Chapter 8
Title: Ghosts of the past
Author: Kes
Fandom: Pitch Black
Pairings: Riddick/Jack, Riddick/OFC, Jack/OMC
Rating: NC-17, for non-consensual sex and the subject matter.
Summary: Jack tries to deal with sexual abuse. Takes place roughly 15 years after Pitch Black.
Disclaimer: Not mine and I don't own them.
Feedback: Yes please.
Notes: This is not a particularly nice story, but I started wondering....Although we've long since parted ways, I must still thank Leane for the brainstorming session to work all this out.
Chapter 8 (Chapter 1-4, Chapter 5-7, Chapter 8-11)
Chris bypassed his official quarters. He'd been in there earlier long enough to mess up the place and make it look like he lived there. He'd thrown clothes about, put dirty dishes on the kitchenette counter, ripped the covers half off the bed and flopped on the couch a few times. Going to security, he locked himself in his office and turned on the camera system he'd put in his official quarters.
Let's see if someone was watching us....
There was a camera directly outside his door and he turned it this way and that. If Riddick was on the station, he'd had to have seen them together by now. He'd killed that man Brian, Chris had confirmed that report, so it stood to reason that he'd try to kill Chris too....
With a sigh, Chris got up and made a pot of coffee.
Damn Riddick, he thought.
How could a man hurt a girl like that? How could he force himself on her again and again? How could he brand her; cut her body up...?
He just couldn't understand how Riddick could look at Audrey, beautiful Audrey, and put a mark of any kind on her pale, smooth skin. She looked delicate; looked like she needed someone to protect her. Chris wanted to wrap Audrey in his arms and never let anyone or anything hurt her again. He couldn't promise her that she'd never get hurt, but he could do his best to keep it from happening.
He thought back to not even half an hour earlier.
She'd looked gorgeous in that dress. With her curved figure and long slender legs it had emphasized just how feminine she was. She'd had on make-up, too. Not much, just a tiny bit to show off her pretty blue eyes. Her hair had been free of the clasps she usually kept it in, and curled softly. He'd almost kissed her at her door. Almost. He'd caught a glimpse of apprehension in her eyes though, apprehension and that darker glint of fear, so he'd only raised her hand to his mouth and kissed it's back.
Chris sighed. He was patient. He'd wait until she was ready.
Returning to his chair, he watched and waited for some sign of an intruder.
-------------------------------
Riddick found the wires for the cameras and carefully avoided them, prying up tiles and looking down into the rooms. There was a musty smell to the air, stale, like no one really lived there.
He cursed.
Stupid! Of course Chris wouldn't live in the quarters listed as his.
The head of security wasn't a stupid man; Riddick had figured that out within an hour of coming onto the station. Chris had welcomed him through a voice connection on the vid screen in his quarters; asking questions. He was good; phrasing the same questions in different ways, trying to find out what, if anything, of Will Gordon was fake. He'd seemed satisfied with the answers and Riddick had faded into the background like he was used to doing.
Where was Chris hiding?
Where would he go?
What was he doing right this minute?
"Where are you?" He whispered.
Riddick returned to the hallway, dropping down from the ceiling when no one was there to see him. He grinned and straightened his clothes. Most people didn't realize that the trick to going in through the ceiling was to move on the supports, not the tiles. Tiles had a tendency to break.
---------------------------------
A tiny alarm sounded.
Chris peered carefully into the monitors.
Someone was in the ceiling above the quarters, removing tiles and replacing them.
He'd put sensors in each tile for such an occasion. Call him paranoid, but now he was glad he'd done it. He wasn't certain the intruder was Riddick, but there were no squabbles on the station right now; no reason for anyone to be after him. The only trouble he could think of had Riddick's face on him.
He saw a couple of people walk past his quarters; one of the med technicians and Will Gordon.
Chris shook his head. He just couldn't get a feel for Will. Sometimes the man seemed one thing and at other times another thing entirely. His past was well documented, and yet at the same time too smoothly rough. He chuckled a little. Smoothly rough. He had a feeling Will Gordon wasn't what he let on, but that was true of a lot of people on the station, Audrey included. Will had never been a problem on the station. He did his job and never made waves. Despite his physical presence, the man had the ability to blend into the background. Chris could appreciate that, since he'd learned to do it as well.
