Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity, however I do promise to return him. Eventually. At least that's the current plan. But I might decide I want to keep him. So there. 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.

"What the fuck was that, Spook?"

She just blinked.

The order, the same order, the insistence. Her feeble headshake. The searing lick of pain. The blow from the shockstick.

The girl arched again, convulsing, crying. The spots were growing, merging. The edges of the world were already indistinct. Again, his order.

"Do it!"

She shook, fearing the next blow.

And then she heard it, as plainly as if he had shouted it, as private as if he had whispered it into her ear.

Just a little more.

Just a little more and she'll break just like all the rest. She'll warp any mind however we tell her to.

Just a little more. Just a few more pushes.

A hand closed around his wrist, halting the decent of the shockstick. Her breath licked his face, her eyes boring into his. Her face was cold, contorted into an alien mask of ice and wrath, no longer the crying face of the girl he had struck.

"No!" The voice echoed through the room, a strong cry, but the reverberating tone wasn't what made him cringe.

The same word, a thousand times louder, echoed, tunneled, burned through his mind, searing his thoughts, bringing tears of pain to his eyes.

The level gaze bored into his eyes, watching without a hint of compassion as the fear crept into the eyes of the officer.

And in his mind, she found details.

Seven girls so far, all under the biological age of thirteen, raped, tortured, murdered. Flayed, really. This man had seen the pictures taken by the investigators, the images of where the girls were found, of the bodies themselves. He had read the file. There wasn't anything to connect the murders except the age group and the rape; no two were ever mutilated in the same way, no two had a similar appearance. The places they were found were strange. A mall, an abandoned barn, a museum, a library, a condemned apartment building. There was only the DNA of the girls, no trace of the killer.

And further in his mind, his own memories of his early girlfriends and what they did. The unrelated memories of his own daughters crying in the night with nightmares.

She took them all, pieces from each. She looked at the memories, looked at his mind, and began to paint new memories.

"I'm sorry." Tears streamed down her face. "You give me no choice. I see in your mind that you will kill me if you don't break me." Horror filled the face of the officer as memories emerged in his mind. "Please forgive me."

He had been drinking, that he knew. He thought he had just passed out, out on the couch, deep into the unconsciousness that took him away from the wife who didn't approve of his work, from children who now were at an age where they scorned the father they had once so loved.

But now, staring deep into the dark eyes of the Psi, he began to remember what had happened.

He had left the house, stumbling and staggering. He had shuffled along the streets, through the glowing haze of streetlamps and alcohol, until he had spotted her. A girl, the same age as his own daughters, laughing and flirting with some boys, scorning her parents concerns that she should be home by a certain time.

Curfews were for babies, and it was just her stupid father trying to control her.

He moved up behind her and cleared his throat.

"Isn't it about time you were all going home? You're a bit young to be out now." He leveled his gaze at them all, one by one, until the boys muttered and mumbled and fled. The girl started to follow, but the officer grabbed her arm.

"no..." The word slithered from his mouth as he fought the onslaught of memories, the tide that threatened to engulf him.

Another girl, walking to school, her hair carefully braided, her pad under her arm.

He shook his head, trying to clear it.

Another, dark haired, blue eyed, waiting outside the mall for her mother. He had flashed his badge, and she'd gotten into his car without question.

Their begging, pleading, crying, sobbing, their pain and their blood flooded his mind. The panic each time when he had seen them dead. The guilt. The anguish. The momentary relief when he'd found some good place to dump their bodies.

He had used the old knife his great grandfather had collected in the War, the one he'd taken off a rebel leader, the one that had been given to him by his dying grandfather.

It had easily sliced through flesh, nicking bone. It had almost gently removed the strips of just skin, reflecting the world with a soft red glow.

His eyes widened in horror. He could almost feel the blade in his hand now, the sodden heat of blood coating his skin.

He reeled back from the Psi standing so calmly before him, tears on her face, tears over his guilt, tears over what he had done.

The shockstick clattered to the ground.

He stumbled back away from the diminutive girl, his hand dropping to the butt of the gage at his side. He thumbed the safety as he brought it up.

She still hadn't moved. Riddick stood there, his liquid-silver eyes flitting between the cooling body and the statue of flesh that was the girl.

"Rabbit?" A booted foot shifted; he almost stepped closer to her. A calloused hand started to rise to touch her, clenched, then dropped.

Spook blinked.

She shook herself.

Her eyes fixed on the dead man on the floor.

And her shoulders shook, her back rolled as a wave of nausea flowed over her and she crashed heavily into the harsh wall.

Her forehead leaned against the cruel kiss of the cement. Her back convulsed a few more times.

When she looked up, her eyes were bleary, unfocussed, and there was something deep in them, a hurt that hadn't faded. Leaning heavily against the wall, surrounded by the acidic smell of bile and the fetid reek of fresh death, she stared into his eyes.

There was something new about her. There was a confidence in the way she held herself, even now when she used the wall to support herself.

It was the look of a dog who finally won the fight.

It made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, made his muscles tense.

"You're scared of me, Riddick." Her voice was so quiet. The softly metallic eyes stared sadly into his face.

In her hand hung the collar.