Dining on Ashes // Chapter Three
Title: Dining On Ashes
Chapter name: 3// Life for Death
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Sylar, OCs
Pairing(s): None for now
Rating: NC-17 for the ensemble
Summary: After the events of Villains, Sylar finds himself working, yet again, for a company. Just when he thinks that things might be different, he is sent on an assignment. Killings, he can handle, robberies, no problem, but, when he's asked to protect a woman and bring her safely back to the Corporation, he might have met his match.
banner by fallxandxdivide
Chapter 3//Life for Death
The tears she had been holding back without her knowledge came flooding out, stopping their journey as soon as they hit her skin. She tried to explain herself amid a slew of hiccups and hysteric cries. She told her sister about her stay at Pinehearst, about the people she killed, about coming home and about the feeling of invincibility after the kill. Keera nodded and kept quiet, letting Ad finish even if she couldn’t understand a word of her speech.
“And your shoulder?” she asked once Adrianna stopped talking long enough to discern that she was finished, “Could I take a look at it?”
“You can’t touch me.”
“I won’t, sweetie, I’ll just take a look.”
Ad lifted the towel, allowing her sister a look. Unlike Adrianna, Keera did not feel faint at the sight of blood, having once trained to be a nurse. The schooling lasted a couple of years before she quit, not fond of the pressure.
“It’s not bad,” Keera said after a quick glance, “a few stitches and you’ll be just fine.”
“But I can’t go to the hospital; I can’t put anyone else in danger.”
She felt her eyelids drifting together again. She felt so tired, so weak. She could just take a nap, sleep it off. She’d feel better.
If it weren’t for the dreams she’d get, if it weren’t for the images she would see as soon as she closed her eyes, she would surely be fast asleep by now…
“Stay with me, Ad,” her sister warned. “Now, listen. I’m going to get some alcohol, a needle, some thread, a lighter and some gloves. You stay put. I should be back in a minute.”
“Don’t leave the trailer.”
“I won’t”
Something in her sister’s voice made Adrianna trust her even if logic told her to beware. As soon as she had her back rested against the couch, her eyes closed without an order.
¤ ¤ ¤
She came to when a stinging on her shoulder jerked her back to life.
“It’s okay, it’s just rubbing alcohol. Don’t move. I have to clean your wound.”
She turned to see her sister’s face smiling kindly at her. In that moment, Keera was more beautiful than Adrianna had ever thought. She vaguely considered that it was a shame that Keera had never finished her training. She would have made an excellent nurse.
She kept thinking about how wonderful her sister was until she felt the needle go though. A ragged scream burst from her lips and she fought the urge to reach up and tear her sister away from her.
“Sorry, I don’t have any painkillers and I couldn’t find dad’s stash. Shame the bastard isn’t awake to tell us. He’d finally prove himself useful.”
Ad laughed even if she would have preferred to cry.
Adrianna kept her mouth sealed as Keera continued, knowing that silence brought out the best of her elder sister’s talents. Finally, when she could bear the question’s weight no longer, she let it roll out on her tongue.
“Why aren’t you pissed at me?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not my fault? I killed them.”
“No, you made a mistake. Mom touched you by accident, Dad slapped you and with Jason it as self defense.”
Adrianna was surprised that her sister had understood so much of her blubbering dialogue. She had not understood herself most of the time while her sister had been able to decode most of it. That is, not the last part. But it hardly matters, she told herself, that part barely has any meaning.
Even she could not fool herself.
“There,” Keera said with a smile, “all fixed up.”
Adrianna tried to move her shoulder but, as soon as she moved the fragile limb she found herself hissing in pain, tongue firmly clamped in between teeth, hand reaching up to the wound.
“Careful, or you’ll rip the stitches. I’m a little out of practice and I didn’t get the materials I’m used to.”
“You did a wonderful job,” an awkward grimace was the best she could do. The alcohol had jerked her awake, and so had the pain, but she was not sure how much longer it would last. She knew that going to sleep could and would be fatal if she did not have her sister to wake her up.
Stop thinking like that, she told herself, giving her head a shake.
“I made a mess of the couch,” she said after a moment and a quick glance. The blood stains had mixed in with the pink floral patterns of the old couch.
“I don’t think it matters anymore.”
