Hey all and here is chapter 18. I'm just in from work after having a great day so i'm all happy and therefore here's chapter 18 posted ahead of the set date. Please please please drop me a review. This chapter will answer a few questions i'm sure about when things are going to take place, at the moment there are a few chapters between now and anything romantic...sorry guys but i have a timeline i'm working with.

Kayla

Chapter 18: Options

"What exactly do you need my help with here Jack?" Riddick crossed his arms and looked around him. The Chancer was a neat little ship; even he couldn't say that Jack hadn't done a good job with it. She had already turned one side room into a comfortable living space, re-done all the plumbing in the bathroom and all other technical work on her little ship was immaculately done and she was putting the finishing touches to the other room and bathroom. She was working like she was possessed by some work demon.

"Brute strength." Jack appeared with a huge grin on her face on the main deck and crossed her arms as she leaned up against the wall. It was the happiest that he had seen her in days and it made a smile want to appear on his own lips but he didn't let it.

Since leaving the planet a week earlier she had been up half the night almost every night with recurring nightmares that he couldn't begin to understand. Nightmares in which she was tortured or was forced to watch him or Imam being tortured and no matter how she ran they always caught up with her and claimed her as their own. Even the fact that he was there didn't stop those any more and it drove him wild seeing the fear in her eyes.

When he didn't say anything in reply to her comment, she gave him a slightly more serious look and uncrossed her arms. It was like there were times when she instinctively seemed to know what he was thinking and it unnerved him a little. She opened her mouth to say something but he cut her off with words of his own.

"Brute strength?" He raised an eyebrow. "Is that all I am to you?"

The words were a mistake; he knew it after he had said them and the frown reappeared on her face along with that look of defeat that she had been wearing for days. She looked at the floor, like to look him in the eye would be unwise and shifted her weight from one foot to the other in a nervous way that did nothing but bother him more.

She wouldn't even let him touch her at all any more and she never ventured to touch him. It just wasn't her, she had always been the type to need physical contact, she had pushed physical contact on him at the start of their time together until he grew used to the fact that she needed it. Jack had always been a physical person, needing hugs and touches to reassure her more at times then she needed words but it was like she had changed in less then a week.

Jack would barely speak to him after a nightmare and she wouldn't be comforted no matter how much she seemed to need comforting. She just lay as far away as she could from him and starred at the ceiling or the wall, usually the wall so that he couldn't actually see the look on her face. If a hand even came near her she shrank away from it. It didn't matter that he could see the need in her eyes or that she knew it was there. It was like the way she was just not dealing anymore and he could see her moving closer and closer to an edge that would be all too easy for her to step right over.

"I just need some help with lifting some of the stuff in there to the right places." Jack picked at some neutral colored paint that had dried onto the back of her hand as she spoke. Still avoiding looking at him, her voice soft but the words directed at the floor instead of him. "I didn't mean to insult you."

"You didn't, it was just a joke Jack. You don't have to walk on eggshells, you know that." Riddick walked up to the door so that he was standing level with her and looked carefully over at her. The closer he got, the more nervous she seemed to become and a little color touched her cheeks when she came to the realization that he was watching her. "There are some things that you need to hear Jack, you had better listen closely too because this is the only time I'm going to explain these things to you."

"You never tend to say things more then once anyway." She shrugged.

"Then lets take a seat."

"What? Do you think I'm not going to listen to you just because we're standing up?" She gave him a slightly sarcastic look. He could see her moving those defensive walls into place. 'Not this time Jackie girl.' He said to himself as he gave her a look.

"Then you'll know that I'm giving you my undivided attention." He said instead and walked to the front of the ship, sitting down in the pilot's chair. She followed him, he could feel the way that her body moved the air around her; she was graceful, light on her feet, her feet barely made a sound against the floor. She sat down in the co-pilot's chair and looked at him again.

"Just like old times." She shook her head but the smile on her face was genuine. They hadn't talked an awful lot, it just wasn't the way that Riddick was and Jack had seemed to handle it well, until the last week, she had never been withdrawn because of it, but when they did talk it was in the pilot and co-pilot chairs in The Gemini's cockpit. That was during one of their conversations, a few days out on that skiff, while Imam was praying in that back that she had turned into a real person for him, not just a hero-worshiping kid. "We haven't done this for a while. What's on your brain?" She brought him out of his thoughts.