He went to get another cup of coffee.
----------------------------------
Ann opened her door to find Will standing there, his hands on the wall on either side of the door. His face was cold, eyes blazing anger and she could feel the violence in him pushing out like a heat. Her hand immediately went to shut and lock the door, but he was quickly inside, pushing her back into the living room. She stumbled and fell onto her rear. "Will..."
"If you know what's good for you, you'll shut the fuck up right now."
Dimly, she realized that his accent was gone.
"Get those clothes off and get in bed."
Her eyes flew to the security panel, but he crouched beside her. Something glinted in his hand.
A knife. He's got a knife.
"They wouldn't get here fast enough, Ann baby. Don't piss me off."
Scrambling backward, she pushed herself up and ran for her bedroom.
She'd never been afraid of him before.
Her hands shook and she reached out for the security panel beside her dresser, fingers grazing the keypad a frustrating second before Will twisted her arm and whirled her around. Something in her shoulder popped as his fist connected with her jaw.
Ann fell back onto the floor in a daze, blood dripping from her mouth. She could taste the blood, that coppery taste, and knew her teeth had cut her cheek. He pushed at her shoulder. There was another pop, the joint re-aligning and the pain from it dulling.
"What part of 'don't piss me off' didn't you understand?"
She swallowed, grimaced from the blood. "What'd I do?" She asked.
He didn't answer her.
"Will?"
"Shut up, Ann." He dragged her to her feet and threw her at her bed. "Get those clothes off."
Shakily, she undid her robe and let it fall, not understanding what was happening. He didn't have to do this; didn't have to hurt her, so why was he? Ann sobbed quietly.
Riddick stared at the woman standing naked in front of him. She wasn't Jack; wasn't even close to looking or sounding like Jack, but she responded the same. That fear in her eyes made him hard and he pressed his hand to that hardness before reaching for her.
Time to quit playing games.
Chapter 9
Chris crawled through the ceiling of Audrey's quarters, putting tiny sensors in the ceiling tiles. Someone had been up there and recently. Although he wore a mask over his face for the dust, he didn't need it. The place was clean, like someone had been camped up there for quite awhile. One section of tile was even easy to get up when it should have been a bear to move. Whoever it was had access to Audrey. Chris was willing to bet it was Riddick. With the access area so clean, it meant Riddick had been on the station for a couple weeks; maybe even months.
He shone his light around him, searching the dark space for an intruder, then returned to his work. Let the bastard try and come through the ceiling again. The sensors would pick him up and Chris would have a security detail there before the man knew what hit him.
----------------------------
Riddick watched Jack while she ate her lunch and glanced every so often towards the door. Was she waiting for Ann? He chuckled. Happy waiting Jackie girl.
Taking his tray to the dish room belt, Riddick took a last look at her and left the cafeteria.
Time to end it.
-----------------------------------
Jack ended her shift at four-thirty and headed towards her quarters.
------------------------------------
At four forty-five, Chris stared down at Ann Lefler's body, the security staff around him, taking pictures and documenting the woman's death. He almost couldn't bear to look at her body. She'd been beaten and raped, then gutted. Chris hadn't seen such a savage attack since...well, since he'd looked at the pictures from Brian Bigham's death. Of course, Brian hadn't been raped, but the rest of the scene was the same; a cut from groin to sternum opening the body....
Chris swallowed and breathed shallowly through his mouth.
The scent of death was always the same, hanging heavily in the recycled air of the quarters.
Shit. He thought and stepped back to let his staff do their job.
An explosion rocked the floor.
Fuck, what now?
Chris ran out the door.
--------------------------------
The table was set beautifully for two, with candles, china, crystal and silver. There were red roses in a vase at the center and a card at one place. Classical music played softly. Jack looked around each room and found no one there. If this was Chris' doing, then he was out of line. It was too soon for a candlelit dinner alone.
Taking her hair from it's clasp, she shook it out and went to the table, picking up the card.
'Why aren't you wearing the black and red set I sent you Jack?'
Her smile faltered and she dropped the card, hurrying to the door.