They were silent for a few moments while Keera bandaged her skin. Finally, once her task was done, and her rubber gloves removed, Keera started talking again,
“What will you do?”
“I’m not sure. I think I might head north, maybe go to Canada.”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know, but everyone that runs away from the US seems to find refuge in Canada.”
“In the movies sure, but what will you do?”
She started to notice the effort it took to blink. She saw how chapped her lips were and gave them a lick. That did not help. If only she could eat, or drink.
“What’s wrong,” her sister asked, seeing her distress.
“I’m empty again.”
“What do you mean, empty?”
“Weak, confused. Just like I did when I was held by those people.”
“Do you think a nap would help?”
“If I go to bed now, I will not want to wake up on my own.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll wake you up in a couple of minutes. Just close your eyes.”
Adrianna sent a panicked glance in her sister’s direction.
“Don’t call the cops.”
“You know I won’t. Sleep.”
Keera shifted off of the sofa, leaving Adrianna room to lie down. It barely took her a minute to drift off into sleep. For the first time in what felt like forever, she did not find herself troubled by night terrors, albeit she did not sleep long. Instead she heard the words “I’m sorry” repeated endlessly against a black background until she was no longer sure if it was her own voice speaking or someone else.
She awoke sometime later, surprised that her sister had not awoken her. After a moment, she started getting worried, had her sister abandoned her and, better yet, why did she feel so refreshed? Realization hit faster than a bullet and harder than a train.
She did not want to wake up, to open her eyes. She had an idea of what she would find and she didn’t want it to be true. If she stayed perched on the couch, pretending to sleep, perhaps she could pretend everything was okay. Maybe she could imagine a world where she was back at home with her family, everyone still alive and well. Maybe she could be something other than a monster. Perhaps, then, her dreams could come true.
The truth was too much to bear, but she knew that she could not run away from the reality forever.
When she first opened her eyes, nothing looked different from the norm. Well, nothing seemed to have changed from the time that she had fallen asleep. Her mother still sat against the wall, her dad was beside her and she could see her brother’s sneakers from the corner of her eye. Keera, or her body, was nowhere to be seen.
It took her a few moments to notice a dried up hand still lying gently on the couch’s cushions. Knowing what she would find but hoping to see something else, Adrianna took a careful peak over the cushions and onto the floor.
There laid a fourth body with bleach blond hair, and covered in a slightly large green dress. With a hand, she muffled her own scream, feeling a crinkle on her check as she allowed the scream out. She rubbed furiously at the spot, finding a crusty pink residue on her finger.
Lipstick, her sister had kissed her.
She hoped off of the couch and ran to her parent’s room, shutting the door behind her. Banging a head against a wall did not help, but it did focus a bit of the pain spreading though her body like wild fire.
She felt like her world was slowly imploding, as though the corners of her life were staring to fold back on themselves until her whole life could be contained in such a small and insignificant amount of space that it must have meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
The only thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t breathe, everything else felt fuzzy and surreal. Everything but the itchy sensation on her cheek, a remnant of a kiss that had given her life and stolen another’s as well the sharp pain of realization, but even that dulled and became numb after a few moments. Suddenly the past months seemed irrelevant: the fights, the experiments, the tortures, the sense of abandonment. Nothing compared to the pain she felt now.
Gradually she became aware of something else, a note stuffed into the top of her jeans. With an almost automatic response, she pulled the note out unfolding it and reading the incomprehensible scrawl of a diner waitress.
I’m sorry, I know you must hate me, but I figured you were worth it. You always had a brighter future than me. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to turn into a monster and kill someone insignificant so that you could live. I rather sacrifice myself.
With undying love,
Your sister, Keera.
The pang came back twice as hard. With a scream she collapsed onto her-
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
She snapped her head up to the window in the door’s frame. A fake rain pattern made it impossible to see perfectly out of the pane of glass but she could discern a tall man whose outline was barely visible in the dim light.
A cop, her mind immediately told her, sending her into a mad panic.
She looked to and fro. There was no other door than the main one. Wait, an emergency trap door was hidden under her parents’ bed. Maybe she could get to it in time if she-
Bang. Bang. Bang.
No time to pack, just get out while you still can.
Summoning up as much energy as she could find, she jumped over her sister’s body and ran as fast as she could to her parents’ room, trying to make as little sound as possible. Still, she screamed when the door was opened.
