AN: Sorry about taking so long to update. I've really struggled with this story. I have a good portion of it written, I'm just not sure what all I want to include because there's a lot of development I want to do, but at the same time I don't want to spend too much time on chapters without much action. Anyway, I finally figured I should just start posting what I've got, consequences be damned.
Let me know if it's at all likable. I'd really appreciate it!
Cam arrived home in the early evening with Kyle in tow. The two boy participated in mixed martial arts classes at the local gym every other night after school--Cam in the advanced sparring class for adults, and Kyle in the Little Dragons class with other children his age.
Rachel returned around the same time from an afternoon of 'studying' with her girl friends.
Jack took the lead on explaining away Dallas' presence to their children. She told them Dallas was coworker's nephew, and when one of the coworker's relative fell ill, Dallas needed a place to stay until his mother arrived to claim him in ten days.
The kids seemed to accept the story easily enough. Cam ignored Dallas so completely, Riddick wondered if he saw a rival male in Dallas, especially when Kyle so easily attached himself to the newcomer. That must've seemed like a pretty harsh betrayal. Cam had always been Kyle's one and only adored favorite--sometimes choosing his big brother even over their father.
While Cameron showered and prepared for a night out with friends, Kyle dragged his chair over to where Dallas sat at the kitchen table and climbed onto it.
"I'm Kyle," Kyle said.
Dallas stared off at nothing, but he smiled. "Nice to meet you, Kyle," he said, holding out a hand in Kyle's direction for the boy to shake. The little boy took the offered hand, shaking it gravely.
Sitting across the table from the boys, Riddick didn't even try to hide his smile at Kyle's respectful demeanor. He knew his son--the calm and serious couldn't last.
Rachel placed plates in front of all of them along with silverware. Jack brought the steaming roast chicken in from the kitchen on a large serving platter and placed it at the center of the table.
"Dallas, why are you blind?" Kyle asked.
Jack sat on the other side of Kyle, serving food onto his plate--including vegetables. Rachel had grabbed the chair on the other side of Dallas, where Cameron usually sat.
"That's not a polite question, Kyle," Jack admonished, heaping another spoonful of green beans onto her son's plate.
"It's okay," Dallas said, his hands safely folded in his lap so he wouldn't knock anything over. "I'm not actually blind most of the time. Have you ever won in a sport, Kyle?" he asked.
Kyle nodded. "Yeah. I win in sparring all the time at karate."
"Have you ever had someone you beat in sparring get mad?"
"Mmhm," Kyle affirmed with a nod of his head, a fork grasped in one fist so he could stab a piece of chicken on his plate and pop it into his mouth. Kyle, like the rest of his family, was a carnivore.
"Well I do racing sometimes, and after I won, some of the other racers thought I'd raced dirty. One of them got so mad he punched me. He didn't hurt me, but I have implants in my eyes that help me see. When he punched me, the implants were damaged."
"What's it like?" Rachel asked, leaning toward Dallas on both elbows. "Can you see any light at all?"
The corner of Dallas' mouth quirked up and he turned toward Rachel's voice. "Nope. It's completely dark. I have to do my seeing with my fingertips."
"Is that how you recognize people?" she pressed.
Dallas shrugged, his seat creaking when he shifted his weight. "Yeah, when I was a kid I'd read faces. Especially with my mom and..." he trailed off. "With my aunt and uncle," he finished, his jaw tightening for a fraction of a second.
Riddick noted the microexpression, and identified it immediately as pain. Deep, ugly psychological pain.
Rachel reached out and took Dallas' hand from his lap, tugging against his initial resistance and bringing his fingertips to her face. She closed her eyes as his touch ghosted over her features, learning what they looked like. Riddick's upper lip twitched when he heard the tiniest of sighs escape his daughter and noted the guarded expression of Dallas' face relax for just a moment.
That sure can't be good, he noted, checking to see if Jack noticed the exchange between the two teenagers and finding her preoccupied with getting Kyle to eat his dinner instead of build castles out of it.
"No, mama, the beans are the alligators in the moat!" Kyle protested. "Tell her Dallas. They're alligators!"
Dallas' hand left Rachel's face, and both boy and girl smiled nervously. In that second Dallas looked so much like Conte.
Get him out of your house. He looks just like Conte, what the hell are you doing, letting him near your daughter?
The desire to oust the boy warred with Riddick's inability to detect any malice in him. Even under the influence of drugs, Riddick had known Conte didn't mean well. The way Dallas had nearly broken down when speaking to his mother--that didn't exactly become a hardened criminal.
He'd brought the kid into their home and he'd need to keep an eye out, but Riddick couldn't convince himself that Dallas was the enemy here.
"My last name is Riddick," Kyle told Dallas, a large mouthful of potatoes stuffed in his cheek. "Sometimes at night, I hear my mom calling daddy Riddick like it's his first name, but it's not. What's your last name?"
Jack noticeably blushed, pinching the bridge of her nose and turning a deep crimson in her cheeks and neck. Riddick couldn't help smiling at her reaction, in spite of his inner turmoil.
Dallas finally let his attention fall away from Rachel, who shot a death glare at her younger brother for becoming a distraction.
"My last name is Prize," Dallas said.
Kyle's face screwed up like it did when he ate vegetables. "What the hell kind of name is that?" he burst out.
"Language," Jack and Riddick both scolded at the same time, glaring at their youngest.
Kyle threw up his hands, food flying off the fork he held. "What!" he said in protest to their scolding.
