saga/title/fandom: The Past Never Dies chapter 33 (Pitch Black/Riddick)

author: Shalimar

rating/genre: (NC-17) - het, angst, drama

warnings: het, sexual content, adult content, drug use, criminal activity, religious fusion

summary: What if Jack had stayed on New Mecca with Imam? What if Riddick had come back for her? (Riddick/Jack, Imam/OFC)

comments/disclaimers: General disclaimers apply.

Jack was grateful that the leader seemed in no great hurry to bed her. Since he had not tied her up, she decided to reconnoiter her surroundings. She hoped to locate a small space she could wedge herself into, where she could use her knife to hold her captor and his minions at bay.

She allowed herself a small, ironic smile. So full of himself he never even thought to search me for weapons.

Jack deliberately gathered her hair back up and pulled her scarf modestly over her head, trying to seem inconspicuous. Fortunately, most of the marauders were Chrislam and had been exposed to years of cultural tradition on how to treat women. As soon as that scarf went back on her head, they automatically became circumspect with her. That, and their knowledge that she belonged to their leader, made them give her a wide berth.

She took her time, wandering slowly through the common rooms in the marauders’ den, unwilling to risk being trapped in a bedroom. She tried to appear lost and uncertain, not at all purposeful. She finally found what she sought at the far back of the food pantry in the kitchen. There appeared to be just enough space for her to shimmy behind a large, heavy refrigeration unit into what looked like a continuation of a cave beyond. She couldn’t tell how far it went back, but as far as she could see was far enough to keep them from easily reaching her without moving the refrigerator, which appeared to be sunk deeply into the sand at its base.

“Hungry?” Jack heard as she was about to take up residence in her hiding place.

Damn, she cursed, but plastered a beguiling expression on her face before turning to her captor. “Yes,” she acknowledged.

Now that he was clean and with the prospect of a nice piece of ass to bed in the near future, he was inclined to be magnanimous. “Sit down,” he gestured to a chair next to him. “Eat. You’re gonna need your strength.”

The marauders at the table laughed evilly as Jack took her seat. Although not the slightest bit hungry, she toyed with a hunk of cheese, taking mouse-sized nibbles.

“Here,” the leader thumped a goblet of wine in front of her.

He’s not as stupid as I thought, she surmised, surveying the amount of alcohol she had been served. He wants me good and drunk. She didn’t want to think about what kind of perversions he might want to do to her that made him feel this was necessary.

Jack had never been an easy drunk, something she had reason to bemoan as a young adolescent. She had tried several times to get enough alcohol into her system before her father molested her, in hopes of being too drunk to care what he was doing, but she could never get drunk enough. Even the vast quantity she had downed during her wedding reception hadn’t made her more than a shade past tipsy. For once, her tolerance might stand her in good stead. She took the goblet and drank a healthy swig, hoping she could find a way to idle with it as she had the cheese, to give the illusion of eating and drinking when she barely doing either.

“Not bad,” she gasped, noticing that every eye at the table was fixed on her.

“Drink up,” whispered the man on her other side. “It’s better if you’re relaxed.” There was a note of real sympathy in his suggestion that frightened her more than anything else that had happened so far.

Before she could figure out what to say to him, another infidel marauder came into the room, looking concerned. “You told me to tell you when Malik and Kadeem checked in. They haven’t and no word from ‘em. I called ‘em and nobody picked up.”

“Have the perimeter guards seen anything of them?”

“That’s just it,” he continued, with increasing alarm. “They don’t pick up, either.”

“Did not know who he was fucking with,” Jack muttered, with grim satisfaction.

The leader grabbed her and shook her. “What was that, bitch?”

“You’re all dead,” Jack informed his contorted face, completely calm now.

“They can’t have found you this soon,” he brayed. “They shouldn’t be able to find you at all.”

“He could,” she assured him, implacably.

The men at the table stared at her as if she had suddenly become a ghost. “She is married to the infidel,” one of them remembered, uneasily. “Richardson. He is not from New Mecca.”

“That’s not his real name, you know.” Jack was beginning to enjoy herself. “You’re ex-merc, right? You might know of him.” She leaned towards her captor, whispering her husband’s real name in his ear like some obscene endearment.

Jack expected any reaction other than the one she got. His face grew very still, then it filled with a bitter resignation. “She’s right,” he confirmed, simply. “We’re all dead. I suggest you boys find something good to do with the little time you got left. I got mine.”

He grasped Jack’s wrist firmly and started to pull her back towards the bedroom. She was fairly certain her reaction was not one he was going to expect, either.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he screamed as the small knife she carried bit deeply into the meat of his thumb.

As soon as he released her, she was headed towards the pantry door, which she had wisely left ajar. She didn’t expect him to give her up so easily and was not surprised when he followed close on her heels. Jack knew she had enough of a head start to make it to her bolt hole, except for one critical factor she had failed to take into account. Since giving birth to Shazza, her body had thickened just enough that she was unable to squeeze through as small a space as she could before. Try as she might, she couldn’t get her milk-laden breasts or padded rump to slide through the tiny gap.

“Gotcha,” he said, triumphantly, reaching for her. “If he’s gonna kill me anyway, at least I’ll have earned it by the time I get done with you.”

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