| Chapter 10 She owed Riddick an apology. How he had survived this, and still be a man worth loving, was an amazing feat. Or at the least the small part of her brain that was still Zar thought so. The rest of her mind was too busy trying to process the pain and the confusion and the rage. Most of all, the rage. The need to physically hurt someone...in the most painful way possible...was like the need to breathe. The longer you held your breath, the more you needed to breathe. She felt invincible. No, that wasn’t quite right. She felt as if death was no longer part of the quotient. Her mind didn’t care whether she lived or died, just as long as she could wrap her hands around someone’s neck and squeeze as hard as she could. Tear their flesh open, break their bones. Maybe then the pain would go away. Love, kindness, compassion...they all meant nothing. Just the all consuming need to inflict violence on someone else. She knew it was whatever they had injected her with causing the violent fantasies. But knowing it didn’t make it any easier to control. All of her senses had become super sensitive. And it was Hell on Earth. The impulses making her body a giant live wire, full of information that her ravaged brain just couldn’t handle. Sweat poured from every pore. Her hair was slick with it, her skin clammy with it. The amount way beyond the soaking capabilities of the med lab gown she wore. The resulting dehydration giving her a headache and bringing on the shakes that had taken a hold of her, making her feel like a drunk with the delirium tremens. She’d lost so much water that her skin was beginning to mold to her bones. The planes of her face becoming stark even with the extra weight she always carried. Her mind alternated between visions of blood and death she so wanted to reap, and calmer times where memories flashed of those she had so loved. The passage of time uncountable and irrelevant. So lost was she in her own private Hell that the door opening to her cell didn’t register until she felt a presence beside her. That in itself was strange because for the last few hours, ever since regaining consciousness, even the rats biting at their fleas had sounded like cannons. Every time the enviro’s had come on, it felt like a thousand insects were crawling over her skin. The windowless room a blessing because any light probably would’ve sent barbs of sensitivity through her eyes. As it was, she could see where the walls met each other as if the room was flooded in daylight. The smells of the cells previous occupants making her want to retch, mixing as they did with the disinfectant that supposedly neutralized all odors. She had no control over her actions when the hand touched her head. One minute she was curled in a ball against the wall, rocking herself in mimicry of a mothers comforting act. The next she was flying for the throat of the hands’ owner with a deep growl. Her mind heedless of the hands gentleness. All it knew was that there was an opportunity to get rid of the rage boiling like a volcano inside of her belly. A chance to rip and hit and beat and inflict any other ugly act it cared to commit. Richard easily captured the talon like hands racing towards his face. He’d known what was coming. Still, the strength of her momentarily surprised him. It allowed her to pull one hand free and swipe it’s nails across his cheek. Leaving bright bloody streaks in it’s wake. He still had control of one of her hands, but that didn’t stop her from trying to bite him on the arm and hit him in the balls. His natural urge was to back hand her across the face. But his heart screamed at him that this was Zar. No matter what she did to him, he couldn’t hurt her like that. He settled for pushing her back against the wall then twisting her so that her face was pressed hard against the cold surface. Capturing her wrists in one hand and holding them against her ass. Holding her throat against the wall with his other hand by gripping the back of her neck. His movements so fast that even with her new reflexes and strength she had little chance to counteract them. Leaning his face in close to her ear he whispered, “Zar! It’s me, Richard...relax!” Her breathing was harsh in the silence of the room. It was the breathing of a cornered animal. Sounds filled with fear and aggression and pain. He felt the tension run through the muscles of her body, just waiting for an opportunity to escape and fight. Just as suddenly, the strength went out of her. The harsh breathing turning to gut wrenching sobs. She started to slide down the wall and he had to release her or else risk choking her or dislocating her shoulders. Half expecting her sudden change to be a trick, he stepped back. Hands at the ready for another attack. But all she did was fall to her haunches. Clasping the wall as she cried. Feeling the risk minimal since he hadn’t been spotted right off the bat, Richard Riddick ordered lights at ten percent. He looked down at Zarifa Cholena and knew they had broken her. The pale woman weeping before him, with sweat roped hair and shaking body was as far from the woman he’d left at the abandoned mine doorway as a moon was from its sun. A part of him