"We need to get this shit between us sorted and now Jack."

"What shit?" She looked at him, making it clear in that look that he was going to have to spell out to her what she already knew.

"Don't play games right now Jack."

"All this is going to end up in, is one or both of us saying something that we'll regret later." She gritted her teeth and looked at her feet, noticing the paint on her black boots as she did so. "I've already said enough and I'm not saying that I regret it, just that I shouldn't have opened my mouth. Are you sure that you wanna have this conversation?"

"Jack, talk to me."

"I'm sorry alright, I'm doing my best to keep myself fucking numb here but with you being all caring and trying to comfort me all the fucking time, I'm having a damn hard time of it. You know all this, damn, you know me better then anyone why the hell do you have to make me say it?" She shrugged and he could see the muscles in her jaw tightening and she was again, refusing to look at him. God, she could be so fucking stubborn sometimes, but then they had never had a chance to deal with feelings or emotions and part of him didn't want to. Part of him wanted to keep her where she was safe, both physically and in his mind but he knew he couldn't, knew that he was already in too far for that.

"Would you rather I backed off and didn't care Jack?" It was a challenge and he watched her stiffen and stare him full in the eyes. Those words had hurt her; he could see it plain as day on her face. The idea seemed to have struck her in much the same manner as the idea of him leaving her behind. She shrank from it, trying to hide from the possibility and yet rallied against it in the end with those big green eyes daring him to look away, daring him to just try and leave, to just try and back off.

"Don't you dare play that card. That's not fare." It was a snarl that left her throat.

"Who said this was going to be fare?"

"So what? You want me to spill my guts to you, explain my emotions and feelings to you? Beg you to accept me, to love me, never to leave me alone again?" She shook her head, her tone icy cold and angry. He was pushing her but she was giving up what he wanted from her. At least he hadn't been wrong about why she was pushing him away. Not that he had really need conformation to know the truth. "Already had enough of that. I don't pour out my emotions into a glass to be examined by myself or anyone else. You wanna know how I feel; well I thought that was obvious. You wanna tell me what the hell you're thinking for once because I'm sick of always hearing my own damned thoughts."

"Now's not a good time for romance of any sort Jack, not for you and not for me. I will not just allow you to turn into a casual fuck." Riddick shook his head, it wasn't that he wasn't attracted to her, damn he was and was constantly being reminded of that fact but he didn't want to taint her, didn't want her to regret decisions made under stressful circumstances. Her personality meshed with his, mind that was as much the mark that he had already made on her as anything, at least that was what he kept telling himself.

"There will never be a good time, it's like the one who isn't capable of love trying to love the one who won't be loved. It doesn't work, there's never a right time. It's always hurt and heartache. Trust me, I've been there." She said. She shook her head, she didn't know how much she got under his skin, how much her words mattered when no one else's did. He almost hated how well she knew him, hated that she was never afraid of him but it also made him feel secure around her, made it alright for him to trust her completely.

"I am made of flesh Jack, believe it or not, I do feel."

"I know you do, I always have known that but there was always something cold about you, untouchable. It was easy then, before you changed, am I'm not saying that I don't like the change, I do, I can get a response from you now, it was just then I was safe from my own damned emotions. Come on, I've seen you angry, I've seen you as close to happy as I swear you've ever been and I've seen you content. I've seen you so mad you've nearly killed me and I've seen you worry about me. I've even seen you lay your life on the line for me. I'm the kid you protect, eternally fifteen, never to grow up. And believe it or not, I am happy with that, it means I get you in my life." She took a deep breath, not looking at him again. He had to stop himself demanding that she did look at him. He didn't want to stop her talking. "To me, at the moment, all that really matters is that you came back into my life. I don't care why you came or how you found me. You lifted a burden of guilt I was carrying. You've kept me safe and sane over the past two weeks. That's all I ever really wanted, anything else was just a bonus."

"But I can't stop your fucking nightmares any more and you don't let me get close. I can see you tipping over the edge again Jack and you won't let me help you. It's driving me mad."

"So, you're driving me mad." She answered. "We're even on that count."

"Even." He rolled the word over his tongue not sure if he liked the sound of it.

"On that count." She reiterated. "Nightmares are nightmares. I've lived with them for seven and a half years of my life, I'm used to it, I can continue to deal with it. I'm strong enough to stop myself from going over. I know how to help myself."

