CHAPTER11COC

CHAPTER 11

Zar took a step back involuntarily in shock. Eyes widening and heart racing in reaction.
What in the HELL did the woman want?!
Glancing at the door behind which Riddick slept, she debated what her next move should be. Ignore the bitch, roust Riddick and let him handle Miri or just get the confrontation over with.
Miriam stared at the door with a small smile. She had no problem imagining the thoughts running through the Cholena woman’s mind. Anger, betrayal and shock were just some of the emotions she’d bet. Her showing up here the night after discovering Riddick’s infidelity was like rubbing salt in an open wound. It hurt like the fuck.
The pain Zar was going through somewhat made up for the monkey wrench she’d thrown in Miriam’s plans.
She’d been sure the dumb bitch would’ve thrown Riddick out when she’d seen the disk. That’s what any self-respecting woman would’ve done. But evidently Riddick’s little plaything didn’t have too much self-respect.
Miriam had watched the apartment door for hours after Riddick had come home. Waiting for the hopefully angry, and therefore distracted, killer to leave the apartment. When that happened she would follow him until they were in a relatively deserted area of the station. Then let her presence be known. He’d be pissed at her, but still totally unaware of her real identity. Her real agenda. The very real threat she posed to him. She’d take advantage of his anger and confusion to get close and steal a kiss. Her lips coated with the knockout dope Dormoxis, a drug much like the prohibition lowering and lust raising spray Erotocan that she applied to her throat at their first meeting.
Dormoxis, like Erotocan, was a DNA based nerve agent. It worked on only one person’s genetic code. The base was mixed with DNA from the intended victim and voila, instant Mickey. She had some of Riddick’s DNA left over from the salvage operation of the Hunter-Gratzner and mixed the concoctions herself.
Johns had been the one to teach her about mind-altering drugs and how they could be useful in capturing escapees. Unfortunately he’d been ensnared by them and their pain killing effects. Another debt she gave Riddick at least partial credit for.
When Riddick awoke on her transport, he’d be woozy and sick as a dog. The agents packed a powerful aftereffect. It took men many days to overcome their usage. Even Riddick, with his Profearaben enhanced healing system, would need some time to cope. It would give her plenty of breathing space to properly secure him. And to torment him both physically and mentally. He’d look like a horse that had been rode hard and put away wet by the time she was through with him. The Slam City assholes didn’t care what shape he came back in. As long as he was technically alive.
When an hour had passed and both he and Zar had remained inside, she’d been sure her plan was royally fucked. She needed, on a basic gut level, to see Riddick humiliated and abandoned. With no one to turn too. With all he thought of as his own in ashes smoldering at his feet. That’s when she would come in and take him down.
Letting him know that it was a lover of Johns who had orchestrated the collapse of his lovely little world. Watching him writhe with the pain of loss and re-inprisonment.
So she had thought long and hard as the night had worn on. She wasn’t going to give up that easy. The key seemed to be the Cholena heifer. She had more balls than originally given credit for. But when the going got really down and dirty, how big would those balls remain? How much humiliation and betrayal could she take? The breaking point in her relationship with Riddick seemed to have a pretty high threshold. But the point being that all relationships had a line that could not be crossed without causing irreparable damage.
Miriam would just have to raise the intensity. And though Riddick fucking her hadn’t broken the bond between he and Zar, she was pretty sure it had put a serious crack in it. A crack that just needed a little more wedging to widen the gap and let the whole fucking thing fall apart.
And that’s when the idea hit her.
She’d ran a check on the woman. Knew about the Jessup 2 incident with some petty, self-important, back world, protection “family.” She’d even been impressed that the weak little piss-ant had survived it. She would’ve been even more impressed with Brenner’s death if she didn’t know that Riddick had been the one to really kill him. Oh, the authorities had said it was a case of a woman defending herself. But any merc who knew that an animal like Riddick was involved would’ve seen his handwork and knew who the real killer was. A clean slice to the fourth lumbar down. A Riddick signature if ever there was one.
Thanks to the information she had on Zar she had a good idea at what her weak points would be. By the time Miriam got done with her, she’d be a giant open wound ready to spill it’s puss on the source of it’s infection. All directed at her loverboy, Riddick.
But first she had to get the twit to let her in.
“Hello?! Did you hear me? I want to see Richard Carolyn!”
Ten seconds later the door smoothly receded in the wall. Revealing the two women who had managed to get under Riddick’s protective defenses.
Miriam smiled impudently at a glaring Zar. Gracefully leaning against the door jam while folding her arms under her breasts.
Zar looked over the woman before her. She noted her beauty. Could see
how her bad girl looks would appeal to a man like Riddick.
“How’d ya like the disk sweetie? Never thought you’d see your boyfriend do that with another woman did you? Then again, you probably saw Richard Carolyn in a whole new light. He probably doesn’t get all that worked up with you, huh?”
Miriam watched with satisfaction as Zar’s nostrils flared, marking the hit.
