on the bed so she could lean back into him.
"Hate it when you won't look at me," Riddick grumbled. She looked up at him. "That's better." He started massaging her shoulders. "God, you're tense."
"You broke my heart this morning, Riddick," she said, quietly holding his gaze for a long moment. "Most of the day, if I'd looked at you, I would have started bawling." He grunted. "But the drugs help. And I do love you."
He sighed. "Sorry about that."
His hands became more sensuous and suggestive. Her head rolled forward. "Toombs said you wanted to beat me when I ran away," she said in a small voice, not looking at him again. "That's really scary."
The steady rhythm of his hands paused. "Thor's hairy nutsack, kid. Don't listen to Toombs."
"So he . . . didn't . . . have a reason to think that? It was consistent with you seeming to think you're entitled to do anything you want to me. Makes horrible sense that you'd punish me for running."
He sighed again. "Don't think that. Just angry. Got over it. Made him stop shocking you. Hate them hurting you."
She nodded. She decided not to mention the communication damping fields that blocked the controller's signal. Or the memory of how happy it used to make him when she would hurt herself to learn what he was trying to teach her. Reached up to grip his hands. "Thank you."
His hands were slipping down her neckline. "Woulda come after you."
She nodded again. "I know. Especially since I was going to steal your ship. One of the reasons I came back."
He grunted again. "You didn't mention that."
"Didn't really fit the theme of my little Saint Crispin's Day speech."
"What?"
"We few, we happy few, we band of buggered? For he today that sheds his blood with me shall be my brother? Today we are facing the monsters that are at our door and taking the fight to them? You know, the main reason I came back and am giving you a second chance?"
"We don't celebrate Saint Crispin's Day where I came from," he said, huskily, right into her ear. It shot shivers down her spine.
"It's not important."
He nuzzled her cheek from behind, his ridiculous beard scratching her. "What is important to you, Jack?" he said in his real voice. The shivers went down to her toes.
She tried to twist up to look at him. A heavy hand on her neck stopped her. Now he doesn't want me to look at him?
Probably feeling some kind of way about this conversation. "Saving the day. Fighting the forces of darkness who want to kill it. Doing what you told me to do, be worth all the death I've caused. What's important to you, Riddick?"
He grunted. "You."
She shivered. Thirteen years and he's not healed. "Were you on Audhumla since you left New Mecca?"
Riddick backed up slightly, trailed a finger down the back of her neck and down her spine with deliberate slowness. His other hand massaged one of her breasts, worshipfully. Whispered into an ear, "Pretty much."
"Alone?"
His hands paused, almost imperceptibly. "Alone. Until a few weeks ago. Met some ice giants. Computer said there were penguins. Never saw them."
You killed the ice giants, Jack thought. And wrapped me in their skin. "A wise woman told me once that staying away from the people we love makes us crazy," Jack said, carefully. "I've been thinking about that. About whether you made yourself crazy to protect me. Staying alone in the cold so people would think you were dead, so no one would turn me into bait to lure you out. Cutting yourself again and again, thinking of us bleeding into each other's veins."
He pulled back more, without removing his hands. "Jesus, Jack," he said. "I wasn't gone that long."
"Thirteen freaking years, Riddick. That's almost half my life."
"It was eleven days," he said. "Missed you every fucking one of them. But they did not make me crazy."
She tried to decode what he'd said. Gave up. "What?"
He pulled her back tight against him. His hands were loving. Like they used to be. Like they'd been on their last night together on New Mecca, between dislocating her thumbs and shoulders. She had an almost visceral memory of him massaging her after that last brutal training session, leaving her boneless. Despite the drugs, she blinked back tears. "Found cryo that worked. Some kinda status field. Put myself in so I wouldn't come back and take you into the dark. Woke up a couple of weeks ago. Found out you were headin' to Colchis with these assholes eight days after I left New Mecca. Three days later you were walking out of Toombs' ship looking at me like you knew me and wanted nothing to do with me."
She tried again to twist around and look at him. Again, he wouldn't let her. "Jesus fuck, dude. So you weren't just sitting in the dark cutting yourself thinking of me for thirteen years? That would have been REALLY NICE TO KNOW the last few days, Riddick."
He chuckled. "Sorry. Love you, but did not cut myself in memory of you. Reopened while I was fighting an ice giant. Again while I was ending the doctor."
