Hey all, yes I am still writing this one. No I didn't forget about it though I wouldn't be surprised if people thought that I had. Thanks to all of my reviewers, Pendragon4, Arche De Katze, Philosopher Fictionist and Sarai Sumner. Please continue with the reviews and I love to read your thoughts.

Kayla

Chapter 2: Settling In.

Walking through Ater's hallways and enduring the leers and comments of her fellow inmates Eden couldn't wonder how much longer she was going to last in this place. She was a tough girl, no one would dispute that, she was one of the toughest. She didn't get squeamish or funny at the sight of blood, killing didn't bother her and she was able to hold her emotions in check if she had to but she wasn't prepared for slam.

She was surrounded by men, big, mother fucking men, men who would pose a serious test of her skills, men who wanted nothing more then to rape her and use her. Eden let an angry growl escape her throat and then felt Étienne's hand on her lower back. He had heard her and she was in no doubt that he understood what the growl was for.

The whole thing had been so clear cut, the mission challenging but not impossible, not above her skill and she had got caught. She had actually been stupid enough to get caught but it wasn't just her that she had gotten caught. She grimaced. She had been telling the truth when she told them that she was willing to die for the cause, she was, only she hadn't figured on ending her days in slam. She had envisioned a gunshot wound to the back or head or a stabbing, not what would be dealt out to her by the convicts in slam. The idea of being used to death was not one that was exactly appealing to her.

Her brother was guiding her without her even thinking about it. The hand on her back would press more in one direction then the other when they came to a turning point and she would move in the direction that the pressure was pointing her in. She was only glad that she didn't have to walk for long before they came to the cell that her brother had obviously been looking for. It seemed that Étienne hadn't forgotten his way around.

Étienne made sure that there was no one else occupying the room before letting her go in and take a look around for herself. On the bed was a pile of folding blankets and two blades. Eden watched her brother physically sigh, something weighing heavy on him as he did do; he shook his head and knew that he was worried about more then how to get them both the hell out of the fucking slam. She sat down on the bed, only then laying the length of pipe she had been given down next to her thigh within easy reach.

"Fallon was here." He said simply but Eden had already guessed that, somehow she was sure that the warden wouldn't have supplied them with bedding and weapons. "I can smell her, wouldn't be surprised if she had camped out in here until I got back." So that was his added problem. Fallon. He was more attached to that girl then he had let on.

"Was she your bitch Étienne?" Eden asked in French, their mother's native tongue. He turned on her sharply and gave her a look that she knew well, she could feel the anger radiating off him. She couldn't help herself, she was angry at him as well. "Puits?" She looked at him expectantly, not letting him get away with freezing on her. If she was going to have to deal with him being involved with a convict then she at least wanted to be prepared for it.

"Non Eden. I found her; she was in a very bad way. The guards had beat and raped her and then she'd been dumped at one of the entrances. Did I fuck her? Yes. Against her will or so that she could guarantee my protection? No! She had it and could have guaranteed it either way." He kept his voice low as he spoke rapidly at her, answering her in French, she had been smart not to speak in English, at least the others in here would be unlikely to know what they were saying. He sighed again and ran a hand through his pitch-black hair. It would however be a telling of their luck if one of the prisoners in here happened to be of French origin.

"I'm sorry Étienne." Her words came out in a low whisper and she bit her lip. She didn't know what to do, she was sitting in a cell in Ater, surrounded by the world's worst scum and she was already fighting with the only person that she could trust. Was her intention to make him so mad at her that he left her on her own? The thing was that her and her brother barely ever fought; they were close and they did things that ticked each other off but they barely every fought. She couldn't help but feel a little guilty at that moment in time.

"Don't be. It's the past." He shook his head and knelt down in front of her, taking her face in his hands and looking over the nice bruise that was forming on her cheek. "Nasty sis." He said shaking his head.

"Feels it too." Eden leaned back, removing her head from his hands as he took a look at her shoulder.

"I know the doc around here, that is if those around here were smart enough to keep him alive instead of killing him. We should see if he'd stitch that little nick up." Étienne said but she shook her head. She could be stubborn when she wanted or had to be and this was one of those times. She wanted nothing to do with any of the other prisoners and as far as she was concerned the doctor would be as bad as the rest.

"I don't need a fucking doctor Étienne. Find me a needle and thread and I'll do it myself, either that or just leave it to heal up. A scar's a scar, it's not going to kill me." She snapped and he shook his head. "It's not like I'm going to be trying to attract any attention in this place anyway. And it's another war story, guy in the Resistance love war stories."

