AN: Yikes, it's been a while, hasn't it? Grr, school... Anyway, let me know if any plot holes jump out of this chapter. It's sort of a crutial piece of this puzzle I've built. As always, thanks so much for reading!


He's not coming. The words echoed through her mind a million times after the initial abduction.

He'd never survive this, not now. Oh God, he's not coming.

She couldn't tell her captives the obvious. They gagged her after the hard struggle she put up in Riddick's house. Tears soaked her rough blindfold and it chafed her forehead and her eyelids. She'd long since lost feeling in both her hands and feet and strangely she found herself worrying about getting blood flow back into them before serious damage occurred.

It seemed like she should be more worried about surviving at all.

Jack laid still on the floor of the vehicle, wondering how many miles had passed beneath her exhausted, shaking form. Had they gone far from the house, or just kept going in circles?

When they dragged her from the vehicle, smacking her when she thrashed, Jack decided it didn't matter. She held still while they cut her feet loose and then shoved her along, forcing her to walk.

There won't be any Riddick to gut this beast.

She was jerked to a stop, a hard surface, like a cement street, beneath her shoes.

"We wait here for him to come," announced a man with authority in his voice.

"I don't like this, Michael. You said you wouldn't hurt him. You said when this was over you'd leave us alone." That was Shella bitching, as usual.

"You had your time. If you'd done your job this thing would've been over months ago and you and your precious piece could've returned to whatever pathetic life you've built for yourselves."

The argument raged back and forth on a subject Jack couldn't follow. This Michael guy, he wanted 'the weapon.' Whatever that was... Was Riddick a weapon? Jack didn't know. She did hear Shella cry out briefly, as though in pain, and then muffled sobbing that soon faded into the distance.

"Glad you finally told her what's what, boss," commented one of the men holding Jack's arms.

"Shut up," Michael snapped. A silence ensued. "Gentlemen, I do believe we have company."


A shot rang out in the distance and Michael sent men to go check it out. Not long after that came the shattering of glass when the lights above got taken out. Screams pierced the darkness one at a time.

Death screams.

Shella moved quickly from her alleyway hiding place where she'd sat against a brick wall, crying. She'd have time later to sulk in her misery, for the moment she needed to run.

She felt almost relieved when she turned a corner and nearly walked into him. She fell to her knees after the initial scare, her nerves frazzled past their limit. Her breathing took long minutes to slow, and all the while he watched her in silence.

It took her a moment to realize he'd changed. He'd become darker somehow. Hard, untouchable.

"I made a mistake, you've got to help me. Everything went wrong, it wasn't supposed to turn out this way. No one was supposed to get hurt. No one..."

A soft sound in the dark--and another, neither more than a whisper and then he slowly walked on.

Her body slumped and she looked after him, seeing his back until her vision glazed and her stare became permanent.


"You're all alone now, why don't you let the girl go?" Riddick rumbled, his presence suddenly felt by a blind and gagged Jack.

A low whimper escaped her. He'd come for her—and from the sound of it, things had gone well thus far for her hero.

Sure hands tore off her blindfold, finally allowing her to see, although just barely in the dull moonlight. Riddick stood not thirty feet away, dressed in cargos and a black muscle shirt.

"You want her, you've got to give something up," her captor called back. He sounded distressed, but not panicked. He held a gun to her head, using her body to shield his as he backed away.

"Like what? My virginity?" Riddick said sarcastically, moving the goggles around his neck up onto his forehead.

"Something valuable. Something only you could have."

For every two steps back Michael and Jack took, Riddick advanced one forward. He appeared out of striking distance, but if nothing else Jack knew better than to underestimate how fast he could move. "I have nothing of value to you," Rick replied coldly, apparently not in any mood for games.

"Of course you do. You have the coordinates of the planet where the Hunter Grazner crashed. The coordinates conveniently left out of the report given to the Empire by the girl and the Imam, no doubt so they couldn't prove if Riddick died there. You, and I suspect only you, know the location of Project Destiny.

"You see, it didn't surprise me when my wretched stripper of a sister turned up on my doorstep begging for help. Anything to get her life out of the gutter. More to get rid of her than anything, I provided her with a number of packets of a drug I found lying around the base where I served. Where I used to serve...

"Some months later, after I officially left the service and got recruited by the Empire's task force, suddenly that rash decision to provide my worthless sister with a brain washing substance paid off. She informed me her new beau was none other than the famous Richard B. Riddick. She'd just discovered the fact and was quite excited about it, but not nearly so much as I. She didn't fully realize the significance of your survival of the crash of the HG. But I did."

"What the fuck is Project Destiny?" Riddick interjected at the correct pause in the conversation. He stopped advancing and crossed his arms over his chest, apparently ready to listen.

Behind her ear, Jack could almost see the slow, crazy smile start to spread across Michael's face.

"That, my boy, is the reason we've come to this standoff tonight. Why I've tracked you for so long, spent so much energy trying to coach my sister into dredging all the information out of you that she could. It wasn't easy, you know. She refused to allow you to be taken from her. She wanted to do things 'her way.' I allowed it, until now. Foolish, really, but necessary. If at all possible I didn't want to leave any fingerprints on what will inevitably happen. Project Destiny is just like its name. Destiny—in a bottle. The future of all man kind. Proof that homo-sapiens will inherit the universe. In rumor it has been refered to as the Apple of Eden."

Riddick cocked his head. "Apple of Eden? Made to wipe out any species that genetically strayed too far from the classic human. I've heard of it. It's a myth."

"I assure you it's very real. Just as soon as you tell me the coordinates of the planet you can have the girl and go."

Riddick hesitated, froze for just a second. Jack's mind moved no faster than a slow crawl in processing all the information that had just hit her in the face.

Her life in trade for millions. Maybe even for Riddick's life if he truly was a subspecies... No, he couldn't do it, she couldn't let him do it!

"Tell you what," Riddick finally said, his hands slowly lowering to his sides. "You give me the girl, and I'll let you walk out of this alley alive. Whoever you are, you lost this round. No matter what I tell you, there's no way for you to know if I'm telling the truth."

Jack felt herself pulled back a step, then another. Her brain hardly registered the fact.

"Too true, Mr. Riddick. But at this point anything's better than nothing. Give up the coordinates, or I pull the trigger."

"Pull the trigger and I'll use your guts for needle point while you're still breathing. I don't have any questions that need answering, so my sole focus would be on your discomfort and pain."

To her complete surprise, the muzzle of the gun fell away from Jack's temple and she got shoved hard in Riddick's direction.

"Well played, Mr. Riddick. Well played."

She ran into his strong arms, ripping off the gag, tears streaming down her cheeks. Riddick squeezed her before turning, preparing to leave, quickly.

"Just one last question," Michael said, again raising his gun. "Did you really think I was stupid enough to get caught monologing if I intended to let either of you live? I just needed to buy time before my backup arrived."

Riddick's eyes flicked around, his gaze pausing on the darkness shrouding the rooftops above. Jack could see it in the silver pools. Michael wasn't bluffing. They were trapped.

Jack looked up at her hero, one hand on his forearm, wondering if perhaps their luck had just run out. "I never had a doubt," she said. "I knew you'd come for me."

His eyes dropped, and he smirked just a bit, a look reminiscent of the one he'd given her the first time she'd said those exact words, inside the tiny cave on T2. "Liar," he replied softly.

"Boys," Michael shouted. "Let these nice people know you're up there."

Two shots rang outin the darkness above just as Riddick shoved Jack behind him.