It wouldn't open.
Jack tried all the codes she could think of, but she was locked in.
Trying not to panic, she went to the security panel and punched in the code.
Nothing.
Her heart began to pound hard in her chest and she pushed the emergency button.
Nothing.
"No!" Jack hit the console, then heard a creak behind her.
Riddick swung down from the ceiling, dropping lightly to his feet. He hadn't changed much in six years and Jack wondered if he'd been in cryo sleep at all.
"Your boyfriend may be good, Jack, but I'm better. No one's coming to rescue you; I made sure of that."
There was the sound of an explosion somewhere on the station.
"He's gonna be a little busy for awhile with all the bombs I set up."
"What do you want?" Her voice was surprisingly calm.
"You know what I want." He smiled. "You. That beautiful body of yours wrapped around me again."
"No. I'm not leaving with you."
"Never said I wanted to take you with me."
She drew in a breath that was wheezy from panic. "Do you think you're scaring me Riddick?"
"I know I am. I scare you Jack. I scare you badly." Riddick took a slim piece of metal from his pocket and placed it on the flame of one lit candle, balancing it on the edges of the candle holder.
"Maybe you do."
"Maybe?" He backed her up against the wall.
Jack gulped. Even having worked out every day, he was still so much stronger than her it was terrifying. Inside she screamed for Chris to come and help her. Would he get to her before Riddick killed her?
One hand slid into her hair. "Are you gonna be difficult, Jackie girl?"
"It's been six years."
His other hand curved about her rear, pressing her to him. "Missed me, baby? 'Cause I've sure missed you. Ann was a pathetic fuck compared to you, Jackie girl."
Jack was frozen against the wall, brought back in time to all those times he'd taken her. "Ann?"
Riddick added a drawl to his voice. "Like your usual Audrey? Vodka Collins, comin' right up."
No, no, no, no....
"Will Gordon at your service, ma'am."
"Oh God..." She breathed. Will Gordon had been on the station for months. If Riddick was Will....
"Do you remember the night you were packing for your first posting?"
She nodded. How could she forget? He hadn't left until dawn had lit the sky.
"We're going to do a little re-enactment, baby. No one's going to interrupt us, so go and put on that set I bought you."
"Please don't...." His lips grazed her ear.
"If you're going to plead, get down on your knees and persuade me."
She couldn't do it. She had before, several times, yet couldn't bear the thought of putting him in her mouth. Not now, not ever again.
He brushed his lips over hers. "Let's get down to business."
Chapter 10
Notes: Thanks to Leane for brainstorming with me and helping me work this out.
****
Jack's hands shook as she changed into the lingerie, bile rising in her throat.
Oh God, not poor Ann, she thought.
Why hadn't she just asked Chris to check Will Gordon out?
He was careful, a little voice inside her mind whispered. Riddick covered his tracks. No one would be able to find a link from Will to him. No one.
Her stomach churned and she felt on the verge of throwing up. Jack swallowed the urge. What good would it do her? It'd only make Riddick angry.
He stood in the doorway watching her, a cruel expression on his face.
"Talked to Imam lately?" He drawled, quirking an eyebrow upward.
She shook her head.
"Why not?" His lips curved slightly. "Not on speaking terms, Jackie girl?"
She managed to fasten her bra and turned to face him fully. Jack couldn't speak. She wanted to cry and scream and plead, but not at his price.
"He didn't beg. I hadn't expected him to."
What? Her eyes lifted to his. What was he saying?
Now Riddick grinned. "After he said he'd kill me for touching you, I told him how you behaved when he wasn't there to see you. The indecent skirts, the tight tops, coming into my room and offering yourself to me...all things to seduce a man trying to make his life right. He bought it. Readily so. Hook, line and sinker."
"I never..." The reason for Imam's sudden change from anger at Riddick to disgust of her--in only hours-- was blindingly clear now.
"No." He came to her, slid his hand along the curve of her hip where his initials were carved into it. "But he believed you did. I made him believe it. The problem came when I decided to come for you. He couldn't understand why I'd want to, not if I really was making my life right. I had to tell him. You should have seen the pain, the sheer agony on his face when he realized what he'd done. It was...heady." He bent his head, kissed her temple. "He tried to kill me then. Tried. And failed. He wouldn't tell me where you were posted, not like all the other times."