Yes, it would definitely be an interesting ten days.
Jack took it upon herself to tuck in their blind guest that night, making a protesting Rachel read Kyle his bedtime story while Jack readied the guest room, and watched with interest while Dallas mapped out the entire second floor of her house. He counted the steps between his room and the bathroom, the master bedroom, the stairwell, and then double checked all the numbers. He smiled when she took his hand to guide him to his bed.
"I'll bet I look really funny doing this. I've been able to see since I was about six, so I'm out of practice. I only went blind one other time—after the accident I was in back home, the one that got me in so much trouble. I think that's when the implants were damaged. A quick fix got me by until today, but I think this set is done for. They'll probably have to completely replace them when I get around to seeing a specialist."
"Well, you still seem to have a knack for finding your way around. It must be scary for you, blind in a house you don't know, with a bunch of people you don't know. Just having Kyle grabbing at your knees must be terrifying," Jack said, her mind still scrambling to find a way to dissuade Kyle from hanging on Dallas. Scolding her youngest had worked about as well as it usually did.
Dallas shrugged, feeling with one hand for the bed his shin bumped into. He sat down, his eyes drifting absently toward the ceiling. "That part I don't mind. I've got a little sister back home. I've lost track of how long I've been gone, but she's only eight or nine. She never knew our dad, so I had to step in to replace him. I really miss her and my mom, a lot more than I thought I would."
Jack smiled at him comfortingly, remembering too late he couldn't see the gesture. She had to let him hear it in her voice.
"You know, Dallas, you remind me of a man I knew in my teenage years. Do you know much about your father, what he looked like?" Jack asked, trying to sound like she wasn't pumping him for information, and probably failing.
Dally only shrugged, no emotion present on his smooth features. "I don't know, Mrs. Riddick. I never saw my dad. He left when I was five or so, and I hadn't gotten my eyes fixed then. He never came back, which is probably for the best. He's a coward, and I'll beat the crap out of him if he ever hurts my mom again. I don't think he ever hit her; it just took the life out of her when he left us. Before I had to run away, mom was just starting to get the divorce papers together and finally moving on with her life. It took her ten years to finally give up on him."
Jack smiled grimly, patting the boy reassuringly on the shoulder. Something about the way he talked so freely made her want to protect him from all the hurts the universe had to offer. She knew all about having a father that didn't care.
I can't ever let myself forget how lucky I am to have Rick...
"I don't think he's Dom's son," she said, crawling under the covers next to her husband. Rick was already sprawled out on his back, apparently thinking hard on the situation. "He said his dad's not dead, just MIA. Left when he was five."
Riddick let the back of his hand come to rest against his forehead. "So much for that theory. Conte's definitely dead. Hasn't had a price on his head in over fifteen years. Any possibility the kid's mother remarried? Or, more likely, married for the first time after Dom died?" he asked, the implication heavy in his words. The two of them knew from experience Dominic Conte's preference to bed women and leave them.
Jack shrugged, apparently choosing not to take offense at the remark. "Who knows? It's probably better not to pry. We might end up opening a can of worms we don't want any part of."
"Yeah, you ain't kidding. That kid looks enough like Conte to pass for him. One thing I know for sure: I'd never want Cam in his place," he admitted, reaching over to turn off the light next to their bed.
The dream started out familiar. Cruising down the highway, the breeze brushing his face. Sirens and lights flashed everywhere, but it didn't matter. They'd never catch him.
They never did.
He didn't know Tonya very well, but he raced with her brother all the time. She was two years older than him, and incredibly beautiful. She whooped and yelled in the passenger seat, positively bouncing next to him.
Dallas smiled at her enthusiasm, glad he'd brought her along. The experience was always ten times better with someone cheering him on. He was used to driving alone, but it didn't matter. What was a hundred-pound counterbalance to a powerful machine?
Tonya snapped a couple pictures of the cops chasing them, then a picture of him. They had the radio cranked while rolling down the highway, flowing through traffic like liquid through sand. He smiled, feeling like a real stud.
A real man.
Can't ever top this, Pops. I don't care who you were. I bet you'd piss your pants in a ride this hot, you fucking coward.
The cops gave chase, but they couldn't keep up. Not when the ride became part of him, and he could feel each turn before he made it. He started thinking five, then ten moves ahead.
They put disruptors out ahead of him. They'd done it before, but he'd always been alone then. When his accelerator and steering wheel locked up, he went for the brakes, fighting for control of the vehicle. If he'd been a little stronger, maybe hadn't misjudged the weight change, they would've been fine. Maybe they would've skidded a couple hundred feet before the lock-up would've ceased. Instead, they shot off the side of the freeway into a culvert bringing water down from the high planes into the city.
His seatbelt didn't hold his weight against the impact. Must've been a faulty part, or maybe the owner bought the car from a chop-shop that cut a few corners to save some cash. Not that it mattered—at the speed they hit the water, a full stop from the belt would've killed him. It slowed his momentum before breaking, and he got his arms up just in time before he crashed headfirst through the windshield, slamming into the water.
The liquid fuel cell blew just a second later. Definitely a chop-shop item. Standard tanks rarely caught on fire, and never exploded.
The impact to his head sucked him into darkness, but for just a second he opened his eyes, and even underwater he could feel the heat, see the color of the flames against the clear sky, before the swift current washed him away from the danger.
It was so strange. He'd never seen color before in his life.