A/N: Because so many of you asked nicely... Heading into Dark Fury now. I still own nothing.
Big Fish, Little Fish…
They had two long days before hitting the shipping lane. Those two days would prove to be the last two days that Riddick dared to work Jackie into a shaking mass of quivering muscles. It was the silence on the comms that shook his faith, once again, that his luck was changing for the better. Although the sensors placed them at the edge of the shipping lane, the comms stayed silent in all but the long-range transmissions. Fry had angled them into a well-used route but the communication beacons didn't paint a hopeful picture. Ships didn't come by very often in this region of space. There was not much to call them here, for one. No tourist hotspots, no thriving outposts, not even a Company venture existed in this unstable area of wild space. Aquila Prime didn't even place on of their automated refill stations along this route. That was rather depressing, considering how close to the Aquilian system the route went.
They were also much closer to 'goll space than most ships dared to venture. Rychengoll's were considered to be a danger to both themselves and others. For good reason, really. For the most part they were downright crazy, dabbling into branches of science that created horrid mutations, insane half machine and half-living creatures that they could barely control. Not to mention that their religion embraced self-blinding and literal physical binding of one person to another… And they usually enjoyed a booming black market trade in illegal slaves. Having been in one of their prisons once, Riddick didn't fancy another trip to one. He made sure that everyone understood why there was to be no auto-distress message until he was sure of no 'golls picking it up. By the time he was done explaining his reasoning even Imam looked a little queasy. And Carolyn had unconditionally agreed that radio silence was far better than being picked up by a group of 'goll pirates and sold off to the highest bidder.
Riddick immediately altered his training tactic. They had to conserve every drop of water and every breath of air. The skiff wasn't meant for long-range journeys. It was a minor miracle that it had held up this long. The recycling system was rated for a couple of weeks tops, for example. The solution had been to wait until the waste bladder was full before turning it on and then making sure it was promptly shut off as soon as the bladder was near empty. It was proving to be a good precaution. And after surviving on a low oxygen world after the crash, the atmosphere inside the skiff could be kept at near the same levels without undo discomfort. He and Jack began to spend hours in mediation, often punctuated by gentle periods of balancing poses that did not raise a sweat. Fry set the skiff to limp towards Helion, shifted the life support systems to as low as she could, and begin to join Imam in his prayers. Now that she no longer needed to watch space for hazards, all systems that would not work to keep them alive were shut off.
It was this process, more than anything, that made Jackie feel like she was adrift inside a tin can. It was an odd feeling, a mixture of hopelessness and safety. Part of her believed that as long as Riddick was there her life would be okay, while the more pragmatic side figured that they would die, frozen and asphyxiated, and never be found. She was careful not to voice her feelings though. She observed Riddick's matter-of-fact method for dealing with each day and followed his example.
Days stretched into a week. The contact with the outside universe was limited to just an hour a day, but for that hour the four of them listened to static-filled news as it speed from Helion to the hinterland. Jack was glad for the tiny bit of normalcy that hearing about sports provided. Hell, even news about the economy was interesting. It wasn't what Fry was listening for, however. Carolyn turned off the communications to save power. "I don't think the distress call even got out. There's no sign that the Hunter Gratzner is even being looked for. Surely Paris had insurance on his cargo. That alone would be enough--"
"Do you really think that the mighty Company is going to actually spend the credits to look for the ship before it should have reached port? And if they do, why would they announce it?" Riddick fixed his odd eyes on the docking pilot. By now, if Jackie's switch had worked, Richard B. Riddick would be dead and the merc's guild would be pressing to keep it quiet, just so they didn't have to pay Johns' estate the final death bond. He let himself stare at the blond woman for a moment longer. "I'm getting some sleep." He pulled a blanket around his shoulders and closed his eyes.
"But, Riddick – don't you want something to eat?" Jackie asked.
