26. Riddick: Inquisition

Almost nothing was capable of scaring the most feared escaped convict in the galaxy. Almost nothing could make him tremble. But coming home to the ship at three in the morning and finding Jack gone without a trace was one of the rare things that could, and did.

He hadn’t realized right away. He’d boarded the ship in a very pleasant mood. His second session with his new friend had gone very well indeed, calming the raging beast within until it was almost purring. All the fantasies he’d had about Jack were being enacted, in a safe place far away from her to keep her out of danger.

Or so he’d thought until he looked in on her and found her bed empty, still neat from when she’d made it that morning. The outfit he’d asked her to change out of was still tossed carelessly across the foot of it. She hadn’t come back once since she’d left after breakfast.

He was arming himself with every useful weapon he could conceal on his person, preparing to begin searching for her, when he saw her sprinting toward the ship through the front windows. Relief at the sight of her flooded through him, followed by fury at her for putting him through such anguish.

He was even more furious when he heard her board the ship, sneaking in and trying not to make any noise. He silently retreated to his chair and became completely still. Just what the fuck had she been up to, anyway?

She was getting good at navigating in almost-absolute darkness but she was still no match for him. She didn’t sense him in the room as she crept up the ladder. Her face had an odd, furtive expression. Memory surged back for him, recalling the look on Christina’s face whenever she’d sneaked out of the foster home to go partying.

He’d been six at the time and she’d been ten years older than him, but several times she’d sneaked back in through his window to avoid detection by their foster parents. The look on her face had been identical whenever she crawled in through the window of his room, the look of someone who had been out sinning and now was almost home-free.

Just what the fuck had Jack been doing? His imagination suggested too many soul-searing possibilities.

She glanced around, still not seeing him, and sighed in relief as she decided she’d accomplished her little sneak.

“Lights,” he ordered, and watched her jump.

Jack froze in front of him, startled. The expression on her face looked oddly like that of a child who had been caught looking at dirty magazines. Or like his old foster sister Christina after a night of slutting around, when confronted with evidence of her activities. No. Oh God, no.

“You wanna tell me where the fuck you’ve been?” he growled.

Those huge green eyes of hers were wide. She took a deep breath and gave him a shaky smile. “Riddick. You startled me.”

Nice try, kid, but I’m not buyin’.

“Well?” He growled again. It took all his control not to leap out of the chair, grab her, and shake answers out of her.

She took a deep breath, straightening slightly. Tough girl, facing him head-on, full of bravado. “You’re home early.”

“The fuck I am. It’s almost four a.m. Just where the fuck have you been?”

She shrugged with studied nonchalance. “Out. Just like you. Why?”

“Out where?” He felt his fists clenching.

Not just like me. Oh god, not just like me, he thought desperately. The idea that she might have been off with a strange man…

Her eyes narrowed. “It’s not important.” She started toward the door of her room.

“Don’t you move.“ At his words, she froze again. For a moment he stared at her back, his imagination running riot. Who had she been with? Who had been touching her?

She turned around, insolent defiance on her face. “What, are you going to ground me now? I’m eighteen, Riddick. I can do whatever the hell I want. Don’t try to tell me I have a curfew.”

“I want to know what you’ve been doing,” he growled. He rose from the chair, trusting himself only enough to stand. If he moved towards her now, in this state, things could go out of control very quickly…

“It’s none of your business, Riddick. You’re not my father; he’s been dead for eight years!”

“Don’t start keeping secrets from me, Jack.”

She laughed, but he could hear the hollowness of it. She was every bit as upset, suddenly, as he was. What the fuck did she have to be upset about? She didn’t have to worry about what kind of trouble he was getting into with strangers…

…Well, maybe she did. But he’d been taking care of himself since before she was born.

She stared at him with her lips slightly pursed, frowning. For a moment she looked almost hurt by his words. Suddenly she shook her head, rolling her eyes. Her laughter was dry and angry. “You first, Riddick! Why don’t you tell me what you did tonight, huh?”

Never. He glared at her. She matched him stare for stare, looking increasingly furious.

“I mean, if I can’t keep secrets from you—”

“You never want to know about my nights, Jack.” How many times had she asked him not to tell her, anyway? Suddenly the rules changed?

“Oh, yeah!” she scoffed. “Sweet, innocent little Jack can’t handle it, right?”

She turned to face him completely, her body tense. Her jaw was clenched, as were her fists. She’d balanced herself on both feet. For a moment he really thought she was about to come at him with her fists swinging.