She rubbed her face with both hands. She felt him stiffen behind her. He ran a finger over the cut encircling her right wrist. "Do they hurt?"
"Yeah. But these are good drugs. It's feeling better. Eleven days . . . " she shook her head. "Eleven days after you left me I was still crying myself to sleep every night, I missed you so much. Months after." Her voice caught. "I ached for you. I missed your hands on me. I missed your smell. I missed you lurking in doorways. I even missed you teaching me how to do terrible things. If Yunas hadn't shamed Abu into letting me adopt that dog you found I think I would have gone crazy." He squeezed her shoulders. "No wonder you're so attached. Two weeks ago we were bonded tight."
He grunted. "Were?"
She shrugged, painfully. "I love you. You are carved into my soul." His hands started stroking her again, lovingly. "But you've been out of my life for thirteen years. It's terrifying, how you just do whatever you want to me. Making me cum when I told you not to. Putting your hand over my mouth to keep me quiet. Getting into the shower with me without asking. And what you did this morning made me want to run away from you as far and as fast as I can."
He gripped her shoulders. He was silent for a long time. Finally, seriously, "don't. You'll end up bloody."
"Because you'll hunt me down?"
His grip on her shoulders tightened and his voice went rough. "Don't think I could stop myself right now. Never felt like this before." She shivered. He resumed his slow exploration of her body from behind. "But that's not how you end up bloody. I'll be as sweet as strawberry pie. Black cover arrest warrant means they beat the crap out of you when they pick you up and they'll keep doin' it until they're tired of it. Kind of guys who take on those warrants love their work."
There is a whole lot in there we need to talk about. She let her head roll forward again in response to his insistent hands. "That's happened to you." He sighed, long and low.
"It'll be worse for you," he said. "You're a pretty girl. Don't. Run."
She tried to look at him again. Again, he would not let her. "So don't do things like you did this morning."
He sighed again. Wrapped both arms around her and pulled her back tight against him.
"I guess," she said slowly. "I can kind of understand it now. Two weeks ago, as you lived it, I would have let you do anything you wanted to me. Turned me into a killer. Or your laundry lady. Or . . . anything. You were the one who decided not to take advantage of that." He snorted, softly. "Instead, you told me to be a good person and I tried really hard. Now, that's who I think I am. You still think I'm the girl who would do anything you wanted."
"You were always a good person," he said, seriously. "Always wanted to help. Cared about people. Even the guy who wanted to feed you to monsters." His grip tightened. "Trust me, kid. If we were doing what I wanted, they'd all be dead and we'd be on our way to New Mecca to kill al-Walid."
She kept her voice light. "So that's where all your self restraint is going."
His snort was more forceful this time. "You have no fucking clue how much restraint I'm exercising."
She nodded. "Probably not." She stiffened her spine and took a deep breath. "You still raped me this morning." His hands stilled.
"That's not okay. It's not okay that you tied me up and gagged me when I was begging you not to. Or made me listen to that terrifying soliloquy where you worked out just when you were going to kill me and Abu. I really thought you were going to kill me, tied to this damn bed, and everything I loved was going to die because of it. I deserve better from you."
He nuzzled her cheek with his own but did not answer.
"You get that, right? I'll forgive you this time because I don't think you understood that just because you want it, I want it. But don't do it again." He gripped her shoulders tight but still said nothing.
Someone started knocking on the door. Riddick let her go, strode across the room, and opened it. Nara poked her head in. "Time for dinner. Let's go."
She deserves better but she's getting pasta and a fancy dining experience. Dahl leveled up on presentation. We're supposed to sit around a dining room table with an honest to Glod tablecloth and candles and baskets of breadsticks. There is literally gallons of red wine on the table and irresponsibly sized wine glasses. Toombs walks around, pouring half a bottle into each person's glass like he's the fucking sommelier to the unrepentantly alcoholic. Nara throws back a substantial portion of her first pour and he tops her right off.
I take a sip. It's warm in my belly. Jack swirls hers around and stares into the glass. Puts it to her lips but doesn't swallow. Takes a breadstick. Looks around the table. "What do you need, Jack?" I ask.
"I'd love a glass of water."
Dahl calls from the kitchen. "On it." She smiles. He bustles around more than you'd think for a glass of water. And then he comes bearing a freaking enormous goblet with ice, mint, and fruit floating in it. He puts it down in front of her with a bow. "Thought you might like this."
