Chapter 12
He knew he was leading them into a trap. Envisioned the smile of an invisible enemy widen with each step. But he saw little alternative. The only other choice was to leave Dee 7 without the stasis tube.
It would've been the smart thing to do. Every survival instinct he had was screaming that he do just that. But he knew Zar, especially in her heightened emotional state, would not go for it. He knew the idea of leaving a child of hers in the hands of Bieti and his monster squad was bothering her more than even what they had done to her. He knew leaving the tube behind would destroy whatever fragile hold she had on herself.
Bigsby had been very cooperative. Oh, not at first. The adjutant had a deep sado-masochistic streak in him that seemed to almost get off on the torture. Even being in the same room with the ripped apart body of his dead lover hadn't quelled Bigsby's ingrained need to feel and inflict pain.
Riddick had seen his kind before. The ones who equated pain with eroticism and visa versa. In the past he'd played their games to get what he needed. He'd learned to perform all sorts of amusements in the penal system. Mind games, body games...anything that gave him an advantage.
Riddick had neither the time, nor the inclination, to indulge Bigsby.
That's when it had turned ugly and that's when the adjutant had started to talk. Talk and explain and show. Riddick now knew who had booked him this one way ticket to Hell and what he looked like. He thought that once he knew the 'why' it would've satisfied something within him. But it didn't. Didn't even come close. Especially when he looked at Zar. When he thought of Esker and Amy, the stasis tube. After everything that had been done to him and his, he didn't give a flying rats ass about 'why.'
His mind had a hard time getting around the fact that the scrap of tissue and blood inside that tube were a part of him. The part of his mind that recognized it was only a small voice though. He still had no great opinion of life's sanctity. He'd seen it come and go too much to be impressed. Life and death only held meaning when it involved him or someone he allowed himself to care about. Everyone else was just so much fodder for God's Big Joke.
Being scrupulously honest with himself, he knew he was only going after the 'baby' for Zar's sake. The part of himself that was so in tune with her knew she was holding onto sanity with just the barest thread of strength. Losing the tube, and it's unspoken, but easily speculated on results would probably push her over the edge into permanent madness.
He understood the need to hold onto something to keep yourself from going insane. After they'd injected him with Profearaben, the rage and hatred had been the only thing keeping him from becoming a drooling idiot. Telling himself he'd be damned if he gave them the satisfaction of just making him another statistic in their brutal games.
Getting Zar out of her cell had been too easy, though he hadn't expected it to be. The surveillance system had been top of the line, and he'd been out of the game for over two years. Once he helped her cross the threshold, he waited for every alarm from here to Kingdom Come to sound. It hadn't. It could just be that Bieti was concentrating his forces on what was in Bigsby's room. But Riddick didn't think Bieti was that stupid or easily sidetracked.
But he had to take the chance that was what exactly was happening. He didn't have the time to completely scout out the situation like his instincts screamed at him to do. He had to get Zar to a hidden comfort zone. Get some clean clothes, fluids, and hopefully food, into her. Let her rest for a few hours. Hope her physical and emotional equilibrium returned enough to help him, or at least not a hindrance.
Shuffling along with him in the deserted back corridors of the ASF's temporary offices, in obvious pain, she hadn't said a word since leaving the cell. Not that it was a good time for talking, but still, her unusual silence worried him. She was a gabber in the best of times, a down right motor mouth when things were getting hairy. If not actually talking, she had a habit of muttering to herself. For a man of silence, it had taken a lot of patience, and love, to learn to tune her out in the first few months of their relationship.
Later on, her habit had become almost comforting. A sweet drone in his ear, the sound of her voice had kept him grounded whenever rage and hatred had threatened to overwhelm him.
Now her silence was like an itch between his shoulders blades. He could ignore it, but he knew it was there nonetheless. Mostly, it signaled what he'd been trying to deny to himself. She'd been permanently altered.
In the cell, there had been that small glimpses of the heart that made her Zar. But with each hour the Profearaben worked on her system, she would become less and less that woman he knew, and loved, only a few short days ago.
That brought up questions of the future. Something he just wasn't willing to deal with at the moment. Getting the tube, getting the fuck off of Dee 7 and finding someplace safe to lick their wounds was as farsighted as he was going to allow himself to get.
