Gyn Wolf's Story: Chapter Nine-The Chase Begins

Alec Cross swept the land landscape with a shrewd eye. Tin cabins,
tents, and beat up ships used as living quarters. His face scrunched up
in disgust. How could people actually live this way?

He’d been trailing Riddick for months now, and he was sure he had him
this time. He walked purposefully to the supply store and looked the
bored looking man behind the corner in the eye. Well, at least he tried
to. The man was absorbed in a nap, of all things in this heat.

Alec wiped his brow with his forearm and prodded the sleeping man
with his finger. The man grunted, shifted in his precarious seat atop his
stool, and settled back into dreamland. Alec, deciding the polite
approach wasn’t working, shoved the man hard with the heal of his
palm, knocking him down off his stool.

He found himself suddenly realizing that the polite approach had been
the better one when he was faced with the man and the open end of a
twelve gauge. The man pumped the weapon, causing a wicked snapping
sound to erupt from it.

“You gotta reason for knockin’ me down, stranger?” the man drawled,
almost casually. Alec wasn’t fooled though, the man’s voice had a hard,
underlying edge.

“I. . . uh. . . didn’t mean to knock you down, sir,” Alec stammered. The
man’s golden eyes were wolf like and Alec was almost certain a low
growl was emanating from the man’s broad chest. “I just. . . uh. . .
wanted to ask you a question.”

The man relaxed a little but didn’t drop the weapon, but Alec was
grateful all the same. “Shoot,” the man commanded.

Alec stuck a finger in the collar of his shirt and pulled it away from his
sticky neck, as the man casually pulled on a pair of dark shades that
had been hanging out of his pants pocket. Glad that the golden eyes
were now hidden, Alec got on with his question.

“You seen a man named Riddick around here?” he asked, trying not to
sound nervous.

The man slowly lowered the shotgun to his side, still not letting it go,
and rubbed his jaw, his fingers making a rasping sound against his
stubble. He seemed deep in though. “Nope,” he finally said.

The growl was gone, Alec noticed. Or at least what he’d thought was a
growl. I must be imagining things, Alec thought. “You’re sure? He’s
kinda hard to miss. Tall, about six foot two. Thick build, shaved head,
usually wearing dark goggles.”

“Oh,” the man said. “Yeah. He lives in the shack at the end of the lane.
He’s a quiet sort though, dangerous looking, too. I hope you’re not
going over there to piss him off.” The man paused and looked Alec
straight in the eye. “He’ll kill you.”

A cold shiver went down Alec’s back, but he hid it from the man,
nodded his thanks, and headed down the “lane,” as the man had called
it.

It was more like the grungy settlers had all agreed to leave a wide path
between their shacks. When he got to the end of the lane, he found a
well built tin building. Two large water tanks, full, stood at one wall, a
hose attached to them.

Alec pushed open the door of the shack, gun drawn, to find it baking
hot inside and empty. There was a thick layer of dust on most
everything, except for the trunk in one corner and the refrigeration unit
in the other. He opened it up. A little cool, but empty as well.

“Damn!” he cursed, kicking at the floor with his booted toe. “I missed
him again!”

I’ll find that sonoffabitch if it was the last thing he did, he swore to
himself as he stomped angrily across the camp towards his cruiser.

The man in the supply shot watched him warily. He knew who Riddick
was. He’d also seen who’d been with him when he’d showed up here
again. Gyn Wolf.

He had to get word to her somehow, that she and her begoggled friend
we’re being tracked now, but some slick merc it looked like, too. Gyn
was Drake’s daughter. He owed Drake his life, and Gyn had given him
a hand more than once back on Crip, before her and her brother and
sister had disappeared. And he always owned up to his debts.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack stood beneath the hot sun on Dres, pulled her dark goggles over
her eyes rubbed the fuzzy stubble on her freshly shaven head.

She surveyed her surroundings with mild distaste. She hated all these
dry dusty planets. She wished someone she knew would show up. Sure,
she knew most of these people she was working with now, but she didn’t
like them.

She missed Ven and Brand. She missed Gyn, it had been good to see
her. And most of all, she missed Riddick.

Jack had more than a little crush on Riddick and she worshipped more
than any god. As far as she was concerned, he stood on a golden
pedestal. She couldn’t wait to get her eyes shined, she knew someone
else had to know how to do it, then she could even have eyes like him.

He hadn’t promised he’d be coming back, but Jack knew he was going
after Gyn. He had to have found her by now. Maybe they’d come back
and take her with them!

Reveling in this new idea, Jack went back to work with a vengeance.
She threw her back into her work, picking at the ground and sifting
through the sand with a screen bottomed pan. She picked the graphite
pieces and threw them in her bucket, then got back to digging. She
prayed Riddick would come back to her.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The ensuing days with Gyn were quiet ones. She didn’t seem inclined to
talk much. She didn’t seem the talkative sort and maybe her story had
made her hit her talking quota for the month. From the way she was
acting, Riddick wondered if maybe for the year.

Strangely enough, he found himself trying to engage her in
conversation. His questions were almost as monosyllabic as her answers,
but at least he was trying, he grumbled to himself. He wasn’t used to
being ignored by people, especially ones he was thrown into close
contact with. They always seemed to watch him with a hawk’s eye,
trying to get him to say anything so they could feel less nervous around
him.

Gyn was different. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, at least
intentionally. There were a few reasons for that. One, he found himself
liking and respecting the woman. Two, he didn’t want to find he was
still underestimating her the hard way. Riddick knew he was strong
enough and fast enough to take out most anyone. Gyn knew the same
thing about herself.