"Not hungry." It was better not to push when he spoke in that tone, she reflected. She sighed and nibbled on a ration before settling down next to him. After a moment he reached out and pulled her into his arms, blanket and all. She smiled weakly and snuggled into the warmth he offered. Even though he confused her at the best of times it was these moments that made up for it all. While she was in his arms nothing else mattered.
It formed a daily pattern. Sleep, rest, mediation, resistance work, a bit of food, a cup of water, listening to the news and then back again to sleep. Jackie lost track of how many days had passed. One week? Two? More? She didn't know. The working crono had been on Paris when he died. The one on the ship was working, but about 22 years out of date. And the fact was that Jackie had never learned how to read one with a dial face. It seemed stupid to tell anyone that though. She had to wonder if knowing would make it easier or worse.
Then one day they spotted another ship. And it didn't stop. Fry tried everything to get the ship's attention too. It just ignored the distress call. Finally Riddick stepped in and shut everything down. "No more fucking news for a week. You just wasted enough power with that stunt to shutter our chances."
"Fuck you, Riddick! I don't see you trying to get us to Helion," Carolyn snapped.
The two of the stared each other down until Imam broke in, "Enough! I think you need to rest, Carolyn. Take a protein pill and get some sleep."
Fry looked over at the holy man and nodded.
That was the one and only ship they chanced upon. It was probably their saving grace that they didn't chance upon another ship that passed them by. The skiff's power would have given out long before anyone chanced upon it had there been another distress signal broadcast.
The supplies dwindled as they limped toward Helion in their tiny skiff. Finally, Carolyn switched out the spare oxygen tanks for their breathers with the empty tanks on the skiff and lowered to mix to barely passable to extend their air. The last of the rations and Paris' canned delicacies gave way to emergency protein pills. Even with the skiff recycling the waste products they were down to a single bladder of water. If someone didn't find them soon they'd die out in cold space. They huddled in blankets to make the fuel last. They spent most of the time in a state of shivering near-sleep, deep in their own misery. It was a desperate situation. Everyone forgot about the time passing. Out in the black of space, what did it matter? The skiff was set to autopilot. Its computers could keep the ship inside the sol-track lanes. Fry and Imam spent most of their time asleep. It was likely better that way. Jackie learned that she felt better when she mediated and therefore spent much of her time in a state of deep relaxation, all the while remaining aware of what happened around her.
Riddick resigned himself to face death, should it come for him, head on. What would be, would be. It seemed he was as stone-like as he'd ever been. At least the three sides of him were a peace with each other. He had saved Jack from Johns. He'd found acceptance, friendship even. Yet, inside, part of him hurt. He'd never meant for Jack to face death like this. He hadn't wanted her to survive John's attack only to suffocate. He'd give his last breath so she could live. He focused on Jack's currently sleeping form, sweeping his gaze over her face. He watched the soft motion of her breathing. There was little else so beautiful. The universe was so cruel, giving him hope and then slowly crushing it. Jack was taller than she'd been when this whole thing started, lean and toned. Her face could still be sweet and innocent but she was more aware of how to focus her inner strength and be blank and unreadable when she needed or wanted to be. He looked away, studying the wall of the skiff as he had a thousand times before, attempting to pull his defenses back into place.
