Notes: Here it is!!! I know, I know, it's been a really long time, but
work, family affairs, and Harry Potter book 5 won out (heh)! And work, and
work, and did I mention work? Anyways, I'm glad that there are those of
you who will still read it, though. I hope you enjoy this chapter, it was
hard work getting to it but here it is, much more narrative, less dialogue
and action, sorry! Please review with comments!
Chapter 5
Alex hated him. The bastard, he had sold out Jack for some sum, he must have. Little did she know that the light in her eyes as she glared at Riddick burned so fiercely that it surprised even him. It frightened her, this sudden urge she had to follow through on that promise, to kill. It proved to herself how attached to Jack and to this life she had become, that she was willing to step over that line. It was hurt and impulsive anger, yes, but damn it felt good to lay a knife at the throat of the man she thought was responsible.
"Did it feel good?" she sneered, "letting her think you had any modicum of feeling towards her? But no, she was just another paycheck, wasn't she? You're heartless, Riddick. She's a kid. A fucking kid!"
Coming too close to the subject of Jack was dangerous. Alex felt her control slipping away, and quickly tried to think of anything to make it come back. The flame. The old trick. She tried putting all of the anger into it, but some remained, still. It was stopping her from seeing the warning signs on Riddick's body. He was tense, ready to move at the moment he deemed right. His face radiated rage directed towards her. That she couldn't miss.
"Fuck you," he growled. "Is that what you think? Should've left you to them, too." His voice seemed to come back under control, the detached, but chilling, expression of a killer ready to strike. Soft. Dangerous.
"Why didn't you?! Playing fucking games, right?" Alex felt the physical responses that would lead to tears. Not now! She screamed inwardly, trying to find a center, some way to move away from the fact that her world was crumbling around her. Again. She cursed herself for nine times the stupid fool, leaving Jack alone like that. How easy would it be to have someone watching, ready as soon as she left the building to move in and take Jack? All the deadbolts in the world won't stop the most determined bounty hunters. And now, this ugly situation she found herself in with no way out except to kill another human being. All the rage in the world couldn't make her do it, she knew that in her core.
Alex's tiniest loss of concentration was just the slip Riddick needed. As a cobra striking, he swiftly knocked away her arm and grabbed her wrist, twisting it until she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out in pain. At the same time, with his other hand he grabbed a fistful of her short black locks, pulling it and her head to such a position that she found herself unable to move without making the pain any more than it was. Damn him! He had known, somehow, that she couldn't kill him. Her eyes went wild, searching for any options.
"If you remember, bitch," snarled Riddick, snapping her back to the moment, "It was you who suggested we go for a little walk, so I could tell you exactly who the 'fucking kid' was." His voice began to show signs of strain, holding back a beast's killing rage. "What reason would I have to do it?"
Alex laughed, short and humorless, trying to cover the growing fear in her belly and trying not to wince at the pain. "Right, how easy is it to have someone watching, just waiting for the second you left with me. And maybe you knew that if you scared her enough, I'd take you out of there. Who knows what you do for money." It was a bluff. Truth be told, she didn't have a good reason why he would do it. Just a hunch conceived in the passion of anger.
His hands tightened on her wrist and hair, making her neck muscles stick out in pain. "If I would have sold you out, bitch, you would have been dead a month ago and the kid would be screaming at the hands of the Tumioni. And I would have done it myself. You are, however, still alive." He was angry, angry at the suggestion that he had sold her out. Why?
Why didn't he just kill her and be over with it then? It gave her pause. By all rights, facing down Richard B Riddick, she should be dead as soon as he was able to grab her wrist. He couldn't be really telling the truth, could he? Doubts crept into her mind. That combined with the fear and anger made it a walk on a knife's edge to maintain control, to try and think logically on how she could get out of this. Get to the sword. You're better at it than he is at knives.
But he was no longer playing with her, like he was in the alley. Riddick chuckled, but it was an evil sort of laugh. A laugh which must have hid a killer's fury underneath. "And you think that you could even come close to killing me? Me?" he snarled into her ear scornfully. "Not too smart, Alex, not at all." His hot breath on her neck made her skin prickle and she realized how much like a mouse trapped by a great cat she felt. But she could not die today.