“Adrianna Jax, I’m not here to hurt you.”
She turned slowly, facing the speaking man. The first things she noticed were his large brows. Next came the hair: slicked back like someone out of a bad fifties movie. His eyes were next and, even in the light, or lack thereof, she could tell they weren’t a kind man’s eyes.
“Like hell you aren’t.”
The door shut behind him. He took a step forward, she took one back. She noticed that he held no gun even if one was shining on his belt, whether it was exposed on purpose or revealed by the blowing wind which had shut the door, Adrianna was not sure. Nor did she care. Guns meant trouble. Guns meant agents.
“I’ll kill you,” she told him. She was past the door now but she doubted an accordion paper screen would protect her from bullets.
“I am not here to hurt you,” he repeated, “just to ask you to come with me.”
“You’re an agent, aren’t you? Well, I’m not coming back. I’m staying here.”
“I’m not with the company that abducted you.”
“Yeah, right. As if I can trust the word a man who comes bursting into my house in the middle of the night.”
“This isn’t your house; this is your parents’ place. If I’m not mistaken these bodies are that of your family. So now, I suggest you come with me before the police come to take you away.”
“Are you planning on calling them?”
“No, but someone is bound to get curious. How long have you been locked up in here? 5 days or so? How much longer before a nosey neighbor comes pocking about?”
He took another step forward and she found herself at an impasse. With her knees against the bed she had no way of getting away from him other than by crawling on the bed. What then?
“What if I do get caught?”
“Then I’ll just have to clean a bigger mess. Deaths are a tricky business, especially when the inexperienced try to clean up after themselves.”
“I’m not going to kill any cops.”
He laughed even though the noise held no humor. An attempt at backing up rocked her and sent her backwards and onto the bed. He seemed to find this even funnier.
“I never said you would. I, on the other hand, could.”
Backing up was no longer an option but she still needed to get out. He stood in front of the only available exit. There was no way she was going to turn his back to him and try to lift the mattress. If she wanted to get out alive, she’d need to make a run for it.
With the gun tucked away, I’ll probably have the chance to touch him before he has a chance to fire.
The thought of killing this man made her almost giddy, although she was ashamed to admit it. She knew she needed the kill; it would take every last ounce of energy she possessed to run up to him she’d need more energy for the trip than what she would have after her escape. But staying still was no longer an option, without another’s vital energy, she soon would die. It was her life for his death, and this man, this agent, didn’t deserve to live.
Without another second of thought she rushed to her feet and scrambled in his direction. He just watched her, curious, as she ran towards him, hands outstretched, too weak to shout a battle cry, to desperate to care how ridiculous she looked.
A part of her knew that if he would have wanted, his gun could have been drawn, he could have shot her. Maybe it was curiosity that saved her, but as they say, curiosity killed the cat.
Her hands were at his neck and held their touch for a few seconds. Past the wheezes, past the dry skin, even when he fell over and onto the banquette, she still kept contact. She didn’t want him to get up, working for those bastards, he didn’t deserve life.
She turned to the door next, snapping her hand away quickly.
Static chocks were normal in the dry weather but not this large. She bent over again, this time the bolt was larger. The shock was enough to knock her back onto her behind, spasms of pain making her cry out. The door knob must have been charged. He had trapped her.
She turned and stood on and headed for the bedroom, not sure why she was running, perhaps she simply moved because she now had the energy to do as she pleased. Lifting the bed was no problem in fact, it pretty much lifted itself.
She let go of the bed but it did not slam into place, it simply hovered gently before slowly setting itself down.
“What the hell is going on?”
It wasn’t obvious at first, but after a few seconds she noticed that the pain in her shoulder was gone. As with all other aches, this one had faded into the background, all but forgotten as the days wore on. She had learnt to deal with the pain, but she found that she no longer needed to.
Even if she knew the cut was no longer there, she needed to check. No matter how insane the past month had been, she still found this possibility, the chance that she might be able to heal wounds without a lapse of time, to be slightly absurd. But when she saw the shoulder, still covered in blood but the cut nowhere in sight, she fell onto the bed, too shocked to stand up on her own. Even the fragments of string had come out.
“Don’t do that again,” said a raspy voice from the front of the trailer.