All along Imam had been the one telling Riddick where she was. Jack's eyes clouded with tears, her hands beating at him. Every blow she landed on his wide chest was blocked until he finally wrestled her onto the floor. "Bastard!"
"I've never claimed to be otherwise, baby. He never told me where you were. I cut him and he still wouldn't tell me. Found it easily enough once he was dead though."
All of the fight went out of Jack. Imam was dead. Riddick had killed him. She gasped, choked on tears and air, not caring that Riddick was removing the lingerie he'd just ordered her to put on. He took his time with her, there on the floor, his plan to re-enact the night a few years earlier forgotten as he brutally slid into her unresisting body.
Jack tuned him out. She managed to pull her mind from what was happening and distance herself. It was odd, that she looked down on her own body without emotion and could look the other way....
-------------------------------------
Chris was exhausted.
No sooner did he settle one crisis than another one would pop up. It was nearly one in the morning and his clothes were blackened from smoke, the acrid scent of scorching plastic hanging about him and stinging his nostrils. He was bone weary, but had one thing left to do before he could haul his weary ass to bed.
He had to go to his office and check to make sure Audrey was safe.
-----------------------------------------
She came back into herself slowly, the aches and pains from the past eight hours creeping over her. Bruises were forming on her arms, breasts, hips, buttocks and thighs; bruises from the possessive clasp of Riddick's hands. Between her legs was one painful contusion. Sitting, Jack winced and hissed at the sharp pains shooting up her, her gaze cautiously searching the darkened room for Riddick.
He came to the kitchen doorway and leaned against the doorjamb. He was fully dressed, goggles resting on his forehead.
It was dark enough that he didn't need them to see.
"Why can't you just leave me alone?" Her strained whisper carried surprisingly loud across the room.
"Is that what you want, Jackie girl?" His voice was calm, amused even. "Do you really want me to leave you alone?"
Raising her anguished gaze to the silvery glint of his, Jack didn't even flinch. She was too tired of her own fear of him. "My name is Audrey."
Riddick strode to her quickly, the air heavy with violent emotion. Bending, he grabbed a handful of her thick blond hair and yanked her to her feet. He dragged her into the kitchen.
Sitting on the heated burner of her stove was the piece of metal he'd taken out earlier. Jack scratched at his hand, nails leaving reddening welts that began to bleed. He only increased the pressure of his fingers in her hair, forcing her to face him. His features were twisted with dark, animalistic emotion.
"Johns wanted me to kill you. I could have taken your life with one swipe of my shiv, but I killed him instead. Your life is mine and you want free of me?"
He pulled her so close that she could see the angry flush darkening his skin and the silver disc that covered the iris of his eyes.
"You want free of me, baby?" The words had a harsh guttural tone, demanding an answer.
In the living room, the security console squawked, a broken message coming through loudly.
"Audrey...answer...way...hang on...."
"Yes." she said. "I want free."
Riddick snarled and jerked her around so that her back was against his chest. His voice was in her ear. "No matter how many Ann Lefler's you get counseling from; no matter how patient and loving and tender your security man is, Jackie girl, you're always gonna think of me. I'm there in your mind, I've had your body and I'm in your soul. I'm a part of you, of who you are, and you can hate that part, but it's always gonna be there. You will always see my face and you will always hear my voice in the dark. Always."
His hand lashed out, snatching up the hot metal and whipping it onto her bare hip where his initials were. He held it there, obliterating the previous scars.
Jack screamed, the smell of her own burning flesh sending dry heaves through her stomach, and through her own shuddering, she thought she felt Riddick's body shaking also. Her knees buckled when he let go and she fell to the floor whimpering, hands moving to cover the blistering burn on her hips.
"I release you." Riddick pulled his goggles down to cover his eyes. "You wanted to be free of me....You're free."
And then he was gone and she was alone in her quarters.
-------------------------------------
All Chris could hear in his mind as he ran towards Audrey's quarters was the alarm screaming.
Please don't let me be too late.
