X. The Other Side

He had to lift her bodily from the ground. Kat's eyes had rolled back in her head, and her breath came in short, sharp pants. Riddick slapped her once, twice, before she came to.

"You're fucking useless," he hissed. "Now I gotta shell out extra just to have you taken care of."

Kat spat at him. "No!" Her claws came out then, but Riddick was faster. One foot swept the pet's legs out from under her. She landed on her back with a thud that sent the breath whooshing from her lungs. Riddick watched as she lay stunned for several seconds. His eyes narrowed as the collar visibly tightened around her neck.

Hauling her to her feet again, he grunted, "Are you done?"

She wouldn't meet his eyes, but her lips moved in a soundless, "Yes."

"Then let's go. We passed a kennel on the way." He put action to words and gave a sharp tug on her leash.

She stumbled after him. "A kennel...?"

Riddick glared at her through his dark goggles. "I have business. And since you seem incapable of so much as walking by a single goddamn den, now I gotta stash you somewhere." Trying to ignore the curious onlookers, he gave another yank on the leash.

The chain jingled as it whipped and tugged on the collar. The collar bit through fur and scraped against raw skin.

Tears burned in Kat's eyes. She hurried to keep up, wishing Riddick would stop the brutal tugging. Wishing she could watch anything other than her feet as her owner hauled her through the crowds. Then he stopped, and she looked up.

The Other Side Kennel. A collar and chain on an old, rusty sign.

The kennel was as badly lit as the clothing shop had been. The floor was sticky and smelly under Kat's feet, but the man who greeted them looked at her dispassionately, rather than raping her with his eyes the way the clothing store clerk had.

As Riddick spoke with the kennel master, Kat looked around. Behind a desk, through a door left ajar, Kat saw the stable. Chain-link pens lined a broad hallway. The low drone of pets chattering among themselves drifted through the doorway. On the wall beside the door hung a framed picture of a distinguished-looking older man with dusky skin and steel gray hair. An old bronze placard was engraved with a tiny name.

Beneath the picture was another frame, this one holding a sign that read, "We Dispose of Unwanted Pets."

"C'mon, kitty, in ya go." It was the kennel master speaking. She turned back around, but Riddick had already left. They had concluded their business, it seemed, while Kat had been staring around.

The kennel master--"Justus," a tag sewn to his shirt pocket announced--took her by the leash and led her into the pens. In his other hand he held a shock prod. Kat shrank away from it, but "Justus" didn't seem to notice. There was very little smell in the stable, oddly enough. Or else, she thought, it's just very easy to get used to.

With the kennel master leading, Kat walked down the straw-strewn hallway, her shoulders hunched. She stared at her feet, afraid to even look at any of the cages' occupants. The other pets fell silent for a few moments, but when her erstwhile keeper stopped to open an empty pen, the buzz of conversation resumed.

A gentle push from the man, and Kat stepped gingerly into the pen. She watched as the chain link door locked electronically, but then the shock prod swinging from the loop about the kennel master's wrist caught her eye.

The thing was turned off.

She stared at the kennel master. He gave her a wink and a smile, then left.

The boy huddled in his pen, sniffling quietly, trying not to look at the black ribbon tied to the door. If he didn't see it, then it didn't mean anything, right? It didn't mean his owner didn't want him anymore. It didn't mean that he'd be nothing more than a smear of smoke in a few short hours.

"Hey, kid," a high-pitched, but rough voice said. The boy looked to his left. A short-statured man--a eunuch--no more than four feet tall and clothed only in long, golden fur, gave him a smile.

"What's your name?"

"David."

"Rough life, ain't it, David?" Harvey said with a gentle smile.

David nodded somberly.

The door at the end of the hallway opened, and a human boy came running in. "Harvey!" he yelled, and a woman that David supposed was the boy's mother trotted in after him, followed by the kennel master.

The short, golden-furred man stood up and performed a ridiculous dance of jumps and wiggles. "Petey here!" he said in a slow-witted voice. "Petey come for good Harvey! Harvey be good for Petey!"

As the kennel master unlocked his pen, "Harvey" gave David a sad little smile, before leaving with his owners.

David lay his head down on his arms again.

The bronze-scaled woman in the pen on his right gave him a cold smile. "Pretty little boy. Don't you worry, pretty little boy. Soon, you'll be in a better place. A place where there's no owners. Where there's no dirty men doing dirty things to you." The pet stared at the black ribbon on her own cell door and grinned, showing a mouth full of fangs. "We'll go to that better place together, you and I." Icy blue eyes lit on the boy again, and the grin widened.

Turning his back to her, David curled into a ball.

Kat wanted to yell at the reptilian woman, to scream at her to stop tormenting the boy, but her tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of her mouth. And her throat was dry, so dry. She couldn't stop staring at the delicate, doe-eyed boy. Or at the strips of black cloth tied to the two pen doors.

Standing up didn't help. The cell was too small to pace in. Lying down, she couldn't even stretch out. The only thing to do was sit with her back against the brick wall behind her and try not to see anything. Try not to watch the boy across from her shivering and crying. She closed her eyes and saw a black ribbon tied to her own pen's door. Her eyes snapped open again.

The bronze-scaled woman with the icy blue stare gave her a slow smile. "You want my ribbon?"

Kat blinked, then shook her head.

"Take it. You'll go to a better place."

Kat shook her head again and squeezed her eyes shut. She tried to swallow, but her tongue felt hot and swollen.

"A pity," the woman's voice said. "No one ever wants my ribbon."

With black ribbons flapping in her mind's eye, Kat fell asleep to dreams of smoke rising into a cold, empty sky. Somewhere, the scaled woman's voice said, "Justice. Justus. Just us."

When she woke up, the boy and the woman were both gone.