“Come on, Riddick,” she snarled. “You want to hear about my night? Tell me about the slut you were fucking.” Was that contempt on her face? It had to be. The only other possible emotion was unthinkable, the product of his own wishful thinking. She couldn’t possibly be jealous…

“How many times did you fuck her?” she continued. A sneer appeared on her pretty lips, distorting her face into that of a stranger. “Was she good? Did you come? Did she?”

Cold rage speared through him. He took three fast steps forward and grabbed her upper arms, towering over her. He was breathing hard, his head full of chaos. All he could see in his mind was her body writhing, her face reflecting enraptured ecstasy, as some other man had her…

He wanted to tear her to pieces. He wanted to throw her down on the floor and fuck her senseless. More than anything else, he wanted to make her feel the pain he was feeling right now, the pain her scorn filled him with…

“Fine,” he whispered furiously down into her face. He couldn’t have spoken above a whisper at the moment. His bitter anger was throttling him. “You want to hear? Yes, Jack, I fucked a woman tonight. Three times, and she was very, very good. I came every time. I’m pretty sure she didn’t, but she did do an excellent job of faking it… because that’s what I paid her to do.”

No frills. No lies. Just the brutal, honest truth. The only thing he left out was who, exactly, the whore was pretending to be at the time.

“Your turn,” he growled. “Where the fuck were you?”

Jack looked like she had swallowed poison. Her face was filled with disgust, hurt, rage, betrayal. She stared at him for a long moment as her face contorted. Suddenly her arms came up, breaking his hold on her and shoving him back.

“I was at the goddamn library!” she shouted, turning and storming into her room. The door slammed behind her with the crack of a shotgun.

Cold agony speared through Riddick as he stared after her. Oh god…

The full significance of the things he’d just said to her, the way he’d just treated her, came crashing down on him. He’d just stabbed her in the heart with his words, with his lack of trust in her.

She hadn’t done a damned thing wrong except give him a scare. What he’d given her back was unforgivable.

From behind her door he heard a strangled sob.

He entered her room without knocking. She was lying on top of her bed covers, curled on her side. Her lights were off but he could clearly see the pain on her face, the tears.

“Jack.”

“Get. Out.” Her voice was so full of pain and rage that it was barely recognizable.

He walked over to the bed and sat down next to her instead. “I… didn’t know the library was open at all hours,” he said awkwardly.

“Fuck you, Riddick.”

He swallowed the dozen or so smart-ass responses that popped into his head. He’d already hurt her badly enough for one night.

“Jack, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“Bite me.” She rolled over so that her back was to him.

He shook his head sadly as he watched the way her body shook. She was trying so hard to contain her anger and pain, not to let it loose. She didn’t want to let it loose in front of him. She didn’t want him to see how badly he’d hurt her. He already knew. Oh god, did he ever know.

“Think I already did that, Jack. ‘Bout bit your head off. You’re right. It wasn’t my business. I just… you scared me, kid. I came home and I didn’t know where you were, if you were okay…”

“Yeah, well, welcome to my life, Riddick.” He was reaching her. She was still angry and hurt, but she was actually answering him now.

Point taken, he thought. Hesitantly, he reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “Jack, I thought I lost you once and I barely survived it. I know I wouldn’t if it happened again.”

He didn’t expect what happened next. He suddenly found her in his arms, sobbing against his chest. It confounded him. Did I hurt her this badly? he wondered. He held onto her tightly, at a complete loss as to what to say or do, until she was finally able to speak.

“Do you know,” she finally managed, her voice catching repeatedly on her tears, “that this is the first time you’ve so much as touched me since… since the night—”

“Since the night I killed Pete.” Oh, god. You fucking idiot, he thought. He hadn’t even realized that he’d cut her off like that. And he knew exactly how much she needed those gestures of affection, too.

That was what he’d been forgetting to do. That was the secret behind the expectant look that had periodically popped into her eyes, that he hadn’t understood. She was waiting for a hug, a kiss, a bit of rough-housing. Some gesture of his caring. And he’d been starving her.

“I guess…” He swallowed slightly. He could tell her half of the truth, anyway. “I guess I didn’t think I had any right to touch you after I did that. Like I still had his blood on my hands and didn’t want to get it on you or something.”