She screamed for real when she saw him standing, hair a little worse for wear, still very much alive. He ran over to her, clamping a hand on her mouth, before her scream could come out and immediately snatching it away. His skin was brown and wrinkled, clinging to his bones with the last of its strength. She watched, fascinated, as it turned back into normal skin. Normal, living, healthy skin.
“You’re like me,” she whispered in shock, looking up at his eyes. They were brown, like tiger’s eye, but burgundy around the black of his eye.
“Not exactly.”
“You can do things that others can’t do. You can heal.”
“I can do much more than that”
Suddenly a ball of blue light was in his hands, crackling with energy, tendrils reaching out to the ceiling and the floor.
“Amazing.”
A part of her wanted to reach out, to have the sparks lick her fingers like a cold flame but a larger part screamed at her for being so foolish. Just because something was this beautiful did not mean it was harmless. In this case, she could tell that the sparks contained as much power as the man.
“I thought I was the only one,” she said once he had closed his hand on the ball, snapping her out of her thoughts and extinguishing the blue light.
“The only one?”
“Who was…” she hesitated on the word, almost spitting out monster. The last thing she wanted to do was offend a man who was able to create electricity or heal. She thought about it for another moment, running through words until she settled on, “special.”
He smiled as though she had mentioned a private joke he shared with someone else. He outstretched his hand once more, blue sparks crawling on his skin.
“There are a lot of us,” there as en edge to his voice and she was not sure who it was meant to target.
“A lot…” she encouraged.
He sent a calculating glance her way before restarting.
“Different groups, different companies. Good guys, bad guys.”
“Who are you? Good or bad?”
“I don’t work for those who kidnapped you.”
She had learnt a few things in her psychology classes and one was how to tell when one was not telling the whole story. He was quite obviously not giving her all of the information. She glanced at his hands, deciding not to push things further, nor point out the fact that he had not answered her question.
“What did they do to me?”
“They changed you, they change all of us.”
A flash of anger made her back away from him once more. She could feel the power, the anger, the thirst for revenge coming off of him in waves. She suddenly felt nauseated, but not because of the feeling he was emanating, rather the fact that she felt the same way when she killed.
“Can you make me like I was before?”
“That’s not my job. All I’m supposed to do it bring you back to the Base.”
“The Base? You’re one of them, aren’t you? A scientist, you say you’ll make me all better, you say that I’ll go back to normal then you poke me and prod me and…”
Suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, gentler this time but still firm, like a stern father, instead of aggressive, like a mugger in an alleyway. He looked down at her, face serious. Adrianna guessed this was as close to kind as he would get.
“I already told you, I’m to take you to the Base, they’ll do what they do to you there.”
“So… that makes you the delivery boy.”
The joke fell flat somewhere between them, although that didn’t give it much room. She was closer to any guy than she had been in a year -with a strict no touching rule, relationships were rather complicated- but he didn’t even seem to notice the proximity in the least.
You probably smell bad.
“That makes you the package then.”
“What if I don’t want to be delivered? What if I’m happy here?”
“Sure. But I know I didn’t stick around long when I killed my mother.”
She watched him intently for a moment but he did not indicate that he might have been joking. His face was a mask of rock, watching but not allowing anyone to understand him. After all, a statue had no emotions.
And a heart of stone.
“And, if you don’t come willingly, I’ll take you by force.”
“You wouldn’t…”
He smiled wickedly, a true emotion, as his hand crackled wildly.
She felt sobs arise at the thought of going through the same ordeal again. She hated showing weakness, especially with such a man. He seemed to radiate a sense of superiority, of unadulterated power. Weakness would make her seem like even less to this man who acted as though he owned most of the free world. A man a part of her wanted to impress. She’d just be a mouse to a big angry lion. Not even a bite would be needed to swallow her down.
But, she reminded herself, she had more pressing problems than looking good for a guy. She could not take another round of lab experiments. She would rather die here and now, with her family, than spend an eternity in a lab. She had broken out once; they would make sure she would not get the chance this time around.
She was staring at something worse than death in the form of a bizarrely attractive guy with bushy eyebrows.
And then, with the accumulation of everything else that had happened in the last month, with her family in the corner of her eye and with the man who was about to kidnap her once more…
She cried.