dispassionately noted the marks of abuse on her. Her wrists had bruises and rub burn marks all the way around, as did her ankles. It must of hurt like a bitch when he grabbed her. There were the beginning of suppurating sores on her face and arms. Patches of hair were missing. Probably from her tearing them out. A couple of nails bled from having been ripped off. Her body just wouldn’t stop shaking. In the back of his mind, he thought that if he had come upon her as a stranger in her current physical and mental state, he would’ve put her out of her misery. Snapped her neck cleanly...a quick, merciful death. He knew that was what he should do. Bigsby had been very talkative. Telling him whatever he wanted to know and then some. It hadn’t made a difference. Richard still killed him slowly and painfully. Only ending the man’s misery by slicing his gut open and wrapping his intestines around his throat. Death came quickly, but slow enough for the unlucky one to know and feel all that had been done to him. Riddick remembered reading about that particular brand of Viking brutality. It had even repulsed him somewhat at the time. Now it just felt like justice. So he knew exactly what had been done to Zar. It had made a rage burn so strong that his blood seemed to actually boil. Richard had originally changed his mind and planned on just slitting his throat, to save time. The fate the same as he’d done to the lover before carving him up for show and tell. But horror at what the piece of shit had put Zar through, just because she happened to be apart of Riddick’s life, had made Bigsby’s death seem appropriate. For intents and purposes they had ripped the psychological guts out of Zar, turn about was only fair play. The sobs showed no sign of stopping. Needing to touch her, Richard sat on his haunches and gathered her into arms. Aching deep in his heart at the feel of her bones and clammy skin. He wanted to kill Bigsby all over again. He would just have to settle on the other one. First things first. He had to get Zar to safety. “Don’t cry. It’ll be alright.” Though he knew it wouldn’t be. Zarifa Cholena may have survived intact after Elson Brenner twice, Burt Leffner and Miriam Gonzalez, but she wouldn’t survive unchanged after this. Things would never be the same. Zar, obviously pulling her mind from the horrors it now lived in, lifted her head and looked into Richard’s face. Raising a weak hand, she lightly touched the seeping wound on his face. “They made me do that to you.” Turning his face into her palm, he softly kissed her palm. The sickly sweet smell of change was on her, oozing from her pores with her sweat. The smell brought memories of his own introduction to the drug they’d given her. Memories of cold, pain and the smell of his own body being ripped apart from the inside out. “I know. It’s alright. What matters is that we get you out of here.” He tried to lift her to her feet, but was stopped by the violent shaking that started again along with the weeping. “No! I can’t go with you. I could hurt you. Kill you, even. And not be able to stop myself. You don’t know what they did to me Richard!” Framing her face in his hands he told her, “Yes, I do. The gave you some Profearaben. Not as much as me, but enough to do some major damage. If it weren’t for you being an Orion Plague baby, you’d be dead.” Her eyes reflected baffling insult. She would’ve understood them imprisoning her, trying her, killing her. But experimentation?! “Why?! For God’s sake why? I hardly remember anything after we became separated. I have a sense of voices and pain...a lot of pain...but that’s about it.” “Because they wanted you alive as bait, but easily controllable. It also served the purpose of continuing an experiment that has been going on for over fifteen years.” Tenderly her brushed away some hair that had fallen into her eyes. His throat tightening in sorrow when the wet strands easily came away tangled in his fingers. “Mostly because you were expendable.” Swallowing with obvious difficulty, she whispered out the next words. “That wasn’t all they did. They...put something...up me. I remember them putting my legs in stirrups, then pain.” His jaw tightened with repressed rage at the picture her words brought to mind. Bigsby had gone into disgusting detail on the gynecological procedure done on her. Saying it had been too exceptional of an opportunity to pass up. Now he had to tell her. “No Zar, they didn’t put something up you, they took something out.” Her eyes burned their question as her hand subconsciously placed itself on her stomach. Wondering how much more her traumatized mind could take, he chose his words carefully. “Remember the transfusion I gave Audrey? Well, it worked to rebuild her blood because Profearaben has exceptional regenerative properties. And not just in the blood stream. It seems it worked the same with you. Evidently I’ve given you enough of my bodily fluids, and therefore my DNA, to regenerate part of your body that was damaged before.” His fingers tightened fractionally on her bewildered and terror struck face. He knew the instant the logic started to come together in mind. “A baby. They took our baby. The Profearaben