This entire ordeal sapped his mental strength. It would be too easy to just give in to the hopelessness pressing on his soul. Riddick closed his eyes as his skin began to buzz. The visions always came to him when he was weak. Marshaling his will again he gruffly ordered the intrusion away, 'Fuck off… I don't want to know. Please just go away.' Perhaps begging it was the wrong thing to do…instead the feeling grew and he was too weak to fight it off. First there was blackness. Velvety darkness. It was warm. Clean. Then he saw flashes of twisted human shapes. Silvery gray highlighted worn blackened metal. Old images. He knew these from long ago. Usually he would see marching soldiers and huge statues. Suddenly the color changed to a cyan blue light reflecting off of muscles corded, or skeletal. Bright, so bright…it hurt his eyes. Then he was under an orange sun. Trees burning. Tiny bodies falling from the sky through giant fingers. That place again, the one that haunted him always. He tried to stay there, for once. At least this was a horror he knew. But it was not to be. His vision shimmered into that of a modern ship. A tall woman, her fake white hair sweeping down her back, slyly disguised cybernetic implants concealed around her head, stood in the middle of a large cyan-blue lit room. Riddick thought he could make out oddly twisted human forms at the edge of his vision, but she was the focus of the warning. Her features were razor sharp. Her eyes carried an odd mixture of assurance and insanity. Whispers of danger caressed him. She was coming.
Later, he spent hours pondering this vision. The image in his mind of the woman seemed burned into place. He knew the pieces were jumbled. Were the bodies from her or the other? Were they connected or not? The voice that often accompanied his visions gave him no clue. That silence for once bothered him. It was par for the course that Riddick begin to keep a closer watch on the sensors even though he knew that by the time he saw them, they would have caught him. And he was right. It hit suddenly out of the black.
The proximity alarm went off. The large man leapt awake and aware. He flew toward the front of the small ship. The skiff jolted. He caught himself with a quick grab of the pilot's chair. One look at the hull integrity readout told him that a wing had been punctured. The backup shield sputtered to life. It took him a moment to sit. The jolt tossed Jackie out of her uneasy slumber, but before she was quite awake, Riddick was hard at work on the controls. The engines whined at whatever it was he was doing. Jackie's head felt fuzzy. She shook it to clear it. "Hull breach contained: Engines operating at 170 capacity." It was the computer. Jackie had never even heard the damn thing go off before. She moved into the co-pilot's chair as Riddick continued flicking switches too fast for her to follow.
Fry groaned behind them, suffering the effects of little food and oxygen for to long. Through the haze clouding her mind, the docking pilot was aware on some level that something very big was up. What exactly that was, she couldn't determine at that rather fogged up moment. It might have been a rescue for all she knew. The strobe of red alarm lights and blare of electronic warning signals startled Fry, shocking her brain away from thoughts of this being a rescue. It didn't seem like the kind of thing that a rescuer would be doing. Were they under attack? Was it the pirates that Riddick had so graphically warned them about? Panic rose inside her. She had to do something! Her mind fought to get her body to respond.
Imam stirred also but said nothing. He was in better shape than Fry but not by much. Panic never helped in situations like this. It would take up extra air. Air they didn't have enough of anyway. He slowly sat up and calmly looked toward the front of the ship. The engine's whine bore into his ears, causing his head to throb slightly. He reached for his beads. 'Riddick will get us through this,' he thought. But the larger man's swift actions and rapid movements seemed almost like those of a fight or flight response. Worry caused Imam to knit his brows. What could Riddick possibly know about the situation that he, Fry and Jack did not? Why was he using up the very last drops of power in an attempt at running? The computerized voice that he'd been jolted awake by drew his attention back to the situation. "Engine and hull failure imminent under current parameters," it droned.
'A lot of questions, whoever we run into. Could even be…a Merc ship,' the words flowed through Jackie's mind again for the thousandth time. Why had she said that? Somehow now it seemed like she had caused this just by speaking the words out loud. That was silly, though. Wasn't it? There was no way this would have not happened. Likely it was Fry's distress call from all those weeks ago that had summoned this nightmare. Jackie shivered. She trusted Riddick, honestly and completely. She was less sure about the Skiff's engines at the moment. The noise they were making was really dreadful.
"Critical systems failure in five seconds," the computer warned. That seemed to jolt Fry, at least, back to the living.
