Author's Note: I do not own Riddick, more's the pity, however I do promise to return him. At some point in the undisclosed future. With no damages sustained in the time I had him, and his charming personality intact. 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.
The darkness was suffocating.
She wrapped her arms tighter around her, shivering slightly, blinking owlishly. The shine barely outlined the solid bulk of the bed; all the lights that could be killed had been. Only the steady thrum of the engines, running unmonitored, could be heard, their work shuddering through the ship, through the wall that the slight form of the girl huddled against.
Riddick had left her there, cowering, the mass of the bed between her and the door. He was stalking the corridors.
His words to her had been harsh, threatening, but a touch lingering on her cheek, where the warmth of it still glowed, had softened the cruelty of the killer.
But still the darkness was too close, too familiar. It smothered her, coupling with her inaction to oppress. It was crushing, bringing up all the darkness of her memories, calling back to the pit she had fled at the side of tawny death.
She shook herself, briskly rubbing her palms against her shoulders, blinking to free herself of the weight of memories, the cobwebs that the remembering filled her with.
A heavy sound echoed through the hull, then, again, only the shuddering groan of the engines. Silver eyes widened in the dark.
Always more death. Always more blood.
Her eyes could already see the small shuttle painted with the blood of their doomed pursuer, just as she could already hear the bellowing roar of triumph from the throat of the brawny terror as he stood over the kill. His eyes would flash, bright and wild, the freedom of the blood taking him, the ease into which he fit into his role as Sammael's right hand guiding him to his prey.
No sounds interrupted her thoughts, no death cries, no heavy footfalls of fleeing man, no dull echo of a body hitting the decks. The quiet flowed through the ship, easing into the quarters in which she curled in hiding.
Again she shivered.
How long had she been cowering out of view?
Long enough. More than long enough for my backside to start to ache.
She squirmed, not daring to do more than that to shift her sore body, to rearrange complaining muscles. Not a sound was made, not a hair visible over the bulk of the bed. Her bottomless eyes closed.
It's taking so long... Where are they? This ship is not so large that they can circle each other... Riddick should have found him by now...
There was a soft hiss as the door opened, nearly silent, but still audible. A boot lightly scuffed on the metal floor.
Her breath caught in her throat.
Another tentative step, another scrape of boot sole on metal.
She could hear the breathing, forced to be slow, trying to be quiet. Air rushing through flared nostrils. The smell of ozone caught her nose when she dared a slow breath. Faint light, a cold yellow, glowed in the room, casting the barest tinge of color on the wall.
Another footfall.
A sharp cry ripped itself from her as a strong hand grasped her hair, yanking her up from behind the bed. She felt something cold and flexible wrap around her throat; heard a soft, metallic jingle, the pin of a buckle.
The stranger dragged her over the bed, tightening the strap cruelly about her throat.
She screamed again; the chatter in her mind had gone still. She reached out for Riddick. It was like staring into a snowstorm looking for a white mouse; she could reach nothing.
A heavy hand struck her face, then again as she floundered for the blade at her thigh. With rough efficiency the blade was taken and thrown aside. The cruel hand ran over her, searching for another shiv. Each cry she uttered brought another slap, another twist of the leather around her neck to cut short the cry.
"No more games, girl. Where is he?"
"Right here."
The deep growl surrounded them.
The man swung around, trying to keep the still gasping girl between himself and the escaped convict. He was backing towards the wall.
"Surrender! I'll kill her!"
"Shoot her, strangle her, whatever. She was useful." There was a hint of a chuckle in the deep, rasping baritone. "And she was fun. But you and I both know that she's worth a whole lot more alive, so I don't think you're going ghost her.
"In fact, I believe she's worth more than I am, am I right? Or is it that you're more scared of a girl than you are of the big bad, the infamous Riddick, and that's why you searched her out first?"
He was circling slightly, his eyes gleaming in the faint light of the chem light the man had at his waist. A shadow of a smile touched his mouth, pulling at the corners of it. Silver eyes met wide silver, then his eyes moved up to stare into blue, a deep penetrating stare; the kind that dared the recipient to look away first.
Dogs, they stared, the one behind her snarling his rage into her hair, still holding tight to the strap around her throat, keeping her between the larger man and himself.
Riddick's face was a mask of calm, his eyes glinting, gleaming, shining in the dark.
"Where you going to go? You got a wall at your back and me between the door and you. You think I won't go through her to get you? She don't want to go back. It'd be a mercy to kill her first." Her nostrils flared with alarm. Her eyes pleaded. She struggled against the man behind her, felt the strap around her throat cut into her skin. Flashes of light and dark danced between her and Riddick.
Gasping, choking, Spook balanced on her toes, her hands clutching at the strap, her silver eyes staring with shock and horror at the bronzed man. Her nostrils flared like a mare's upon catching the scent of a pack of wolves, but only the barest gasp of air flowed.
It was an amazing burst of speed when it finally came.
There was no sound save the sudden thunder of feet on the deck, and a blur of tawny muscle flared like lightning.
Spook choked as she felt herself pressed between the pair of bodies; Riddick's broad barrel crushing against her, the narrower man desperately trying to hold his ground behind her. The searing heat of Riddick's flesh arced around her side, and the man holding her twisted, throwing her deeper into the onslaught of hard muscle, his shoulder digging into her back like a blade.
The stranger choked, coughed, pressed between the slight girl and the wall before the raging storm of the crush of Riddick's charge.
A small sound escaped Spook as she was dropped to the deck, her cheek ignominiously meeting with the cold floor, air rushing into her lungs.
Above her, there was a flurry of blows, the sound of hardened flesh striking flesh. She dimly felt a splash of heat against her arm, heard the faint hiss of pain through the throbbing pulse ringing through her aching body.
Someone hit the floor by her leg.
And Riddick swore into the darkness.
"Bastard broke my shiv."