13. Jack: A Greatly-Exaggerated Report

Jack was alone in her room when she regained consciousness. Her whole abdomen felt strange -- tingly, crampy, sore. She tried to sit up and instantly regretted it as pain flared in her midriff.

Night was falling outside; her room was softly shadowed. "Riddick weather," she'd called this light level for years. But he wasn't anywhere in it.

After a moment she pushed the call button on her bedside table. She'd have been happy to lie still for as long as she could, but she needed to pee and _somebody_ was going to have to help her up.

A few minutes later the door opened and an older woman in a nurse's uniform entered. Now that she'd gotten over her fright from the lobby, this place really did seem like a cushy private hospital. Still, she wished she knew where Riddick had gone.

"Did you need something?" the nurse asked.

"Yeah, could you help me up? I need to use the bathroom."

The woman smiled slightly and helped her to her feet, leading her into the bathroom.

"Fuck," she muttered. Every muscle in her abdomen was on fire. Nerves she hadn't known existed were screaming at her.

"It'll get better," the nurse assured her as she helped her back to the bed a few minutes later.

"Do you know where..." Shit, she'd forgotten the alias Riddick was using. "Have you seen my husband?"

"He should be back in a few minutes. He said he was going out to get a newspaper." The nurse shrugged at her, probably wondering why she cared. If she'd really been like the other women in this place, her "husband" would have just been her latest slaver. How many of the women here hated the men they were bonded to?

Probably a lot of them.

Riddick was standing in front of the door when the nurse opened it, reaching for his key. He grinned and stepped back so the nurse could leave, then entered carrying his newspaper.

"It's finally here, Jack," he told her after he closed the door. "It's official. You're dead."

He didn't seem either happy or unhappy about it. Like it was just a piece of news.

"Is it in the paper?" This planet had a serious _thing_ for antiques. Newspapers! Amazing.

"'Course." He sat down in the chair next to her bed. "You can read it if you want, but I'm not sure I'd recommend it. Seeing as how you're supposed to be so sensitive right now and all." _That_ was definitely mockery.

"Turn on the light and gimme," she answered. She wanted to see what kind of epitaph the galaxy would give "Riddick's Bitch."

He shrugged, and switched on the light over her bed. It was the old-fashioned, non-voice-activated kind. Probably cost a fortune. The room, she had to admit, was nicely cushy. "Your choice, kid."

She took the paper from him with some trepidation.

Two very familiar faces stared out at her from below a screaming banner headline: RIDDICK MURDERS TEENAGE GIRL.

His picture, below the banner, was a great many years old, predating the Hunter-Gratzner crash. The savagery in his face was vivid and frightening. Her picture, beside his, was very recent. Her statement was one of forlorn sorrow. Who had taken that and when? She'd been so careful not to let _anyone_ see her looking like that...

It was a deliberate "Beauty and the Beast" ploy, she realized, an inhumanly brutal man juxtaposed with a calculatedly tragic woman. Girl. They were intentionally downplaying the fact that she was a legal adult to make the crime seem all the more vicious.

She glanced up from the paper. Riddick's face was expressionless, but she could feel his concern. She started to read the text.

In a moment she began to feel the urge to scream and throw things. Who the fuck was this sweet little innocent they were describing? They'd painted a heavily colored version of her life -- poor little orphan who ran away from an abusive uncle, only to crash-land on a desolate planet where the only shield between her and violent death was a dangerous serial killer. True, but they'd never believed it or cared before. Why the hell now?

Little Girl Lost continued her journey through the article, tagging along with her adored desperado until she was almost- fatally wounded in a gunbattle between him and Special Forces--

_Fucking liars, he never fired a shot!_

--and he abandoned her in his escape.

_Another fucking lie!_

She spent the next four years staunchly refusing to betray her hero, naively believing that one day he would come for her and everything would be made better. Finally, according to the article, he did. And then he tortured her to death.

The writer claimed that she'd been on her way to meet with her new employer when Riddick abducted her, a piece of pure speculation disguised as fact. She was missing for five days before her mutilated remains were found. The article dwelled lovingly -- almost pornographically -- on the tortures Riddick had supposedly visited upon her before she finally died. She already knew about those, of course, and Riddick had promised her that everything had been artfully faked by the coroner.