For the first time in a year, her cheeks were wet with salty wet drops of water. Suddenly she was happier than she had ever been.
“I’m crying,” she said, bring her fingers to her cheeks and rubbing the moisture.
Her fingertips were damp. Damp!
She focused on her finger a few moments, a part of her wondering if she could still use her powers. Then, as though flood gates were opened, she felt something rush to her finger and watched as the drop turned into a thin white layer of salt.
“You fixed me,” she said looking up at him.
Somehow, she knew that a part of him was smiling at this little victory, at the thought of fixing someone, but that part was buried deep.
“Okay, I’ll come with you; just let me have a good night’s rest.”
He scolded her, but only for a moment before stepping out of the room. She ignored him, walking into the bedroom and closing the paper door. A moment later, she opened it back up to see him standing on the same spot as before, looking slightly amused.
“What do I call you?” she asked.
“Sylar.”
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug. If he wanted an odd superhero nickname, that was his prerogative. She’d stick with hers.
She shut the door once again and crawled onto the bed. She slept without interruption into the next afternoon.
If you missed a chapter or two, you can consult the Chapter list
Chapter name: 3// Life for Death
Fandom: Heroes
Characters: Sylar, OCs
Pairing(s): None for now
Rating: NC-17 for the ensemble
Summary: After the events of Villains, Sylar finds himself working, yet again, for a company. Just when he thinks that things might be different, he is sent on an assignment. Killings, he can handle, robberies, no problem, but, when he's asked to protect a woman and bring her safely back to the Corporation, he might have met his match.
banner by fallxandxdivide
Chapter 3//Life for Death
The tears she had been holding back without her knowledge came flooding out, stopping their journey as soon as they hit her skin. She tried to explain herself amid a slew of hiccups and hysteric cries. She told her sister about her stay at Pinehearst, about the people she killed, about coming home and about the feeling of invincibility after the kill. Keera nodded and kept quiet, letting Ad finish even if she couldn’t understand a word of her speech.
“And your shoulder?” she asked once Adrianna stopped talking long enough to discern that she was finished, “Could I take a look at it?”
“You can’t touch me.”
“I won’t, sweetie, I’ll just take a look.”
Ad lifted the towel, allowing her sister a look. Unlike Adrianna, Keera did not feel faint at the sight of blood, having once trained to be a nurse. The schooling lasted a couple of years before she quit, not fond of the pressure.
“It’s not bad,” Keera said after a quick glance, “a few stitches and you’ll be just fine.”
“But I can’t go to the hospital; I can’t put anyone else in danger.”
She felt her eyelids drifting together again. She felt so tired, so weak. She could just take a nap, sleep it off. She’d feel better.
If it weren’t for the dreams she’d get, if it weren’t for the images she would see as soon as she closed her eyes, she would surely be fast asleep by now…
“Stay with me, Ad,” her sister warned. “Now, listen. I’m going to get some alcohol, a needle, some thread, a lighter and some gloves. You stay put. I should be back in a minute.”
“Don’t leave the trailer.”
“I won’t”
Something in her sister’s voice made Adrianna trust her even if logic told her to beware. As soon as she had her back rested against the couch, her eyes closed without an order.
¤ ¤ ¤
She came to when a stinging on her shoulder jerked her back to life.
“It’s okay, it’s just rubbing alcohol. Don’t move. I have to clean your wound.”
She turned to see her sister’s face smiling kindly at her. In that moment, Keera was more beautiful than Adrianna had ever thought. She vaguely considered that it was a shame that Keera had never finished her training. She would have made an excellent nurse.
She kept thinking about how wonderful her sister was until she felt the needle go though. A ragged scream burst from her lips and she fought the urge to reach up and tear her sister away from her.
“Sorry, I don’t have any painkillers and I couldn’t find dad’s stash. Shame the bastard isn’t awake to tell us. He’d finally prove himself useful.”
Ad laughed even if she would have preferred to cry.
Adrianna kept her mouth sealed as Keera continued, knowing that silence brought out the best of her elder sister’s talents. Finally, when she could bear the question’s weight no longer, she let it roll out on her tongue.
“Why aren’t you pissed at me?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“It’s not my fault? I killed them.”
“No, you made a mistake. Mom touched you by accident, Dad slapped you and with Jason it as self defense.”