"Riddick, what is happening?" Carolyn was very awake now. If she had overreacted before, then Riddick's insane actions now were suicide. Imam just gave her a worried look as his fingers paused with their ever-present motion. Then he was fingering his prayer beads again in an attempt to stay calm. They had become his constant companion, those beads. She stood and wobbled over to the front, scooted Jackie out of the co-pilot's chair, and sat down. Her station funneled her a stream of data that indicated the skiff's engines would be out of fuel if they didn't explode. The skiff shook. Fry's eyes darted over the readings as she tried to figure out what to do, her mind shocked by the rapid flow of intel and Riddick's seamless grasp of the controls.
Jackie grasped the back of the co-pilot's chair and looked at Riddick. There was no way that they were getting away, yet for some unknown reason Riddick had tried to run from whomever it was that they had encountered. For a moment she wondered why. The thought didn't have much time to mature before the computer began a relentless countdown, "Four seconds. Three seconds. Two seconds. One second."
Riddick shut off the engines. Fight over. The vision swam before him of the tall 'Goll woman and her blue tinged rooms. His analysis of the image had revealed many things about the woman. Her ship was too nice for her to be a normal 'goll pirate, but there was no way in hell she was a normal Merc either… And she wasn't a bushwhacker, because the ship was hers and bushwhackers traveled and lived light. Then again, the 'golls were odd folk. They worshiped a blind god, and yet used cybernetics to enhance themselves. They were the first to break laws and the first to scream at the injustice of others doing the same. He didn't even know if they used the same database the rest of the universe did for tracking anything. Some 'golls hooked into every source of data they could find, while others closed themselves off and only took new intel when in port. Which habit would they follow? Would the altered info be in their database? He'd never know if he didn't test Jackie's ID switch. Somehow this entire situation gave him a very bad feeling.
"First you're a boy, then you're a girl, and now you're a psychic." Riddick drummed his fingers together as he turned his goggled gaze on Jackie, "Careful what you wish for, Jack." Jackie gave him a 'so sorry' type of smile and batted her eyelashes at him. Even at a time like this he could appreciate the tease in her manner. He let himself smile slightly at the woman whom he intended as his mate and turned it into a slight teasing scold.
The console lights went dark for a moment. Everyone's attention returned to the front of the ship. Then one single light blinked. Jackie felt an icy chill climb her spine at the sight of it. Whomever or whatever had caught them was remotely controlling the skiff. 'What happened if they shut off life support?' she wondered. Then she noticed that the blinking light was signaling an incoming message. Carolyn reached for the switch. Riddick put his hand over the docking pilot's. He shook his head. Fry stared at him, asking a silent 'why not' and seeing that he was absolutely adamant about not talking to these people. Fry pulled rank. It was this ship or death. They had no fuel left now. She swore at him, "Shit," before toggling the communications open. He hardened his face at her. It was a bad move.
"Unidentified craft, state your purpose and contents." Jackie didn't like the sound of the nasal male voice that crackled over the speakers. It chilled her to the bone. She swallowed and looked back at Imam. His face wore an expression that told her he knew the accent and that the situation was a bad one.
Fry looked at Riddick; it was not a company accent. She toggled the communications closed again, "Kovan?"
"Yeah, if we're lucky." Riddick was back inside his shell, not giving away anything. Fear was not something he enjoyed feeling, and the 'golls were about the only thing in this region of space that could make him feel it. He didn't need the others knowing about his weakness though.
"And if we're not?" Jackie looked at the two of them. She reached over and put a hand on his arm. The muscle quivered under her hand. Jackie realized that he was not happy that Fry had acknowledged the communication attempt. His element of surprise might very well be gone.
"Then it is bad, babe." He curled a hand over hers. Bad or not, he'd make it. But who else would?
The other ship forced the link open, "Unidentified craft, state your purpose and contents," the voice repeated, clearly not used to having anyone ignore it. Fry stared at the communications like they were possessed. She had no experience with any technology that could do that. 'A fluke,' she thought as she switched them off again.
