Hey all! To all my reviewers: KEEP IT UP! You guys give me all the encouragement I need to keep this story going, whether I know where it's going or not. Love ya! There's a lot of swearing in this chapter, and, as always, believability is most important. I need feedback.
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Disclaimer: I wish I owned anything related to PB/TCOR, however, i'm just a lowly fan.
On with the show!
Riddick lifted his goggles and rested them on his forehead, easily able to see in the darkened room. The withered man before him had once been his only worry as far as capture was concerned. Once he had weighed upwards of one hundred kilos, all muscle. Now if he weighed sixty kilos he was pushing it. 'I might get to repay him after all,' Riddick thought with a small grin.
Toombs sat his motorized bed upright so he could look over the group.
"Well done… Jonas was your name, right? Well done, Jonas. I don't need to ask what happened to the rest of your crew," Toombs eyed Riddick and Jonas swallowed hard, "I heard about the two maintenance workers found dead on the Carrier II, figured it was his fucking handiwork. Seemed to remember them as the rest of your crew. But the fact that you brought this…" Toombs looked Riddick up and down in disgust, "this animal in all by yourself, I think that entitles you to the whole reward." Toombs smirked and motioned with his hand and Riddick knew what was coming.
Suddenly a single shot rang out. Riddick turned as Kyra let out a cry. Jonas dropped to his knees with a stricken expression on his face. He looked down, touching the left side of his chest and when he removed his hand it was stained crimson. He opened his mouth to say something, but only gurgled and fell over. Kyra knelt beside him, and leaned her head down so she could hear what he was trying so urgently to say. Her eyes went wide and she nodded, then he went limp. 'Same ol' Toombs,' Riddick thought repulsed. Jonas had been growing on him, kind of like a fungus.
"Somebody come get that thing outta here," Toombs bellowed harshly. Seconds later a guard came in and dragged Jonas' body out of the room.
"What the fuck was that for?" Kyra growled at Toombs, standing with her posture entirely hostile.
"Was that really necessary?" Riddick asked coolly.
"Shit! You think I'm just gunna fork out 500k for your ass? Just like that? Especially when I know damn good and fucking well that he was in cahoots with you. HA! You expected me to believe that a god-damn rookie brought you in single handed! Sloppy, fucking sloppy." Toombs' laughter echoed through the large room, then in the next instant his voice became stone cold sober, "I'm not that stupid Riddick, you son of a bitch. I couldn't bring you in single handed." All of Riddick's muscles twitched, and his nerves were beginning to split. He'd only been in this parasite's presence for ten minutes and already he was on edge. He saw the shock stick out of the corner of his eye lying next to the smeared pool of blood where Jonas' body had been.
"Don't even think about it, big evil. There's ten guns on you and twenty more you won't ever fucking see. You'll be Swiss cheese in five seconds or less if you even breathe at me fucking funny." He eyed Kyra and licked his lips with a snakelike tongue, "And I'd hate for them to accidentally put holes in your pretty girlfriend… more than she's already got, of course." It gave her the heebie-jeebies just imagining what he was thinking at that moment. Kyra shook the thoughts out of her mind.
"What's your name sweetheart? Don't worry, I don't bite… hard." Once again the room vibrated with his laughter.
"I wouldn't touch you with my worst enemy's pussy you ugly piece of-" Kyra spat, which only made him laugh harder.
"Oh hun," he wiped at his eyes with a shaky hand, "who said you'll have a choice in the matter?" Riddick tensed at that, and his inner animal perked its ears as well. 'He's threatening our Jack.' He didn't know everything about Jack's past but he knew there had been quite a bit of what Toombs was now suggesting at some point in her life.
"Touch a nerve did I Richie? I'll tell you what; I'll let you watch, ok?" Riddick growled. He could see Kyra's muscles pumping, like a feral cat ready to pounce. Her eyes were wild as painful memories fueled her desire to strangle the feeble man in front of her. 'Don't do anything stupid, kid,' was the look he shot her. Riddick spoke up to break the tension and distract Kyra from the murderous train of thought he was positive she was on.
"So this is where you disappeared to, huh? I started to miss our little games of tag." Toombs slowly moved his eyes from Kyra to Riddick. "I'd say stand up and let me look at ya but well…" Riddick grinned, Toombs just snorted.
"Some sort of mystery atrophying disease or some bullshit like that. All my fucking muscle tissue is eroding; eventually my heart will be too fucking weak to pump, my diaphragm won't be able to support the weight of my lungs enough to breathe. Even my fucking tongue is disappearing." When he said that, Kyra realized it hadn't been her imagination when she'd seen the snakelike tongue flicker out in her direction. It really was that thin. She couldn't repress a scoff.
"Serves you right, you piece of shit!" Riddick shot her another look to shut her mouth.
"You think it's fuckin' funny you little whore! We'll see how funny you-" Toombs was cut off by a coughing fit and a flood of medical types came rushing seemingly out of nowhere to his aide.
"If only all mercs could end up with a disease like this, the universe would be much better off." Kyra whispered with a wicked evil grin spread across her face. Suddenly a cry rang out from the center of the group.
