Chapter Thirteen

Casteel tried not to look startled as she took the gun from Riddick. Criminals of any variety weren't meant to give Merc's their guns - it was, well, unnatural. This day had turned out to be full of surprises.

Riddick took a slow step backwards, giving her some space. "I want to help you get this guy," he said, anger colouring his features.

And they just keep on coming, Casteel thought.

"'You' want to help 'me'?" She laughed. It just got better and better. Perhaps she should suggest that he start his own comedy routine. Soon she'd be in stiches.

"Is it so hard to believe? The girl is a friend of mine and someone messed her up. I - want - him - to - pay." There was a steel edge to his voice now and Casteel believed that if Len were standing there in the room with them, he'd be in pieces. Curious.

Casteel examined his face - his impassivity had been replaced by something much more frightening - cold determination. She hoped that she'd never see that same determination aimed at her.

"I - I don't need any help." Flat out lie, but there was no way she wanted to keep the company of a shiv happy maniac voluntarily. She saw enough of them courtesy of her day job.

"Bull shit. You said yourself that this Len guy hires people and uses them as pawns. Why can't you have someone working on your team? I'll ghost this guy, with or without you. If you want your fee, then you'll stick with me."

"What the hell makes you think that I should trust you? You're a killer. And maybe you aren't as indiscriminate as your file says, hell, I'll bet that file is just full of embellishments, being from the Company and all. But come on Riddick - you are a murderer. Hardly an occupation that engenders trust."

Riddick searched for an answer that would please her but was coming up short. He wanted to kill Len, make him suffer as much as his victims had, as much as Jack had, before x-ing him out. And he wanted Jack back and safe. With him.

Casteel was about to ask him to leave when he spoke, his voice taking on a new quality she hadn't heard before.

"I've done some bad things throughout my life in order to survive and I stopped regretting them because regrets can get you killed. I lost my humanity somewhere along the way and Jack helped me find it. I swore that I wouldn't let anything happen to her. I was too late this time, but I won't let it happen again. I want to get that bastard."

Remorse. That's what it was. Casteel averted her eyes from Riddick. She knew what that was, knew how it felt. Damn it. His talk was screwing with her judgement. But two people after Len? It just might work. She'd done a bang up job so far. She'd caught a criminal all right. The WRONG one.

"I need to think," she looked down at her body, the over size coat ending at her knees, "and I need to get dressed. What I don't need is this, what ever this is." She walked over to the bed and pulled out a bag from underneath and grabbed some clothes followed by the gun under the manager's limp body. She stalked into the bathroom slammed the door behind her, locking it.

Riddick watched her flounce into the bathroom and he flinched as the door slammed. He wasn't sure what to think. He'd told her the truth. Jack had helped him regain some of his humanity and he had sworn that he would keep her as safe as he could.

Of course, he had hoped that his honest admission would gain a little ground with Casteel. Instead all he got was a ringing in his ears from the bang of the door. A manly gripe about 'Women' wouldn't cover that girl. There was nothing normal about her.

The door was flung open and Casteel emerged fully dressed from the bathroom, tossing Riddick's jacket back to him, "I was hoping you'd be gone by the time I got out."

He looked at her, surprised. "Considering how long the average woman takes in the bathroom, I thought I'd have another half an hour." Riddick said, eyeing her outfit. He liked her other look better.

Casteel couldn't help herself: she smiled. "I'm not your average woman."

"No," he conceded, "you're most definitely not."

She brushed that comment aside, "So, you want to help me get Len? You want him dead?"

Riddick nodded.

"You're not trying to get Jack off planet are you? 'Cause if you tried, I'd have to kill you and I wouldn't want to waste the bullet."

That surprised him, "why not off planet? If Len can' reach her, he can't hurt her." Simple, really.

"No, it's not that simple," she said as if she had been rummaging through his head. "Len will continue to hunt Jack as long as she is on this planet. He-"

"So, remove Jack from the equation? It can't be that hard."

"As I was trying to say before I was so rudely interrupted, he will find someone else if he believes that Jack is out of the game. This planet has seventeen million teenage boys and girls - forty percent of which are homeless or runaways. If he goes after anyone else, I'll know about it only after he's killed him or her. I can't let him loose his focus and find another target or I may as well give up and give him free rein the kill whomever he wants."

"You're using Jack as bait?" He looked at the photo wall again. It hit him then, that she had a clear shot of Len every time she took one of those photos and yet she had waited…This wasn't right. Something was definitely going down.

"You've had what looks like thousands of clean shots. Each picture you took was a waisted bullet. What the hell is going on?" He was furious. If only he'd thought of it earlier instead of letting his concern for Jack cloud his mind, he could have killed her.

"I can't shoot him in a public place. Goddamn it. This isn't black and white. I can't just kill him on the street - you have absolutely no idea what's going on here. So don't you bloody presume-"

"Presume what? That you consider a fifteen year old runaway to be a lesser being and therefore you have no qualms about using her as bait for a fucking killer?"

Casteel stepped back as he moved toward her. That cold determination of his had settled on her form as its next target. It wasn't looking good.

"It's a difficult case, it has to be handled just right. Nothing public. No body to be found and no witnesses. Those were the terms of the contract and I accepted them." She wished he would stop inching towards her. She didn't want to kill him. His feelings for the kid were obvious now, and she couldn't take that away from Jack. Not when she was going to need it most.

"There's no way he can get to her. He just has to know that she's on planet and he'll look. Guaranteed." She stepped backwards again, bumping into the bed. "Jack's in no danger and if you'd get off your high horse for a second you'd see my point." He got a little too close for comfort and she pulled a gauge from her waistband.

"If you come any closer I will pull the trigger." She pointed to a chair in the corner of the room. "Now sit sown." Riddick looked at the gun and at Casteel's face and sat in the chair.

She sat on the bed and placed the gauge in her lap. "I could have left her to die and went after Len. I chose not to. I chose to save Jack and hope that I could get a second chance at Len later. I won't let her die. I won't." She couldn't stand his gaze on her, "I won't," she said forcefully, hating the intensity of his glare, "it stops here. You can choose to believe it or not."

He watched the expressions on her face as she said this. She was vehement that Len would not kill anyone else. "How can you be so sure?" he said, pushing his anger away. It wouldn't help him now. He needed to be in control of his emotions, not the other way around.

She turned her head to look at him, "Seventy-three." She said folding her arms across her chest.

"What?" Riddick asked, "seventy-three what?"

"Confirmed kills. Seventy-three too many. Jack is bait, yes. He'll start looking for her and I will kill him. He won't get her. He would have to kill me before he could get close enough to hurt her."

"Seventy-three? Then how come I haven't heard about him? Surely anyone who had a kill tally that large would be infamous."

Now it was her turn to ask, "What?" It was bloody obvious to her.

"What? Announce to the world that there's a fucked up Merc out there killing runaway teenagers? Gee, that would go down well. It would start a panic and would be bad PR for us sane mercenaries." Casteel stopped talking the look of shock on Riddick's face confusing her. What could possibly shock him? Then she realised.

She'd said too much.