Chapter 3

BAD START

*Oh, god he's here. Shit, shit shit*

being forced to lie down, being carried to the hospital. Thinking about Riddick.
Emotions she though she'd killed years ago blossomed like roses. Roses with mother fucking big thorns, those thorns were slicing through her skin like his shiv once had.

Her hand holding over a bleeding wound by her hip, only one of many wounds, it'd be just another scar. One more to a large collection.

A light flashing into her pupils, Wolf's face somewhere in the background.

-Just don't go into the light, will yah.

Wolf's life like humor almost made the patient laugh. What a doctor, killing people outta laughter.

-No fucking risk, I've been thrown outta hell, heaven ain´t gonna take me.

Her physical wound being healed as her mental wounds once again started to bleed.
She'd spent years trying to come to peace with the brutal end. No luck, no fucking luck.
Instead she'd simply ignored it, "forgotten" about it.
Unlike with her father, now she did understand Riddick´s reasons, but she'd been just too fucked up at the time to calm down and think. With the asshole dead he wouldn't ever touch Prologis, although Jack knew that Prologis would most likely react as Skylar had.

Skylar.

Jack let her mind drift over the time she'd gotten to CQ Zion.
-------------------------

Eyebrows arched in wonder and suspicion, a somber girl, most likely her own age, bald,
a pang of pain, bald...Riddick.

-Do not concernt yourself over him. Richard B. Riddick is at Hubble bay maximum penal facility. Or is it perhaps that you worry about him being there.

Jack stopped dead track in her shoes. A telepath? Sure as fuck didn't feel like someone´d been probing in her head, and what was up with the language?

A flash of a smile crossed the girl's lips, her fully black Skylar eyes captivating everything around her aura.

-No need to ponder, I have no telepathic abilities. I merely read your DNA when we shook hands.

Jack's eyes narrowed a great deal more. reading DNA?
It looked like her new found companion were about to burst dead from laughter, entertained over the "normal" human being.

-What the fuck´s up with the fancy talkin´?

The young Wolf shrugged.

-I could ask you quite the opposite.

From the looks of it, the bald white head was mocking the brown haired Jack, and that was not to her liking.

-Look, if I'm gonna be here for you to kick then just throw me right off.

That girl turned completely and utterly serious, giving Jack a long short moment of beneficial doubt.

-I can kick anyone I like.

Heat rising in Jackie girl.

-Oh, Really..Want to try to kick me?

harsh eyes stared right through the big mouthed not all talk single mother.

-I run this ship, if needed be I will throw your sorry mother fucking ass out the airlocker.

All that, spoken in the most cruelest of tones. Jack´s opinion reshaped in an instant. Something very different colored that woman's life, outside from her physical reality.
Disbelief surged the system Jack controled.
A twenty year old running a ship of two thousand?

-You run this ship?

Staring directly into eyes of non humanity Jack heard words she hadn't expected.

-By the age of seventeen I had bloodied my hands with the hearts of hundreds.
----------------------------

Yeah, and since then the number had risen from three digits to four. When Jack thought of it, she couldn't remember how many she'd killed. very few up close, but enough, if not too much. many had died out in cold space because of her.

Her hands lying under her head as she stared out into the air, pondering and estimating.
Her wounds fixed, if so to speak, yet she couldn't help but stay still.

An imperfect moment of peace flowing through her mind and body. The surge of adrenaline and dopamine pulling her body to heights that were unspeakably heavenly.

Leaning her eyes back Jack let her forget all about the past, just for a moment.
Just until reality would come slamming back and leave yet another scar on her face.
***************

-So, Mr. Riddick, what do you think of my crew so far?

The calm talk continued, sounding casual but was of great importance.

-Sufficient, all of them have rather, interesting past careers.

Wolf managed a smile through her dim thoughts.

-yes, the CQ ships are a community built up by out casts, we make them...sufficient as you said.

-That why you hired me?

A suggestion of Wolf's hands did speak the truth about that: ofcourse, her words started on a nother conversation.

-I will be on future missions, but not as head of mission team. I´ll merely be there as an extra and a doctor.

Leaning back in the chair, seeming relaxed as all of his senses observed his environment with great care.

-When's the next mission?

-Two weeks from now. An abandoned space station, used to be a research facility.
Might have some AWOL projects running around, some credits and vital information about gene therapy and genetic enhancement.

A pack of freaks, was that what all of this was about? A pack of freaks.

-Jack will be your second in command, you should be ready for some...attitude.

The mention of her name drew his attention, filled his head up with images, regrets and wishes.

-We have a past.

Wolf's face turned rather akward.

-I know of that...but that's not why. Jack was suppose to be the next team leader...but due to the brawl she had with the last one she's on hold.

Now that caught Riddick´s attention even further.

-A brawl?

-The asshole tried to leave the team in a very shitty situation, Jack blew his brains out.

Riddick´s eyes narrowed slightly, the only sign of disapproval in his shined eyes.
His silence that of understanding, yet Wolf felt the need to confirm her words.

-It is standard procedure, if anyone tries to leave us in a pile of shit, that same person dies. Sometimes rather slowly.