Alex desperately tried to find a way out under the increasing pain in her wrist and scalp which flickered around the outskirts of the flame, threatening to overwhelm her, trying not to listen to what he said. It gave her a quick flare of anger, however, that he was so contemptuous. Quickly shifting her weight, Alex hit his groin with her knee, and as he grunted, off balance for a moment, threw a quick uppercut at his jaw with her other arm and twisted her wrist out of his grip. As soon as her wrist was free, she spun her whole body away from him, crying out as she felt a large chunk of hair ripped out of her scalp. The momentum of her action had thrown her body away from him and onto the floor about five feet away, but she used it to roll and came up into a crouch, her left hand going to the knife at her back and the right to pull the sword out of its sheath. She had just brought the sword up in time, as it stopped Riddick from leaping up at her.
The two of them glared at one another, both in a fighting crouch, with three feet of steel between them. Waves of fear beat against her walls, against the flame, and Alex's mind rushed through a thousand thoughts in that minute, a hundred scenarios, on a resolution. Clearly she couldn't kill him, his reaction and, truth be told, the fading of her anger had clarified that he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Which still meant he was a murderer and somewhat of an asshole to boot, but it wasn't enough to push her over the edge and exact swift justice. The only thing that remained was to find out, exactly, if he was involved in Jack's kidnapping or not. And she had no idea how to do it.
Riddick said nothing, but Alex could see that his body was tensed. You fool, she told herself. Blaming Riddick, of all people, and now not having any way to get out of it. And it was all because she cared so much about Jack that she lost control of her emotions. Things were so much easier when she had tried to tell herself she didn't care about anything except the next day. Before Jack and Imam. Before the planet. Before she promised Carolyn she would take care of the remaining survivors. For a moment, she had forgotten that Riddick was somehow one of them, as well. But was he? Had he betrayed them? A risky, damn stupid plan began to form in Alex's mind. He was so insistent on the fact that he would kill her if he was going to betray them and hadn't, so let him prove it. What else did she have to lose?
"All right, fine. Say you're telling the truth. You can prove it to me by not killing me now." It all came out in a rush. An incredibly big risk, but if she had Riddick pegged in this regard, he would take it. How else can you get a killer to convince you they haven't betrayed you? And now she felt doubly the fool, for acquiescing so quickly to feelings of blame towards Riddick.
His reaction was that barely concealed surprise. She almost felt like laughing her triumph at startling him again, keeping him on her toes, but at the moment was concerned on reading his reaction. If he was intent on killing her, then probably she would be able to see it if he kept tense. Her eyes scanned his body, looking for telltale signs of attack, but she saw none. Instead, a wide smile broke out on the bottom half of his face only. Still angry, but amused.
"You're taking an awfully big risk there, little girl," he said, amusement in his voice.
"Yeah, well, what do I have to lose?" she found herself saying. It was true. And where did he get off calling her "little girl"?
Riddick looked at her, that considering look, weighing her. Quite possibly weighing whether or not to kill her. Long seconds passed.
"Okay," he said, still laughing at her, indulging her. He relaxed and stepped back from the sword's point, putting his knife away.
Alex swallowed, wetting her dry throat. She had her composure back but for a moment she was unsure. The real test was yet to come. She put away her knife and the sword in one smooth movement, then turned her back on him and walking towards her bedroom door. This is it, Alex, she thought. Live or die? Not like you would have a particularly long life anyways, if he had betrayed you.
But the strike did not come, and Alex kept walking. She walked through the doorway, and closed the door, leaning against it, her hands shaking, and casting her eyes around the room. The grey walls, so comfortingly neutral, now almost mocked her in their serenity. You must be absolutely crazy, she thought to herself. Fucking bonkers. Quite a gamble, that Riddick's desire to prove himself as adhering to the deal would overcome his desire to kill her. Maybe it was the shock at losing Jack. But at least now you know, it wasn't him. They must have found out some other way, through Jack's school, or something totally different. Alex sighed. Right now she just wanted to be alone, away from Riddick.
