A Perfect Circle- Part 4
AUTHOR: evilgrrl
Content/Safety Level for children: CAUTION
Sarah found it difficult to get up without food or coffee, but Riddick was completely unaffected. He was still riding the rush of his tenuous freedom, and his anxiety about Johns couldn't but help keep him on edge. Now he had to try to bring Fry over to his side before the inevitable confrontation, and do it without Johns catching wind of it.
They dressed and rounded up the personal items they felt they had to have, then went outside to join the others. Fry as pulling a few last pieces of equipment out of the navigation bay of the ship.
Sarah saw him look in Fry's direction. "What do you think?" Riddick asked.
"This may be the best chance you'll get."
"Okay. You'll let me know if Johns starts over this way?"
Sarah smiled at him wickedly. "He won't be."
Riddick smiled back. "Now don't get him all hot and bothered if you can help it. You know how these White boys can be."
"I know," she said, nodding in Fry's direction. "Go on."
He squeezed her hand lightly, then headed into the ship.
Johns was cleaning his handgun in the shade of the other side of the Hunter-Gratzner. He looked pretty intent on what he was doing, so Sarah left him alone for the moment. She wondered what kind of a man he really was. He and Riddick didn't seem all that different really. Riddick killed people who got in his way, and Johns killed or kidnapped people who got in the way of the law. Not everyone with a price on his head was worth more alive than dead, and she had no doubt that Johns had killed in the line of duty more than once.
She noticed a tremor in his hand, and the way he sat down and breathed deeply for a moment. Then he put his gun back into the holster on his belt and headed into a small compartment at the back of the ship. It was pretty far away from the nav bay where Riddick was bending Fry's ear, but Sarah didn't want to take any chances. She followed Johns in very quietly. She watched through a crack in the wall as he prepped his needle and his dose, then shot it directly into the tear duct of his eye. Evidently, track marks would be career limiting in any kind of law enforcement career, even one as far removed as bounty hunting.
She saw Johns' body relax as the drug took effect. She wondered if he'd be more dangerous high or jonesing. The morphine high kept him cool and collected, but it might also put a damper on his adrenaline rush in hazardous situations. When he needed a fix, though, his body was weak and his temper was short. Which might be good if Riddick was trying to provoke him. She noted the time he had shot up so she could track it better.
After a few minutes, Johns seemed to come back to himself. Now he was composed, confident, sure of himself. No, this wouldn't be a good time for Riddick to take him on yet.
Sarah didn't see either Fry or Riddick outside, so she assumed they were still talking in the nav bay. It would probably best to keep Johns preoccupied until she saw one or the other of them emerge into the little courtyard. When she saw Johns slowly moving toward the door to the outside, she stepped into the doorway as if she were just now entering from outside.
Johns moved through the rippling shadows toward her. In other circumstances, she might have found him attractive: tall, well-built, curly blond hair and dark blue eyes. She *had* admired his ability to stay calm in a crisis, until she found out it came from a little medicine vial. She would have liked his confidence, his natural leadership ability, and the quiet authority he exuded. But now she saw him with different eyes. She had first begun to hate him when she saw him beating Riddick when he was down and defenseless. What she had taken for confidence was arrogance and self-centeredness. His leadership qualities were just bullyboy tactics with some manners laid on top. And his quiet authority was usually just a pose to make his life a little bit easier, like his badge.
Now that she really thought about it, Johns himself seemed to embody all of the frightening qualities that he'd insisted were Riddick's. Riddick was the one who had kept calm in a crisis, and his confidence was an accurate assessment of his abilities. In prison, if you couldn't back up your attitude with your fists, there was always someone willing to take you down. As for leadership, well, Riddick followed his own lead. He might not lead anyone else, but he didn't submit to anyone's authority but his own.
Now Johns smiled at her in that sleepy eyed, slow-talking Southern gentleman way of his. "Hey, little lady," he called to her pleasantly. "Are you all ready to get out of this place?"
"You would not *believe* how ready I am," Sarah answered, "but . . ." She glanced out the door of the ship as if afraid of being heard, then walked forward so she could talk to Johns more quietly. "I don't want to scare anybody, but I have to wonder if we have any chance at all of making it back."
Johns stared at her thoughtfully.
"I mean," Sarah went on nervously, "we can't go into cryosleep for this. We don't have any food, and our water supply is limited. How long can we last like that waiting for someone to rescue us?"
"Oh, I don't think it'll be too long," Johns assured her. "We won't be declared missing for a few more days, but Fry told me they managed to send out an SOS before the crash, so someone may be looking for us already."
Sarah really had been worried about this very thing, but if she'd wanted to hear someone else's opinion, she would have gone to Fry. Or maybe Riddick. She glanced around behind her nervously again, and this time she saw Riddick outside bumming a smoke from Paris. Time to wrap up this little one-act.
Sarah looked up at Johns' face with just the right mixture of anxiety and desire for reassurance. "You really think so? You're not just saying that to make me feel better?"
"Naw," Johns answered. "I'm not."
No, Sarah thought to herself. You're doing it to make yourself feel better.
"Okay then. I guess I'd better go help pack it up. I just wanted your honest opinion, you know, in private, away from everybody else. Thanks."
Johns followed her out into the eerie light of the blue sun and began to clean his rifle. "No problem. Anytime." He smiled at her with his appealing smile and white teeth, but not it only made her skin crawl.
She circled around the Sand Cat and helped Shazza make some final adjustments on the motor. She could slip away to see Riddick a little later, when Johns wasn't around.
Riddick didn't usually smoke, but it was good to calm his nerves and get that nicotine boost after talking with Fry. She had held out against him the way she probably had with Johns, stubbornly arguing her own opinion. But Riddick had gotten past that by getting right up in her face and letting her know what Johns was really like.
He'd enjoyed the encounter, despite the hostility -- enjoyed finding a way to get a rise out of Fry, get behind her defenses. She was tough and she was smart, and he'd overheard her confession to Johns about wanting to dump the passengers during the crash to give herself a little bit better chance to live through it, so he knew she had a strong survival instinct too.
He'd taken a lot of pleasure in teasing her and frightening her at the same time, getting through all her barriers with a little bit of sex and a little bit of the truth. In actuality, though, all of his sexual tension was being taken up by Sarah now, and Fry no longer seemed as appealing as she had at first. And the very fact that she had allied herself with Johns made Riddick question her judgement. The important thing, though, was that he had planted enough doubt about Johns in her mind to maybe bring her over to his side when Johns finally lost it. Riddick could do nothing more than hope now.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Riddick was actually glad that Johns was going to force the issue. There was no way he was going to leave Johns alive if he could help it, but if he just killed him flat out, the other passengers would make sure the law got him as soon as their little skiff was picked up. Johns had put him through too much, and was too dogged in his pursuit, for Riddick to let him live, though. Johns would never give up the hunt until he or Riddick was dead. Riddick hoped it would be soon.
end part 4
go back to Part 1
go back to Part 2
go back to Part 3
go to Part 5
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