But Zar refused to rise to the bait. She’d be damned if she got in a cat fight over any man! Even one she loved as passionately as Richard Riddick. Fight FOR him? Till the last breath in her body. Fight OVER him? Not bloody likely.
“What. Do. You. Want?”
“I told you. I’m here to see Richard. He and I have some unfinished business.”
The urge to smack the slut’s face was making Zar’s palms itch. But she kept reminding herself that Richard was the one who let her into their lives. That he hadn’t been raped, but seduced. And if he hadn’t been willing in the first place, this little confrontation wouldn’t be taking place.
“Well, he’s still sleeping. You’ll have to talk to him at work tomorrow.”
“Oh, I don’t work there anymore. You see, I won’t be able to do that kind of work much longer.”
Miriam knew the exact second the implications of her words sunk into Zar’s mind. Her eyes widened and lips compressed. A hectic flush rose from her neck. Soon it encompassed her entire face. Her hands fisted at her sides. Rage and hurt radiated out from her vibrating body.
“What the fuck is going on here?!”
Miriam was pleased to note that not even the sound of an obviously pissed Riddick could tear Zar’s eyes from her triumphant face.
Glancing over to a shirtless Riddick, she had to admit that he was a fine specimen of a man. Tall, thickly muscled, with smooth, warm-toned skin, and a sex appeal that most women would find irresistible. Add to that his mysterious eyes and whiskey voice and it seemed almost an abomination that such a handsome body encased a cess-pit for a soul.
She smirked even more as she looked back to the dangerously silent Zar.
“Looks like he’s awake. Aren’t you going to kiss him good morning?”
Riddick could feel the fury rolling off Zar. He didn’t need to see the clenched fists or tight shoulders or her not turning to face him to make it obvious that Miri had already done a number on her.
The urge to kill the scheming bitch was a fever spreading like wildfire over his already stretched nerves. The old Riddick would’ve done it in the blink of an eye. But the very woman who had made him change his reactions was standing in the room. It was almost comically ironic.
Miri wouldn’t have been able to make him the man that hurt Zar if it hadn’t been for Zar making him the man he was today. The consequence of change.
“Get out. Now.” Any other person would’ve been instinctively terrified by the very quietness of his voice. A warning in itself that pain and terror would ensue if his directives were not followed.
But Riddick was quickly coming to realize that his first reaction on seeing Miri Lopresso was correct. She was not like every other person. She was something much more. She was danger in walking, talking, human form. She meant him and those in his life grievous harm.
She reinforced his belief when she just smiled more widely at his order.
“But don’t you want to hear the good news loverboy?”
Every hair on the back of Riddick’s neck stood on end at her contemptuous laugh. Something very wrong was going down here. And Miri was at the dead center of it. She was about to knock his world into tomorrow and he probably wasn’t going to be able to do a damn thing about it.
“What could you possible have to tell me?! That you plan on fucking up my life? News flash! You’ve succeeded! I don’t know what game you have planned, but I’m not playing anymore.”
“Oh, I think the games just started. And what’s even better is that instead of just the two of us participating, they’ll be four now.”
“Four?! Stop being so cryptic Miri. Say your piece and leave.”
“I don’t think I’ll be leaving anytime soon lover. Though you might be. Depends on what the ole’ ball and chain here has to say about my news. You see, I’m pregnant with your brat.”
He didn’t react with the staggering shock she expected.
For three seconds he just stared at her malicious face. Then he moved so quickly that even Miriam with her honed reflexes didn’t see him coming.
But she felt the impact of his hand brutally pulling her to him. Then slamming her back up against the wall. Entrapping her body with his. She felt a flash of fear that she had overestimated the amount of change Zar had put him through. She saw her death in his cold milky eyes.
Then his eyes flicked over to the silent Zar. She hadn’t moved. Just stood staring at the spot Miriam had been in ten seconds ago. The anguish on her face making his hands tighten cruelly around Miriam’s wrists.
It was then Miri knew that he wouldn’t do it. If he had been going to kill her, it would’ve been kill first, handle Zar later. But instead he had focused firstly on the pain of his mate. Miriam had him right where she wanted him.
“You’re a fucking liar! Tell her you’re lying!”
“Am I? I think you know better.”
Roughly his hand encompassed both of her wrists. Leaving his free hand to press harshly against her abdomen.
“I don’t feel anything. You’re blowing smoke up my ass.”
“Un, uh lover. I’m only three weeks along. Just got the results back from the med-lab. You’re going to be a papa and we’re going to be one big happy family. Just you, me and baby makes three.”
Miriam knew the second she had pushed too far. The man before her was instantly transformed into the killer from the images in the prison reports. Snapped under the stress of seeing the one good thing in his life ripped to shreds. She prepared her body to fight for its life. Angry at herself for not bringing a weapon. Sure she wouldn’t have needed it just yet.
But the hand approaching her throat made contact with Zar’s first and so instead of closing around her windpipe, it connected like a fist. The back of Zar’s hand blunting the impact, if not the pain, of being hit in what would’ve been a life-ending area of the throat.