"You can trust a slam doc Eden. He knows that if he screws up he ends up dead." Étienne said evenly but didn't have the heart to force her to do anything she didn't want to at that moment. There would be time for that later; the best thing for her to probably do was rest and now that he was satisfied that she was in better physical condition then he had thought he was happy to let her rest. "You did good out there Eden. I don't think I've seen any girl in here do better."

"Yeah well, that's me. I didn't make SIC in the Resistance Special Opps for no reason. I earned my position." She said proudly.

"Next time I question that you can remind me of today and I'll make it up to you how about that." He could see the outline of a smile on her face. That was enough of a reply for him. "Lay down and try and get some sleep. I'll keep first watch."

Eden was too tired to argue and lay down on the bed, pipe still within inches of her hand. She had been a hard one to get to trust you when she was in the real world, in the slam world; she was only going to get worse. Kill or be killed, eat or be eaten. She knew that the world down here was more animal then human and she knew what she would have to do to survive, she just didn't relish the thought of searching out the big bad down here because it could only go three ways.

"Dangerous game you're playing." He walked into the cell that he shared with no one and didn't even have to look at the figure that was sitting cross-legged on his bed to know exactly who it was and what their game was. He was one of the few who actually seemed to thrive in slam and his heightened, near animal senses were half the reason.

"They're the only games I play and when I have my prisoner twisted around my little finger then it's not as dangerous as I would perhaps like." She answered him, a smile on her face. "Though you would be after the new girl? You've not had a bitch down here since you gave Janine away and she was rather unceremoniously killed if I remember correctly."

"If I wanted a bitch I could have any one of you with out argument from your current prisoners." He said factually, there wasn't even an edge of cockiness to her voice. He was just telling her what he knew to be the truth.

"Yeah, but you still might have to kill a few people, for her all you would have had to have done was threaten her brother and she would have leapt into your arms."

"Did I say that I was after the new girl?" He looked at her, not moving from his position.

"You were there. You didn't even bother showing up for Brit and she was what I would refer to as a stupid busty blonde. Wouldn't be surprised if she was actually a wrong place wrong time sorta girl. Rumor has it that she actually was a hooker on the outside which is why she's had it easy in comparison to some of us."

"Couldn't keep to the shadows or defend herself if I remember correctly. Is that not how she ended up dead?"

"No, she was getting in my face and ended up with a blade in her neck." She answered him with a look of shear and total disgust on her face. He shrugged. "Brit was something of a witch."

"Why did you help her?"

"Who? New girl? You didn't expect that one did you?" She laughed and cocked her head at him in the way that she did when she was explaining things. "I have hell of a lot of debt I need to work off, thought that would be a good place to start." The girl stood up and cracked her neck, rolling her shoulders while she did it.

"Her brother?"

"Good perception." She shrugged; she probably hadn't expected anything else. "If she comes to you will you help her?"

"If she comes to me, I'll let you know." He answered as she walked out of the cell door and into the hallways of Ater. He couldn't help but chuckle, for a girl that had been used and abused in slam for well over two years Fallon still knew how to play the game, it was one of the only reasons she was probably still alive.

Eden needed to shut down, but even in sleep she couldn't. She was still aware, she could feel Étienne moving around the room, finally settling down and sitting on the bed she was laying on and covered her with a blanket. He stayed close to her, she could feel the heat resonating off his body but as long as he was within close proximity she knew she would sleep undisturbed by anything but her awareness.

"Hey Eden." Kelsey took the seat next to her friend's outside the door of the resistance leader's office.

"When did they let you outta the med bay Kels?" Eden looked over the girl with concern. She was pale and impossibly thin. The bruises that she had been covered in had faded but there were still places where her skin was exposed that yellowish patches of healing bruises were visible. Her blonde hair was cut short in a bob, her face looked gaunt and she had this haunted look about her blue eyes that Eden had ever seen before. "I would have come and got you, if you'd have left me know."

"I know you would have and just for the record, your brother said the same thing when I passed him on my way here but it's nice to be able to walk along the corridor alone without worrying about being hurt or attacked or disobeying the rules of the one that is keeping you alive." She answered her friend and nearly jumped out of her skin when a hand was laid on her shoulder.

Eden couldn't help but be shocked when she saw the blade that Kelsey had wrapped in her hand as she rounded on Michael, the man whom she had been engaged to before she served three months in Crematoria. Her friend's posture changed totally, her eyes were wide and held fear. Kelsey had never really been one to openly show her fear and yet there she was, looking like a dear caught in car head lights.

"I was told you had been let out Kels, was just making sure that you were alright. You had me really worried there for a while. The doc wasn't sure if you'd actually make it or not." Michael grinned reassuringly at the woman he loved and Eden watched the way that Kelsey had to force herself to put her hand holding the blade down at her side but the look on her face never faded.

