Pain and Possession

The throbbing her head brought her to and a painful groan escaped her lips as her side ached like the devil reminding her of what had taken place before she’d lost consciousness. From the feel of the carpet beneath her she was still on the floor and she blinked her eyes rapidly to clear her blurred vision.

She was still alive.

The fact thrilled her and filled her with dread at the same time. She lifted her head and let out a small cry as her head exploded and her world tilted dizzily. She felt her stomach heave from the excruciating pain and wondered if she was going to empty its contents on the rug before her. She closed her eyes until the waves of pain subsided.

Caron had no idea how long she’d been out and the silence in the house made her more frightened than Riddick’s presence earlier had. She listened intently for some sound but heard nothing but her own ragged breathing.

Trying again to get up, she groaned as pain buffeted every part of her body. Tears pooled in her eyes as she tried to ignore the agony every breath and movement brought her.

“Ssssh” his voice came out of the darkness, “You’ll wake the baby”

Lifting her head she squinted her eyes and peered into the corner of the room from where his voice came from. She was able to make out his figure sitting in one of the kitchen chairs he’d dragged there. As her eyes became accustomed to the dark his shadowy figure became more detail and she gasped as she saw the still limp body of her son lying in his arms.

“Oh God” she cried out in terror thinking the absolute worse.

“Caron” he said in a soft steady voice, “He’s asleep. Don’t wake him”

Sitting on her haunches, she ignored the burning in her side and reached out her hands, “Give him to me…please. Give me my son”

“Don’t you mean my son?” his voice was hard as diamonds when he said those words.

He knew! She screamed inside at the realization. “Richard please…” she begged softly.

“If you call me Richard again I will snap yourk.” k.” He told her coldly, “There is no Richard. Richard is dead. You killed him”

“I just want my son” she said in a ragged breath.

“Shut up before you wake him. It took me awhile to get him to sleep.”

Caron couldn’t believe what he was saying. Richard .B. Riddick rocking her son back to sleep was not an image she was able to picture in her mind. She wondered fearfully where his knife was.

“I want to hold him”

“No” he gave her no explanations, just a calldenidenial of her request.

Caron sank back down on the rug and closed her eyes, the pain in her side was getting worse, it was no worse though, than the pain she felt at seeing her son held in the hands of a psychopathic murderer, the hands of his father. She prayed that he felt a connection with his son, a connection that would prevent him from being killing his own flesh and blood.

“How old is he?” he voice rumbled suddenly and she opened her eyes.

“He’s two”

“His name?’

She hesitated, “Richard”

Caron thought for a minute that she saw him flinch but she was sure since the darkness cloaked him so well. When he didn’t speak anymore she ventured a question.

“What are you going to do with us?”

His teeth flashed whitely in the dark as he smiled, it wasn’t a smile designed to make her feel at ease.

“I’m keeping my son.” He told her softly, “You on the other hand I am going to kill.”

There was nothing else said and Caron rested her head on the carpet and closed her eyes again. The throbbing beat of her aching ribs had intensified and was now echoing painfully inside her skull. With out a word she laid there and waited for him to kill her.

She was still waiting when the blackness came and took her under once again.

Riddick held the small body that slept in his arms possessively, the feeling that was coursing through him was alien and yet familiar all at the same time. It was liarliar to him because once Richard had felt that same possessiveness about Her. Now he felt it about his off spring. The beastwledwled softly as the child shifted in his arms. He belonged to the beast now. He wis cis cub. His.

“Mommy” The child whimpered softly in his sleep. Riddick held him to his chest awkwardly in an attempt to soothe him. When he had come upon Riddick standing over his unconscious, naked mother he hadn’t exhibit any sign of fear. Riddick hadn’t even smelled any on him. The only emotion he was able to pick up from the child was confusion and unhappiness. No fear though.

He’d stared at Riddick with eyes like his own and then pointed at his mother and told him, “I want mommy”

Riddick had smiled, and it was then he realized had the child cried or shown some type of fear the beast would have killed him. As it were he showed early on the qualities the beast admired in others.

Richard struggled to the surface, wanting to hold his child and the beast allowed him. He wanted to hold the child too. The longer he held the child the more the beast wanted him.

Wanted, not loved. Love was an emotion only Richard was capable of. The beast only knew pain and possession.

The child allowed Riddick to hold him with out any struggle and soon he was lying comfortably in his arms. Arms that were used to kill and torture, arms that were now holding a sweet smelling child. His child. The beast within strutted proudly as he contemplated his progeny.

The fact that his name was Richard irked him but it was no big deal, he would never be as soft and as gullible as the Richard he had been named after. He would make sure of that. A small sound from the floor alerted him to the fact that Caron was gaining consciousness.

Looking at her Riddick realized that this where he was in a quandary. He was intelligent enough to know that there was no way he could survive on the run with a child. Theas nas no one alive he trusted enough to take care of him either. That was where she came in. As much as he wanted her dead, he understood that he needed her alive even more.

The beast consoled himself with the thought of killing her when he no longer needed her. When she had asked him what he was going to do to her he deliberately told her what she feared, wanting to torture her with the knowledge that he would kill her and take her son.

His son.

The exact instant she lost consciousness again he knew, the way her breathing pattern shifted told him. It was then he decided it was time for him to leave. Before he left he placed the sleeping child back in bed and picked up the phone. He dialed the number for the police, spoke in short, terse sentences and then hung up. If it wasn’t for the child he would have left her there to die. He almost laughed as a thought struck him. If it hadn’t been for the child she would have been dead.

Walking over to her limp body, he nudged her with a booted foot and a small groan escaped her lips. Bending, he placed his hands around her throat and stared down in to her face. The soft flutter of her pulse beat against his thumbs as he practically held her life in his hands.

His hands moved, loosened and instead of gripping her neck, his hands were touching her pale skin softly. His thumbs caressed the skin of her neck and an infinite sadness at what had become settled over him like a cloak.

With an angry roar the beast slammed the door on Richard, banishing him to the back of their consciousness with a heavy loathing. Removing his hands quickly, Riddick stood and stepped away from her as if she was some kind of virulent disease he didn’t want to catch.

Without looking back he exited the house, knowing that he’d be back soon to see his son. His offspring.

His.