She smiles at him like she's honestly happy about drinking fancy swamp water. Takes a small sip and then a bigger one. "Thank you. It's delicious." He preens. I roll my eyes. Like you've got a shot with her, would-be-rapist-boy.
He heads back to the kitchen and brings out a big pan of lasagna that smells so good my brain almost shuts down. Goes back for a second pan. Getting a little weird, eating these amazing meals in this dead military base with the girl of my dreams I do not deserve but am keeping anyway. And these mercs I don't deserve either.
After we all get sorted, Toombs stands. "I propose a toast!" He smiles down at Jack. "To you, darlin'. The one who's brought us all together and who's brave sacrifice might just save the day." The three mercs and Nara raise their glasses and take big gulps. Jack looks down. "Take a drink darlin'."
"You're not supposed to drink to yourself," she says.
He laughs. "That's dumb. Who told you that?"
She rolls her eyes. "Something I picked up in New Mecca."
"Oh, right, you went from alley trash refugee to screwing royalty. I forgot that."
Jack takes a big drink of water. Toombs seems about to follow up but Dahl cuts him off. "Lemme serve. Who wants meat and who wants mushroom? Or both?"
Once everyone's got pasta on their plates, Toombs gestures at Jack. "What else did you learn from your time screwing the little prince?"
"He wasn't a prince," she says.
"Yeah, he was. And that's not what I was asking."
She takes a bite of her mushroom lasagna. "This is delicious, Dahl." Toombs starts patting his pockets, like he's forgot where he put the controller. Damn sure he hasn't. Jack swallows. "A lot about dogs. A little bit about the law. A lot about infrastructure. Something about debt. They were really trying to build a world that wasn't awful."
"But they're willing to stake you out for monsters."
"No," she says, flatly. "They had nothing to do with that. They tried to stop it. They're the ones who filed all the lawsuits that kept you from dragging me off that carrier I escaped on last time you abducted me. They're probably past the pleading stage on a new round of lawsuits now. Even though unlike you, the Elementals and the Necros aren't going to be deterred by legal action."
"Don't kid yourself," Toombs says. "I wasn't deterred. I woulda totally pirated you off that boat. Aereon decided to give you some rein. Have a drink of wine."
She takes a small one. Toombs takes a big one. His little piggy eyes are on her and his little piggy eyes are hungry. Maybe I should carve them out of his little piggy head. "Always wondered how you went from refugee alley trash to Riddick's little pet to eating at a princess's table. What makes you so special? Did you just catch the young prince's eye? Or were they setting you up too, just like al-Walid was?"
"What the fuck, dude," Dahl says. "They just met in the park the day Riddick bailed on her. We know that. Don't torture her."
"Oh, this isn't torture." He takes another big drink. "I'll show you torture. This is just friendly conversation."
Should change the subject. But Jack's life without me fascinates me. "Who's this prince you guys keep going on about?"
"Prince Yunas Ninshubar motherfucking Hyperion. Son of Princess Angela Inanna motherfucking Hyperion, apparently by divine intervention because I could find no information about his da," Toombs says with relish. "Angela Inanna fucking Hyperion's grandparents were the absolute kings and queens of Helios. They abdicated, but I hear tell she gets to be Empress whenever she wants to. Jack here was screwing her only begotten son for a while. She even moved into their little castle after our first adventure."
"It's really creepy that you know all that," Jack says. "But that wasn't a castle and They. Aren't. Royalty. Angela is not going to trigger article 22. She believes full-heartedly in the constitutional republic. After you tricked Abu into handing me over, she took me in. I was just a kid and I wasn't screwing her son at the time. She took me in because she cared about me and knew I didn't feel safe at home anymore."
Yunas Ninshubar Hyperion. Jack's little boyfriend. The pretty little golden-skinned boy I dream of yanking out from between her thighs and killing in her pretty princess tower. Kinda hope I never meet him. Would be awkward.
"We didn't trick him," Toombs says, outraged. "He wrote your folks to tell them where you were and they wanted you back. Got an extradition warrant and everything."
I put my cutlery down flat and straight on the table with a click. Jack closes her eyes. "Extradition?" I say, softly.
Toombs rolls his eyes. "Rendition order. Custody order. I don't know the fucking legal lingo for fucking family law. Minister al-Walid wrote home to Mercer to tell them their darling daughter was alive and well. The loving family hired me to get their kid back. Well. They didn't. But they might as well have. We just had a couple of stops to make on the way."