"I really can't deal with this right now Mike. Give me some time alone, please." There was a tremor in Kelsey's voice and Eden's heart broke for Michael. To his credit however, he said nothing, just nodded slightly numbly and left, hurrying off along the corridor without looking back over his shoulder. His own feelings standing proud in the way his shoulders were hunched and the way he had shoved his hands deep in his jean pockets.

"Come on girl, you're coming home with me tonight. And don't make me order you." There was humor in Eden's voice but at the same time she was deadly serious.

"Thanks Eden." There was genuine relief in her friend's voice.

"And if you want to talk, we can talk. My ears are all yours tonight and I'm pretty sure there are two large tubs of ice cream with our names on them in my freezer."

"Ice cream?"

"It solves all problems. There's one pint of cookie dough and one pint of cookies and cream. What do you say?" Eden nodded, taking the blade from Kelsey's hand. "Here's hoping your taste hasn't changed in the last three months."

"Not in ice cream."

"Come on then."

Étienne's weight shifted on the bed and Eden's eyes sprung open, searching the permanent semi-darkness for his face, while trying to sense if there was someone else in the room that had made him move so quickly. Her brother turned slightly and looked at her, a frown on his face when he saw that she was awake, one hand tight on the pipe that had been next to her hand. She couldn't make anything out that she didn't think wasn't meant to be there and that worried her more.

"You alright?" A whisper spoken in French.

"Oui." She answered him.

"Why did you wake up then?"

"You moved. Thought there was something wrong."

"Nothing's wrong beside the fact that you just woke up. If there's anything wrong I can assure you that you'll really know about it so go back to sleep. I can't guarantee how long you'll be able to rest like this for. Understand?"

"Oui." She nodded and closed her eyes again.

Kelsey sat on Eden's couch in a pair of her friend's far too big sweat pants and t-shirt, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, a spoon in one hand, a tub of cookie dough ice cream in the other. A smile adorned her lips as the credits for their favorite chick flick rolled across the vid-screen.

"It's so sad. He loved her so much and she was too blind to it until it was too late."

"Mike loves you." Eden said simply, bring up a topic of conversation that she wasn't sure would be taken well and at the same time she knew she was the only one who would be able to bring it up without being stonewalled.

"I don't deserve Mike." Kelsey said matter of factually, digging ice cream out of her tub and depositing the spoonful in her mouth.

"It's not about deserving or not deserving Kels. You did what you had to, to survive that place. I'm more then sure that I would have done the same thing if I had been in your shoes." She rationalized, tying her long black hair back in a ponytail, making a mental note to get it cut again; it was getting too long to be practical.

"You wouldn't have done what I did. You're too strong for that. You would have done something to stop it."

"I'm only as strong as I can be and there is no guarantee that I would be strong enough to live through what you did. I'm only as strong as I may come across when I have to be strong for other people. It doesn't take a lot to be strong for someone else but it does take hell of a lot to be strong for yourself." She said honestly. "Who knows what I would have done or not done. But that's not the point, the point is that Mike loves you. He understands that you did what you had to do and he doesn't and won't blame you for any of it. You shouldn't blame yourself either."

"He doesn't know everything and he will blame me for it. I blame me for it and as of yet I don't have a good enough reason not to blame me for it."

"He said he doesn't care, he told me he still loves you. Why do you think it nearly killed him when you flat lined that one time and the doctor told him you might not survive another one?"

"Will he still think that, will he still love me the way he thinks he does, when he's forced to face a child everyday for the rest of my life that isn't his?" Kelsey challenged her, tears standing proud in her eyes.

"What?" That comment blindsided Eden and she suddenly didn't know what to say.

"Women don't survive Slam Eden. They maybe live there for a year or two at the most but eventually they're killed. The thing is, to live for that year or two, you have to find a protector, the biggest and baddest if you can manage it and then, you do what you can to keep them interested. Some of those men even form attachments and you have to keep doing your best to make them stay attached because like any man they can forget they have one. That's when you end up dead."

"Kelsey."

"But what went on wasn't the worst part. The worst part is that I can't hate Daniel, I know that I should want to but I don't. I can't bring myself to hate him. He saved my life on more then one occasion Eden."

"Nobody is asking you to hate him or not to be grateful to him for saving your life."

"But I should hate him and I shouldn't want this child, his child, but I can't kill it, you know I can't Eden, you know how I feel about abortion. The things is, I've thought about setting it up for adoption but I don't think I can because part of me is a traitor and that part of me wants to raise my child." Kelsey said, tears running down her face.

"So, she's asleep is she then?" Fallon's voice said though her sleep and Eden let her awareness float back to her brother and the other woman, awake again but keeping her eyes closed so that they wouldn't know. She knew they would talk unreservedly if they thought she was still asleep. "Is it really safe for her to be sleeping so soundly right now?"