She concentrated on the room. It was hers, but it seemed almost alien now, knowing that someone had used it to get to Jack. If they hadn't had that door between them, Jack would be safe. But then she questioned herself. Safe? Only safe enough to last a little bit longer inside a tiny room, they would eventually get to her. She sighed, and felt emotions repressed by anger rise up within her. She tried to push them away behind her walls, but the flame wouldn't come and burn them away. Suddenly, she felt anger flash within her, but at herself and her own stupidity. Why hadn't she pressed Jack about why she ran away? Why hadn't she been more careful? It was all the "should haves" that would do no good now but made her furious at herself. Alex had always felt that the only way she could ever make this life work is to do everything perfectly, and she had failed. That, combined with the loss of Jack, her only companion, cut her to the core. Jack was the only one who was there for her, and that she could trust. They didn't even need to speak, but had a silent mutual understanding that they would just be there for the other. Yes, Alex was the adult, and an authority figure, but Jack had her ways of comforting Alex, as well. Their little existence after the incredible trial on that planet had worked for them. But now it was gone.
"Damn them," Alex whispered, a hot rage coursing through her. Those nameless mercenaries who had come into her home and taken Jack away from her. She had a sudden desire to destroy something, anything, to release the anger and make the hurt go away. Standing away from the door, she went over the shelving unit and used all her strength to push it down on the floor, where everything fell off of it in a clatter. Watching it fall, her sudden desire to stop it was stopped by the knowledge that things would never be the same. Alex's thoughts flashed back to when she had promised herself that she would never allow emotion to rule again, when her grief was all she had. Things were so much harder when you allowed yourself to feel.
Walking over to the bed, she sat down on it. She only felt a little better. To her surprise she felt wetness on her face, then wiped away a tear she didn't even know had fallen with her sleeve. Dammit. This was no time for tears. Glancing around at the room, her eyes came to rest on the only picture she had in her possession. It was a framed pencil drawing that Jack had done, standing on the night table. Alex stretched her arm out and picked up the frame, gently, tenderly, and brought it back to her. Jack was quite a good artist, actually. The frame held a drawing of Jack, Imam, and Alex, clustered together, smiling against an abstract background. Jack had given it to Alex one day, shyly handing it to her, after Imam had left. It was only now that Alex could see in the background a faint figure, barely noticeable. Strange, how you never saw that before, she thought. But the figure was unquestionably a large, muscular man, seeming to look at the smiling faces. Riddick, she realized. Jack included him then in the "family" they had. Crazy kid, Alex thought. A ghost of a smile passed across her face, but only for a moment, to be replaced by the steely exterior she wore so often. Perhaps Riddick could still help her put that family back together. Of all people.
Alex sat on her bed, now staring at the gray wall in front of her, contemplating. Yes. She could do it. There was no way she could let Jack go back to what she had desperately wanted to leave. She had already made some sort of a deal with Riddick, actually. It just needed to be changed a bit. The only thing now was that she had to make sure Riddick was willing to do it. If not, well she would just do it herself. Her mouth went a little dry at the prospect of asking him after what she had accused him of minutes before, and for a moment, considered staying in her room until just went away.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to stand and briskly strode to the closet unit flinging open the doors. Pulling down a medium-sized satchel, she tossed it on the bed and pulled three shirts and three pairs of pants from their hangers, then three tank tops and a small sack of toiletries she kept there. Black, her favorite color, she thought wryly. Alex stuffed them all into the sack, and with plenty of room to spare she took down the three extra knives hanging on the weapons rack, slid them into their holders in the synth-leather weapons briefcase, and tossed that into the bag too. Looking up, she scanned the room, knowing that they could never come back here. She regretted leaving the books, but that could not be helped, and they lay on the floor where they had come to rest after she pulled over the shelves. One item her eyes came to, and she gently lifted the framed picture, removed the paper, and, folding it, put it into one of her vest pockets. Everything else, and there was not much of it, stayed there.
Riddick had almost opened Alex's door when he heard a large crash coming from the room. Almost. Much wiser to leave her alone. By instinct, he had been infuriated when she put the knife to his throat. No one, no one, messed with Richard B. Riddick and lived. Half of his life had been spent in and out of prison, after he'd decided that all that military bullshit was not the life for him. No freedom. His reputation had always preceded him. He'd killed men for much less than what Alex, this girl, had said to him, but something always stayed his hand. Maybe it was that part of him that wanted to belong to this mysterious human race, but there were three people in this world he didn't mind being around, and like it or not, she was one of them. Every instinct inside of him, from all his previous experience, urged him to kill her. Kill all of them, and be done with it. It would be so easy, just a slice across the throat instead of threatening, instead of playing this damn game between them. There was some part of him that had stopped it, and left him staring at the door instead of kicking it down.
