Disclaimer: Don't own TCOR or the song…
Summary: Six years can be a long time. A long time away from him. A long time for something to go wrong. AU that picks up right after Dark Fury - some TCOR spoilers.
Pairings: slight R/J
Warnings: Language, mild violence…
Authors Note: The lyrics that are spread throughout the chapter are from Hard to Know by Mindy Smith. A great song that somehow seemed to fit Kyra's
situation too well for me to leave it out. I'm wrapping up chapter three, so it should be up soon!
Chapter Two: Rattle the Cage
"Maybe you should rattle the cage…"
Kyra grabbed hold of a nearby rope and swung down to a lower level, alighting gracefully upon the landing.
It had been nearly six years since she'd gone off after Riddick, determined to find him.
Five and a half since she joined up with a bunch of merc's. They found him before, maybe they could do it again. When they turned around and sold her to the highest bidder, a man named Jonas Kyte stole what was left of her innocence. And where was her savior then?
On that day, Jack died and Kyra was born.
Six years.
Four and a half since she killed the bastard and seven of his men, simultaneously freeing herself and becoming a fugitive. A life on the run. She really was becoming just like him.
Six years.
Two since she was captured by a merc named Toombs and sent to Crematoria…
Six years.
In that time, she'd been a merc, a slave, a murderer, a fugitive…
But it was only today that she lost hope.
She was celebrating an anniversary. Two whole years in this sweaty dump. Two years since she'd seen sunlight and stars instead of these halogen lamps.
"…And you should have seen the ride I was takin' straight to hell,
Handin' my soul to the likes of the devil…"
She stalked towards her cell, ignoring the cat calls coming from two of the new additions. She let it slide. They'd find out soon enough that you don't fuck with her and expect to have your balls still attached come sun up.
It was the Kyte experience that had cemented her new attitude. Her new outlook.
She had been stupid. She handed herself over to evil men, and those evil men had sold her to a far worse evil. She was raped, she was beaten, she was tortured. And she had been forced to become the creature she was today.
A warrior, a thief, a killer…
Kyte hadn't been her first kill.
If she closed her eyes, she could still see herself standing there on that merc ship, pulling that trigger without so much as a grunt from her conscience.
Riddick was in danger. She had to defend him.
And so she did. One shot, and the bitch went down.
It was strange to feel so detached. She had always thought that taking someone's life was a big deal, that it would create all sorts of conflict on the guilty party. And yet… and yet she felt nothing. No remorse, no doubt.
Just conviction.
"Awfully uncivilized thing you just did there, Jack."
Riddick had sounded concerned, but not entirely surprised. In the end, like recognizes like.
He had probably always known that she'd become like him in the end. But he cut out on her anyway, just when she needed him the most.
She knew well the golden rule of Riddick. If you can't keep up, you get left behind. And she knew at the time she was too weak to keep up. How was a skinny, underdeveloped thirteen year old supposed to keep up with a guy like him?
Wasn't possible.
"…Sometimes it's hard to know that you need to be saved,
Until you hit the bottom and rattle that cage…"
But she tried to keep up anyway. She tried, because at the time he was all she had. No parents, no family, no friends. She had been alone in this wide universe until she met him.
She was still just a kid. A kid who needed protection. Who needed something like family. And to her, Riddick was the answer – he would keep her safe no matter what. He'd proven that over and over again.
She snorted at the thought, slamming the gate to her cell closed and attaching a makeshift lock to keep out any unwanted visitors while she slept. Recently the guards had stopped locking down at night, figuring the dogs were enough to keep the inmates behaving themselves.
All that time, and she never gave up hope. Hope that maybe one day he'd come for her.
A hope that died today, taking along with it another piece of the person she once was. Another piece of Jack.
"…I really didn't care 'cause I was tryin' to hurt myself,
A sticky situation and I'm still tryin' to work it out,
And I didn't want to know that I was the one to blame,
Pointing my finger tryin' to push all the blame away…"
For so long she had blamed Riddick for what had happened to her, thinking that if he'd have just stuck around none of this would have happened. That it was his fault she'd suffered through all these torments.
But today she realized something.
She'd brought it all on herself.
It was a chain reaction that began when she made the stupid decision to go after him in the first place. Riddick. A man who had now proven that he wasn't such a grand hero after all. He would never be her knight in shining armor. He just wasn't wired that way.
"Never had a doubt!"
"Anyone not ready for this?"
As she lay down on the sorry excuse she called a bed, she gazed up at the low ceiling and thought back to that dark planet. Oh she'd had her doubts alright. And she definitely was not ready for the six years of hell that would follow.
She moved a sliver of glass around in her mouth, tapping it against the back of her teeth.
She had to get out of here.