Chapter 4 – Scars
Lina wakes only to realize that she's alone. Riddick is nowhere to be found.
She looks around and finds some food left for her. "He must be coming back, right?" She thinks to herself.
Afraid to leave the hideout, Lina makes herself comfortable and remains there for the next two days.
One evening while Lina is trying to get some sleep, she hears a noise. Sneaking around to the door, she grabs a large stick on her way and waits.
The door creeks open and a large man steps through the archway. Without thinking to check, Lina swings the stick at the man but he was expecting that and she misses badly.
The man grabs the stick out of her hand and pins her to the wall with it. "Careful who you swing that at." Says a familiar voice.
"Riddick?" She inquires.
"Who were you expecting – the tooth fairy?" He replies and releases her from the wall.
Riddick walks over to the small window and scans the neighboring area.
"Thought you weren't coming back." She interrupts.
"Almost didn't."
There is a ghostly silence as Lina makes her way to sit on the nearest chair.
Riddick stares out the window longer than necessary. "I found a doc. We can leave in the morning."
Lina doesn't reply and fingers her scar once more.
"Is there something you want to tell me?" Riddick asks startling Lina as he all of a sudden towers before her.
"No. There's nothing to tell. I…" She pauses, "I can't remember anything. Just keep having these nightmares."
Nightmares. I know all about nightmares.
Riddick grabs a cloth wrapping he brought back with him and tosses it at the girl. She unwraps it to find a clean pair of cotton pants and shirt.
Finding this gesture above and beyond what she thought Riddick was capable of, Lina smiles to herself and it doesn't go unnoticed.
"You have a nice smile." Riddick comments, "You should smile more often – perhaps things won't seem so bad."
Lina gets up void of her smile and heads for the bathroom. "Thanks for the cloths."
She's been in there a while. What's taking her so long?
Almost an hour later Lina leaves the bathroom. Her hair washed and face clean. She figured she might as well be more presentable to her gracious host and decided to take a bath. Water in these parts is rather in short supply.
"You have no hot water." She comments gaining Riddick's attention. He looks her up and down and stares for a moment making Lina a little uncomfortable.
Who would have thought under all that dirt… Not a girl after all.
Lina clears her throat and Riddick looks away.
"Better get some rest." He instructs.
Lina looks to the bed then to Riddick. There's only one bed and she's not sure she should presume he'd let her sleep on it.
"Take the bed." Riddick states as if he read her mind.