Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity. I did not create Slam, merely this interpretation of it. I did not have any hand in the creation of Pitch Black. I did however create Spook, and the other
characters not seen in Pitch Black.

He was a murderer. He was a lone wolf. He was unpredictable. He was dangerous. He was vicious. He was cruel. He had no qualms about having a complete stranger's life flowing over his hands.

And god help her, she couldn't get away from him.

Everywhere she went, he appeared out of the darkness, watching her. The mess, the library, any hall she took more than once.

She was sure he knew where her new rabbit hole was already. It was on account of that one man that she'd changed hideaways five times in the last month. She had changed just yesterday, but she already heard silent steps behind her as she scurried towards the mess.

Always in the dark. She always heard the footsteps now. Ever since that cold night, where he stared at her, picked up her book, left her sitting there, alone, in the pale light of the torch. She had just sat there on the cold tile, wrapped in her blanket.

A few weeks later she had returned to her hidey-hole to find her book, her tattered, worn, scuffed Nietzsche laying innocent on her blankets. His scent was strong in the bedding. He had lain there, reading for a while before he left. And she would never have known, except for her lone book returned, another missing, the deep, musky scent of him. She'd changed havens. Again, the book sitting on her bed, the next missing, his scent hanging heavy in the air.

The last move followed what was perhaps the eeriest prompt. She'd returned to find a pristine new medkit sitting on top of her books. There was slight scuffing on the lid, and a suspicious stain on one corner, but the inside was fully stocked- antibiotics, pain killers, bandages, the individually packed sterile needles and suture silk.

She shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself as she moved quickly down the hall. The light spilled from the mess, pouring over the wall, the floor.

Within was light. Within was food. Within were the guards.

Talbot looked up from his conversation when she entered, his customary scowl replaced by a leer as his eyes drank her in. She glanced behind her. The footsteps had vanished with the light. She looked back. Talbot was swaggering toward the trough of food, his eyes still lingering on her. They blatantly pawed over her form from across the room. She could feel them, trailing over her. It sickened her almost enough to turn and leave the mess.

But she needed to eat. And she needed the company of a crowd. It was instinct, she knew. The idea of safety in numbers. It called out in some ancient, instinctive cry. The herd was within the room. The numbers were, granted, a host of murderers, mad dogs, lunatics, but they were numbers.

Her hand closed on the metal bowl. It fit, cold and snug, in the curve of her hand. So far, he hadn't appeared. Maybe the footsteps were only in her head. Maybe she was safe for the moment.

"Haven't seen you in a while, doll. You been in trouble?" Talbot reached towards her. She yanked her shoulder away, jerking her arm out of reach for the moment. Talbot's eyes darkened. "Now, see," he slopped a generous ladleful of the gruel into her bowl. "I know you weren't in trouble with a guard. They'd have told me. What does that leave us?" She backed away from him, clutching the bowl in her hands. "Heard from some of the boys that you've been with this one guy. Some inmate. That true?" Her eyes were wary, flitting from his face to her surroundings. She was in an open space, the tables and inmates a few yards behind her. "Now, doll, I'm at an impasse. I don't even know your name." He smiled. "How 'bout you tell me that, and then I let you go eat."

She studied his face, the leer, the salacious look in his eyes. For a moment she just stared at him, worrying her lip between her teeth. Her deep, dark eyes showed none of her battle, her worry, her nervous thoughts.

"Spook." Such a good description he had given her. A specter, a mere shade, a dead thing, haunting this pit of hell. A quite fitting name.

Talbot was taken aback by it, and she slipped off among the tables while he gaped at her.

Her usual space was empty. She settled into the cold corner, sinking to the floor with her back against the metal of the wall. Her fingers scooped at the slop in the bowl. Her dark eyes scanned the room.

