Just when Jack was all ready to dig deep, take it to the little mutt in a real scrap, get rough...Pooky stood up and trotted past her, rushing toward the sound of dog food being poured into a metal dish in the kitchen and leaving the girl standing out in the entryway, confused, yet glad to have not been discovered eavesdropping on her enemy.
Jack straightened up from her fighting stance, scratching her head a bit. "Damn, that was a lot easier than I thought it would be."
She was temped to throw a few insults at the dog's retreating hindquarters. A 'sure, go ahead and run', maybe a nasty comment or two about Pooky's mother being a real bitch. That sort of thing.
But she held her tongue, knowing, after all, that her fight with Pooky was far from over.
In the near future, she decided the best course of action would be to simply scurry away while she had the chance, and hide in her room, pretending that she'd never been in near enough proximity to kitchen to have witnessed the conversation at all. The side of it she'd been able to hear, anyway.
After that, it was a simple matter of sneaking down the steps at the correct moment in time while Shella was putting the dog out the back door. Once she'd managed to secret agent herself out the front door, down the drive, and had hidden in the back seat of Shella's small SUV, Jack completely covered herself with a blanket that she'd nicked from the linen closet. It was her hope that it would be enough to successfully hide her from the view of a casual onlooker.
Or an extremely pissed off ex-stripper...
It seemed like she was waiting almost forever in the uncomfortably warm vehicle before Shella finally came out of the house and got in the driver's seat, whisking them off to wherever it was they were going. Jack didn't even attempt to try to keep track of how many turns they made, or in what direction they were heading, figuring it would be pointless with Shella driving all over town trying make sure no one was tailing her. What amazed Jack the most was that she didn't get pulled over for reckless driving, considering some of the stunts she pulled while behind the wheel.
Jack could so tell that Old Horny was a master of being sneaky.
When they arrived, and Shella had been out of the vehicle for more than a few minutes, Jack took a chance on sitting up and looking out the window in an attempt to figure out where the hell they were.
It was an old, rundown neighborhood on a bad side of down. The houses looked like they were all but falling in on themselves and there were no yards to speak of. As the sun began to lower in the sky the kids playing ball in the street were called in by their mothers and ordered to stay indoors.
This would not be a nice place to be in the middle of the night, Jack reasoned.
Shella was walking up to one of the houses in question, having parked half a block down from it. If she was trying to be indiscrete, it wasn't working. In her professional looking skirt and blouse she stuck out of this old, rotting, place like a sore thumb. But the man who met her at the door and let her inside, in his ragged clothes and with an obvious five-o'clock shadow, fit right in. As did the two thirty-plus year old guys sitting on the front porch, rocking gently and shooting the breeze. Only their eyes gave them away. They were looking around, casually, but nevertheless were looking around at everything. They almost struck her as being...guards.
And why wouldn't they be? Shella had made sure no one tailed her to this place. But why?
There's another player involved, Jack. You should've figured that out by now, stupid! How else would she have been able to afford the Seka? But why is she here now? To restock?
To get you killed, kiddo. Those guys at the door, they're sloppy, but they're definitely out there for a reason. There's something or someone big in that house. And they might just be big enough to make you disappear if you aren't careful...
Quickly, she took down the house number and the street name on the pad of paper she'd brought along, then hid back under her blanket, waiting for her ride to take her back home. Questions upon questions were zooming through her mind at the speed of light.
Seeing Riddick that night was hard. They'd become almost friendly over the past several weeks, and as comfortable as she'd become just being in his presence without Shella around to interfere, it was all Jack could do that night not to tell him about everything from the Seka to Shella's mysterious meeting across town.
When he got home after work he was restless, pacing between rooms like crazy until his dear girlfriend couldn't stand it anymore and ordered him out of the house. He called Jack down from her room, inviting her to go play basketball with him over at the rec center for an hour or two as a break from her studies.
All of ten seconds later she was shoving him out the door, bouncing along side him as they walked down the drive to his car.
Dom had said this might happen. That some of Riddick's old energy would begin to resurface should his dosage of the semi-sedative mind control drug be reduced. The fact that Rick was responding well, turning less complacent already, had Jack nearly walking on cloud nine, in spite of the fact that there very likely had been a hit ordered on her that afternoon by Ricky's girlfriend.
