He Didn't Come

(FIVE YEARS LATER)


“Happy birthday, Jackie!” Tess said, giving her a big smile. She hooked her arm around her waist and gave an amiable squeeze. Tess was fourteen and tried to be everybody’s friend. She was overweight and sunburned easily, so she was always sweating and bright red. Add to that her incessant nosiness, and there was a perfect recipe for chief loser.

The owner of the offended waist grimaced. “Yeah. Lucky me.”

“I’m going to miss you, you know that?”

Jack said cynically, “Yeah right.”

“No, really, I mean it. You at least kept things interesting around here, you know?” Tess wrapped a lock of her curly brown hair around her finger. Jack hated it when she did that. It was incredibly annoying, doing nothing but magnifying the intense girliness of everyone in Chap except for Jack.

“What, all my failed escape attempts?”

Tess laughed, a high, girlish giggle. “Yeah, well, that and your Riddick obsession. No one else ever had a crush on a serial killer before.”

Mika had left a few years earlier, even though she was Jack’s age. With her departure, the dyke shit had faded, thank God. Remembering what she’d said about Riddick saving her when she’d first arrived, Jack rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid. Of course, all the other girls interpreted it as a crush once Mika left, but it was so much more than that. At least, she’d thought it was.

“A crush on that psycho? What are you, crazy? Whatever. Look, Simmons wants to see me for something, so do you mind?” Jack looked pointedly at the younger girl’s unwelcome arm still wrapped around her waist.

“Oh, sorry.” At Jack’s glare, she scurried away. Jack smirked. Maggot.

It had been almost five years since she’d last seen Riddick. Since he abandoned her in a closet like a useless piece of garbage. Since he ditched her, just like everyone always ditched her. Asshole. She couldn’t believe she’d trusted him.

She made her way down the four floors from her dorm room to the lobby, wondering what the problem was. All of her stuff was packed, she had free passage to New Mecca; everything was covered. She knocked on the familiar door (by now, very familiar), and waited for permission to enter.

After a moment, the new secretary called, “Come in.” Crista looked up at her disdainfully as Jack walked past. After her release, she was now employed by Chap. One of Joanna’s cronies, Crista was another of the girls to make life hell for Jack. Some time after she first arrived, after getting tossed into solitary for beating the shit out of the third girl in their clique, Crista had been the one to hack into her files and feed Joanna the information about her past.

After the shiv incident, Joanna had left her alone. Crista, however, took over the plot to make “that freaky new girl” miserable. A bloody nose and two chipped teeth later and the harassment issue had been solved, but there was a long-standing enmity between the two of them that had gone on past Joanna’s release a year ago. Jack opened the door and walked inside. Proper decorum was expected in Mrs. Simmons’s office. Jack knew by that point just what kind of behavior was required. She couldn’t even begin to guess how much time she’d spent in the chair in front of Simmons’ desk getting reamed about one thing or another. She took a seat without being asked, just to prove she could, and raised her eyebrows.

The director of Chapel Hall looked at her primly over those annoying half-moon glasses, but didn’t mention the lapse in etiquette. “Hello, Jacqueline.”

“Hello, Mrs. Simmons. You wanted to see me?”

Simmons folded her hands on top of the desk and gave Jack a sigh and a worried frown. “Yes. I have to tell you something you may find difficult. You were planning on traveling to the Ichar system after your release today, am I right?”

Jack nodded, trying to keep the sudden concern at bay. She had to get off this rock. If there was something wrong, some obstacle standing in her way….

“Yes ma’am. I have a friend there who I was going to go live with in New Mecca.”

“A retired gentlemen, yes? An Imam Abu Al-walid??”

“That’s right.” Where was she going with this?

“It’s my unfortunate duty to inform you that Mr. Al-walid has passed away.”

The director kept talking, but Jack couldn’t hear a word that was being spoken. Imam was dead. Dead. She was supposed to live with him and go to college in New Mecca. Her transport left in three standard hours. It was all planned out. She was all packed, she was eighteen, and she was ready to go. There was nothing keeping her here any longer. This couldn’t be real. Imam had just spoken to her through a satcomm the yesterday.

“What.…” Voice cracking, Jack cleared her throat and tried again. “What happened?”

“He was hit by a car. I was told he died instantly. A hit-and-run. I’m sorry, Jacqueline.” Without even pausing to give her time to collect herself, without offering any more empty words of comfort (Jack was partially offended and partially relieved by her indifference) and obviously neglecting to see if she was all right, Simmons went on, “My question is, do you still want to go to New Mecca? I’m sure there are jobs here in Donli for you. You wouldn’t have a difficulty getting established and making a living in the mines. Or, of course, you could always work here.”
Jack blinked as the words painfully set in. Slowly, she said, “Who’s going to take care of his stuff?”

“Excuse me?” The director looked confused.

“His stuff.” In a slight daze, Jack elaborated, “He didn’t have any family. Who’s going to handle all of his affairs? Like, his money and his house? Where’s his stuff going
to go?”

“It has already been distributed to the local poor population through his mosque. The body was declared property of the city and cremated.”

Jack allowed a single tear to escape her green eyes. He hadn’t been her legal guardian, so the social services department had refused to grant him custody of her when she was thirteen. He couldn’t afford passage to D6, so there had been no way for him to contest the official decision. Despite that, he and Jack had remained in close contact, though not as closely as either would have liked. And now he was dead.

“Jacqueline? Are you all right, dear?”

Jack pressed her lips together in an attempt to cease their quivering. The stupid bitch; of course she wasn’t all right! Imam had been her future, her only future. Without anywhere to go, she was going to be stuck in Donli for the rest of her life, natural or otherwise, mining in the desert like everyone else she knew.

No fucking way. “No, I want to go to New Mecca.”

Simmons looked very surprised. “Are you sure?”

“Very sure," Jack said firmly.

Simmons could do little else but acquiesce. After all, it was Jack’s eighteenth birthday. She was finally free.

Without waiting for a dismissal, Jack rose and walked sedately away from the office. She even ignored Crista’s superior sneer, but as soon as she was out the door, she flew down the tiled walkway toward the gym’s locker room. She desperately needed to hit something. The familiar helplessness was threatening, and Jack hadn’t cut since she was thirteen. She didn’t intend to relapse now.

She fumbled with the old-fashioned combination lock. “Breathe, you bitch. Breathe,” she commanded herself as she stripped out of her shirt and ugly regulation pants. Throwing on a pair of sweatpants and a snug tank top, she was startled by the half-strangled sob that started to rip its way from her throat.

She slammed her fist into her locker, barely feeling the pain that happily zoomed into residence in her fingers and wrist. Pointedly ignoring the dent in the cheap metal, she reached inside, removed her tape, and leaned against the opposite wall of lockers in order to tape up her hands and wrists. She’d learned long ago with Riddick to protect herself that way.

“No point in injuring yourself, because whoever you’re sparring wants to hurt you more. Don’t ever do your opponent any favors,” she said quietly as she stepped into the workout room, hardly realizing that she was echoing her teacher, the asshole.

Her inner pain faded as she threw herself into her customary workout. She hadn’t been planning on going on-on-one with the punching bag that day, but Imam… she couldn’t even begin to think about the kind holy man. It hurt far too much. It was blinding.

As hour and a half later, Jack staggered into the shower and set it at its coldest setting. As soon as her overheated body felt suitably cooled off, she inched the dial to a warmer setting. She breathed a sigh as the water rinsed away the sweat and the tears she had cried.