Chapter 29; Survival Instinct
Jack barely made it back to the ship before her stomach rebelled completely. She ran to the bathroom as Riddick headed for the cockpit. The lurch of the ship taking off made her lose every last bit of food she'd had that day. Jack cried, one hand holding her hair back, the other gripping the toilet seat. She was still shivering, her skin icy. Jack sobbed. I'm cold, she thought and Riddick appeared.
Instinct had kept him alive; instinct that he'd first learned to follow as a teenager. He remembered the first time gut instinct had caused him to flee. By the time he'd gotten to a safer place, the urge to retch had become more than an urge and he'd puked in a gutter until nothing more would come up. He'd sat shivering in garbage and mud, unable to get warm for well over an hour.
Riddick set course and listened to Jack in the bathroom, alternately crying and puking. He fully sympathized. He'd felt horrible the first few times; before he'd learned to ride the instinct and use it. Jack would have to learn.
"I'm cold."
Riddick stood. Her voice was muffled, as though his ears were full of cotton, but he heard her, and went to the bathroom. Leaning against the doorjamb, he peered in at her. "Let's get you warmed up, baby." Holding out his hand, he waited.
"I can't get up." Jack pushed herself back so that she was sitting with
her back against the wall. Every part of her seemed to be shaking and she
felt like she'd never be able to stand again.
He went to her and crouched down, not to lift her, but to support her so
that she could stand. Riddick held her up so that she could brush her teeth,
then helped her into their bedroom. He had to lay her on the bed, for she
no longer had the strength to move even that much.
"I'm so c-cold, Riddick."
"I know, baby. I'll warm you up." He stripped her clothes from her and slipped the covers over her. "Hold on." As quickly as he could, Riddick pulled his clothes off and joined her, drawing her cold body tightly to him. There was nothing sexual in the way he held her, his hands moving over her, trying to warm her. Gradually the heat of his body, combined with the covers on the bed, took the cold from her and she quit shivering.
"What was that?"
Her question could have meant anything, but Riddick knew what she was trying
to ask.
"That's how I kept one step ahead of Johns for as long as I did. That's
how Fry got from the cave to the skiff with only that one tiny light. It's
true survival instinct, Jack."
"Fry didn't get cold. Fry didn't throw-up."
"You never saw her do it." He kissed her temple. "Before we came back she tossed her cookies in the mud on her hands and knees. Not that there was much to come up." He sighed. "You have it strong; about as strong as me it seems. The first time it came on me, quick and hard, I reacted just like you did, only no one was around to warm me up."
"Will it get easier?"
"Depends."
"On what?"
"You have to learn to use the feeling. It's not that I'm so much stronger or smarter than everyone else..."
"But you are."
"It's that I've learned to use the instinct in addition to the adrenaline rush. The instinct tells you when to run, but..." He drew back slightly. "We'll discuss this later. You need to rest." Riddick watched her drift off.
Not everyone had the instinct to the extent he did. The prison shrinks had called it fight or flight, but it was more than that. It was something inside him that told him ‘get the hell out’ when the odds were against him. Almost a voice in his head, although he’d never told anyone that part of it; how that voice told him to go and go now. He hadn’t mentioned that because everyone in the prisons had become so afraid of him already, he hadn’t needed a crazy diagnosis on top of it. Let them think he was a plain, psychotic son of a bitch.
Does she hear a voice too, Riddick wondered, easing from the bed. He padded to the front. They needed some place to hide out for awhile; someplace he could teach Jack how to ride the instinct. Someplace quiet.
Fry. Look at Fry.
There was that voice again, but Riddick followed the instruction without thinking about the voice, or the fact that, if he really concentrated, he’d recognize it as the voice of the shop keeper who’d given him the box and choker for Jack.
"I will not cry." Skye stood in the park down the road from the apartment building. She could feel panic welling up within her and forced it down. Imam hadn’t been at the library. When she’d called, he had already left; the librarian remembered them clearly. The girl had been agitated about something....
Skye took a step onto the path and nearly passed out from the sudden cold. Her eyes lit upon a woman walking towards her. Blond hair curled at her neck and white eyes stared unblinkingly. Her lips were red, like she’d smeared fresh blood on them. Skye couldn’t move. It felt as though hundreds of insects were crawling over her skin. There was a low buzzing in her mind. She gasped for breath. As the woman passed her, Skye saw images in her mind; images of blood and death and unimaginable pain. Black creatures invading human bodies and taking over the functions, torturing the soul still inside. Images played in fast forward, the span of centuries filling her mind in seconds and causing her to cry out in emotional anguish.
The woman turned her head, stared into Skye’s eyes for a single second
and smiled.
The images disappeared, leaving only the remembrance of unspeakable terror,
and urgency pushed Skye towards her home at a run.
"Oh God!" She hurried into the building and up the stairs. She saw the
door of her home blown away and her husband motionless; crumpled on the
floor, a circle of blood around him.
Skye screamed.
Chapter 30; Territory
"You bitch!" The man who had called himself Paul Darrin railed at the woman in the enveloping cloak. "She was mine!" He threw a wooden box at her, smashed a display case with one foot. "She was mine and you gave her to him!"
The woman didn’t move, unconcerned with the destruction he was heaping upon her shop.
"She is no thing to own."
"She was mine!"
"Audrey Holmes belongs to no one. I didn’t give her to Riddick because she wasn’t mine to give." Her tone was that of an adult speaking to a child, slow with each word enunciated carefully.
He was breathing hard, sweat gleaming wetly on his face, spittle gathering on his unshaven chin. His eyes glowed briefly green, then returned to normal. He gripped the edge of a display case, broken glass slicing his palms, blood dripping to the floor. "I’ll take her from him. She was meant for me, you double crossing bitch."