"You realized that you are the only person I've ever wanted to help." He hadn't been expecting her to react but the way she did made the ache of hurting her lessen. She nodded and a smile appeared on her face.

"Maybe the first you've been able to help but not the first you've wanted to. What about Carolyn?"

"I didn't want to help her, I tried to make her leave with me on that skiff Jack. She interested me, the way that she changed her mind so rapidly. One minute she was willing to give up the lives of her human cargo, the next minute she was risking all to save them. She said she would die for you and Imam. It intrigued me." He answered her. "It was worth it in the end. Did you know she caught me off guard and tackled me? Had to be the last thing I expected from that particular woman."

"We do have a knack of surprising those around us. It's the way of women, it gets worse the more strong willed we are." Jack shrugged. "Did it ever occur to you that she couldn't leave us behind because by that time she knew us? When the ship was crashing all we were was forty bodies. By the time it was only the four of us left she knew us, knew I a girl, that I was a runaway, she knew what had happened to my family, knew what I hoped to do if I ever got off the planet. Imam and her had talked in hushed whispers on a number of occasions. She couldn't have left us behind, we were real to her then."

"I had thought about it."

"You know that they planned on killing me if it turned out that there was no hope, that if it became evident that I was going to end up as bate anyway, they would have killed me instead of letting me experience being eaten alive."

"Imam mentioned it once. It didn't sit well with him that he had plotted the death of a teenager, even if it had been under the noblest intentions." Riddick watched her. She had said everything with as little emotion as she could muster. She was trying to keep her head cool, trying to stay numb as she put it and yet tell him the things that she almost instinctively knew he wanted to know.

"He wasn't a bad man. He just couldn't deal with the emotional baggage that went along with me when I was fifteen. He couldn't handle my nightmares because he knew that he couldn't stop them, knew that only you could. I hated him for the longest time because he left us. That scared me a little because I knew if the situation was reversed, that you had been the one to leave me then I would have hated you instead of him."

"You made that very clear on the one occasion that we visited him." He nodded. She seemed to like to talk about her past more then anything these days, like it let out the demons that were bothering her when it come to her own history. It was like he was some twisted sort of priest that she was confessing to, either that or she wanted to keep him close even if she refused to let him be physically close to her. She was a clever girl, she knew how to keep her distance and still keep him close.

"You know what Riddick. You're right, now's not a good time for romance. I have a job to do, a sixteen-year-old girl to look after and her mercenary father to find for her. Now is not a good time." The way she said it made it very clear that she was done talking for now. There was an air of defeated finality about her tone that made him almost want to shake her hard and tell her that he was wrong even though he knew he was right.

"Is there anything else?" She asked after a few minutes of silence. When he didn't answer, he watched her stand up and start to move away, back to the back of The Chancer where the entrance to the room she had been working on was.

She didn't get far before he reached out and pulled her back the way she had come. Jack didn't say anything, just looked at him, her eyes wide and honest. The look on her face was one that he hadn't seen for a long time and it set him at ease. There was nothing behind her eyes but curiosity; there was no defensive wall or quick retort waiting to be let loose. She was just waiting for him to speak, wanting to know what he had to say.

"What now?" Jack asked finally and shifted slightly into a more comfortable position, still looking down at him. She looked uncomfortable being examined the way he was examining her. Taking in the good looks that she acted like she didn't know belonged to her, the curves, the hidden danger along with the innocence. "Alright cut it out Riddick. Either say what you have to say or let me go get on with my work. I have bunks to move into place, a monitor to..."

"Shut up Jack." He snapped.

"Sorry." It was said automatically, without thinking and it made him want to shake his head. She had nothing to apologize for but it seemed like she had made it a habit to apologize all the time.

"You going to stop shrinking away from all human contact or what?"

"You mean; am I going to stop shrinking away from you? Say what you mean." She couldn't stop herself from snapping. He just gave her a pointed look and she took a deep breath and released it again slowly, she hadn't meant to scold him but she had been right, that was what he had meant. He could feel the decision she was making and understood the implications of it. She was opening herself up to him, making herself vulnerable if she let him back in on all levels again. It wasn't easy to open the doors once you had forced yourself to close them, he understood that well enough. "No, I won't shy away anymore but, only because I trust you."

As he watched her leave, Riddick couldn't help but feel the full weight of that trust and knew that he would be a fool to play it foul.

