Bringing it down

Chapter 16 New friends

During lunch at work on Monday, Karyn sat alone, eating some vegetables and soup from the nearby take-out restaurant. She was looking at the distant desert, and contemplating the weekends surprise visit, when one of her co-workers approached and said she had a visitor in the office.

Karyn´s heart rate picked up a little, it couldn't be… No, not here!

Slightly nervous she opened the door to her office and looked relieved when she saw the man that had employed her, Abu Al-Walid. He was a colored man, fairly thin, tall and always dressed in long white tunics along with one wrapped around his head. There was always an aura of calm around him; you would instantly relax in his presence no matter what mood you'd been in before. His status as a holy man fitted him well.

“Hi.” She smiled affectionately at him. “What can I do for you?”

“Ms. Wade” he began, and without any further introductions: “I heard you had an unexpected visitor this weekend” his face not betraying any emotions.

Karyn stared at him in disbelief.

“How do you know that?” she inquired slowly.

“I'm Imam, Jack’s adoptive father.”

Sitting down at her desk, she didn't say a word, just swallowed and felt her throat tighten. What was this about? Wasn't there peace anywhere? She felt betrayed, like everybody she met was pushing her around.

“We read about you on the news when you first landed here almost half a year ago” Imam began “and knowing it is something unique to have spent several days with Mr. Riddick like you did, and that it means he cares for you, we decided to help you.” Imam gave her a warm smile. “You happened to have perfect qualifications for this job which meant I could hire you without giving myself away.”

Karyn shook her head “Mr. Al-Walid…”

“Call me Imam, please” he interrupted.

“Imam” she continued, and explained like to a child: “Riddick doesn’t care for me. He hurt me. A lot.” Involuntarily she fingered at the scar at her throat. Imam’s eyes followed her hands movements.

“My dear child, Jack and I know Mr. Riddick probably better than anyone, and trust me, only knowing what you told the media, which is probably only half the truth if I know you correctly, is enough for me to be convinced.”

Karyn shook her head and whispered “You don’t know it all”

Imam gave her a warm smile. “I am afraid that Mr. Riddick would never hesitate to kill anyone that gets in his way, and from what I heard you really got in his way and you live to tell, that is something extraordinary.”

“He got interrupted” she mumbled, feeling uneasy at the memory.

“He hesitated.” Imam concluded.

Karyn looked utterly unhappy.

Imam gave her a warm smile.

“Allah may put a lot of effort upon you, but when he does he always sends someone to guide you through it” Imam raised a hand and lightly touched her cheek “Come and have dinner at my house tonight.”

She nodded “Yeah, ok… I mean, thank you, I'll come. I think I'll need that.”

On her way home that afternoon the sun, as always this time of year, was shining in her eyes, making her half blind. She walked along the street the relatively short way between the shuttle and her house when she suddenly felt a prickle in the back of her neck. In the corner of her eye, she noticed a glimpse of a huge hooded man and thought she saw a black pair of goggles in the shadows under the hood.

Turning around quickly with her heart beating and suddenly feeling dizzy, she stumbled and fell but managed to catch herself with her palms against the pavement. Standing back up and wiping the dirt off her hands, she looked around for the man but saw only the normal New Meccan population.

She shook her head. Her mind was playing games with her. Jack and Imam had just told her about Riddick and now she thought she saw him in every corner.

She continued home, a bit shaken however.

Karyn soon became a regular guest at the Al-Walid household. She'd never felt so welcome anywhere in her whole life before. Imam always treated her with the same affection as if she'd been one of his daughters and she soon became good friends with Jack, Myra and Ziza as well as Lajjun, Mrs. Al-Walid.

Ziza was four and Imam’s only biological child, Jack and Myra were adopted; Myra was 16 and Jack 21. Karyn never saw him show any preference between his children and seeing this loving family, her heart was aching thinking about her own child that was soon to be born into this world without a father.

Jack was quite a character to get to know. She'd been a wild child and troubled teenager. Having Riddick as your role model from 13 years of age was maybe not what you should choose....