With her hypersensitive senses she was even more of a threat. She
didn’t have to be stronger than someone to kill them. She was fast, she
could anticipate their moves. Riddick suspected she hasn’t said all she
could do with that little mind of hers. He realized she could probably
pick up on many things before they happened. That would her reaction
times.

The day before she’d been staring out one of the viewing screens and
he’d come up behind her. She obviously been deep in though because
he’d startled her into dropping her glass of water. She spun around,
saw it was him, swooped down and snatched her glass before it could hit
the ground and spill. Then she’d stood up slowly and taken a log sip,
eyeing him curiously over the rim.

Her reaction time had startled him and he’d almost forgotten what he’d
been about to ask her. Her answer had been a simple, “Yeah.”

The question didn’t matter. That’s all he could get out of her lately
anyway.

They were only half a day from Dres now. Riddick was uneasy,
wondering if Jack would be there. There was no way she’d want to stay
behind again and Riddick knew there was no way she could come with
them. He hoped she wouldn’t be jealous of Gyn.

The four months they’d been traveling together, women had often
showed interest in a little one-on-one action that didn’t include the
shaved kid. Jack had almost literally bared her teeth at any potential
one night stands, effectively cutting Riddick off from the fairer sex. He
hadn’t cared really. He hadn’t needed the hassle or the attachment that
came with sex. More than that, he never knew who were just in it for
the sex and who knew who he was and just wanted to get him alone so
they could tie him up and send him off to the nearest bounty station for
their handsome reward. Or worse yet, straight to the Company for his
re-initiation into Slam.

He kept wondering when Gyn would start asking question, too. He’d
promised her his story in return for hers. She’d spilled. He knew she
was just biding her time, though. She wasn’t the sort to let him off the
hook without payment.

Deciding he’d had enough of her strange silence, he went into the back
to find her sitting in meditation on the small cot they shared at night.
He’d lay flat on his back and she’d sprawl out across his chest. It was a
comfortable way to sleep, he admitted to himself. It was nice having her
that close at night. He didn’t even have to reach for her if he woke up at
night.

Even in her silence, Gyn was active.

Knowing better than to just grab her and attempt to shake her out of
her trance he called her name quietly.

Gyn opened her eyes slowly and turned to look at him. She lifted
questioning brows.

“I want to know more about your mind control.”

She seemed to close in on herself, and he wondered if she maybe didn’t
trust him with that part of herself.

He wasn’t to keen on sharing his bit of sixth sense with anyone either, so
he didn’t blame her for withdrawing from him.

“Tell me?” he asked.

She nodded. “All right.”

Two syllables. They were making progress, he thought dryly. “You
didn’t tell me everything about your control, did you?”

She shook her head no.

“I want to know everything.”

“This is going to cost you, Riddick,” she said, quite seriously. He knew
she was referring to what he’d promised to tell her about himself. Now
he wasn’t going to have to tell more.

He nodded his consent.

She thought for a moment before starting. “Okay. I can’t control
someone. I can heal myself very quickly. You want to see?”

More progress. “I’ve seen,” he replied, referring to her healing from the
beatings she’d gotten.

“That was nothing,” she stated. She pulled her blade out of her pants
and held out her forearm. He watched, stunned, as she drew the razor
sharp blade across her skin, ripping a deep cut through it. She hissed at
the pain, then set the blade aside.

“Jesus, woman. What the hell did you do that for?” he demanded.

“Just watch,” she answered.

He watched as she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and held
perfectly still. His eyes widened when the gash immediately began to
mend itself. Ten seconds later, it was completely gone.

He was silent as she opened her eyes and looked at him, then down at
her arm. She flexed her fingers and rolled her wrist.

“I’ve been shot a few times. Like that first time I killed those Rangers,
in the bar. I caught a bad one. Took ten minutes to fix it when I got
home.” She flashed a proud grin.

“What else can you do?”

“I can usually heal other people, too. There’s two types of people when
it comes to mind linking though. You have sponges, who suck it up, and
rocks, who block it off.”

“Basically, some people will accept it and others just can’t take it in?”
he asked, wanting to understand.

Gyn nodded. “Yeah. You’re a sponge,” she stated definitely.

He lifted a brow. “So, if I were to cut open my arm like that,” he jerked
his head towards where she’d slashed herself, “could you heal it that
fast?”

She shook her head. “Naw, not that fast, but quick enough. More like
five minutes then ten seconds.”

“Would you feel drained?”

“No. Not at all. There’s more to it than healing, though. I can sense
things, too. If someone is close, I can sense that. Trouble, that sort of
thing. Sometimes I see things, too, before they happen.” She shrugged
her shoulders slightly. “I’m so used to it, I don’t even think about it
anymore. I just do it. I guess it’s a great skill, but I take it for granted in
any case.”

Riddick pushed to his feet. “I’m glad you told me. It’s something that
will definitely help us in the future, I’m sure of that.”

She nodded again, and he watched unhappily as she quickly slipped
back into monosyllabic mode.

“I’m going to go check our position, then I’m gonna crash. How ‘bout
you?”

Another curt nod, and she stretched out on her back, eyes closed.

When he came back she was sound asleep, but lifted a lid when he
entered the room. She made a move to get up but he lifted his hand to
still her, then picked her up. He laid on his back and she stretched out
across his chest, snuggling into his warmth.

And they slept.

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