CHAPTER14

CHAPTER 14

Riddick walked into The Paradise six hours after his confrontation with Jack. He didn’t feel like working, but he knew he needed to keep his mind occupied. Dealing with the drunks, dopers and general trouble making scum of the place would leave him little time to reflect on the shitty status of his life.
He had walked stone cold away from Jack. From her anger and her pain. He had broken her. It left a bad taste in his mouth.
Back on Taurus 2, when she’d been attacked by the creature in the bone yard, he hadn’t been able to walk away. He had tried, but the sound of her screams and pleas had touched something in him he had thought long dead. She was just such a great kid. Her antics and admiration had brought a true smile to his face and humor in his heart. Things that he hadn’t experienced in a very long time.
But the fact remained that he was Richard B. Riddick. Killer extraordinaire. At the very least he would ruin her life, fuck it up permanently. At the worst he would end up killing her. He had been soul wrenchingly honest with Fry when he told her wouldn’t know how to rejoin the human race. He could fake it for so long. And maybe even in doing so gain some control over his worse instincts. But there was no guarantee. And the price was too high for Jack and Zar.
Throwing his black jacket into the employee lounge, he wandered back out to the bar area. He didn’t have to worry about any commotion this early in the evening. There was only about ten people in the bar. Nursing drinks and waiting for the action to begin.
As the bartender Luiz saw him approach, he motioned to him quietly to keep an eye on the guy directly in front of him. Sitting at the bar, he had his head hung over his drink.
Feeling Riddick’s approach, he lifted his head and stared blankly at him.
“Carson. Kinda early for you being here isn’t it?” He was a member of a med-tech emergency transport team and usually worked the eleven a.m. to seven p.m. shift.
Riddick absently noted the haggard look around the guys eyes. He’d never seen him so shook.
“Yeah. Got off my shift early. Been a rough one.”
Riddick traded glances with Luiz. He didn’t want to hear a sob story out of some drunk he could care less about. But he figured Luiz would. He was that kind of guy. He cared too much. Made him wonder what he was doing in a bar like The Paradise.
And sure enough, Luiz took the bait.
“What happened man? You look like Riddick here beat ya.” He was trying to cheer up the guy with a little humor. It fell flat to everyone’s ears, even his.
Returning to staring at his drink he swallowed convulsively.
“Found a kid today in Robertson’s Alley. Man, she was a mess. Thought she was a boy at first. Dressed like it. But it was a girl. Some New Mecca missionary had found her there. Sitting up against the wall. Slashed the hell out of her wrists man! Couldn’t have been more that fourteen or fifteen. Had this horrible look on her face. Like the world was coming to an end.”
Riddick’s sixth sense for trouble kicked in big time. Something was wrong.
And then it hit him. Robertson’s Alley was where he had killed Brenner.
A cold drop of terror started snaking it’s way down his spine. He silently prayed to the God he so hated, but so believed in to let him be wrong. Let it not be Jack.
He had been leaning against the bar, staring at the empty dance floor. But now he turned the full force of his silvered eyes onto Carson.
Carson felt the intense scrutiny and reacted as most did when in the sights of Richard Riddick. He stared back like a deer in headlights. Hoping if he stood still, the danger would pass.
“Is she dead?”
“Huh?...oh the girl, not yet. But I don’t think she’ll make it. Too much blood loss. Too much shock to the system. Probably be a blessing from the look on her face.”
One second he was sitting at the bar, staring at Riddick’s shining eyes, the next he was on the floor, with an animals breath in his face and a shiv at his throat.
“Hey! What I’d do???!!! You asked man!”
“Carolyn, what the hell you doing?” Luiz backed away from the bar slowly. Knowing there was nothing he could do if the guy decided on killing Carson. Carolyn was one bad dude, he fit in perfectly with the clientele. Carson was on his own. But maybe Luiz could at least talk Carolyn into calming down.
“Listen carefully Carson. Answer me precisely, with no extra comments. Your life depends on it. Understand?”
Carson nodded his understanding and then winced as the sharp point of shiv pricked his skin.
“What did she look like?”
“White, big blue eyes, short brown hair. Skinny, wearing boys clothing.”
It sounded like Jack, but there were so many like her, runaways and those abandoned buy uncaring guardians, that he couldn’t be sure.
“Anything else?”
“Well, there was a back pack next to her. Had “Jack” on it.”
As he straightened, Riddick slowly took the shiv from Carson’s neck.
What had he done???!!!
Carson didn’t dare move from the floor as he watched Carolyn’s empty eyes become even more lifeless.
“Where’d you take her?”
“Med...med lab fourteen, two decks up.”
His bowels, that he was sure he was going to lose as Carolyn had stared at him, tightened up as the big man turned and headed for the exit.