The other reason, the fact that he was always afraid a simple hug would lead to something more, something inevitable, went unsaid. How do you tell the girl you love “I’m afraid that if I touch you I might end up raping you?”

She sat up so she could look him in the eyes. Her own were reddened from her spate of crying. They looked bruised and vulnerable. It was the look he’d promised himself he’d never make her wear.

“I want you to, Riddick. I need it. Don’t ever stop again, please.”

Oh god, if only you meant so much more than you’re saying, Jack. It would solve all our problems… He nodded. “I promise.”

I just wish you meant more than hugging, kid.

There was something more she wanted to say. He could see it in her face, but he couldn’t tell what it was. Whatever it was, she was struggling with it, caught between the urge to speak and not to speak. He waited, not sure how to help her with it, or even if he could.

The moment passed and she swallowed whatever it was she’d almost said. He couldn’t help feeling the pang that lanced through him. You can tell me anything, Jack, he thought despairingly. Apparently she didn’t agree.

Her sigh was filled with an odd, unidentifiable sadness. She rested her head against his shoulder again and he held her close. Wishing.

Wishing he knew what the look she’d given him meant. Wishing she’d been willing to tell him. Wishing he had a better understanding of the intricacies of the human mind and didn’t need to be told.

All of the psychology he’d paid attention to, in the past, had been centered around the predator-prey relationships of his dark world. He knew how to think like the hunter and the hunted, so he would know where his pursuers would set their traps and where his own quarry was likely to go to ground.

He knew how to push people’s buttons, manipulate them to make them see what wasn’t there and miss what was right in front of them. He could play on their fears, their prejudices, their most shameful impulses.

But the eyes and mind of the girl he loved more than anything or anyone in the universe were unfathomable to him suddenly. Some of it he understood, but some of it was as alien to him as the creatures on the desolate rock they’d fled from almost five years ago.

What would happen, he wondered with something akin to dread, if the connection between them severed? If they stopped understanding each other at all? What would happen if they could no longer talk to each other about anything? He’d spent four years sustained by the knowledge that they would be together again soon. It had been the only thing that had staved off the gnawing ache of loneliness within him.

He hadn’t even known there was such a vast, hollow space within him until she’d filled it. He didn’t think he’d be able to survive having it empty once more.

What are you hiding from me, Jack? he wondered sadly. What won’t you tell me? Is it something I did?

Had she seen him in her room at night?

It was a bad, dangerous habit he’d developed, stealing into her room to watch her sleep. He missed sharing a bed with her; her absence left his body aching but he knew how much more dangerous her presence would be. Nonetheless, he hadn’t been able to stay away.

Often he would crouch close to her, watching the movements of her eyelids as she dreamed, listening to her soft, deep breathing. He’d thought he’d been careful, that she’d never wakened while he was there, but maybe he was wrong. Maybe she’d seen him.

Maybe it had frightened her.

“All you people are so scared of me,” he’d told Carolyn in another life. “Most days I’d take that as a compliment.” He still did, for the most part. But if he ever saw fear in Jack’s eyes when she looked at him, he knew it would kill him on the spot.

What an enormous breach in his armor she was, he reflected.

Still… had she stayed at the library because she was afraid to sleep in her own room? No. She’d come home… and she’d asked him to hold her. What had that look meant?

Her breathing slowly changed and he realized she’d fallen asleep in his arms. No, she definitely wasn’t afraid of him. She trusted him implicitly; here was the ultimate proof. Why hadn’t he been able to trust her equally?

Because, you stupid fuck, the wiser, saner part of himself answered, you want her all to yourself. You don’t want to share her with anybody, and the idea that she might share herself with someone other than you is more than you can stand.

He sighed bitterly.

I don’t deserve you, Jack. Not at all. I wish to god I did.

He should leave her room now. He knew it, but he couldn’t bring himself to do so. He didn’t want this moment to end. He leaned back against the wall at the head of her bed, his arms still tightly wrapped around her. She was so small. Fragile body; fragile soul. He was desperately afraid that he’d harm or destroy both.

Worse yet, he was afraid that they’d go away and leave him behind, alone again.

He sighed, realizing that he would not be leaving the room. Oh well, I’ve slept in less comfortable positions than this, lots of times. He stroked her hair for a few more minutes before he went still and closed his eyes. The soft rhythm of her pulse lulled him to sleep.

His last thought before his fractured dreams claimed him followed him down. How long before the monster inside me scares her away forever? What the hell am I going to do when she’s gone?