Jackie felt her heart flutter in terror. Yeah it was bad. She focused on Riddick. "Remember you're Smyth, Marcus Smyth…." Jackie said to him, "and you own a business on Tangiers…" He nodded, his face tight. Somehow he doubted the ID switch would work, he had a feeling that these 'Golls were pirates more than mercs. If so, they didn't hook into the guild database while in deep space. Their computers would have old info. But he'd play the bluff, just in case.
Fry discovered that the override was not a fluke as the order came over the speakers again, "Unidentified craft, state your purpose and contents." The man on the other end was sounding very annoyed. It would have been rather easy to see him stomping his foot like a small child demanding an answer, but seeing as he was in command of a ship that had harpooned them it was unwise to dwell on such an image. Fry took a shaky breath, fear sinking deep into her soul. She watched as Riddick toggled the reply mike open.
"Name's Smyth. My ship got scrapped on a transport run. The only other survivors from the whole mess are with me. Outside of that, we got nothing," Riddick answered. Fry frowned. There was a slight pause. Jackie swallowed. Imam shuffled in his seat in discomfort. In spite of the chill in the skiff Fry felt beads of sweat forming on her skin.
"Tell me, Mr. Smyth, what brings you to this lonely corner of space?" The voice stressed the 'mister' in the sentence. 'Not buying it,' Jackie squeezed her eyes closed. Her heart beat a rising tempo. It was becoming hard to breathe.
Fry cut in; "My name is Carolyn Fry, of the Hunter Gratzner. Our ship crashed after a navigational error put us off course. I'm sure you have the distress signal in your records for the transmission made by communications officer Owens before our Comms went dark -- "
"…Mister Smyth?" The voice seemed to ignore Fry. There was a tension filled hesitation as the docking pilot stared in disbelief at the mike.
"I'm a businessman." Riddick slowly answered. At this point he figured it scarcely mattered. The old records would ID him by his voice alone. He could only imagine what is bounty was up to now that he had avoided yet another meeting with death.
"Then it appears we have something in common." There was a pause, "Bring them in." It was an order to someone on the other side of the link and Jackie was positive that this was not a rescue. Without warning she was thrown sideways and forward.
Riddick caught her as the ship lurched into a gravity field much more powerful then the skiff's. They were being pulled backwards. Riddick tightened his fist. This screamed bad. "They're reeling us in." Jackie whispered breathlessly as she looked up at his face. He met her eyes. Suddenly the darkness inside him stepped up. He'd rip his way out of this before he let anyone take his mate away. Jackie felt his set determination. His hands gave her a reassuring squeeze. She nodded at him. They would do whatever they had to do to survive. They'd do it together.
Fry was ashen. The crew of the ship that caught them had completely ignored her. The skiff vibrated as it was locked in place and the remaining power was sucked out of it through the connecting clamps. The bay doors closed off what tiny amount of light the stars had provided. The sensors read vacuum before blinking out. They had no place to run. Carolyn felt Imam's hand on her shoulder in the dark.
An overhead voice rang out "Ship is secure in Bay 3."
Riddick growled. He was the only one who could see. Lifting his goggles he could study the metallic doors that closed tight, swallowing up the skiff like a huge fish eating spawn. It confirmed his vision: newer Kovan ship, likely private, likely very large. The technology had to be state of the art. Standing Jackie back on her feet near the console, he moved over and pulled out one of the few boxes with anything left in it. It was one Paris packed likely for himself. Cigars, protein tablets, a lighter…. A plan began to form. If the lighter worked then maybe he'd have a fighting chance. He took the lighter and flicked it open. For once he was glad of the art dealer's selfish nature, 'Good old Paris, stashing cigars and a lighter on the skiff.' It was good lighter too, lighting on the second try. "Put your shiv on, Jack." He pulled out the emergency cutting torch from the toolbox and lit it up.
