He Didn't Come

Jack felt lost in her new role as the holy man’s daughter. She had been taking care of herself for years. Even when Libbie was around, Jack had been on her own. She didn’t know what happened to her parents, or at least her mother, at any rate. Libbie told Jack all about her, how Libbie had never known her dad, just like Jack didn’t know hers. Jack’s mother had been a prostitute, and had apparently been at it for some time. Libbie was ten when Jack was born.

Their mother was weird as hell. She named her oldest daughter Libra, after her birth sign. She probably would have named Jack after an astrological sign, too, but she had been born a Pisces. At least her mother had had the sense not to name her that- she probably would have been called Pie all of her life.

The only home she knew was the space station that orbited New Germany. Libbie took care of her most of the time, though she was just a girl herself. The space station was nothing more than an interstellar crossroads, and so there was very little organized authority there. Hookers came and went, but Jack’s mom was always there.

It was a hooker’s paradise. Hundreds of horny travelers passed through daily, and despite their mother’s considerable drug intake, they could at least stay fed.

Until the day their mother disappeared without a trace.

Jack was four at the time, and she and her sister waited in the small rented room they called home for her to return, but she never did. They were accustomed to long absences, of course, but when a week crawled by with no sign of her, then two, they realized she was never coming back. Jack kept hoping, but Libbie knew better. She, then fourteen, tried to find a job somewhere on the space station, but the only people who were hiring were her mother’s old customers that kept passing through.

When Libbie came back from her first job with money and real food, Jack was thrilled- until she saw her sister’s face. Libbie looked stunned, and she would burst into tears for no apparent reason all day. She told Jack in the weeks that followed that first job what it was like. Both of them knew that she shouldn’t be speaking of it to a four-year-old girl, but there was no one else there for Libbie to talk to.

Talking about it, Jack knew even at four, would be the only thing that could keep her sister sane. Jack needed her, and both of them knew it. Libbie swore to her sister that she would never leave her.

But she did. When Jack was six, Libbie went out for a job and never came home. There were rumors, later on, that Libbie had been forced to go with some men on a smuggler’s ship, but nobody could confirm anything. The only ones who might have seen anything had long since moved on by the time Jack had plucked up the courage to go and look for her sister.

She stayed in their small room, buying candy and sandwiches with their meager savings, until the rent was due. After a week with no word from the occupants, the owner of the station himself came to collect. What he found was a filthy room with a single bed as the only furnishing besides an old vid screen, and a grubby little girl sitting cross-legged on the threadbare bedspread, watching a vid that had come with the room.

Within twenty-four hours she was tossed into a group home on New Germany, and the real hell began.

It was a huge old house with plenty of rooms. There were only three girls, but there were seven boys there, and they were all older than she was. Their guardian was a half-senile seventy-year-old man who spoke mostly German and couldn’t control his charges, so Jack actually had a pretty good time there.

That all changed when Seth arrived. He came into her life after she’d been there for about a year and left her alone for a while, but after six months or so, he apparently decided he couldn’t wait any longer.

He was Libbie’s age when he got there, but he was cruel and twisted. He tormented all three young girls mercilessly, and because everyone’s back-story was common knowledge, he used it to his advantage. When she was eight, he grabbed her by the arm, covered her mouth, and locked them both in his room. He didn’t rape her, but he did touch her, and he made her touch him. He sneered at her shyness, “Both your mother and your sister were whores. It runs in your blood, so what’s the problem?”

She got used to it eventually, and he seemed content with simply touching for the time being. Once she wizened up a bit, she figured that if she was a whore, then she ought to be paid. When she demanded money, he hit her across the mouth and said, “I’m not telling anyone what a slut you are for touching me like you do. I won’t tell anyone how you really are, and that’s enough of a payment. And you’re not going to touch anyone else, are you?”

She’d shaken her head meekly, and he pulled her close to him. “Good girl,” he said, stroking her hair.

He was really twisted, though. She accidentally found him torturing a small dog, and he got really angry when he saw her watching. He accused her of being a sneaky slut of a girl and hit her several times. Then he made her feel even worse by not having anything to do with her for a few days. She was so afraid that he would tell someone their secret, that he’d tell on her, but after three days he snuck into her room late at night. The girl she’d been rooming with had gotten moved to a different home, so she was all alone when she woke up to him sitting next to her on the bed.

She was scared, but he covered her mouth with one hand and thrust the other onto her thin body. He was very rough, and she had had a cold. She couldn’t breathe out of her nose at all, and when he realized this, he stopped touching her. Instead he stared at her in fascination as she struggled to get his hand away from blocking her airway.

Eventually she began losing the fight and went limp. The next thing she knew, Seth was slapping her face over and over again. She came to and shrank away from him. He almost killed me, she thought in fear and wonderment.

His voice sounded slightly panicked. “Don’t you ever do that again!”

She knew better than to argue. If he decided that it was her fault, then it had to be her fault.

Their nightly encounters came to an abrupt turn when one of the other boys came into Seth’s room. “Oh, shit, Seth!” he’d exclaimed. “Is this for real?”