"She needs to sleep while she can. She'll learn to take catnaps sooner then I would like. She's somewhat of an independent spirit." Étienne answered her. She could almost sense the shrug that must have gone along with the comment.

"Indeed. She'll learn to be a shadow and she'll be a strong one at that if you let her be." The woman sat down on the bed opposite him.

"I don't get to have much of a choice in that. She's my SIC, I do as I'm told by her unless she talking out of her arse." He said calmly.

"You left me behind Étienne." The tone of her voice and the direction of the conversation changed drastically.

"I didn't have a choice. You disobeyed me Fallon." He said is voice tight. Eden could feel the pain resonating from his vocal cords. "I told you to stay close and you disappeared on me."

"If it had been her, you would have gone back for her."

"I don't know what I would have done if it were Eden. That's a game that you can't ever understand Fallon. You're an only child, you don't know what it's like to have siblings let alone a twin."

"No, you're right, I don't, but I thought I knew what it was to be loved. You said you'd die for me Étienne." There was anger and sadness in her voice a pain that Eden didn't understand. Had her brother's feelings for this woman gone past what she had thought, had he fallen in love with her?

"And I would have." There was all the conformation she needed. Those four words said in that tone of voice. It might had fooled most people but not her.

"He wouldn't have come back for me." Eden couldn't stop herself from speaking. "Because I wouldn't have let him. He follows my orders, I have always had seniority over him, it keeps us both safe. My brother and I have been forced to talk about this lately, if I were to miss the window then I would be left behind, just like anyone else." Eden opened her eyes and sat up, swinging her long legs over the edge of the bed. She tucked one of the blades that had been left for them in the bad of her trousers and brought the pipe to rest alongside her leg. "So what's the pecking order in here?"

"The general rule is the ones with women are the top bunch. They tend to stay away from each other unless one gets a little greedy. There are six of us altogether now that you're here and once we've settled on a thug, as long as he's a big enough ass, we're safe enough from the other prisoners. Well safe enough from everyone but the thug we've chosen. There's only one big bad though and that happens to be Richard B. Riddick and nobody crosses him. He is the be all and end all of bad asses." Fallon answered.

"Eden, now is not the time to be thinking about pecking orders."

"Actually yes it is, call it reconnaissance if that helps at all. If I'm stuck in this place I at least want to understand the lay of the land."

"She's a smart one Étienne." Fallon shrugged as sister turned to brother.

"Maybe you should try some cat napping why Fallon and I have a little chat? You have to be exhausted and you won't be any good to me if you can barely keep your eyes open. I'm not about to go anywhere and if I decide to I'll let you know alright?" Eden easily slipped into French. English might technically be her first language but her mother had taught her to love French, the way that the words rolled so beautifully on the tongue. It often helped put her at ease and at that moment in time she needed it.

"I guess I won't say no to a little bit of sleep." He answered her. "Be nice Fallon." Unlike his sister he had no real worries about ulterior motives when it came to the woman that she was wanting to talk with, he trusted Fallon, perhaps a little more then even he thought he should. Fallon gave him a tender look as he took up the position his sister had occupied only moments before and fell asleep almost instantly.

"What do you know about Riddick?" Eden asked. Her mind was already running over the things she knew, the memories she had of someone else who had spoken to her about the man. That someone else had known more about Riddick then had ever been good for them and it had gotten them in trouble in the end.

"Not much but then, there's not a lot about that man that I really want to know." Fallon shrugged. "This is the second time he's been in here. Spent seven months in here the first time and then just got up one morning and left. He got brought back about a week ago, apparently he had been caught trying to break into another slam."

"You know why?"

"Never asked him. But according to the rumors he was trying to break someone else out. Now, let me give you a little bit of advice about this place."

"I'm all ears."

"I told you to become a shadow and I meant it. Move around this place as much as you can alone, it might not seem like the safest idea but it attracts less attention. Étienne is going to have to assert his place again and until he does, you're going to be a very obvious target. Never be without a weapon on your person and learn to sleep light. I'll have to introduce you to the other women in here. If we can manage it, we go to showers and to mess as a pack. We're all in here for a reason, most of us are rather proficient killers and if we're all together the men tend to leave us alone. You'd do well to stick near us, we are more dangerous then most people expect."

"You don't know what I can do yet, don't underestimate me." Eden shook her head in warning.

"I wasn't slighting your skills. I was just letting you know how things work. Us woman have to stick together, that and I owe your brother."

"Owing my brother doesn't mean that you owe me." Eden said as Fallon stood up.

"I'll be back with the others for you later. Believe it or not, the food in here isn't the worst I've had." Fallon said with a shrug and then left.