Jackie looked at Riddick like he was gong mad, "No offense, but I don't think that's gonna cut it against whatever it is that's coming for us." He smirked at her, the light of the torch glinting off his eyes for a moment before the goggles slid back into place. She immediately knew he had a plan. Jackie winced at her own misconception about what the torch was for before moving by torchlight to pull her shiv out of her pack, tuck it in a sock, and sliding the pack on. She knew that without a doubt that if there were a way to get through this Riddick would find it.
Riddick put the torch to the emergency fire system. Jackie watched him. Fry moved up to Imam. The first step of the plan was to fool their captors into thinking the ship was empty. As the larger ship had to be using top-of-the-line tech, Riddick figured it would be easy to find a low-tech solution. Heat sensors didn't work through fire foam. One of the first tricks he learned when escaping from automated deep storage was that robots usually used heat sensors. Foam was perfect for shutting down their danger level. He felt the first signs of low gravity. Weightlessness usually disoriented people when combined with darkness. Their captors must have been hoping that he would just float right into their cuffs. He cracked his neck and prepared himself. "Stay centered, stay together. Hold your breath." Riddick ordered as the torch's heat began to register as a raging inferno to the ship's sensors.
The skiff's gravity slowly faded leaving them weightless. The fire foam began to fill the ship. "Riddick?" Jackie asked as the torch cut out.
"Yeah, babe?" There were sounds of Riddick ripping out oxygen tanks and connecting a breather tubes to them. Three breathers for the four of them. He pressed one into each of their hands.
"Kick ass out there."
Riddick chuckled, "Yeah, babe."
Fry said, "There's only a few hits left on these."
"Hold your breath."
Jackie felt Imam take her hand as the foam filled the space around them. She reached through the stuff, in the dark and found Riddick there. He could see still, at least. Jackie ran her hand down his taunt arm. 'I got you, you're safe here,' she thought. 'Would it ever be true?' He held his shiv tight in his hand as she passed her fingers over them. She swallowed and took a deep slow breath, 'Stay centered, stay together…' Jackie willed her heart to slow, her breathing to steady. She put the breather in her mouth, filled her lungs, and reached up hoping to find his lips there, somewhere in the dark. He took the oxygen offered, knowing that he'd need it, knowing that she needed to give it. They waited in the dark as the foam lifted them up and cushioned them. They waited. There was a clang on the door. 'Show Time,' Jackie mentally announced. Riddick took one final hit on Jackie's breather and put it back in her mouth. He lightly bumped his forehead against hers. She let go of his hand. Then the hatch came open and the foam expanded, dragging them with it out into a larger space. Light drifted through just enough for Jackie to tell that the foam was grayish tan in color. She held Imam's hand tightly.
A muffled voice said, "Extinguishing foam?"
Then the voice she'd heard over the comm-link shouted, "Fall back! Everyone fall back!" But it was too late; the foam was turning red around her, tinged with Merc blood. The air filled with screams of panic and pain. She felt Fry catch her waist. Jackie pulled her up and found her face, giving her a hit of air from the breather. Imam cast his spent breather off. Jackie removed Fry's, but the docking pilot was panicked. Jackie gave her the last working air. Riddick pushed Jackie to the back side of the foam bubble near the top just long enough for her to catch a breath of air and pulled her back in. Suddenly there were shots flying every which way into the foam. And Riddick was not there.
Sounds of fighting reached Jackie's ears, men being carefully and methodically shown the way to hell. "You certainly know how to make an entrance." It was the voice over the comm-link again.
Jackie found herself close to a gun and grabbed it, "That's nothing, scarecrow. He's gonna kick your ass so hard--" Imam pulled her back into the foam away from the incoming shots. Jackie pushed him off and moved past the edge of the bubble again only to be knocked to the ground by a hard kick to her back which was cushioned only because of her pack. In the weightlessness of the bay she was able to twist as she fell. She grunted as she hit the floor, her pack under her. The effect was to push her chest up into the air in a way that previously would have made her feel rather self-conscious. Instead her mind alerted her to the presence of a tall, thin man dressed in what looked like a white lab coat. His thin face leered at her, eyes concealed behind form fitting mirrored green glasses.