Adrianna was surprised that her sister had understood so much of her blubbering dialogue. She had not understood herself most of the time while her sister had been able to decode most of it. That is, not the last part. But it hardly matters, she told herself, that part barely has any meaning.
Even she could not fool herself.
“There,” Keera said with a smile, “all fixed up.”
Adrianna tried to move her shoulder but, as soon as she moved the fragile limb she found herself hissing in pain, tongue firmly clamped in between teeth, hand reaching up to the wound.
“Careful, or you’ll rip the stitches. I’m a little out of practice and I didn’t get the materials I’m used to.”
“You did a wonderful job,” an awkward grimace was the best she could do. The alcohol had jerked her awake, and so had the pain, but she was not sure how much longer it would last. She knew that going to sleep could and would be fatal if she did not have her sister to wake her up.
Stop thinking like that, she told herself, giving her head a shake.
“I made a mess of the couch,” she said after a moment and a quick glance. The blood stains had mixed in with the pink floral patterns of the old couch.
“I don’t think it matters anymore.”
They were silent for a few moments while Keera bandaged her skin. Finally, once her task was done, and her rubber gloves removed, Keera started talking again,
“What will you do?”
“I’m not sure. I think I might head north, maybe go to Canada.”
“And do what?”
“I don’t know, but everyone that runs away from the US seems to find refuge in Canada.”
“In the movies sure, but what will you do?”
She started to notice the effort it took to blink. She saw how chapped her lips were and gave them a lick. That did not help. If only she could eat, or drink.
“What’s wrong,” her sister asked, seeing her distress.
“I’m empty again.”
“What do you mean, empty?”
“Weak, confused. Just like I did when I was held by those people.”
“Do you think a nap would help?”
“If I go to bed now, I will not want to wake up on my own.”
“Don’t worry; I’ll wake you up in a couple of minutes. Just close your eyes.”
Adrianna sent a panicked glance in her sister’s direction.
“Don’t call the cops.”
“You know I won’t. Sleep.”
Keera shifted off of the sofa, leaving Adrianna room to lie down. It barely took her a minute to drift off into sleep. For the first time in what felt like forever, she did not find herself troubled by night terrors, albeit she did not sleep long. Instead she heard the words “I’m sorry” repeated endlessly against a black background until she was no longer sure if it was her own voice speaking or someone else.
She awoke sometime later, surprised that her sister had not awoken her. After a moment, she started getting worried, had her sister abandoned her and, better yet, why did she feel so refreshed? Realization hit faster than a bullet and harder than a train.
She did not want to wake up, to open her eyes. She had an idea of what she would find and she didn’t want it to be true. If she stayed perched on the couch, pretending to sleep, perhaps she could pretend everything was okay. Maybe she could imagine a world where she was back at home with her family, everyone still alive and well. Maybe she could be something other than a monster. Perhaps, then, her dreams could come true.
The truth was too much to bear, but she knew that she could not run away from the reality forever.
When she first opened her eyes, nothing looked different from the norm. Well, nothing seemed to have changed from the time that she had fallen asleep. Her mother still sat against the wall, her dad was beside her and she could see her brother’s sneakers from the corner of her eye. Keera, or her body, was nowhere to be seen.
It took her a few moments to notice a dried up hand still lying gently on the couch’s cushions. Knowing what she would find but hoping to see something else, Adrianna took a careful peak over the cushions and onto the floor.
There laid a fourth body with bleach blond hair, and covered in a slightly large green dress. With a hand, she muffled her own scream, feeling a crinkle on her check as she allowed the scream out. She rubbed furiously at the spot, finding a crusty pink residue on her finger.
Lipstick, her sister had kissed her.
She hoped off of the couch and ran to her parent’s room, shutting the door behind her. Banging a head against a wall did not help, but it did focus a bit of the pain spreading though her body like wild fire.
She felt like her world was slowly imploding, as though the corners of her life were staring to fold back on themselves until her whole life could be contained in such a small and insignificant amount of space that it must have meant nothing in the grand scheme of things.
The only thing she was sure of was that she couldn’t breathe, everything else felt fuzzy and surreal. Everything but the itchy sensation on her cheek, a remnant of a kiss that had given her life and stolen another’s as well the sharp pain of realization, but even that dulled and became numb after a few moments. Suddenly the past months seemed irrelevant: the fights, the experiments, the tortures, the sense of abandonment. Nothing compared to the pain she felt now.