Seth beckoned him into the room. “Shut the door, you idiot!”

Jack was very confused. No one else was supposed to know, right? She backed away, visibly upset, but Seth grabbed her arm roughly.

“Get back here, girl,” he snarled, and pushed her head back into his lap. “Show Jason what a good girl you are.”

She was terrified. Seth hurt her, yes, but sometimes he made her feel good, too. He made her feel so special when he called her ‘his’ girl and praised her. She knew how horrible she was, so she was grateful to him. She was puzzled by the night’s turn of events, though. The biggest rule was that no one was ever supposed to know the secret, so why was Seth allowing this other boy in the room with them?

Suddenly, Seth smacked the back of her head and pushed her away without warning or explanation. Her eyes filled with tears, and she was unsure of what she’d done wrong. She did everything he told her to do, but still, he wasn’t pleased.

Jason beckoned her over to him. She looked warily at Seth, who gestured irritably for her to go to him. She obeyed, and Jason picked her up and sat her on the bed. He pulled her down with him, and she lay in his arms, frightened and befuddled, as he tried to soothe her.

“Are you Seth’s girl?” he whispered intimately. She nodded. “Are you a good girl?” Another nod. “Can you show me?” She shook her head quickly, her intimidated eyes huge. “Why not?” he pressed.

She whispered one word. “Seth.”

Without warning he sat up, not noticing that Jack had almost fallen to the floor, and said to Seth, “You were right, man. She does think she belongs to you. “

Seth laughed. “She knows who controls her.” Then, musingly, “Want her?”

Jack didn’t say a word. Jason was eighteen and leaving the next day. She listened in silent horror as they settled on fifty creds as a ‘fair price.’

“Am I going with him?” she asked Seth in a frightened whisper. He nodded and, feeling sick, she whimpered, “Why?”

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I got sick of you.” He turned to Jason and said, “I haven’t fucked her yet. She's too little. I’d hurt her too badly, and she’d probably need a doctor or something. She sucks real good, though.”

Jason asked eagerly, “Can I try her?”

Seth shrugged again. “I don’t care. Go with him, girl.”

Feeling shocked and betrayed, she did as she was told. She knew that all of this was horribly, terribly wrong, but Seth made sure long before that she knew how dirty she was, and that she deserved much worse.

She decided to disobey, though. She didn’t want anybody else. She didn’t even want Seth, but he was a part of her life so deeply ingrained that life not involving him and the things they did was inconceivable.

“Look at it this way,” Jason explained to her. “I’m setting you free.” It turned out that the plan was for Jason to take her with him, wherever he went. They would pretend that she was his little sister, and supposedly no one would ever suspect a thing.

She refused to go, though, and Seth threatened to kill her in her sleep if she defied him. She persisted, despite her fear of him, but the following night he cupped a hand over her mouth, twisted her hands painfully behind her back, and forced her to walk out with him to meet Jason.

It was very late at night, and Jack was horribly afraid. They snuck out of the house and met Jason about a block away. Seth kept a death grip on the back of her neck and didn’t let go until Jason took her firmly by the arm. Seth didn’t even spare her a parting glance, but he and Jason said their goodbyes. Her last sight of Seth was his silhouette in the streetlight, pocketing the money he had received.

He sold me, Jack had realized with a chill of fear. Was this what her whole life was going to be like? Fear and pain and sex and abandonment? Was she that disposable?

~*~

Imam looked in on the troubled girl as she slept. He was very worried about her, as he had a feeling that she would remain true to her word and go search for Riddick.

He had seen a shadow of a real person beneath the deadly and aloof exterior. Jack had seemed to be the only person to connect with Riddick in any real way. Both individuals puzzled him. Riddick was a very troubled man, that much was certain. Why had he refused to stay? He had a chance at a better life than the one he was leading. He could have at least reassured the girl a bit more before leaving her.

Imam saw the rage and sorrow in Jack’s eyes, and his heart ached for her. He tried to comfort her as her hero deserted her, but she jerked away from his gentle arm and began running after Riddick. She only made it a handful of steps before he lost himself in the maze of people, and he didn’t think there was any stopping the tears that streamed down her dirty face.

“Jack,” the old man began hesitantly. When she didn’t respond he continued, “he lives a different life than you have, and-“

“How do you know?” She rounded on him, with her fierce fists clenched angrily at her sides. “You don’t know shit about me.” Turning around, facing the direction Riddick had gone, she muttered, “He was the only one who could possibly understand.”

With a heavy heart, Imam had led her away in the direction of the boarding house.

The decision was made that Jack would keep her male disguise until her hair grew out to a reasonable length. The proprietor of the boarding house fussed over her, undeterred at the girl’s sullenness. The gentle old woman expressed shock and horror when Imam explained, in the fewest possible words, the circumstances from which they had come.

“As you can see, we have nothing. However, there is something the authorities must know. After we get our room, could you show me where I might find them? It is about the murderer Richard Riddick.”