No one stopped him or questioned him as Riddick left. He had the look of a very dangerous man who would as soon as kill you for delaying him as explain.
Ten minutes later he stood in front of the door he thought never to see again. He didn’t remember how he got there. Too busy visualizing Jack’s life slip through it’s shell.
But here he was at Zar’s apartment. So full of emotion that his hand shook when he lifted it to press the buzzer.
Once upon a time he would have turned his back on situations like this with nary a glance back. But that was before Carolyn Fry, Jack B. Badd and Zarifa Cholena. Now, no matter how much the old Riddick was pushing him to cut loose the responsibilities he felt, he would follow through. Jack needed Zar. Zar needed to be with Jack, if for nothing else than to make sure the kid didn’t die alone. He sure as hell wasn’t what Jack needed right now.
The buzzer sounded it’s warning.
Thirty seconds later he heard Zar’s voice asking who was there.
He hesitated briefly telling her. She might not want to see him. He hadn’t exactly treated her right.
But he was through with the skull fuck games that had been so much a part of his life. Right up until he condemned a little girl to her self-inflected death with the last one. Never mind that he thought he was doing it for her own good. He obviously didn’t know his ass from a whole in a ground when it came to dealing with the truth. It had always been easier to just lie. Play it smooth and warped at the same time. Never let them know what was really going on in that twisted brain of his.
He was just so damn tired of the games he played on his own mind.
Don’t care! Don’t get involved! Find their weaknesses! Use it against him/her! Screw them before they screw you!
“It’s Riddick.”
The silence that greeted his name was deafening. He could picture Zar looking at the door as if it had started growing a head.
The door smoothly slid back to reveal the suspicious face of the woman he loved.
She looked different. She had cut her hair to shoulder length and styled it different. He felt the urge to run his hands through it. Just to feel the heat coming off her head, letting it transfer itself into his own freezing heart. Her eyes were the same soul deep blue he dreamed of every night since they had parted.
God, he missed her!
Zar continued to stare at him. Half afraid to speak for fear he was a figment of her imagination and would disappear if she broke the silence. She had no idea what had brought him to her door. He didn’t look like he had had an epiphany concerning her or Jack. Which meant that he likely wasn’t going to stay.
He looked careworn and older. He had taken his goggles off and his reflective eyes showed something she would have sworn on anyone else was desperation.
But that didn’t make sense. Richard was the least desperate person she had ever met. He could handle any situation. Even if it wasn’t in the right way, he never was at a loss for action.
Her heart was beating double it’s normal speed. She missed him so damn much! The need to touch him almost uncontrollable, she just wanted to step into his arms. Feel him touch her again. Give her hope again.
If she thought it would do any good she would beg him to stay.
But as she continued to stare into his sorrow filled face, she knew he was there for a unhappy reason.
Her eyes got huge in her face as it hit her.
JACK!
“NO! No...no...no! She’s okay, right?! Damn you Richard! Tell me!!!”
He closed his eyes as the tears started to fall down her face.
Raising them once again to hers, he didn’t even try to hide the weariness he was feeling.
“You need to come with me Zar. She’s in the med-lab a few floors down. It’s bad, real bad. I don’t know how much time we have.”
A small part of Zar must’ve been hoping her intuition was wrong, because she seemed to shrink before his eyes in desolation as he confirmed her fears.
He reached out to steady her. Closing his big hands over her shoulders and bringing her into his embrace.
She laid her forehead against his chest and took a couple deep breaths. Steeling herself to come to grips with yet another impending loss.
Pulling away, she stepped out of his reach. She had put her strong face on. Trying to make the outside a calm facade. Hoping it would meld with the torment raging just beneath her skin. Taking and molding some of the terror and pain into a bearable package.
He watched her gain control of her emotions and was amazed anew at the woman who seemed to pull from an ocean deep reservoir of strength. This was the woman who had tamed the bad ass, psychokiller in him. And asked for nothing in return but his respect and his affection. He had walked away from her.
He came to the blinding realization that he, Richard B. Riddick, was basically a coward. Killing was the easy way out. Dealing with life’s heaping pile of never ending shit in a normal, rational way took guts. He had always taken the easy way out.
“Let’s go Riddick. You can tell me what happened on the way over.”
She moved out the door away with a purposeful stride towards the commons area. Too distracted to remember to lock the door. Riddick had thought to call her back to lock it, but on a hunch spoke the word “Lock.”
As he heard the mechanism react he allowed himself a little smile. Zar hadn’t deleted his pattern from the voice authorization module. The lady had faith the size of mountains. She made him feel small and petty.
Not something Riddick was used to feeling.
But he had a suspicion that it was something he was going to feel more of in the future.