Miriam’s head snapped back with the force. She thought she had heard something snap. But she wasn’t sure if it had been in her body, Riddick’s hand or Zar’s. The stars that peppered her vision and the pain that pounded throughout her head and throat made the question irrelevant. Staying conscious and breathing were first priorities.
It the midst of a killing haze, Riddick stared stupidly at the impediment to his soul deep need to murder this woman who had caused so much damage. Who so needed to die. Slowly his glare traveled up from the small, plumb hand that enfolded his fingers to the arm that it connected to. It was trembling with the force of holding his back.
When his silvery deranged eyes encountered the pain and tear filled orbs of the woman he would die for, he came back to reality like a meteor making planet fall. Astonished at his loss of control. Astounded at the bravery and compassion of the woman who would save her enemy’s life at the cost of her own.
Because for one split second he had wanted to kill Zar for her interference with his attempt to murder Miri. But it had only lasted a second. Then sanity had once again regained it’s hold on his mind. The animal retreating until another opportunity arose.
Silently Zar shook her head at him. Letting him know that she couldn’t allow him to kill Miri and the baby.
“Let her go Richard.”
He looked back at the half-conscious woman he held pinned to the wall. The urge to kill her was still strong, but even stronger was the urge to do whatever Zar wanted him to do. Anything to keep her with him.
Slowly he opened his hand and let her wrists escape from his clutch. Watching dispassionately as she slid down the wall to sit on the floor. Coughing and gagging sounds still coming out of her injured throat. Her head hanging forward trying to ease the distress of her body.
When he looked up at Zar she was staring blankly at Miri while cradling the hand that had stopped him.
He remembered the force with which he went for Miri’s throat and cringed as he imagined Zar’s tiny hand absorbing the impact.
Gently taking her limb from it’s resting place on her stomach, he examined the shattered and rapidly swelling hand.
“We need to get you to a med-lab.”
Zar continued to stare down at Miri. At a seeming loss to know where to go from there.
Gently taking a hold of her chin, Riddick brought her face up so that her eyes met his.
“I’m...sorry. That wasn’t meant for you.”
“I know. But I couldn’t let you do it. No matter what she is or what she’s done. She’s carrying your child.”
A sad little smile flashed over her wet face as she focused her eyes on anywhere but his.
“Something I can never do.”
Abruptly his fingers tightened on her chin. Demanding her eyes meet his with a force just short of causing pain.
“Do you think I give a flying rats ass about that?! I’m not with you in spite of the fact that you can’t get pregnant. Hell, as far as I’m concerned it’s an advantage! If there was ever anyone who should NOT reproduce I think yours truly is that person.
We have the only children I ever want. More than I ever thought I’d have! And though they‘re not of our blood, I couldn’t want them anymore if they were! They’ll probably turn out better for the lack of my blood.
I know you miss Beth. I know you’d have my baby in a heart beat. But don’t you transfer your insecurities on to me. You could be missing an arm, a leg and an ass cheek and still be woman enough for me!
UNDERSTAND ME ZAR?!
Don’t let her do this to you! She’s already done enough damage, albeit with my help. I, for one, am through with it! She’s probably not even knocked-up. Even if she is, she and HER brat are getting out of here forever then I’m taking you to the med-lab so that they can Autoknit that hand.”
“You can’t just forget about your responsibility concerning the baby Richard!”
A deep scorn-filled laugh flowed across her face.
“Yeah, right! Tell that to the bitch who left me in a liquor store trash bin Zar! Life is not priceless. It’s totally expendable. It’s a penny a pound. Especially for kids in this galaxy. Look at Jack if you need to see the truth! Better yet, remember what they did to Beth!
A persons life is only worth what they are willing to give it. ‘Cause sure as fuck no one else gives it any worth. The ones too weak or too small to fight for it are just S.O.L., unless they have someone to fight for them.
And I’m not willing to fight for that thing inside of Miri. Even if I could forget the fact that it’s part of a woman I will loathe forever. It also comes with too much baggage. If it was our kid I’d give it a try, for you.
She wants the kid?! Fine, she can have it. She did it on purpose anyway. She’s too smart a bitch not to know about birth control. But I’ll be damned if she uses it to work me or hurt you!”
Zar’s shaking had intensified as the fury and pain spilled from the man who had been taught the hard way what life was worth. She wasn’t sure if it was from the broken hand, or if it was from the ugliness coming from the man she entrusted with her heart and soul.
The last year and a half seemed to dissipate like fog being burned away with morning Sun. All the love and commitment she had invested in this man had been stripped away in one minute of hate and violence.
She was no longer in the room with the Riddick she had come to know and love. The hard, emotionally near-empty man who had walked off the battered transport into her life had fought it’s way from under the veneer of civilization and redemption that Zar had given Riddick.
Maybe he had never really gone anywhere. Just lied low waiting for an opportunity to come back.
And Miri Lopresso had given him that opportunity.