The vid screen connection was cut off from her end and he wasn't even sure his panicked message had gotten to her.
He'd walked into the outer office and been greeted with the news that Richard B. Riddick was Will Gordon. Sometime during the eight hours that had gone by since Ann's body had been found, the man had left a message for Chris announcing who he was. The arrogance of Riddick amazed Chris. Anyone could have looked at the message; but then, there had been the explosions that kept the whole staff busy all over the station. Then, he'd opened his office door; the alarm screeching as the soundproof door had slid open.
Riddick was Will Gordon.
Will had been on the station for months.
Chris heard Audrey's scream as he rounded the corner, a burst of adrenalin pushing him on. He spent a frustrating ten minutes over-riding every block Riddick had put in and when the door finally opened, he couldn't see Audrey. Her sobs were loud and filled with pain.
"Audrey?" Chris wanted to rush in, but a patch of blackness in the ceiling kept him from doing so. Riddick could be up there waiting. All of his instincts however, told him the man was long gone; that the explosions and the codes had been carefully planned to buy him time to escape.
"In the k-kitchen, Chris. I need medical attention."
"How bad are you hurt, honey?" The endearment slipped out before he could stop it."
"Burned. Bruised. Not urgent, but painful."
He heard her draw in a loud breath.
"He's gone Chris. He was gone right after I screamed."
Chris skirted the hole in the ceiling and moved to the security console, keeping his eyes trained on the hole. No out-going messages could be sent. He snagged a blanket from the back of the couch and moved to the kitchen, eyes widening to see her naked. "What did he do? Where's the burn?"
She took the quilt and pulled it about her, then moved aside the section at her hip to show him. There was a wet cloth on the floor. She'd tried to cool the area. "He's gone. He's finally gone." She moved into his arms, placing her head on his chest.
Chris helped her from her quarters, giving one last glance at the hole in the ceiling.
Was Riddick gone, just like that?
Somehow, he didn't think it was that easy.
---------------------------------
On a transport ship leaving the sector, Riddick used a terminal to hack into the station computers. Finding the files he wanted, he downloaded them, covered his tracks and settled in to read about Chris Braeker.
-----------------------------------------
The weeks had been tiring ones, Audrey dealing with Ann's death and the news that Imam had indeed been murdered months before. She took the vacation days that she'd been building since beginning to work and somehow, Chris had the time too.
Five weeks after Riddick had gone, with her bruises fading, Audrey looked at herself in her bedroom mirror, willing the fear from her eyes. Somehow, she'd kept the fact of Riddick forcing her again from Chris. Even now, she wasn't sure how. In another couple months, she wouldn't be able to hide it. Not when she started to show....
Her hand touched her belly. It was still early enough that if she did this, Chris might never have to know....
Audrey bit her lip and reached for her robe, sliding it on over her nakedness.
"Coming out, honey?"
She heard Chris call from the living room. "Be right out." With a last check of her appearance, she joined him.
There was no comfort in knowing that Riddick had been right.
A part of him was in her.
-------------------------------
Epilogue, one year later:
Evelyn Braeker was glad to finally be on her own. She'd been the last of her parents four children to leave home and the youngest. As the only girl, there was a ten-year difference between herself and the twins and fifteen between herself and her oldest brother Chris. She slipped through the streets of the city, finally reaching her apartment building. She was about to go in the tiny apartment she called home, when a deep voice startled her.
"Evening."
Evie glanced back to see a tall, muscular man at the now open door of the apartment across from hers. He didn't move closer. "Hi."
"I'm your new neighbor."
He looked to be somewhere in his late thirties, but with people everywhere using cryo to travel, who could tell for certain? "Oh." He was wearing some kind of goggles, despite the dim hallway lights.
"What's your name?"
"Evie." She said, turning the lock on her door and opening it. "Evie Braeker."
He smiled. "I'm Rick....Rick Johns."
The goggles hid the satisfied gleam in his eyes.
Evie smiled a little. "Nice to meet you."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Evie."
When the girl had gone into her apartment, Riddick removed his goggles. "A definite pleasure."
He slipped the shiv from it's sheath, caressed the edge for just a second, then moved back into the empty apartment across from hers and shut the door firmly.
~The End~