It was to Riddick's great surprise that a scant few minutes later, the door swung open, and out strode the girl, cool as you like except for the slight stiffness to her walk. Probably a little on edge because of what had happened before. She walked past him without looking at him, into Jack's room. Peering around the corner he could see that she had stopped in the middle of it, looking around. But only for a moment. He could see her set her shoulders resolutely, and, with fists clenched in what was likely anger, she went over to the closet and threw it open. Riddick took two steps closer to the door, and for the first time he saw the wall of pictures that someone, presumably Jack, had drawn. Not for the first time he squinted, and then damned his shined eyes, as he couldn't see exactly what was in them. His eyes drifted back to Alex, who had her back to him but seemed to have selected some of Jack's clothing, and was stuffing it into her bag. He took a moment to appreciate the firm lines of her body, highlighted by the severe clothing she wore. But that was all. He had always only appreciated, never acted on it. The character of this girl, this Alex, was such that it had made him laugh to think of her reaction to that kind of advance. Probably try to skewer him on that big knife of hers. Like she had tried to do a while ago, came the sobering thought. They were alike, the two of them, he realized. Alienating everyone else, except a chosen few. And now that he'd made that deal, it solidified his thought of her as somewhat of a partner in it, not a weakling to dominate and leave in the lurch. But what now? She could only be leaving, somewhere she thought she'd see the kid again. Damn fool would be trying to take the kid back.
"You goin' somewhere?" As always, his rumbling bass voice was almost neutral, but with a hint of amused scorn for the recipient.
Alex turned to face him. Well, face his sunglasses.
"Yes." She walked closer towards him. "I made a deal with you, Riddick, and I still want to keep to it
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't-" Alex paused, thinking for a moment how hard it would be if he didn't help her. He probably knew that already. "If you don't, you walk away, I find her myself," Alex finished.
"Right after you tell someone I'm not dead, huh?" Riddick said with finality. That would be how he would have done it.
As tempting as it might be to Alex to do that, it wasn't an option. She had, truth be told, a grudging sort of respect for Riddick, and when she had promised Carolyn she would take care of the rest of the survivors, ratting out Riddick would be going against that. She needed him. She just hoped that he couldn't see how desperate she was. But even if he didn't help her, it was just wrong to reinstate the price on his head.
"No," she said. "I won't tell anyone."
Alex looked up to see a look of half surprise and half disbelief on Riddick's face, before he noticed her watching and masked it. "Besides," she added, with a flippant grin it was hard to pull off, "if you found me once, you could find me again." A chilling truth. This realization that she could be so inept at a life of anonymity, even though she doubted that records existed for her anywhere.
Again, she got that weighing look from Riddick. What else could she say to him? Did he really think that someone who had saved his life would turn around and tell mercs where to find him?
A sudden thought came to her. She smoothly turned and reached under Jack's night table for the two knives she knew would be there. A thought stabbed at her that Jack hadn't even been able to get her knives before they took her. Pulling them out, she tossed them at Riddick.
"Here," Alex said as he caught them, and held them at arm's length, "You can either give these back to her, or kill me with them if I sell you out." She paused. "For Jack?" She asked questionably. There was no way to deny that he didn't care about Jack, a convicted murderer on the run who somehow found time to find Imam, and find a woman and a girl in the Moltai Loku district.
Riddick said nothing, but nodded and placed the two knives into his bag.
"I have something I need to do first though," Alex said. "The Orchid. I need to talk to Josef." He nodded, seeming to already be calculating where they would go afterwards. Alex would ask him later.
When Alex turned off the lights in the apartment for the last time and looked around with a sigh, she realized that she could never come back to this home, and would miss it. Thinking of Jack's face, she pushed away the sadness and concentrated on her resolve to find her. Joining Riddick in the hallway, she locked one bolt only, and then turned her back on it.
As they stepped into the empty, dirty elevator, Alex could see Riddick looking at her sideways. She turned around to face the doors, flashing back to when she had been bringing him back here less than twelve hours ago, when everything was all right. Mostly. Now, she wouldn't have to worry about paying rent any more. Which gave her an absolutely wonderful idea.
