Thirteen
Riddick watched her as she sat in the pilots’ chair and ran the systems check. He had sat outside the skiff and listened to the entire conversation, under the guise of giving himself a shave. It may have seemed frivolous, but it gave him an excuse to be there. That and it let him keep an eye on Shazza and Jack. He had heard every word of what Johns and Fry had planned for the rest of them.
Riddick had long ago accepted that he was a killer. It had troubled him, when he was very young, when he didn’t understand. There were still some times when it troubled him; but he accepted what he was.
He was a killer, a murderer. His hands fisted at his sides and he fought to keep his breath silent and rhythmic. Yes, he was a killer; but he killed because he had to. He killed when there was no other way to do what needed done. Sometimes he killed because what was at hand simply called out for a killing.
If someone had told him that he had a deeply held sense of honour, a code, he would have laughed outright, but only because he hadn’t the experience to see it that way.
He felt his blood burn, at the thought of Shazza, and what Johns had planned for her. He pictured little Jack, her body torn apart by shotgun blasts, and the blood pounded in his ears until he had to fight to think straight. He didn’t understand where this came from, this rage. He had never been so angry before, and he had to get control over himself, or he wouldn’t be able to stop it, and it could get them all killed.
It was that thought, that he needed to be cold and rational, not so that he could survive but so that they could, that had his breath even out again as he watched Fry in the pilot’s seat.
He was a killer, and he killed to survive, everything he did he did to survive. Just. Like. Her. The self-hatred washed over him then with a force that nearly dropped him. He wanted to say no, he wasn’t like her, but there was a part of him that was, that could be. To survive was everything to him.
There were times in his life when it was all that he had, when he literally had nothing else, but he had looked at Shazza, at Jack, even at Imam, and he had saw a glimmer of something more.
He stood in the darkened bay of the skiff as his eyes bored holes into the back of Fry’s head, and he knew that if something happened to Shazza or Jack, if he didn’t stop it, that something more than just survival would be at stake. That not all of him would survive, his body might, but nothing else; there could never be anything else. He would not be like Fry; he would never be like Fry, not anymore; that part of him was burnt away forever.
Riddick slipped soundlessly across the darkened bay and let his breath deepen so that she would know he was there. He left his goggles on for fear that whatever emotion he was still capable of would show, and while he certainly wanted to push her, he didn’t want the situation to escalate. He didn’t want Fry to know that he knew, in case she went to Johns and the deal changed in a way that he didn’t know about. But he did want to push her, to try to make her see before it all went wrong.
Fry nearly screamed when she turned to close the hatch, so that she could finish the hull integrity check; she hadn’t heard him. Riddick hit the switch to the hatch and the daylight disappeared and left her in the dark alone with him. “We’re a few shy.” His voice was so flat and dead; a black hole that pulled even the little light there was into its depths.
There was a small part of her, upon hearing what he had said, that screamed to her ‘he knows!’ But there was no way he could know, and there was no way she would ever admit it, not here, and not to him.
“Power cells.” His head tilted to the side as he advanced on her, the black soulless pits of his goggled eyes continued to bore into her. He added the last almost as an afterthought, as though he wanted to see her panic before he let her off the hook. “It’s strange not doing a run up on the main drive yet.” Fry didn’t know what terrified her more; the pitch of his voice or the almost conversational tone of what he said.
She hated that her voice squeaked when she answered that the power cells were coming. She wanted to run but all she could manage was to retreat until the backs of her legs hit the pilot’s seat. There was nowhere to run. She got angry then, as she looked at him; he was a predator and he wanted her to run.
Fry couldn’t look at him anymore; she knew that if she continued to stand there as he watched her that she would buckle; she would tell him everything before her legs gave out and she begged him not to kill her. A light blinked on the console and gave her the excuse she needed to sit down and avert her eyes from him; she took it gladly.
Riddick wasn’t done with her yet, he wanted her to know exactly what she agreed to when she sided with Johns. He took another step closer to her and let his arms span the width of the skiff. He did it casually enough but even if Fry had the strength to get up and run from him, she could never make it. She would run and then she would feel his hand come down on her and pull her under. The tears threatened again, but she refused to cry, and instead chose to channel her terror of Riddick into hatred. She hated him; with every sensual purr that came out of him she hated him even more. His voice was right in her ear, like the pull of her own guilty conscience.
“I’ve been meaning to catch up with you alone, unrestrained.”
He knew the power of his own voice, and he used it now, as he slipped up behind her, close enough to touch her. Fry shivered involuntarily at the seduction in his voice. It held no promise of lust or desire but something worse and dark and far more final; it was an icy fist that coiled at the base of her neck that held her still and sent shards of ice down her spine.