---

"Do we have to play this dumb ass game? I'm no fucking good at it!" Candace complained as Sam moved her knight and checked her king.

"Watch your mouth kid. Jack might have too much on her mind to stop you getting away with that kinda language but I'm not about to let you away with it." Sam clipped her upside the head.

"Owe, injured one over here, would rather not be hurt more." She glared at the older women, it was highly unfair that she not only had to play stupid games like chests but also that she wasn't allowed to voice her opinions either. At least not in the way she wanted to voice them.

"You're not even bleeding anymore, get over it already." Jack's voice caught her attention and she could hear the amusement in her comment. The pilot was standing in the doorway, a particularly characteristic smile on her face, her arms crossed as she looked in at them all. There was a little bit of grease or dirt smudged on her right cheek and the white line of a new scar through her eyebrow from the fight with Danny stood out against another such smudge. Paint splattered her bare arms and hands and her hair was up in a messy ponytail.

"Doc hasn't taken the stitches out yet and I'm bored to death." She complained but there was a welcoming smile on the teen's face. At least she always had interesting conversations with Jack even if Sam made her play games she hated. It was her theory that Sam just hadn't found anyone yet that she could keep in one place long enough to teach and play at chests. That unfortunately made her an easy victim.

"You just going to stand there or come in and where the heck is your shadow?" Sam asked as Jack sighed and shifted from one foot to the other. Since Dr. Johnston's team had arrived onboard, The Aurora's crew, by direction of the Captain, had ceased to refer to Riddick by name. You never knew when one of those scientists could be around, especially when it was likely that Jack was going to be there too.

Even Candace who spent hours and hours in one place all day had noticed it. Kirsten Leal had taken to timing her visits to correspond with Jack's. It was slightly strange how they seemed to record the woman's every move and mood, it was almost as if they saw her in the same light as one of their experiments. Just another one of their test subjects and it wasn't only Jack that it seemed to bother. As far as she had seen, Riddick had been getting more and more grumpy and short with everyone, not that he didn't come off that way when he was in a good mood, just that it had gotten progressively worse.

"He's outside at the moment." Jack frowned. "Sam, both of the rooms on either side of this one are empty, would you mind making sure that it stays that way while the three of us have a little chat about stuff? It's just that I would like to be able to refer to him by name and not worry about those stupid shits knowing where I am."

"You got it." Sam nodded and stood up. "You might however want to make sure that this kid quits mouthing off all the time, she starting to piss me off."

"Maybe you should both watch your language when you're around me then." Candace suggested as Sam left the room and Riddick walked in closing the door behind him.

It didn't take much of an imaginary twist to start Candace's mind running all over the place. The one thing that she was positive that was going to happen was that she would find out what was going to happen to her next and she wasn't sure she wanted to find out. She bit the inside of her lip as she thought about it, they would literally have to walk her into the foster placements before she would go and even then...

"Sit down Jack." Riddick put a hand on her shoulder and she complied, sitting in the chair that Sam had vacated.

Candace looked between them and grimaced when she saw the smile on Jack's face. Jack had told her about what had happened to her as a teen, her parent's death, being sent to foster care, the crash and the night on the planet, Riddick, everything and she had a hard time believing that she was still smiling at her, if they were going to tell her she was going to foster care that smile just didn't make sense.

Silence invaded the room and she looked down at her hands, picking at her steadily lengthening nails and not knowing what to say to break the silence. She resolved not to say anything, let them be the first to bring the subject up, she wasn't going to send herself into care.

"What's up Candy?" Jack asked her and she looked up sharply. Riddick had shifted his position and was now standing on the other side of her bed, his back resting up against the wall. It was amazing the way he had and could move without even making her aware that he was doing so. It was also a little bit spooky to say the least.

"Nothing's up, what did you want to 'chat' about?" Candace shook her head.

"I wanted to present you with a series of options." Jack's smile never wavered. "Considering everything that we've spoken about, I don't think that foster care was an option you were particularly keen on. Oh, and just so you know, Riddick and I have spoken about your father, he knows that he's a Merc and we're willing to look for him for you regardless."

"Mercs can be hard to find." Riddick spoke up as if trying to kill the hope rising in her throat but it was just the way he was she was sure Jack would say, he just said things the way that they were.