And oh yeah, murdering the fuck out of Bieti. That was right up there on the list. That butcher couldn't have hurt him worse if he'd skinned him alive when he changed Zar. Taken the one good thing in his life irrevocably away from him. There would be payment in kind.
Glancing over his shoulder, he saw that she'd fallen farther behind. Her hair had dried somewhat, but she was deathly pale. One arm crossed over her stomach, the other flat against the wall as a guide and support. She needed rest.
Looking around with more interest, he noticed a door marked 'SUPPLIES.' As long as he could find something to jam the door shut from the inside, it would due as a pit stop on their way to Bieti's office.
The door was ridiculously easy to force open. Taking a quick scan around the dark room, he saw that their was only a few pieces of office furniture, cleaning supplies and rats. These places would always have rodents. They usually left him alone, instinctively knowing that this was one human meaner than they were. The place would just have to do.
She'd propped herself up against the wall when he'd gone in the supply room. Eyes vacant and fixed, she put up no resistance when he swung her sore covered body up into his arms. She felt so much lighter, as if she lost more than just body fat and muscle. It felt like she'd lost another part that was uniquely her.
Her solidity had always been one of the comforting things he loved about her. It gave him the confidence to show her the true him. Knowing she could take whatever he threw at her and that he didn't always have to be in protect mode with her. In the bedroom and out. Now she seemed as vulnerable and weak as Audrey had when he first saw her on Taurus 2.
He sat her on a desk while devising a jam for the door. Then moving on to arranging the flotsam and jetsam of the room to create a hidden refuge. He used the corner along with two desks making up the last two walls. It would even have a roof of a large display board that he could move once they were inside. The subterfuge would last along as no one looked too hard. Finding some dusty, but otherwise clean drop cloths, he arranged a nest for them to lie in.
He'd left the room dark for safety sake and for the comfort of her sensitive eyes. The only light coming from under the door and the tinted windows high up on the wall. As he moved around he would occasionally glance at her still form to make sure she didn't fall off the desk or become agitated and possibly compromise their concealment. But the light pink and gray form never moved.
Somewhere deep inside a filament of terror wrapped itself around his heart. The tighter it squeezed the more he knew she wasn't ever going to be the same. He, the one who had thrived and counted on the fact that things and people always changed for the worse, now wanted nothing more than for things to go back to the way they were. He had never understood why so many of the con's he been around had moaned and keened for the time that had been lost or stolen from their lives. Screaming and begging for God to please let them go back in time when things were so much better.
But he knew now. And even with his precious self-control that ruled his life, he wanted to be the one to scream and beg. Promise the Father that had abandoned him and made his life dog shit, anything if only He would give him back the old Zar. The only thing that stopped him was the futility of the gesture. God hadn't answered any of the other con's prayers...and some of them had been good people caught up in bad situations.
Why didn't he just kill her? Kill himself? Put the both of them out of their misery? Whatever Bieti did with their child would be way beyond their caring in the land of the dead. The thoughts ran through his head. But he couldn't bring himself to give them any serious consideration.
Too long a life of fighting to live even when life had no meaning. Of not giving the fuckers the satisfaction of making him just another sad statistic. The drive to make someone, anyone, everyone, pay for the life that was his. Expecting to die in just this type of hopeless situation but refusing to make it easy for any of the bureaucratic assholes that deserved his life even more than he did.
And as much as he loved Zar unselfishly enough to want her out of pain, he loved her selfishly enough to refuse to give her up that easily.
So he let her sit on the edge of the desk while he looked for some other type of clothing. Finally coming across a pair work overalls similar to the ones she used to wear on Polaris. A brief flash joy going through his body as he remembered the fun he had wrestling them off her while she laughingly resisted. Those were the times he had first started smiling with true happiness, not just sarcasm. When rejoining the human race had beckoned.
Ruthlessly pushing back the memories of a Zar gone forever, he helped her out of her ruined gown and into the overalls. The anger growing hot and vicious as he looked at the self-inflicted wounds and bruises adorning her body. Wishing he had Bieti's neck within his hands at that very moment. But he hadn't stayed alive this long by being impatient. And the longer he waited to exact his revenge, the more the hatred grew. Making him meaner. Making him stronger.