"She chose him long ago, Garritt. Even if you had taken her and forced her as you did her friend, she would not have chosen you. You could not have unlocked the power within her as he does."
Garritt strained to see her face, but the veil she always wore kept her features hidden, all save her blind eyes. "How did you know about the girl?" Just once, he’d like to see why she kept her face hidden.
She laughed throatily, yet without humor. "I know many things."
A snarl left him and he launched himself at her, hands grasping her throat
and squeezing. She made no noise, no protestations vocally or physically
for what he was doing, her eyes staring up at him. He squeezed as hard as
he could, grinned as her windpipe crushed beneath his fingers and finally
dropped her to the floor.
Garritt knelt beside her, his hands reaching for the veil and hood. The fabric was unlike any he’d touched before. The inhumanness of her finally registered and he frowned. The cloth felt like a snake’s skin and before he could lose his nerve, he ripped the cloth away. Revulsion welled within him. She was grotesque, face a mask of sores, welts and bruised looking places. The veil had hidden all that, giving only glimpses of a gently curved mouth and delicate bone structure.
"No wonder you cover up, hag."
Garritt stood, kicked her body and stalked from the shop.
When he had gone, the woman sat and breathed in convulsively. With a wave
of her hand, the contents of the shop, indeed the shop itself, vanished.
Boxes, jewelry, display cases...gone as though never having existed. She
stood and dropped her cloak, letting the veil drift to the earthen floor.
Her features were delicate, skin clear and golden. She was ethereally beautiful.
Running a hand through her long blue-black hair, she smiled, sharp teeth
gleaming whitely.
"That’s it, my friend. Run after her. Run after your fate."
Throwing back her head, she laughed for several long moments before fading from view.
When Jack woke, the ship was silent. Throwing on one of the chemises Riddick liked, a purple one, she made her way to the front of the ship, her mood less than amiable. He was there, asleep in the pilot’s chair, his head back and throat exposed. Leaning around him, she called up their course and studied it. They were going to the Quaran system.
Why? What was there?
Sitting in the other chair, she called up what Riddick had last looked
at, her frown deepening.
Carolyn Fry had lived on one of the planets there. Her file gave a brief
run-down of her life. Calling up the listing for the apartment complex Fry
had lived at, Jack saw that someone had kept Fry listed. Who was living
there?
"Why are we going there?" She asked. When Riddick didn’t answer, she looked at him. "I know you’re awake, Riddick. Quit playing possum and tell me."
He opened his eyes and stretched. "We need someplace to hide out."
"Why there?" She turned the chair towards him.
"Why not?"
"Quit being mysterious and tell me. You wouldn’t have set a course for there and pulled up all this without some reason."
He swiveled his chair to face her and leaned over, elbows resting on his knees. "You look damn good in purple, Jack."
"Don’t change the subject." Her lip curled in almost a snarl.
"You know, we never have initiated this part of the ship."
Her heart beat just a little faster at the suggestion, but she was not going to be swayed from the topic. "Come on. Tell me."
Reaching out a hand, he ran it along her thigh, edging up the chemise.
Jack covered his hand with hers, but it didn’t deter him; he simply placed his other hand on her too. Without saying anything, he slipped onto his knees before her, crouching back on his heels. "Riddick."
His hands curled about her hips and he yanked her off the chair and onto his lap. The fabric of his pants was rough against her, but he wasn’t aroused, not yet. He was trying to change the subject.
"Answer me."
In response, he ran his hands up her back and placed his lips against her neck, nibbling gently.
"Either tell me or forget doing this." Her lower back began to ache.
He sighed, breath hot against her. "Nothing mysterious, Jack. Just had a hunch we’d be safe there for awhile." Riddick laid his head on her shoulder, stared at her hair.
"A hunch like that instinct at the apartment?"
"Something like that."
"That’s all you had to say." Jack almost cringed at the tone of her voice. She couldn’t help it; the tone just came out.
Riddick lifted her from his lap and set her back on the chair. The scent of her had altered subtly in just a few minutes. "What’s with the bitch act, Jack?"
"Who says it’s an act?"
"I do." Her posture changed like her back hurt.
"Like you know me so well."
He laughed softly, the tiny clues clicking together. She was going to start her period. "I do know you, Jack. I know you better than anyone ever has." Standing, he took her hands and pulled her up. "Come on. I think there’s still some of that chocolate cheesecake in the fridge. Go have some of that, then come to bed and I’ll rub your back."
"Maybe I don’t want cheesecake."
"I think you do."
She looked away. She felt like she had the first couple days after the choker had become a part of her; shaky and overwhelmed. The feeling came upon her quickly, a groan leaving her as she realized it had been twenty-eight days already.... "How did you know?" It hadn’t started yet; that fun would begin the next day, but all the symptoms were hitting her: backache, food cravings, cramps and mood swings.
"You’re a woman, Jack. I knew I’d have to deal with your period sooner or later." Her cheeks flushed. "It’s a natural bodily function. Get over it. Nothing to be embarrassed about." Slipping his hands around her waist, he gently kneaded her lower back.
She started to cry, her own arms going about his shoulders. "It’s never...I wanna cry and yell...too fast...I can’t handle this...."
"It’s coming on too fast, you’re on an emotional roller coaster and you can’t handle it?" That’s what it sounded like she’d been trying to say.
Jack shook her head. Close enough.
"Cheesecake now or later?"
"Later."
"Backrub?"
"Uh-huh."
Her tears had lessened to sniffles and Riddick picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.