"But we will do our best to find him anyway," Jack gave the big convict a look as if to say, 'play nice'. "Until then, there's a spare room in my flat if you want it. It's not the biggest room but it has enough room for you I'm sure." Jack reasserted. "Or there's foster care."

"What if you can't find him? My father I mean." Candace asked, the look on her slightly pale face grave. She felt like she was bargaining, like she was testing the water before making a deal of some sort.

"Then you can just keep the spare room at mine." Jack offered her a look as if to question wither she was agreeing or not.

"And if you do find my father, Riddick's not going to ghost him is he?"

"Only if he gets it in his head that he wants to take me back to slam but I figure that if he gets you back he might just be willing to stay silent."

"He's not going to threaten your father Candace and he won't kill him, but he won't go back to slam, you understand Candy?" The teenager made a face but nodded her understanding. It didn't sound like her life was in danger but her father could be a little stupid sometimes.

"And what do I have to do in the mean time to be allowed to stay?" She folded her arms across her chest.

"School." It was Riddick who answered her, not Jack.

"And how do you expect to find my father? He's not exactly an easy man to find when he's on the hunt and knowing my dad, he's hunting my mother and I zealously." As much as the teen hoped that they would be able to find him, she knew her father. He was a master when it came to being discreet and staying hidden.

"Leave it to me." Riddick shrugged.

"So what do you say Candy?" Jack asked.

"I'll take the spare room but you might regret offering it to me later. I'm a teenager remember, I play loud music and make a mess generally." Candace smiled. "I might even try plastering the walls with posters. You sure you can cope with that."

"I'm sure I can manage kid." The pilot stood. "I'll see ya later, got some business with Manor to take care of." And with that her newest guardian and her friend left the room and her a little more secure in the knowledge that she wasn't about to be dumped.

---

"School?" Jack looked up at Riddick as they moved along the corridors; it had been the last thing that she expected him to say at that moment. To be honest, she had been collecting a series of rules for the girl to abide by but Riddick's idea had turned out to be better.

"I made you finish high school if I remember correctly." He gave her a blunt look as if to ask what she had had in mind instead but she just shrugged.

"You did." She conceded. "A chance at a future is what I remember you saying when you made me take those courses. I didn't understand why you made me do that at the time, didn't seem like it would do me any good. I mean, the training, the fighting lesions, the hacking shit and piloting, now that made sense to me but school, English, math, chem, and bio, that mad no sense at all."

"You could have gone to collage. You're grades were good enough. In fact in some areas quite exceptional."

"Well I worked my fucking ass off for those grades just to get a little bit of approval from you so they had better have fucking well been exceptional." Jack snapped but there was an amused smile on her face.

"Why the hell didn't you go to collage then?"

"And leave you, no fucking way. I planned to stick around as long as you would let me. I wasn't stupid, the minute I stopped moving about with you would be the minute you slowly started communicating with me and then boom, no more Riddick. I'm not stupid, wasn't about to land myself in that position. You were all I had, and it worked out alright didn't it? I mean I did end up getting my commercial piloting certificates and I'm very happy being a pilot." She smiled. "How do you think is best to find her father for her anyway? If I've got to bring mercs down about my ears to do it, I'm going to have to make arrangements for Kelly."

"How much time until your next flight Jack?"

"Three, four months maybe." She shook her head not totally sure and in the end ended up giving him another quick shrug. "I've got three months guaranteed, The Aurora needs some upgrades and repairs between now and her next flight and I'll get a week's notice before I'm made to leave the planet again." Jack stopped at a junction. "Can't be any more specific, the minute Manor gets a contract we get a weeks notice, the shit is loaded and we leave. Could get called anytime of the day or night, we're on constant stand by."

"Complicated system."

She shrugged. "I'm going to see Manor himself, I'll tell him you don't like his system much."

"Do that." Riddick nodded before moving off in a different direction and she went her own way too.

Jack still had that amused smile on her face when she was cornered by one of Dr. Johnston's male science assistance. To her he had always seemed more like a thug then an environmental chemist, mind, all he had ever done was harass her about the creatures and the planet. They were always after information, always trying to get her to give it to them.

"Ahh...Miss Stewart." He said when he cornered her.

"Don't 'ahh...Miss Stewart' me and stay well enough away, my patients in all of this shit is wearing very very thin." She let out a snarl as she was backed into a wall. Her hand instantly felt down her leg for the butterfly knife she had taken to carrying with her and took it from her place without him noticing. The guy was thick as bricks for someone who was so proficient in chemistry.