They were packed at the tables, shouldering, pushing, snarling at one another for a bit of space. Posturing like feral beasts. Each section, each table, had its own hierarchy, its own alpha dog. A few women were mixed in, staying near the men they sought for protection, the rare one trying not to be noticed. She watched as one poor soul was yanked backward to one of the tables, a large hand in her hair.

Spook shuddered, turning her eyes to the bowl. A loose lock of hair slipped down from where it had been swept behind her ear. She puffed at it through pursed lips, then continued to carefully scoop fingerfuls of the pasty, thick, mealy substance that she tried hard not to think on. At least it was full of all the crap that nutritionists said she needed to live. Too bad taste wasn't something that was necessary for survival. She sighed lightly, the loose lock of hair puffing irritably away from her face for a moment before settling back to hang alongside her nose.

She let her mind wander over the explored corridors, over her mental map of Slam. There was a promising grate in what she arbitrarily called the North section. Not much traffic there, as it was a side passage off the main cell block, and wasn't the way to the privs or the "yard." It led in a loop. Originally a part of the design meant to hold rioting prisoners, it stood dusty and vacant. There was an old grate there, and she suspected that, like a few others she had found in similar places, it had originally been meant to house a Solitary box. If it was what she thought, it might be a good place for the next few days.

She would be closer to the main population, who still stayed in the cells they'd been assigned, but perhaps that would discourage Him from following her. It was worse never seeing him, she decided. Waking up or coming in to smell his lingering scent clinging to the place, wrapping itself around her. It would be better to find him there. Then she at least would know he was there, not the doubts of never seeing him, of smelling him, of muffled footsteps in empty halls.

A pair of boots planted themselves firmly before her, set at what would probably shoulder width to their owner. Spook carefully sucked the last bite of gruel from her fingers, looking regretfully to the nearly three-quarters empty bowl that was surely about to be wrenched from her. She blinked once, then slowly lifted her chin, fixing her face to an impassive mask.

The man before her was short, broad in the chest, a bit thick around the middle. It was the physique of a schoolyard bully who'd been glutting himself on the stolen lunches of the smaller children. His coarse dirty- blonde hair was short, and had the appearance of having been slashed off with a knife. He stared down at her with cruel eyes of agate.

"You're that bitch of Riddick's, aren't you? I heard 'bout you. You helped fuck over Khyron and his boys." His foot lashed out fast, catching her in the thigh when she looked away. "I'm talkin' to you!" She yanked her face back towards him, bringing her legs in closer to her, her eyes clouding. She cringed away as he pulled back his foot for another blow. "I knew some of those boys. I could care less who ghosted Khyron, but those boys were friends. I hear you exed some of them." He reached down, grabbing a handful of her hair, pulling her to her feet. His hand flew, cuffing her sharply across her cheek. A small cry escaped her, lost in the bustle and noise of the mess.

Hand still twisted in her hair, surrounded by the bustle of the mess, he drug her to the door, out into the hallway. He pulled back his hand again.

Spook's hand lashed first, the clean silver of the shiv from her leg leaving a trail of red down the man's face, across from one temple to the other cheek, across the bridge of the twisted nose. The blood oozed slowly down his face.

"Fucking little whore!" He slammed her back against the wall, her head cracking solidly against the metal, his other hand closing around her throat, the one in her hair loosing. His fingers began to squeeze. There were flashes of light behind her eyes. She squeezed her eyes shut against the splashes of bright and dark, gritting her teeth. The shiv fell from her numbing fingers.

"You shouldn't hit ladies." The voice echoed through her aching skull. It thrummed through her body, shaking her to her soul. Her dark eyes opened, her mouth working in vain attempt to draw breath around the constricting hand slowly crushing her.

He was standing behind her assailant, his glowing eyes boring into her. The man turned, still gripping her throat, dragging her around with him to hang from his hand, limp on the ground.
"Riddick. I didn't expect to see you until after we left you her body." There was a harsh sound of nerves in the voice. She clawed weakly at the hand about her throat.