I'm momentarily fascinated trying to image what family would hire Alexander fucking Toombs to bring their runaway teenage daughter home. No one who should have access to Jack, that's for fucking sure. Guess it makes sense. Never made her tell me the details, but I'm pretty sure it was someone in her father's family who was fucking her back on Mercer. Family she was running from. Family Abu tried to send her back to. Family I told him not to call on pains of seeing me again.
The reasons to kill Abu just keep mounting up. Slide my eyes over to Jack. The one reason not to. She's scared and angry, despite the drugs. "Sweet Mithras's sacred birthday, you call dragging me around Audhumla drugged and in cuffs and trying to sell me into slavery on Polyphemus station a few stops?" She takes two deep breaths. Seems to calm down. "Can we stop talking about this? It's been a hard day. Got enough new traumas to process. Don't need to stir up old ones."
Logan laughs. "Kid, he's trying to provoke you. It's his third favorite way to get his kicks. Just don't play along."
"What're the first two?" I ask.
"Baggin' 'em, and doin' 'em. If they're doable," Toombs lears. Jack closes her eyes again. Think she might be regretting telling me not to kill him.
"Heimdahl's gnarly ballsack, dude," Dahl says. "Just eat this food that is far too good for you, go tug a few out in the privacy of your own bedroom, and get over it. Stop torturing her."
"When'd you get so sweet on her, anyway? She got your fucking brother killed." Toombs shoots back. Should probably get Jack out of here before they actually start shooting each other but this conversation is too fascinating.
"I'm not sweet on her, Alexander," Dahl says, exasperated. "And she didn't get my brother killed. We all did. Because we didn't read the fucking briefing packet. Finally did, asshole. The fact there were freaking ice-giants in the area was right there on page 17. We should have set a perimeter, had aerial support, had ground surveillance equipment, brought the right fucking weapons, and you shouldn't have picked a fucking fist fight with Neil Silbury completely distracting us from the fact we were surrounded by fucking monsters."
I've got Silbury's wallet on my ship. Confirmation, if I needed it, that Jack was dragged right up to my fucking doorstep on Audhumla and I never even fucking woke up to say hi. Would not be here if I had. Could have saved her. Could have had her. Would not have to be here now, dealing with these assholes because I would have killed them already. And I bet teenage Jack would be a lot more likely to do than I want than this grown-up version besides me. I take a big drink, grip her thigh hard under the table. She's frozen.
Toombs grunts at him, scratches himself, and takes another big drink himself. Dahl keeps going. "I'm not sweet on her, I'm impressed with her. She's not the sort of normal asshole I feel righteous about running down and I am gettin' real tired of you acting like she is. Despite every awful thing she knows we're going to do to her, despite every fucking awful thing we did to her already, she's right here, shoulder to shoulder, trying to do right. Trying to stop the motherfucking Necromongers. She's a goddamn freaking hero."
"She killed Antonia Chillingsworth. And that type of thinkin' will cost you a payday," Toombs says.
"She was thirteen-fucking-years old, Alexander. There's no fucking way a thirteen year old girl in that fucking nightmare of an art studio wasn't acting in self defense when she shot that crazy bitch. And maybe if we make it through this, I'll retire and become a cook."
"Great idea," Nara says. "I think I'd like to be a zoologist next time around. How about you, Eve?"
Logan startles. "I like my job. Most of the time."
"I love my job," Toombs says, darkly. "How about you, Transpo Guy?"
I'm playing with my silverware, thoughtfully. Feel bad how stressed this conversation is Jack. "I think Dahl should become a cook. He's really good at it. I've never eaten this well."
"I'll drink to that!" Nara says, raising her glass and draining it. Everyone laughs. Except Jack. Toombs tops us all off.
Dinner was delicious. The company was surreal and terrifying. Despite that, Jack couldn't stop yawning. The wine wasn't helping. But when she didn't drink it, Toombs would start fingering the control unit in a meaningful way that made her skin crawl.
After dessert - a magnificent pineapple upside down cake - Nara took pity on her. "Jack, I think you might need to make it an early night. Been a long day."
Riddick snorted softly. Toombs took a big drink of wine. "She does look sleepy. Who should we have you bunk down with tonight, darlin'? Hey, Dahl, you up for babysitting duty?"