fixed my reproductive organs and let me get pregnant! Oh my God, Richard! They took our baby!” Great racking shudders rent through out her frame. The horror and pain of the procedure paling beside the heinous idea behind it. “What do they want with it? Dissection? Experimentation? WHAT?!” “There’s a General Bieti. He’s been experimenting on prisoners with drugs like Profearaben for years. They only just discovered a few months ago that Orion Plague babies have strange immune systems and react quite differently than other humans. They’ve been wanting to try Profearaben on one of you ever since. Then, when they ran a scan on you, it came up positive for pregnancy. “He had already accessed your past medical records, knew you’d been beaten almost to death and had lost reproduction ability because of it. He put two and two together and figured Profearaben was responsible. “Zar, he didn’t give you an abortion. He wants to bring the fetus to full gestation. He thinks any child of mine would have extraordinary properties. After they took it from you, they put it in stasis. They’re just looking for the right surrogate. We have to get it back and get the Hell out of here.” He stopped talking. Letting the information settle in her bruised mind. Hoping she could get herself around the ugliness of the whole fucking situation and decide to come out fighting. Bieti had destroyed what would’ve been a joyous occasion for her. The finding of something she once thought was forever lost to her. He didn’t think she’d take what Bieti had done lying down. He knew he sure as shit didn’t want to. It all depended on her. But too much had been done to her. Even the thought of losing another child wasn’t enough to bring her up from the Hell Profearaben had cast her into. Her eyes began to gloss over as the drugs influence returned. Her body bowed as the pain screamed along her nerve endings. “Don’t fight it! Just let it roll through you. It goes away quicker when you relax.” For long seconds she clung to his strong body. The only anchor she had in a private world gone mad with horror and agony. She felt the sweat flow harder from her skin, the sores on her face throbbed and her muscles trembled. Her breathing the loud panting of an animal in pain. A thousand bloodthirsty thoughts flashed through her mind. She wanted to hurt something, someone, everyone. She felt Richard’s arms tighten around her to the point of almost cutting off her breathing. But it did what she needed it to do, it stopped her from turning into a growling, slavering beast. He was right, letting it run it’s course made it go faster. Long minutes later, when breathing didn’t involve taking in great sobs of air, when the madness subsided, she could think again. “You have to leave me here. I’m just going to get you killed. If I don’t end up trying to kill you myself. I have no control, Richard. “Go find that stasis tube. Get it away from Bieti. Destroy if it you have to, just don’t let them do to our child what they’ve done to the both of us!” Richard let a sneer of disgust cross over his face. “You’re just going to let them do that to a child of yours? Because I’m damned straight not going to leave you. If it means they find me in here with you, so be it. They can take the both of us and do their nasty little procedures on the fetus. If that happens, it’s on your shoulders Zar.” Tears of frustration started to roll once again. “Why are you doing this? I thought you didn’t want any children. That’s what you told Miriam!” He leaned his face closer into hers, his lips almost brushing hers as he spoke. He hoped she took note of his determined expression. Sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind. “Yeah, I did say that. I also told you that if it was your child I would do it for you. This is that opportunity. You going to let it pass by? You thought you could never have anymore after Brenner almost raped you to death. And I know it eats you up inside. You’ve lost Beth, Audrey and Hill. You going to lose another child? “The only way that baby in the stasis tube is going to make it is if you come with me right now. Otherwise, I do us both right here, right now. I won’t give the fucking bastards the satisfaction of killing us a little bit at a time.” Zar closed her eyes as the truth of his words, and eyes, sank in. She knew he would do it. And though it might be merciful for them, she couldn’t condemn her child, any child, to the depravity she knew would be inflicted. So she would go with him. She’d make sure he and the baby were safe, then leave. Someway, somehow. Staying just wasn’t an option. Having the baby replanted wouldn’t be a big deal. It was a common enough procedure, done by anyone who knew how to operate a GynoWand. But she was so far gone from being mother material, at least emotionally, after the Profearaben that she feared she might actually do the baby harm. After she was gone, well, she knew Richard would make sure the baby was safe. If not with him, then with someone else. Opening her eyes, she focused her stare a few inches to the side of his. Hoping he wouldn’t see the deception. “Alright. I’ll go.” |
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