"How much does it cost to get a ship?"
Chapter 5
Alex hated him. The bastard, he had sold out Jack for some sum, he must have. Little did she know that the light in her eyes as she glared at Riddick burned so fiercely that it surprised even him. It frightened her, this sudden urge she had to follow through on that promise, to kill. It proved to herself how attached to Jack and to this life she had become, that she was willing to step over that line. It was hurt and impulsive anger, yes, but damn it felt good to lay a knife at the throat of the man she thought was responsible.
"Did it feel good?" she sneered, "letting her think you had any modicum of feeling towards her? But no, she was just another paycheck, wasn't she? You're heartless, Riddick. She's a kid. A fucking kid!"
Coming too close to the subject of Jack was dangerous. Alex felt her control slipping away, and quickly tried to think of anything to make it come back. The flame. The old trick. She tried putting all of the anger into it, but some remained, still. It was stopping her from seeing the warning signs on Riddick's body. He was tense, ready to move at the moment he deemed right. His face radiated rage directed towards her. That she couldn't miss.
"Fuck you," he growled. "Is that what you think? Should've left you to them, too." His voice seemed to come back under control, the detached, but chilling, expression of a killer ready to strike. Soft. Dangerous.
"Why didn't you?! Playing fucking games, right?" Alex felt the physical responses that would lead to tears. Not now! She screamed inwardly, trying to find a center, some way to move away from the fact that her world was crumbling around her. Again. She cursed herself for nine times the stupid fool, leaving Jack alone like that. How easy would it be to have someone watching, ready as soon as she left the building to move in and take Jack? All the deadbolts in the world won't stop the most determined bounty hunters. And now, this ugly situation she found herself in with no way out except to kill another human being. All the rage in the world couldn't make her do it, she knew that in her core.
Alex's tiniest loss of concentration was just the slip Riddick needed. As a cobra striking, he swiftly knocked away her arm and grabbed her wrist, twisting it until she had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out in pain. At the same time, with his other hand he grabbed a fistful of her short black locks, pulling it and her head to such a position that she found herself unable to move without making the pain any more than it was. Damn him! He had known, somehow, that she couldn't kill him. Her eyes went wild, searching for any options.
"If you remember, bitch," snarled Riddick, snapping her back to the moment, "It was you who suggested we go for a little walk, so I could tell you exactly who the 'fucking kid' was." His voice began to show signs of strain, holding back a beast's killing rage. "What reason would I have to do it?"
Alex laughed, short and humorless, trying to cover the growing fear in her belly and trying not to wince at the pain. "Right, how easy is it to have someone watching, just waiting for the second you left with me. And maybe you knew that if you scared her enough, I'd take you out of there. Who knows what you do for money." It was a bluff. Truth be told, she didn't have a good reason why he would do it. Just a hunch conceived in the passion of anger.
His hands tightened on her wrist and hair, making her neck muscles stick out in pain. "If I would have sold you out, bitch, you would have been dead a month ago and the kid would be screaming at the hands of the Tumioni. And I would have done it myself. You are, however, still alive." He was angry, angry at the suggestion that he had sold her out. Why?
Why didn't he just kill her and be over with it then? It gave her pause. By all rights, facing down Richard B Riddick, she should be dead as soon as he was able to grab her wrist. He couldn't be really telling the truth, could he? Doubts crept into her mind. That combined with the fear and anger made it a walk on a knife's edge to maintain control, to try and think logically on how she could get out of this. Get to the sword. You're better at it than he is at knives.
But he was no longer playing with her, like he was in the alley. Riddick chuckled, but it was an evil sort of laugh. A laugh which must have hid a killer's fury underneath. "And you think that you could even come close to killing me? Me?" he snarled into her ear scornfully. "Not too smart, Alex, not at all." His hot breath on her neck made her skin prickle and she realized how much like a mouse trapped by a great cat she felt. But she could not die today.