She had never been so terrified, or so aroused, in her whole life; and she knew that Riddick knew. Whether from experience or some signal she gave off, perhaps he even smelled it on her, but he knew. There would be no way that she could lie to this man and not have him know. It made her cling to the slim hope of survival she had, and so she chose to remain absolutely still. Maybe he would pass over her, and she would lie unseen.
“Does Johns seem like a do right man to you? Do you think I can trust him with my life?” Fry had thought she had made a deal with the devil when she spoke to Johns, but she thought wrong. Oh she accepted that Johns was a frightening man in his own way, but if the devil had a voice he sounded like Riddick. How could a voice from the grave be filled with such good cheer?
She could almost feel the tiny smile that pulled at his lips as he crept closer to her, now crouched over the back of her chair like the old serpent himself. “Why? What did you hear?” She tried to sound light hearted but couldn’t do it; the shake in her own voice silenced her before he could say another word.
“I guess. I guess if it were trickeration he would just X me out. He’d kill me.” Fry felt the weight of his words move closer before she felt him, his breath a whisper against the skin of her neck. “Then again, I am worth twice as much alive.” He held his breath for a beat, to listen to her heart race; her breath was in small pants as her chest rose and fell, and there was that deeper scent underneath. Arousal.
“Oh, you didn’t know that did you. Your friend Johns…” He moved in close enough to let his skin brush against her, his breath fanned her hair as he pressed in close. “Ain’t a cop. He’s got that nickel slick badge.” Riddick shifted to the other side and Fry thought for a moment that he would back up so that she could start to breathe again but it was not to be. He just switched sides and got even closer, his lips brushed against her ear as he spoke.
She hated the wetness that seeped between her thighs, as her own body betrayed her. She hated even more that deep inhale Riddick took, as though he could smell it on her. “And that blue uniform. But he’s just a merc; and I’m just a payday. The creed is greed…”
She knew it was true the moment he said it, that everything he had said was true, even if she didn’t want to admit it. A merc, and he hadn’t told her, she had thought he was a cop. Then again, she wasn’t honest with him either, she wasn’t the captain. The bitterness rose in her again. Why should it matter if he was a merc? What difference did that really make? So what if he hadn’t told her. She didn’t really believe that last but it was a comfort to tell herself nonetheless. She had made up her mind, and really, who else did she have to trust? Riddick? “Enough Riddick; I won’t listen to any more.”
He smiled, she might think she had heard enough, but she hadn’t heard everything he had intended to tell her yet, so he pressed closer one last time, to whisper in her ear. “Have you ever asked yourself why Johns shakes like that? You should ask him. Before you trust him with your life, you should ask him.”
Fry nearly whimpered with relief when she felt his breath leave the side of her neck. She wouldn’t turn around, but she could still see him as clear as day; she pictured him as he uncoiled and made to leave the skiff.
As the hatch opened she looked down to see that the hull integrity test was complete, the skiff was ready to launch, all it needed was power. Now Riddick knew that as well, he had waited, and watched over her shoulder to make sure.
As she bolted across the courtyard to find Johns she told herself that she just needed to tell him this latest development with Riddick, but her heart still raced from her encounter and she knew that was a lie. Fry saw his jacket on the back of one of the chairs in the communal room. She pressed her back against the side of the building and tried to get a grip of herself; what was she going to do, run into the room in a panic and say what, that Riddick had scared her? She could fall apart all she wanted when she was off this rock. Until then, only her survival mattered; everything else had to be put aside.
She walked quietly into the room and froze, as she watched Johns inject himself with a small syringe. The shakes that Riddick had mentioned; Johns was apparently a hype as well as a merc, and had told her about neither. It explained so much once she actually knew.
If she was anywhere else but where she was she might have stormed into the room and demanded an explanation. She didn’t need one, all she needed was for his head to stay clear long enough to get them off the planet, then she could worry about it. She knew he would laugh at any sense of righteous indignation she indulged in now, so she slipped back out of the room without a word to check on the progress with the sandcat.
Paris ran up to of them, out of breath. “You better come take a look at this!” Shazza and Jack came down off the sandcat to stand next to Paris, Imam and Suleiman. Shazza felt Riddick as he moved up behind her. He said nothing, and no one else heard him, but he put his hand on her shoulder, and let her know he was there. She didn’t need to ask to know that he had watched over her and Jack the entire time, even if she couldn’t see him.
Shazza rested lightly into the hand on her shoulder and it gave her voice a strength she didn’t feel as they watched the largest planet in the system begin to push up against the horizon, its rings already dangerously close to the two setting suns. “If we need anything from the crash ship we had better go now. That sandcat’s solar.”