And getting him all to herself while they played basketball, pool, and Ping-Pong? It was awesome. So of course she almost felt a little guilty upon realizing how much she missed the near-constant trash talk they used to engage in during such activities. Shouldn't it have been enough just to have him to herself for a while? Sometimes she'd look at him when she thought he wouldn't notice and sigh, not quite able to help being impatient with his slow recovery. She wanted herRiddick back NOW.
All she could really do by then was hope that her weekend plans went according to plan. And speaking of which, the correct time and place to mention said plans away from Shella's prying ears, came while the two of them were on their way back to the house. It had been relatively quiet in the car up until that point, music playing softly in the background, until Jack reached over and turned off the radio.
She rearranged herself sideways in her seat so she could look at him intently, forgoing a deep, calming, breath that might tip him off to her slight deception. She wasn't sure how good he still was at being able to tell when she was lying, or even telling half truths, but that that point she wasn't taking any chances. She had to be bold, collected. One drawback to Riddick coming back and replacing Rick was that she could never be exactly sure how much of Rick was still left to play the fool. "Hey, um, Riddick. There's this thing my class is doing this weekend, sort of a senior parent-child camping trip on Friday and Saturday night. I was wondering if we could go?"
He was silent for a long moment, another former trademark. More deep thought, more reflection was required before speaking when you'd spent most of your life as a convict. "Ah, I don't know, Jack. Camping's really not my thing..." he replied at last, and she could tell that it was going to take some work to convince him.
However, she did just about burst out laughing at his comment. Camping, not Riddick's thing? Of course he was SO used to having a soft bed to sleep in and three squares a day...Jack just wasn't sure he'd be able to survive without them...
Damn, maybe ya should've left him on the stuff for a while longer, Jack. At this rate he'll still be half-whipped AND he'll torpedo your plans.
"Ah, come on, Riddick. Where's your sense of adventure? You're always telling me I need to get out more, and here's my chance. Besides, I want you to meet my friends and their parents. I asked Imam if he'd be able to come if I paid for his transport, but he's got some holy man retreat this weekend and I need a parent so I can go and not be the only one there without one," she half-whined, playfully squeezing his bicep with both hands as she begged.
She was on the edge of smiling, partially because now that she had him away from home he was acting far more like his ex-con self, and partially because she was getting to compare the feel of his bicep to her experiences with Dom's bicep, and finding that at the moment she would've been hard pressed to decide which one she liked better.
Rick pretended to groan a little, a slight smirk playing across his full lips. "Do I have to?" he asked, almost mocking her mock-whining tone.
Jack broke out in a grin, knowing she'd won. "Yup, you gotta! I'm pretty sure it's included in the fine print of the unwritten paperwork for being 'Jack's legal guardian'," she informed him, doing air quotes with both hands upon referring to him as her legal guardian.
Riddick rolled his eyes. "Fine. We'll go. But I'm NOT going as your father. And we are NOT sleeping in a tent. We're going to stay in a hotel somewhere close by."
Jack suddenly took on a confused, serious look. "Why don't you want to go as my dad? Don't you think you could handle me calling you daddy?" she asked slyly.
That one came dangerously close to flying over Riddick's head, and considering the slightly sexual connotations Jack had jokingly spun on it, for the most part it sailed right on over.
"Oh come on, Jack. I'm only like, what? Ten years older than you? No one's going to buy that I'm your dad." He sounded like he was becoming ever so slightly ad
"What, you don't think that you're young and good looking anymore do you, Riddick? I mean, come on, you've got to be in your late twenties, if not your early thirties. That's one foot in the grave, man," she teased mercilessly, hardly able to stop herself from cracking up.
They pulled up into the driveway, and Jack's laughter suddenly ceased.
Oh yea, we're home...and just when I was having so much fun...
As Rick was getting out of the car he turned to her. "You can say I'm your brother at the campout, but I'm not going as your dad. I don't look that old, and last I checked, I don't act that old either, Jack." She wasn't quite sure if he was teasing her or not, so she didn't laugh.
Not that she would've been laughing with him anyway, if she had...
"Coulda fooled me, Dick," she commented snidely a good five seconds after he'd closed the door and started toward the house, leaving her sitting alone in the car to talk to herself.