The testimonials were the worst part. Mrs. Baxter was quoted as saying what a fine, upstanding young lady she'd been. Parker had contributed a line about the brilliant future she'd had ahead of her. Her true test results had been published to back him up. Several girls from the shelter -- including ones she _knew_ had called her "Riddick's Bitch" at every opportunity -- came forward to tell the worlds how sweet and kind and generous she'd been, how close they'd been to her.

She wanted to smash something.

Finally the article turned to Riddick himself, rehashing his well-known history. Abandoned as a baby, he'd grown up in a series of unsatisfactory foster homes. At fourteen he'd developed violent psychotic tendencies and had ultimately orchestrated a horrific mass-murder, killing nine of his classmates and mutilating their bodies. Ten years later he'd engineered his bloody escape from a maximum-security prison, where he was suspected of killing a dozen fellow inmates over the course of his incarceration. By the time he met Jack, more than forty murders had been attributed to him. Another score had followed, including his slaughter of a barracks-ful of Special Forces soldiers two weeks after she'd been shot. Now she was the newest notch on his belt.

He was the cold, cruel Beast who took pleasure in the suffering of others and felt neither compassion nor remorse. She was the sweet, naive Beauty who had adored him and walked into his lair, baring her throat to him only to have it ripped out.

She crushed the paper in her hands and threw it across the room. The deadpan on Riddick's face vanished, replaced by concern as he moved to sit next to her on the bed.

"Bastards!" she snarled out, clenching her fists so hard that her boy-short nails cut into her palms. "Lying bastards! _Why?"_

His hand was under her chin. "Why what?"

She stared at him through burning eyes. "Why are they suddenly pretending they gave a _shit_ about me? _Every single one_ of them called me 'Riddick's Bitch' and now I'm fuckin' _Snow White?_ I'm their fuckin' best friend?"

"Maybe some of them wished you had been," he answered slowly. "Maybe they saw deeper into you than you know. _I_ don't think they lied about you."

_"None of them *ever* cared about me!"_ she grated out. "They don't have the _right_ to say anything about me now! I was just a _thing_ to them, something to use to get to you--"

He pulled her into his embrace, stroking her hair and back. "And that's all this article is, too, Jack. That's all it is. Just something to get everybody in an uproar."

"Well they did a superb fucking job then!"

He suddenly chuckled. "I'll bet that holo-show, 'Galaxy's Most Wanted,' gets in on it, and gets a lot of Riddick sightings over the next few weeks." He started humming the show's theme song.

The idea of someone pretending to be Riddick for a true-crime show struck her as ludicrous and distracted her completely.

"They'll get some fuckin' Mary Sue to play me, won't they?" she found herself laughing. How did he _do_ that?

"And they'll go to the pound to find somebody to play me," he joked back. "Probably a rottweiler."

"Hah." She sat back, wiping at her streaming eyes. "Rotts are teddy bears. Two-hundred-pound lapdog-wanna-bes."

He quirked his eyebrow at her. After a moment, she laughed.

"Maybe it would be more accurate casting than they know."

"I'm no teddy bear, Jack," he growled with mock-menace. "Take that back."

"Nuh-uh."

A wicked gleam appeared in his eyes. "You'd better."

"Make me."

He had her pinned beneath him in a fraction of a heartbeat. "Better change your mind, kid..." He pulled her arms above her head and grabbed both wrists with one hand.

"Not gonna," she laughed, delighted by how quickly he'd obliterated her anguish over the article.

"Okay, then, you asked for it..." He reached down and began to tickle her belly. Fire-white pain lanced through her.

"Oh _shit!_" She convulsed. He jumped back away from her.

"Jesus, Jack, I forgot." He looked completely out of sorts, a startling sight in and of itself. She took a deep breath, gulping as the pain subsided.

"Not your fault... I forgot too..." She gingerly rubbed at her abdomen. "Man, how long am I gonna feel like this?"

Riddick let out a heavy sigh. "I should go. They said you'd need a lot of sleep tonight... and there are some things I should do."

"But--" Something was suddenly wrong, she knew it. It was like the last time he'd tickled her, when he'd abruptly pulled back as if stung. She didn't understand...

"Don't worry. I'll be here for breakfast. I promise." He hesitated for a moment and then kissed her on the forehead. "Get some sleep."

He left the room swiftly before she could form another protest.

_What the fuck was *that* about?_ she wondered. Sleep was a long time coming.