"Guards! Take cough cough them two fuckers and cough lock 'em downstairs cough cough. I'll fuck with them later."
Again out of nowhere twenty or so guards rushed the two, trying to restrain them enough to get at open skin with the hypos they carried. The weight of arms and bodies pulling on her was too much for Kyra all at once.
"Riddick! Shit … RIDDICK!" Kyra was screaming for him, and out of the corner of his eye he saw them stick her after she'd knocked a few of them to the floor. Riddick fought them off and rushed to her and watched her fall as her eyes rolled back. Seconds later they were on him again. He managed to break more than a few bones (including necks) before he finally felt a stick in the side of his neck, and one in his right arm. He took satisfaction in knowing he'd nearly ripped out the arms that stuck him before everything went black.
Kyra was the first to come too. 'I'm dead,' was her first thought as she opened her eyes and all she saw was white light. Then the thought hit her that she knew damn well she wouldn't go to heaven if and when she did die. She blinked a few times, but everything stayed bright white. She tried to move, realizing that her arms were stuck over her head. She looked up realizing she was chained, dangling from the ceiling, hanging so that her toes just barely touched the ground. She looked around and all she saw was white, like an asylum, and Riddick hanging across from her about ten feet or so away. No goggles, she noticed. 'He's gunna be pissed when he wakes up and can't see,' she thought with minor amusement. The light seemed to radiate down from the ceiling and was reflected and amplified by the white around them. She couldn't help but admire Riddick's lithe and muscular body as it was outlined and defined in the bright light. She heard a groan from the man across from her. She could tell he was dreaming.
He was immersed in darkness, suddenly a familiar voice rang out in the dark. No body, just a voice.
"Hey, where do I get eyes like that?" He knew this conversation.
"You gotta kill a few people."
"'K, I can do it."
"Then you gotta get sent to a slam where they tell you you'll never see daylight again. Dig up a doctor and give him twenty menthol Kools to do a surgical shine job on your eyes."
"So you can see what's sneaking up behind you in the dark?"
"Exactly."
Something was pulling at him, trying to drag his consciousness to the surface. He dove further. Another pull. Something wasn't right.
Another groan. 'Here it comes,' she thought, 'Five… four… three… two…'
"Ahhh! Fuckin' shit!" 'I knew it,' she smiled to herself.
He wasn't sure where he was, but he was sure he couldn't see and that fact pissed him off even more than being strung up by his wrists.
"Are you with me Kyra?" he managed to groan the question between curses. This shit hurt even with his eyes shut.
"Yeah… I'm here, where else would I be?" As the question came out she thought of the fact that she could still be up with Toombs' disgusting ass. It gave her goosebumps.
"Did they hurt you?" was his next question and it was a deadly serious one. Kyra did a mental once over.
"Naw, just a little sore from hanging here, you?" She looked up at him, making her eyes focus through the brightness, "Shit, you're bleeding!" He had a massive cut above his right eye that was oozing blood down the side of his face.
"I know!" he snapped and it made her flinch a little.
"Riddick… I-" He cut her off.
"Not the time, Kyra." She started to retort but once again he cut her off, "Look, I can't see a goddamned thing, so you have to be my eyes. Is there a door?" He could tell by the acoustics of the room there wasn't, but it would get her mind off the fact that they were stuck for a minute at least. She let out an exasperated sigh.
"There's nothing to see. No door, no window, no opening at all so far as I can tell." She could feel a sliver of panic rise in her gut, but she shoved it back down knowing it would only get her yelled at. He seemed to be thinking, but his quiet was making her uneasy.
"Riddick?" There was a long pause before he answered her.
"What?"
"What are you thinking?" Another long pause.
"I'm thinking I should have ghosted Jonas when I had the chance and forgot about Toombs," Kyra's eyes shot up from the floor. He growled, "Or better yet, I should have left you in New Mecca where I knew you'd be safe. I knew bringing you along this time was a bad idea, just like it was a bad idea five years ago. Only difference is I didn't listen this time. I'm going soft, and that's fucking dangerous." 'Oooh if only looks could kill…' Her sudden rage at that moment could have lifted her off the floor had her feet been firmly planted in the first place.
"OH HELL NO! What in the HELL are you talking about? I was in just as much danger there as I am now! They knew about me, they knew where I was, and they knew how to get to you through me! Even if I left New Mecca on my own they wouldn't fucking leave me alone because they know I know you! They would never stop until I was dead or they had me to slave out and you fucking KNOW it!" She gulped in a breath of air and calmed herself. He knew she was right, but that wasn't the point. One was easier to get out of shit like this than two. She continued.
"Look asshole, I would rather be here hanging from a ceiling with you than running for my life through the galaxy without you, understand?"
"Yeah, whatever gets you to sleep at night kid." He couldn't help but be a little pleased at her no-bullshit tone. There was a glimmer of the Jack he knew inside it. Riddick lifted his head. Kyra had never seen him with his eyes closed, except in his sleep. It didn't suit him.
"Hey, just out of curiosity, what did Jonas tell you with his dying breath?" Now it was Kyra's turn to pause.
"He said … he'd be back for us… somehow." Her tone was deadly serious, or Riddick might have thought she was joking.
"Interesting."