Putting the finishing touches on dressing her, he cupped her face in his hands. Bringing her unresisting eyes up to meet his. There was an emptiness there that he'd seen too often glowing back at him from a mirror.
"This place looks forgotten by the amount of dust on everything. We should be safe here in the meantime. I'm going out to find you some food. Stay in...."
Showing their first signs of life since finding her in the cell, her eyes pleaded with him as she grabbed the hand cupping her face, "Please don't. I'm not hungry anyway. I'd rather you stayed here with me. I'm so tired and I'm...scared of sleeping. Afraid I'll either wake up or not wake up. I don't know which is worse." She'd ended it with a painful little laugh.
Gently tightening his hands around her face he told her in a voice shaded with desperation and love "It's the Profearaben making you think these things. Don't let it win Zar! Don't let it take you away from me. You worked too damn hard trying to turn me into a human again to leave me now." He was rewarded with a small smile and it made the filament of terror around his heart loosen a degree or two. Maybe she wasn't too far gone yet.
"If you're sure you can do without the food then I'll stay here. I could use some down time myself. Okay?"
Nodding slightly she instinctively leaned into the lips that touched her forehead. Then recoiled sharply upon realizing that he was kissing her canker covered skin. There'd been no pain, just self-disgust and embarrassment.
He knew why she blanched but wouldn't let the ugly emotions get a foothold any further than they already had.
"No! Don't you dare draw away from me! You've touched me when I've been in ten times worse shape. It's still you in there! It's still Zar!"
He watched helplessly as she refused to meet his eyes. Staring instead at the floor in defeated hopelessness. She was right next to him physically, but he couldn't help but feel that her soul, the thing that made her Zar, was a million miles away. If it even still existed.
He wanted to shake her violently, hug her till she pleaded with him for breath, scream at her with hot, angry breath blasting her face. But a sense of the uselessness for any gesture, along with an inexorable weariness, kept him from doing any of that.
"Come on. We'll get some sleep and then deal with whatever else is coming."
Swinging her up into his arms he then slid her across one of the desks that made their hidey hole. First making sure she was settled before dragging the large display board over the top. The darkness almost complete save for the small patches of dim light filtering in from the open bottom of the desks.
They wouldn't be able to sit up but there was plenty of room for maneuvering while laying down. He made sure she was closest to the wall. His body to be her first line of defense.
Turning to his side he reached to bring her closer. Telling her to "Shhhh..." when she put her hands against his chest in resistance.
"I need to hold you. Please."
Her hands remained against his shirt covered chest but the pressure changed. Instead of pushing him away she now scooted closer. Letting him slide an arm over her hip, cushioning her head on the arm he provided.
Inhaling the fragrance that was uniquely Richard she let herself float in the cocoon of safety and comfort he had provided. Letting all the pain and horror and uncertainty drift. They couldn't go away entirely, but they backed off enough for her to find a small measure of peace. Something she hadn't had for what seemed like forever.
Long minutes passed. And when she whispered "I love you" it was only after she had come to a decision. She couldn't see a way out for any of them. Her, Richard, the baby. Maybe it was the Profearaben talking, but it was just as likely reality finally sinking in.
She just wanted the whole stinking nightmare to end.
His body already slackening as it slipped into sleep, there was no response to her whispered words except for the slight tightening of his arm over her hip. Bringing her closer to him even as unconsciousness took hold. Exhaustion finally overtaking him. The weeks and their hideous activities catching up and demanding their due.
She let herself lay there for a precious hour. Soaking Richard up like a dry lake bed being bathed in a Summer deluge. Unconsciously rubbing the place on her finger where his ring had once rested. The ring had been one of the first things they'd stripped from her and she felt its loss deep in her soul. The gift of love from an amazing man gone forever. It's absence a gloating reminder of everything she'd lost on Dee 7.
Indulging herself with one last beautiful memory she lightly brushed his lips with hers. Then gently lifted his arm off her hip as she raised to one elbow. Using her new found Profearaben abilities to silently lift the top of their 'tent', slide over a desk and then replace the top.
Refusing to look back as she disengaged the door jam and walked from the room. Ignoring the pain of her heart irrevocably breaking. But then, it was easier to ignore pain when it was wrapped in a layer of thick cold.
The cold made everything easier to ignore.