Alex desperately tried to find a way out under the increasing pain in her wrist and scalp which flickered around the outskirts of the flame, threatening to overwhelm her, trying not to listen to what he said. It gave her a quick flare of anger, however, that he was so contemptuous. Quickly shifting her weight, Alex hit his groin with her knee, and as he grunted, off balance for a moment, threw a quick uppercut at his jaw with her other arm and twisted her wrist out of his grip. As soon as her wrist was free, she spun her whole body away from him, crying out as she felt a large chunk of hair ripped out of her scalp. The momentum of her action had thrown her body away from him and onto the floor about five feet away, but she used it to roll and came up into a crouch, her left hand going to the knife at her back and the right to pull the sword out of its sheath. She had just brought the sword up in time, as it stopped Riddick from leaping up at her.
The two of them glared at one another, both in a fighting crouch, with three feet of steel between them. Waves of fear beat against her walls, against the flame, and Alex's mind rushed through a thousand thoughts in that minute, a hundred scenarios, on a resolution. Clearly she couldn't kill him, his reaction and, truth be told, the fading of her anger had clarified that he was not guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Which still meant he was a murderer and somewhat of an asshole to boot, but it wasn't enough to push her over the edge and exact swift justice. The only thing that remained was to find out, exactly, if he was involved in Jack's kidnapping or not. And she had no idea how to do it.
Riddick said nothing, but Alex could see that his body was tensed. You fool, she told herself. Blaming Riddick, of all people, and now not having any way to get out of it. And it was all because she cared so much about Jack that she lost control of her emotions. Things were so much easier when she had tried to tell herself she didn't care about anything except the next day. Before Jack and Imam. Before the planet. Before she promised Carolyn she would take care of the remaining survivors. For a moment, she had forgotten that Riddick was somehow one of them, as well. But was he? Had he betrayed them? A risky, damn stupid plan began to form in Alex's mind. He was so insistent on the fact that he would kill her if he was going to betray them and hadn't, so let him prove it. What else did she have to lose?
"All right, fine. Say you're telling the truth. You can prove it to me by not killing me now." It all came out in a rush. An incredibly big risk, but if she had Riddick pegged in this regard, he would take it. How else can you get a killer to convince you they haven't betrayed you? And now she felt doubly the fool, for acquiescing so quickly to feelings of blame towards Riddick.
His reaction was that barely concealed surprise. She almost felt like laughing her triumph at startling him again, keeping him on her toes, but at the moment was concerned on reading his reaction. If he was intent on killing her, then probably she would be able to see it if he kept tense. Her eyes scanned his body, looking for telltale signs of attack, but she saw none. Instead, a wide smile broke out on the bottom half of his face only. Still angry, but amused.
"You're taking an awfully big risk there, little girl," he said, amusement in his voice.
"Yeah, well, what do I have to lose?" she found herself saying. It was true. And where did he get off calling her "little girl"?
Riddick looked at her, that considering look, weighing her. Quite possibly weighing whether or not to kill her. Long seconds passed.
"Okay," he said, still laughing at her, indulging her. He relaxed and stepped back from the sword's point, putting his knife away.
Alex swallowed, wetting her dry throat. She had her composure back but for a moment she was unsure. The real test was yet to come. She put away her knife and the sword in one smooth movement, then turned her back on him and walking towards her bedroom door. This is it, Alex, she thought. Live or die? Not like you would have a particularly long life anyways, if he had betrayed you.
But the strike did not come, and Alex kept walking. She walked through the doorway, and closed the door, leaning against it, her hands shaking, and casting her eyes around the room. The grey walls, so comfortingly neutral, now almost mocked her in their serenity. You must be absolutely crazy, she thought to herself. Fucking bonkers. Quite a gamble, that Riddick's desire to prove himself as adhering to the deal would overcome his desire to kill her. Maybe it was the shock at losing Jack. But at least now you know, it wasn't him. They must have found out some other way, through Jack's school, or something totally different. Alex sighed. Right now she just wanted to be alone, away from Riddick.
