Running for Freedom.
Disclaimer: I own the plot of this story, and I own the DVD. I don't own Jack or Riddick or anything related to Pitch Black.
One step closer. Just one step closer. She stumbled backwards, pretending to be scared and weak, he fell for it. She found safe ground for her foot and lodged forward, stabbing the guy in the chest. He never had a chance to scream, he was too surprised. She pulled out the knife and slit his throat, killed him clean. Then she wiped some stay hairs out of her face and looked at what she had done. Not as messy as it could have been, less blood. She sighed painfully.
Second time this month. When would these stray dogs learn not to play with ally cats?
She found the little money he had and left the backstreet. Out on the main street, she fell in with the crowd. She wasn't anything out of the ordinary, had never been, and that was what had kept her safe all these years. But things were starting to change. Her body was starting to change, and soon there would be no hiding the fact that she was a female anymore. Her pretty face already made her look weak, made them think she was an easy target. Stupid fuckers.
She traveled with the crowd until they turned toward the station and she turned towards the docking port. She climbed a fence and broke into a run.
The docking port was even more crowded and loud than the main street. Workers of all nationalities were trying to get their ship loaded and ready for take-off.
"Jack!" She stopped dead, looking around her to find the owner of the voice. "Jack, m'boy." She turned and caught Stephen's eyes through the crowd. He waved at her and pointed at a big ship behind him. "This is the girl I've told you about, Jack. She's a fine ol' lass, ain' she?" Jack smiled and put her head back to see the entire ship. Stephen put a hand on her head and smiled at her. "Ain' she pretty?"
Jack just smiled and nodded. "Rosalind" would be Jack's ticked away from this planet, which she had hated ever since she was a young girl.
Stephen looked at her face and frowned. With a fast movement for a man his age, he let two fingers glide over Jacks cheek and looked at his fingertips. Then he caught Jacks hand and looked at it. She had wiped it off in her pants, but there were still bloodstains in the lines and between her fingers. Jack tried to back away, but Stephen kept a firm grip. Whit the other hand he found Jack's pocket and took out her flip-knife, which was still covered in blood. "I hope to God you were defending yourself, Jack!" he said, his voice booming.
"I'd never kill someone for fun." She spat. "I'd never hurt anyone who didn't deserve it."
Stephen looked at her closely. There was doubt in his eyes. Doubt and mistrust, but in the end he sighed. "No, I know you wouldn't Jack m'boy." He said and put a hand on her head again, but his smile was strained.
Jack stayed away from Stephen until the next day. Knowing how Stephen felt about violence, she was afraid he'd change his mind about taking her with him, and wouldn't give him a change to tell her no. So she arrived at the docking port just before take off to find Stephen waiting for her at the ramp.
"There you are! I expected you much sooner, m'boy. We'd almost taken of without you." He said putting a hand on Jack's head and pushing her towards the ramp. Something in Jack started screaming and she put her heals down as a reflex. She looked up at Stephen and tried to catch his eyes, but they were searching for something by the ship. When Jack realized what Stephen was looking for, it was already too late. She spotted the first cop next to the ship, two others were blocking the main entrance to the docking port and a forth had closed up behind her and caught hold of her arm, before she could gather her senses enough to make a run for it. She kicked the cop forcefully in the crotch, but too late. He had already clicked one side of the handcuffs over her right arm and the other was safely locked around his own arm, and the kick just cost her a bash over the neck by one of the other cops. She tried to fight back, but they were brown men, and she was just a kid and in the end the tiger in her had to give up and let handcuffs be handcuffs. She sent Stephen the most hateful look she could muster, but only found weak satisfaction in the fact that he was hurting. The motherfucking sonuvabitch had turned the cops on her. What a shitty day this had been.
There was no such thing as slams for kids, so she'd probably be sent to re-schooling like some misbehaved half-breed.
She kept kicking, biting and screaming all the way to station, so in the end they sedated her. She was only half aware of what the judge said, but she was definitely going to re-schooling. The judge claimed that she had brutally killed a poor boy, and she didn't feel like arguing. Didn't even care to tell them that that poor boy had been the one with the really big knife, and she had just had her much smaller flip-knife. What difference would it make? These people didn't care about the truth, they just cared about having as few of her kind in the city as possible. So she just sat there, frowning and moping as the insolent child they took her for.
She was scheduled for a prison transport the next day going to the Tangier system, and as the drugs started to wear off, she could feel panic rise in her chest. There were no re-schooling facilities in the Tangier system. They were taking her to Slam City.
Eamon: Wasn't too sure about posting this yet. Somehow I didn't feel that it was done, but at the same time I really wanted this story up and running today.