-You have more of these "interesting" rules?

By the smile on Wolf's lips he saw that that was definite. Her eyes staring right through him as she leaned forwards.

-There's a new rule, specially meant for you Mr. Riddick.

-I'm flattered.

-Fuck with Jack and I´ll personally rip you're head of.

Those words left Riddick with a very interesting image in his mind.
Along with carolyne, young Jack and the rest of his illusions. They just didn't want to leave.
***********************

Darkness.
Oh.
Oh.
Oh...ouch...what the fuck!

I'm alone?
Nope.....I smell someone else.
Odd, salty but not too unpleasant.
A male.

But I am alone here.
The others are dead.

Dead.

Yeah, pretty much.

Dark....
mmmhhh.
I like the dark.

My hands smell of blood, the best perfume, but I'm worried, shit I am worried.
Being alone is good.
Not being alone is very very bad, a very bad thing.

Shoot me, then fuck me all over.
Oops...did I kill that guy who knew about the food supplies?
Yeah.
Damn, stupid little fucking fucker.

Gonna have too look.
Need....alot of things.
Need
need
need
want........

****************************

The mess was a rather lively place, talk, small talks and vivid play fighting, food thrown across the room and caught at the other.
Rather impossible to find a solemn place.. Every single table taken.

This place had become odder and odder in his mind. Children ran around in the middle of the night, playing. The kids were tought to fight before they could walk and graduation was at sixteen.

Every single person here above thirteen could probably kick an average John Doe´s ass.

*Kill´em is more like it*

Yeah, CQ Zion was a fucked up place, but he rather liked it.
After going through the crew files he´d found out that those not born here had at least two pages of crimes on their record.

Except Jack.
Her record shining clean.
Nothing except the knowledge that she'd spent m ost of her time in cryo sleep.
Long running missions for rare cargo, piloting.

Now that "kid" was a suicidal pilot.

*Don´t sound like you Jack*

Thinking of her, smelling her in the ocean of different scents. her´s always stuck out, at least to him.

Leading over the room, a peculiar sight when he finally spotted someone he´s never seen but spoken to only a few months ago to his conscience.

An unspoken speech of stealth surrounded her aura, as well as authority and respect.
The smile on her lips, eyes shining...some very specific gleam to them he just couldn´t put his finger on.
A scar decorated her perfect face, vertical to the eyes, diagonal from the eye to her lips,
diagonal over them, a vision of blood poring from her lips hitting him just before he brushed them away. vertical to the end of her chin.

Still remembered her sore voice whimpering, her words begging and her body squirming.
Still, and he couldn't let go.

In direct steps he tried to approach her, tried to walk into her direction.
Tried.
People always getting in the way, but only his way, her eyes not looking at him or looking for him.
Confidence he couldn't recognize as false or true.
Reaching the table across her, straight in her line of sight. Suddenly it filled.
All sorts of people looking at him oddly.
Oddly.
That boy, Paulie.

A flash, so bloody, the blue sun of T2 staring straight down at him and young Jack.
Her guts leaking out, her skin torn and burned from the sun and monster claws.

-We watch over our kind.

That kid's face again. That brat, Paulie. A familiar hate, hate for the world and anything of harm and cure.

-Yah better not hurt the Ripper, or we'll slice yah like a fuckin' merc

Riddick´s eyes roaming from the boy's to the scene where Jack so aestically was the middle.
Children mostly, some adults. Thin, strong children. Thief...Wolf 2, Paulie and other's he figured must be crawlers.
Riddick had no reply to waste on the kid, specially not if he wanted to reconstruct his "relationship" with Jack.

A knife sprung forth from Paulie´s hands, only a bare inch away from Riddick´s face .
He had to keep his instinct to slice the kid's throat at bay.
A gesture in thin air lay the knife down. jack´s hand moving casually.

-He ain´t worth it Paulie.

The kid 's eyes crashed sharply on Jack.

-You wouldn't tell Bleeder to stop

-Bleeder isn't here.

Sadly the kid looked down, like a regular eight year old filled with sorrow. The air smelled of wetting eyes.
Bleeder? someone who had died. Must be. Probably.

-Sorry Jack.

Jack! Bleeder, related.

her elegant head leaning down, brown strands of slightly curled hair falling down, space pale skin, scare covered or cloth covered.
A dreamless expression crossed the pilot's face.
Wolf 2´s shape closed in on Riddick, his look still directed towards Jack.

A hand on Paulie´s shoulder.
Eternally black eyes speaking silently and the boy ran off.
The next victim being Riddick.

The girl sat straight across from the ex convict, mass murderer.
Sat on the table blocking the image of Jack.

-I will be sitting here until the Ripper finishes her meal and then I will move.
During this period you will not attempt to communicate with her. How ever, if you will try...

-Let me guess. You'll rip my head off.

Humorlessly Wolf 2 leaned forwards, no expression on her face at all.

-No, unlike my mother I do not enjoy the sight of blood.

-Then what'll you do.

Her eyelids closed, an expression not belonging to a fifteen year old spread through her face.

-Bleeder.