She concentrated on the room. It was hers, but it seemed almost alien now, knowing that someone had used it to get to Jack. If they hadn't had that door between them, Jack would be safe. But then she questioned herself. Safe? Only safe enough to last a little bit longer inside a tiny room, they would eventually get to her. She sighed, and felt emotions repressed by anger rise up within her. She tried to push them away behind her walls, but the flame wouldn't come and burn them away. Suddenly, she felt anger flash within her, but at herself and her own stupidity. Why hadn't she pressed Jack about why she ran away? Why hadn't she been more careful? It was all the "should haves" that would do no good now but made her furious at herself. Alex had always felt that the only way she could ever make this life work is to do everything perfectly, and she had failed. That, combined with the loss of Jack, her only companion, cut her to the core. Jack was the only one who was there for her, and that she could trust. They didn't even need to speak, but had a silent mutual understanding that they would just be there for the other. Yes, Alex was the adult, and an authority figure, but Jack had her ways of comforting Alex, as well. Their little existence after the incredible trial on that planet had worked for them. But now it was gone.
"Damn them," Alex whispered, a hot rage coursing through her. Those nameless mercenaries who had come into her home and taken Jack away from her. She had a sudden desire to destroy something, anything, to release the anger and make the hurt go away. Standing away from the door, she went over the shelving unit and used all her strength to push it down on the floor, where everything fell off of it in a clatter. Watching it fall, her sudden desire to stop it was stopped by the knowledge that things would never be the same. Alex's thoughts flashed back to when she had promised herself that she would never allow emotion to rule again, when her grief was all she had. Things were so much harder when you allowed yourself to feel.
Walking over to the bed, she sat down on it. She only felt a little better. To her surprise she felt wetness on her face, then wiped away a tear she didn't even know had fallen with her sleeve. Dammit. This was no time for tears. Glancing around at the room, her eyes came to rest on the only picture she had in her possession. It was a framed pencil drawing that Jack had done, standing on the night table. Alex stretched her arm out and picked up the frame, gently, tenderly, and brought it back to her. Jack was quite a good artist, actually. The frame held a drawing of Jack, Imam, and Alex, clustered together, smiling against an abstract background. Jack had given it to Alex one day, shyly handing it to her, after Imam had left. It was only now that Alex could see in the background a faint figure, barely noticeable. Strange, how you never saw that before, she thought. But the figure was unquestionably a large, muscular man, seeming to look at the smiling faces. Riddick, she realized. Jack included him then in the "family" they had. Crazy kid, Alex thought. A ghost of a smile passed across her face, but only for a moment, to be replaced by the steely exterior she wore so often. Perhaps Riddick could still help her put that family back together. Of all people.
Alex sat on her bed, now staring at the gray wall in front of her, contemplating. Yes. She could do it. There was no way she could let Jack go back to what she had desperately wanted to leave. She had already made some sort of a deal with Riddick, actually. It just needed to be changed a bit. The only thing now was that she had to make sure Riddick was willing to do it. If not, well she would just do it herself. Her mouth went a little dry at the prospect of asking him after what she had accused him of minutes before, and for a moment, considered staying in her room until just went away.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to stand and briskly strode to the closet unit flinging open the doors. Pulling down a medium-sized satchel, she tossed it on the bed and pulled three shirts and three pairs of pants from their hangers, then three tank tops and a small sack of toiletries she kept there. Black, her favorite color, she thought wryly. Alex stuffed them all into the sack, and with plenty of room to spare she took down the three extra knives hanging on the weapons rack, slid them into their holders in the synth-leather weapons briefcase, and tossed that into the bag too. Looking up, she scanned the room, knowing that they could never come back here. She regretted leaving the books, but that could not be helped, and they lay on the floor where they had come to rest after she pulled over the shelves. One item her eyes came to, and she gently lifted the framed picture, removed the paper, and, folding it, put it into one of her vest pockets. Everything else, and there was not much of it, stayed there.
Riddick had almost opened Alex's door when he heard a large crash coming from the room. Almost. Much wiser to leave her alone. By instinct, he had been infuriated when she put the knife to his throat. No one, no one, messed with Richard B. Riddick and lived. Half of his life had been spent in and out of prison, after he'd decided that all that military bullshit was not the life for him. No freedom. His reputation had always preceded him. He'd killed men for much less than what Alex, this girl, had said to him, but something always stayed his hand. Maybe it was that part of him that wanted to belong to this mysterious human race, but there were three people in this world he didn't mind being around, and like it or not, she was one of them. Every instinct inside of him, from all his previous experience, urged him to kill her. Kill all of them, and be done with it. It would be so easy, just a slice across the throat instead of threatening, instead of playing this damn game between them. There was some part of him that had stopped it, and left him staring at the door instead of kicking it down.