At the time Jack had wanted to become everything Riddick was. She was constantly picking fights at school, protecting younger kids, mainly in order to be able to beat the shit out of bullies just to see their humiliation when they lost to a girl. She was exercising frantically, practicing martial arts and weight lifting and was always ready for a challenge. She would have died to have her eyes shined like Riddick´s. She even romanticized life in slam, so sure that she would've been the queen of the prison ward, walking away any time she wanted… Just like Riddick.

Imam had in his mild manners tried to talk her out of it and Riddick had done everything in his power to make her change her path, with little luck.

It all changed one night though, when Jack was 17.

She was a tall, athletic girl. Beautiful, with long hair that she'd bleached into platinum blonde, always wearing provocative clothes, short skirts, tops revealing a lot of skin, combat boots and hidden shivs… Not even Riddick knew she had THEM; she would never have had the chance to keep them if he did.

Jack had been out partying with some of her girlfriends and was on her way home, alone.

She never saw him coming.

The neighborhood where they lived was almost ridiculously calm and peaceful and she was a bit tipsy, hence not having her guard up. It all happened too quickly; suddenly Jack felt a knife at her throat and the body of a huge man pressing against her from behind. At first Jack froze, for the first time in many years she didn't have the upper hand. Her whole body shivered in fear and disgust as a hand in one brutal move tore away her underwear and groped for her sensitive flesh with two fingers pushing far inside.

It all happened so fast. The pain and humiliation was excruciating, no one had ever touched her there before, and this certainly wasn't the way it was going to be done!

Jack could feel the assailant’s arousal against her back and wanted to vomit. Only a few seconds had passed since the attack had started and now she could react.

In one move she reached for the shivs that were attached at her waist, under her skirt, and with the edge pointed downwards she shoved them with full force into the mid section of the man behind her, not once, but again and again until he wasn't standing there any more.

Her brain had shut off; she hadn't heard a sound or produced one herself. Now there was nothing. No movements and all she could hear was her own harsh breathing. When she dared to turn around the man was lying in a heap, bleeding profusely from several deep wounds in his belly.

He stared at her in agony and tried to say something but all that came out was a gagging sound, and a cough.

He didn't die immediately. They only do that in the movies.

Jack sat frozen in the same position for an hour watching the man die. She was in shock. She was back at T2, she saw Shazza being torn apart, heard Paris being eaten in the dark, the blood traces from Zeke, Imam´s boys slaughtered, Johns, Carolyn….

So much death.

That's how Riddick found her, staring at the dead man, unable to move.

He carried her home to Imam and went right back out again. She'd never seen THAT look on his face before. She shivered and was instantly reminded of who Riddick really was.

The Killer.

Jack’s path in life changed dramatically after that night. In spite of finding out that the man had been a known rapist and murderer and that he'd probably killed her if she hadn't done him, she still regretted killing another human being.

Taking a life.

Ever since, Jack had used her never ending energy to do something good with her life instead. She was still into martial arts but wasn't fanatic about it anymore, she'd done well in school and was now half way through Med. School, on her way to becoming a doctor, wanting to save lives instead of ending them.

It was her way of paying her debts. At least that was how she saw it.


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On the outskirts of the community, where Riddick was renting a small apartment in a name of one of his many aliases, he pondered on what to do. He'd been following Karyn´s, Jack’s and Imam’s movements these last weeks.

They seemed to be doing well.

Karyn looked beautiful with her growing belly, slowly wiggling her way through the crowds in the streets. She'd almost seen him a couple of times. He'd been careless…

…or maybe he wanted her to see him…

Riddick had had some time to think since he left slam and he knew by now that Karyn hadn't called for the mercs. They had most likely found that cryo section he'd dropped, drifting in space and happened to be at the right place at the right time. The chances that they would be at that exact spot in the system were less than one in a billion… probably even less.

Fucking bad luck! Riddick never did anything that involved chance.

He also had a pretty good idea about what had happened to those passengers… Well, there were worse ways to go.