Claimer's Keeps

“Hello, Jackie,” he said. His face was a total deadpan, just as she remembered it.

“Hello,” she whispered, mouth completely dry. “What are you doing here? And why am I tied up?”

Riddick smirked. “You’re tied up because I scared you, and I don’t want you to do anything stupid, at least until we understand each other. And as for why I’m here…” he paused, and though Jack couldn’t see his eyes through his goggles, she felt them roaming her body. She shivered, partly from fear and partly from something else that she couldn’t quite define.

Riddick continued, “I’m here for something I’ve been wanting for a long time. Something I needed to let age and mature—” here he laughed wickedly— “like a fine wine. And if what I see here is any indication, it’s been well worth the wait.”

Jack couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What are you talking about?”

“You, babe.” His shiv was suddenly in his hand, tapping at his thigh meditatively. “Just you.”

Riddick sat down and calmly ate the rest of her toast. Jack was dumbfounded. This wasn’t happening.

Suddenly her temper exploded. “Jesus, Riddick, let me go! This isn’t fucking funny!” she yelled, struggling to get out of her bonds.

As quickly as her temper flamed to life, Riddick rose and pressed a heavy hand against her mouth. Savagely, she bit it.

Riddick wrapped his other hand in her long hair and yanked her head back, startling her into silence. The cold metal of his shiv traced her jawline as he leaned against her body and growled into her ear, “Don’t defy me again.” Each word was spoken in a measured, threatening tone that sent a thrill of fear up Jack’s spine. She snapped her mouth shut and tried to shrink away from him, but no matter which direction she moved, the tension he placed on her hair grew painfully.

Riddick said, “I don’t want to have to gag you, little one, but one more outburst and I’ll do it.”

Jack nodded with wide eyes, and her one-time hero released her and stepped back, his shiv disappearing too quickly for her to see.

“I’m sure you have a few questions. Those can wait. Right now I just need to get you out of here.” He abruptly drew something from his pocket, and when he showed her what was in his hands, she began to tremble. It was an official slave collar and a delicate chain leash.

She shook her head. “You can’t be serious,” she whispered. He couldn’t mean it. He wouldn’t do that to her.

“Oh, but I am serious, Jackie. Very serious.”

She looked up at him, twisting her wrists subtly. “Why?”

Riddick gave a smile that actually held some warmth. “I’ll explain later. First, though, are you still hungry?”

Jack shook her head. She felt as though what little there was in her stomach would see the light of day any minute.

Riddick nodded. “Okay. Just don’t bitch later on.” He approached her with the silver collar held open. Jack shook her head erratically. This wasn’t happening. She would wake up in her own bed any second now. Riddick wasn’t in her house. He wasn’t fastening a slave collar around her neck. It wasn’t pressing uncomfortably against her throat. No. No, he wasn’t clipping the short leash onto the delicate metal loop.

Yes, he was.

Once the collar was around her neck, according to interplanetary law, she was officially her keeper’s property. She had no rights as a citizen of the universe. She wasn’t even Jack anymore, if her owner decided to call her something different.

The trade had been dying out, but there had been rumors of it getting picked up again. It was hard to get a real slave collar. They were very expensive, and you were only a ‘real’ slave if the collar were genuine. She truly hoped that this was all a sick game of Riddick’s, but somehow, she didn’t think so.

Jack felt numb. Her whole world was crumbling around her, and the only ones left alive were Riddick and herself.

Riddick untied her hands from the chair and tugged on the leash. She rose as if in a daze. He smiled at her, again with a hint of friendliness. “Come on.” He led Jack down the hall to her room and unclipped the leash. “You have five minutes to pack anything you want to take with you. No guarantees that I’ll let you keep it, of course, but you never know.”

Jack was still in a state of shock and denial. She looked around her room and felt strangely dissociated from it all. It no longer seemed to be hers. She lifted a hand to the collar, ran her fingers over the locking mechanism and the small insignia that made it all terribly legal and terribly real, and began to cry silently with hopeless tears. Not even Imam could help her now. Law was law and this man—this man who once saved her life—was her Master. There was no way out.

Riddick drawled, “Three minutes, Jackie.”

The intrusion of his raspy, sensual voice on her thoughts brought her back to reality. With shaking hands, the hands of a stranger, Jack piled several books onto her bed. To that she added a picture of Imam and the only picture she had of her parents. She remembered when that picture had been taken. She and her parents had been camping. She couldn’t remember who snapped the picture, but there she was, in between both of her parents, and all three were smiling. She was missing two front teeth.

Riddick surprised her by adding her headphones and music case to the pile. When she reached for her closet door, however, Riddick beat her to it. He held one hand on the door, shaking his head.

“No clothes. Don’t worry about that. It’s not an issue.”

Jack nodded limply and stepped back, gazing at what had been her room only a few minutes ago. What else did she want to take? She had several things—candles, posters, and more—that she would miss, but they were useless, really.

Finally she grabbed several more books and, after a few moments of silent deliberation, her journal. Riddick raised his eyebrows when she pulled it out from behind the dresser, and Jack met his gaze. He didn’t say a word, and finally Jack gathered her meager belongings into a pathetic little pile.

“How am I supposed to carry it?” she asked. Her voice barely even shook.

Riddick put a hand on her shoulder and steered her toward the door. “The bag you already packed. Let’s go get it.”

Jack swallowed the lump away from her tight throat and nodded, allowing her captor to propel her in front of him. She still wasn’t leashed. Maybe she could evade him somehow, escape, and find some way to get this fucking collar off….

Riddick appeared to read her thoughts, for he squeezed on her slender shoulder. She knew that he was holding back considerably, but it was painful, just the same. It felt like there would be a bruise. “Don’t even think about it, Jackie. You’re all mine now. You won’t get away that easily.”

Jack was careful not to respond. They entered the living room, and Riddick picked up her bag from where it lay in the couch. She was shocked when he casually unzipped it and tossed the contents onto the floor. The action wasn’t a huge deal in and of itself, but that he showed such great disdain for her things, for her life, appalled her.

Riddick chuckled at the look on her face. He didn’t say a word as he moved her back to her room. Releasing her shoulder, he instructed, “Pack it all up. Hurry. The launch window is in two hours.”

“What?!” Jack yelled, forgetting herself and her precarious situation. “You’re taking me off-world?”

Riddick didn’t answer her. Gesturing to the bed, he simply said, “If you want to keep your stuff, get it packed now.”

There was a slight growl to his words, and Jack shook her head. “I can’t believe this,” she whispered, shoveling her few things into the small overnight bag.

As she zipped it closed, Riddick snapped the leash back onto her collar. Jack winced as she heard the clasp lock in place. “Pick it up,” Riddick ordered, as though bossing around terrified teenage girls was something he did every day. Maybe it was.

Jack looked at him carefully, trying to gauge her chances of defying him and living to tell the tale. Fuck it. Anything was better than being a slave.

Simultaneously reaching for the bag and the clasp, she fumbled with the chain while throwing the bag at Riddick, aiming for his head. He moved back smoothly and caught the bag with one hand, but loosened his hold on the leash as he did so. She decided to just make a run for it.

She got as far as the door before she was yanked backward. The snug collar dug deep into her throat, cutting off her airway and making her cough as she fell heavily.

Riddick was… laughing. “Oh, Jackie-girl, I was hoping for a challenge from you.”

Jack lay sprawled on the floor and gasped through her heaving breaths, “Fuck you, Riddick.”

Riddick tugged on the chain, and rather than be choked again, she rose unsteadily to her feet.

“Later,” he rumbled with a chilling smile, his voice holding a threatening promise.