It was to Riddick's great surprise that a scant few minutes later, the door swung open, and out strode the girl, cool as you like except for the slight stiffness to her walk. Probably a little on edge because of what had happened before. She walked past him without looking at him, into Jack's room. Peering around the corner he could see that she had stopped in the middle of it, looking around. But only for a moment. He could see her set her shoulders resolutely, and, with fists clenched in what was likely anger, she went over to the closet and threw it open. Riddick took two steps closer to the door, and for the first time he saw the wall of pictures that someone, presumably Jack, had drawn. Not for the first time he squinted, and then damned his shined eyes, as he couldn't see exactly what was in them. His eyes drifted back to Alex, who had her back to him but seemed to have selected some of Jack's clothing, and was stuffing it into her bag. He took a moment to appreciate the firm lines of her body, highlighted by the severe clothing she wore. But that was all. He had always only appreciated, never acted on it. The character of this girl, this Alex, was such that it had made him laugh to think of her reaction to that kind of advance. Probably try to skewer him on that big knife of hers. Like she had tried to do a while ago, came the sobering thought. They were alike, the two of them, he realized. Alienating everyone else, except a chosen few. And now that he'd made that deal, it solidified his thought of her as somewhat of a partner in it, not a weakling to dominate and leave in the lurch. But what now? She could only be leaving, somewhere she thought she'd see the kid again. Damn fool would be trying to take the kid back.
"You goin' somewhere?" As always, his rumbling bass voice was almost neutral, but with a hint of amused scorn for the recipient.
Alex turned to face him. Well, face his sunglasses.
"Yes." She walked closer towards him. "I made a deal with you, Riddick, and I still want to keep to it
"And if I don't?"
"If you don't-" Alex paused, thinking for a moment how hard it would be if he didn't help her. He probably knew that already. "If you don't, you walk away, I find her myself," Alex finished.
"Right after you tell someone I'm not dead, huh?" Riddick said with finality. That would be how he would have done it.
As tempting as it might be to Alex to do that, it wasn't an option. She had, truth be told, a grudging sort of respect for Riddick, and when she had promised Carolyn she would take care of the rest of the survivors, ratting out Riddick would be going against that. She needed him. She just hoped that he couldn't see how desperate she was. But even if he didn't help her, it was just wrong to reinstate the price on his head.
"No," she said. "I won't tell anyone."
Alex looked up to see a look of half surprise and half disbelief on Riddick's face, before he noticed her watching and masked it. "Besides," she added, with a flippant grin it was hard to pull off, "if you found me once, you could find me again." A chilling truth. This realization that she could be so inept at a life of anonymity, even though she doubted that records existed for her anywhere.
Again, she got that weighing look from Riddick. What else could she say to him? Did he really think that someone who had saved his life would turn around and tell mercs where to find him?
A sudden thought came to her. She smoothly turned and reached under Jack's night table for the two knives she knew would be there. A thought stabbed at her that Jack hadn't even been able to get her knives before they took her. Pulling them out, she tossed them at Riddick.
"Here," Alex said as he caught them, and held them at arm's length, "You can either give these back to her, or kill me with them if I sell you out." She paused. "For Jack?" She asked questionably. There was no way to deny that he didn't care about Jack, a convicted murderer on the run who somehow found time to find Imam, and find a woman and a girl in the Moltai Loku district.
Riddick said nothing, but nodded and placed the two knives into his bag.
"I have something I need to do first though," Alex said. "The Orchid. I need to talk to Josef." He nodded, seeming to already be calculating where they would go afterwards. Alex would ask him later.
When Alex turned off the lights in the apartment for the last time and looked around with a sigh, she realized that she could never come back to this home, and would miss it. Thinking of Jack's face, she pushed away the sadness and concentrated on her resolve to find her. Joining Riddick in the hallway, she locked one bolt only, and then turned her back on it.
As they stepped into the empty, dirty elevator, Alex could see Riddick looking at her sideways. She turned around to face the doors, flashing back to when she had been bringing him back here less than twelve hours ago, when everything was all right. Mostly. Now, she wouldn't have to worry about paying rent any more. Which gave her an absolutely wonderful idea.
"How much does it cost to get a ship?"