"I think not." Jackie let out a gasp as her assailant leveled his gun at her forehead. "What do you say?"
"Call off your lapdog," Riddick looked up at the slim figure watching from the shadows, the one he knew from his visions, "before his trying to impress you gets him killed." Jackie could hear someone hitting flesh weakly, perhaps Riddick strangling some asshole, but her eyes were focused on the knife tip at the end of the barrel. Okay, that had been stupid. She should've stayed inside the foam, but hell, how could she with her mate in danger?
A woman's voice rang out like a clear bell, but icy cold, "Am I so obvious?"
"Call it what you want, but tell him to stand down, now." Jackie could tell Riddick was furious, maybe at the man standing over her, maybe at the woman holding the leash, maybe even at her for being stupid. Absolutely furious.
"You'll have to excuse Junner's excitement. It sometimes makes him a touch… quick." That voice made Jackie want to slap the mouth it issued from. Even through her fear, Jackie was beginning to feel anger, rage even, towards the bitch running the show. If only she knew how to get away from the blade point pressing into the skin on her forehead. "Though I can't say I blame him. You see, he's just heard so much about you – Riddick." Jackie felt her blood begin to boil. She already knew that they hadn't bought the ID switch, but the smugness in the woman's voice really pissed her off. "Yes, I know your name. Quite a bit more about you, I think."
"Careful. You might find what you're digging for." Riddick's voice carried just as much anger as Jackie felt at the moment.
"I'm willing to share, of course, but I must ask that you surrender your weapon… before any more of my apparently overpaid associates come to an untimely end." Jackie was aware that only herself, Riddick, Junner, the merc under Riddick's boot, the unnamed woman, Imam, and Fry seemed to be alive at this point, or at least, in this room. Drops of blood and bodies floated in and out of view above her attacker's head.
Riddick answered with one of his familiar growls, "Not gonna happen."
"No?" The woman questioned. Jackie swallowed. 'I trust you, Riddick. No matter what, I trust you…please, don't get me killed…' Junner pulled the trigger a hair tighter. She felt moisture gathering in the corner of her eyes from the tension of having a gun point blank on her forehead.
"The girl -- is nothing to me." Jackie detected pain in his voice, 'You're a bad liar, babe… she's not gonna buy it.'
"Then enlighten me. Why would a stone-cold killer such as yourself go to all the trouble of keeping the likes of her alive?" Jackie felt hot blood well up where the blade was cutting into her skin. Imam and Fry emerged from the foam for air. "Unless, of course, you've grown attached."
"She's a cover story, nothing more." Riddick's voice was colder. 'Better,' Jackie thought, 'but too late.' He looked back at her, catching her eye, seeing that she trusted his body's signals more than his mouth, "You shoot her now, and you'll be saving me the trouble." Jackie cringed, even though she knew he was trying to save her it still hurt to hear him say it.
"Then I have your blessing." The woman's footsteps retreated. The sharp point cut deeper, hurting as more blood dribbled down her forehead, like a red tear. Riddick had lost the bluff. Junner pulled the trigger tighter, teasing with his intent, trying to make Jackie show fear, taking sadistic pleasure in her glaring anger. With a grunt Riddick threw his shiv into the barrel of Junner's gun, lifting it away from Jackie's head and to the side. "Maybe I know more about you than you do yourself." The witch's voice drifted back to them.
"Now just ain't the time." Riddick answered, crushing the man's throat with his foot as he stood up further breaking the merc's neck with a twist of his leg.
"Lock them down." Junner lifted his gun to his shoulder with a smirk that was eerily similar to one Johns had worn when he thought he'd won; Jackie fixed the black-haired man a glare that was like shards of glass. "We're done here."