"You'd make your own life hellovalot easier on yourself if you just spoke with us." He reached out and touched a loose strand of her dark hair, wrapping it around one finger and then tugging the finger free again. "I would think that getting rid of those memories would help you greatly."

"Fuck you."

"That's an interesting idea." He nodded. A shiver ran down her spine and a little fear at the idea that he might just try more then talk to her. She glared at him; she was not going to encourage him in the least. She was not the kinda girl that would allow some guy to try and fuck with her. He'd end up very badly off she couldn't help but promise, she had a blade and she knew how to use it thanks to Riddick. "But really, I want to talk first. All you need to do is give us a little information. It's for your own good eh? We can get to fucking after that."

"How do you figure?" Jack found herself stiffening, playing on the slight fear, men like the one in front of her seemed to get off on fear and it made her sick. 'Sick fuck!' She commented to herself as his eyes raked over her body, settling on the slight protrusion that happened to be her breasts.

"Get over it. The more we know about that place, the more likely it is that we could make it inhabitable." The more he spoke, the closer he got to her. It was like he liked to tread dangerous ground. She tried pressing herself a little further into the wall as a hand slipped under the hem of her shirt and traveled across the flat of her abdomen, his face coming insanely close to hers. Until that moment Dr. Johnston's people hadn't gotten physical with her. But this man, he made her skin crawl, made her feel dirty. She looked at him with pure revulsion on her face.

"Don't fucking touch me." She snarled flicking open the blade.

"I think you like it." He said and then looked at her with wide eyes as her blade pressed close enough to his groin for him to feel it.

"I said don't fucking touch me. And when I say I don't want to be fucking touched I mean it. Next time you might be without those things that might be important to you." She reiterated as an arm rapped around the man's middle and threw him across the hallway away from her. It was an arm that she hadn't even been expecting to see and even though she couldn't help but be glad to see him, she was a little put out, she had had things under control and it would have been nice to finish it up on her own.

Riddick stood over the cowering scientist, silver eyes flashing in the dimly lit space. The blade of his shiv became visible as she moved from the wall to stand next to him, her own blade visible but the only word she caught him say was, "mine."

The scientist looked at her with a weird mix of pleading, fear and shock in his eyes. His eyes were a weirdly warm gray and she suddenly froze and a shiver ran up her spine. No man she had ever pulled a blade on or that she'd seen Riddick threaten made her freeze like that before. 'Buck fever', a voice in her head whispered and then another voice quickly countered it, 'go in for the kill.'

"As I see it," Jack said to the man who was starting to sweat profusely, the smell of his fear flooding her nostrils and made her want to vomit. "I can let my friend here ghost you, I could even ghost you myself, mind," She played a little with the flat of her own blade as if she was considering her options, "That can get messy especially in confined places so we'll leave your death till later. Here's the deal, I'm not going to cut you and neither is my friend here but you're going to take a warning back to the rest of your fucking psycho friends that the next one of you to touch me is going to bleed for it. And if you do try again, you had better pray it's me who cuts you, and not my friend here, he's not known for his mercy. The only cut that he gives leaves a person dead or hurt beyond repair."

He nodded, blinking rapidly as a bead of sweat trickled into his eye. She could feel Riddick's eyes on her, could feel his hunger for the kill and as much as she wanted to, she wouldn't give into it. To give in to it, would mean to give into her own pent up aggression and at that moment, she didn't want to not have control. The whole thing would just turn into a huge bloody mess.

Jack closed her blade and stood up, backing off slowly as Riddick spoke to the man again. "Remember what I told you. No one gets away with threatening..." And then she was out of hearing range and part of her was glad too, she was pretty sure she knew what he was saying anyway.

"I should never have left you to wonder on your own." Riddick said to her when he joined her and the man had scuttled off. "Should have realized that they would get physical at one point or another."

"I had it under control." She answered him back, still feeling slightly shaky about the whole thing but unwilling to let him know that. All that mattered was that she knew that that man wouldn't have walked away with his balls if he had tried to push her further.

"Didn't look that way."

"Looks can be deceiving. You should know that. I can handle myself."

"What if I don't want you to?"

"Then you shouldn't have trained me quite so well should you?" She pealed away from him, leaving him in the shadows of the hallway.