Remember me yet?
Riddick's POV
He felt her body sag against him as she drifted off to sleep. He stands there for another few minutes, enjoying the feel of her body against his.
Wrapping one of his arms more firmly around her waist, he turns off the water. Scooping her up, he pads across the hall to his room.
Along the way her body molds itself to his chest. His animal purrs gently and doesn't push him to take her for once.
He gently lays her on the bed and starts to pull away. She makes a noise in the back of her throat and grips his wrist. He stares down at her.
He'd kill the man that tried to take her away, he realized. She had somehow wormed her way into becoming a crucial part in his life.
After he'd left Jack and Imam, he'd find himself turning to show Jack something only to realize she wasn't there. More than once he'd asked her to hand him a tool, only to realize that she wasn't with him.
He'd stopped himself from coming and getting her multiple times as well. More than once he'd look down to where he'd set a pen or pencil to paper and see her eyes staring back at him.
They'd always been happy, yet sad at the same time. There would be a hint of happiness, but it would be almost overwhelmed by the look of deep loss.
Than the eyes had started to become darker, more frequent. It came to the point that he had to look at what he was putting down. It was a drawing that set off his galaxy wide search for his Jackie.
It was a drawing of a pair of eyes, as usual, but they were clouded over with dark emotions. Hate, old hate, new hate, sorrow so deep it couldn't be accurately described.
However, there was more to the eyes. He found himself looking into a face of a woman who had seen multiple layers of hell. A dark bruise was on one cheek.
A tug on his arm pulls him back from his recollections. Looking into Jack's face, he decides.
Settling into the bed, he pulls his Jackie girl into his arms. With a sigh, she settles herself, and sleeps on.
To bad her dreams will not be peaceful.
Jack's POV
It's a dream, I know it. Yet I am wide awake. This isn't one of my lover dreams, this is a memory dream.
Don't ask me how I know, I always do. As the scene starts to play, I wonder what it'll drag to the surface.
The air is smoky and danger clogged it as well. A young Jack slips out into the open and glances around warily.
Every nuance of her bones is revealed and malnourishment shows strongly. Her face is gaunt, her eyes sunken in and haunted. A cut on her ribs bleeds sluggishly, as if there wasn't enough blood in her body.
She hugs a rag to her front as she moves smoothly through the shadows. She ducks and weaves through the crowds, everyone averting their eyes. They knew the signs of a rape'n'run gone bad.
A woman followed the girl from the rooftops. When the kid's dark gaze made an even more thorough sweep, she figured the kid was going to ground soon.
When the kid was finished glaring at everybody, she dropped into a man-hole.
Well, thought the woman. That was unexpected. Most kids didn't take cover in man holes, didn't even think of them.
Neither did most adults.
Jack firmly held her rag over her cut as she slid silently through the sewers of some forsaken city. She'd found that city sewers made the best dens.
"You're nothing but a whore, put on the streets for a bigger person's enjoyment, nothing more, and certainly less." The sneered comment of the merc came back to her.
She banished the voice by calling up the memory of his blood as it spurted over her, the way the hard spray of the water main washed it away. But the horror as he realized his testicles were gone and that there was a knife in his gut were the things that brought a small smile to her face.
In anyone else it would have been a smile of pure ecstasy. Some sense made her unobtrusively look around.
She thought she saw a flicker of movement but didn't turn her head. She started to turn her head fractionally when…
…The scene changed.
A man breathed heavily as he tore at her clothes. A knife appeared in the flesh of her shoulder. She didn't scream.
He frowned before shrugging and punching her squarely on the cut. She couldn't help her wince.
He nodded, smirking. Things were as they should be. With a quick efficient ness that characterized his whole career (granted very short career.) he did his business.
"Why?" She sobbed.
He sneered. "Because it's cheaper than getting a whore, and you're nothing. You're nothing but a whore, put on the streets for a bigger person's enjoyment, nothing more, and certainly less."
He frowned in thought. Why did she have blood sprayed all over her suddenly?
A warm liquid pouring down his legs drew his attention, and he looked to see a knife sticking out of his gut as blood poured freely from his absent balls.
He didn't even have time to scream before the girl he'd raped jammed a wood spur in his throat before running away.
The scene changes…
…A two year old Jack huddles in a corner, listening as her guardian led away the chase. A tear slides down her cheek.
She freezes as a man yanks her out of her hiding as the other girl tries to attack him.
"Let her go, she's just a kid!"
He half-turned toward her. "What better time is there to teach them the superiority of men?"
With that, he slammed his fist into Jack's face. She howled in pain.
Her friend redoubles her efforts to escape and come to her aid.
He doesn't let up until Jack was one bruise and practically the only thing unbroken was her neck and skull.
"And it appears I have to teach you proper submissiveness as well, bitch."
The man made her watch as he raped and beat her friend.
I woke screaming and flailing my limbs against a solid barrier. I felt my fist collide with something and heard a grunt. A man's grunt.
I freeze. Slowly the identity of the man I'd just punched came to me. I was Dead. I screwed my eyes up and clenched my thighs.
Unfortunately, this revealed my scars. Damn.