Gradually she became aware of something else, a note stuffed into the top of her jeans. With an almost automatic response, she pulled the note out unfolding it and reading the incomprehensible scrawl of a diner waitress.
I’m sorry, I know you must hate me, but I figured you were worth it. You always had a brighter future than me. Besides, I wouldn’t want you to turn into a monster and kill someone insignificant so that you could live. I rather sacrifice myself.
With undying love,
Your sister, Keera.
The pang came back twice as hard. With a scream she collapsed onto her-
Bang. Bang. Bang. Bang.
She snapped her head up to the window in the door’s frame. A fake rain pattern made it impossible to see perfectly out of the pane of glass but she could discern a tall man whose outline was barely visible in the dim light.
A cop, her mind immediately told her, sending her into a mad panic.
She looked to and fro. There was no other door than the main one. Wait, an emergency trap door was hidden under her parents’ bed. Maybe she could get to it in time if she-
Bang. Bang. Bang.
No time to pack, just get out while you still can.
Summoning up as much energy as she could find, she jumped over her sister’s body and ran as fast as she could to her parents’ room, trying to make as little sound as possible. Still, she screamed when the door was opened.
“Adrianna Jax, I’m not here to hurt you.”
She turned slowly, facing the speaking man. The first things she noticed were his large brows. Next came the hair: slicked back like someone out of a bad fifties movie. His eyes were next and, even in the light, or lack thereof, she could tell they weren’t a kind man’s eyes.
“Like hell you aren’t.”
The door shut behind him. He took a step forward, she took one back. She noticed that he held no gun even if one was shining on his belt, whether it was exposed on purpose or revealed by the blowing wind which had shut the door, Adrianna was not sure. Nor did she care. Guns meant trouble. Guns meant agents.
“I’ll kill you,” she told him. She was past the door now but she doubted an accordion paper screen would protect her from bullets.
“I am not here to hurt you,” he repeated, “just to ask you to come with me.”
“You’re an agent, aren’t you? Well, I’m not coming back. I’m staying here.”
“I’m not with the company that abducted you.”
“Yeah, right. As if I can trust the word a man who comes bursting into my house in the middle of the night.”
“This isn’t your house; this is your parents’ place. If I’m not mistaken these bodies are that of your family. So now, I suggest you come with me before the police come to take you away.”
“Are you planning on calling them?”
“No, but someone is bound to get curious. How long have you been locked up in here? 5 days or so? How much longer before a nosey neighbor comes pocking about?”
He took another step forward and she found herself at an impasse. With her knees against the bed she had no way of getting away from him other than by crawling on the bed. What then?
“What if I do get caught?”
“Then I’ll just have to clean a bigger mess. Deaths are a tricky business, especially when the inexperienced try to clean up after themselves.”
“I’m not going to kill any cops.”
He laughed even though the noise held no humor. An attempt at backing up rocked her and sent her backwards and onto the bed. He seemed to find this even funnier.
“I never said you would. I, on the other hand, could.”
Backing up was no longer an option but she still needed to get out. He stood in front of the only available exit. There was no way she was going to turn his back to him and try to lift the mattress. If she wanted to get out alive, she’d need to make a run for it.
With the gun tucked away, I’ll probably have the chance to touch him before he has a chance to fire.
The thought of killing this man made her almost giddy, although she was ashamed to admit it. She knew she needed the kill; it would take every last ounce of energy she possessed to run up to him she’d need more energy for the trip than what she would have after her escape. But staying still was no longer an option, without another’s vital energy, she soon would die. It was her life for his death, and this man, this agent, didn’t deserve to live.
Without another second of thought she rushed to her feet and scrambled in his direction. He just watched her, curious, as she ran towards him, hands outstretched, too weak to shout a battle cry, to desperate to care how ridiculous she looked.
A part of her knew that if he would have wanted, his gun could have been drawn, he could have shot her. Maybe it was curiosity that saved her, but as they say, curiosity killed the cat.
Her hands were at his neck and held their touch for a few seconds. Past the wheezes, past the dry skin, even when he fell over and onto the banquette, she still kept contact. She didn’t want him to get up, working for those bastards, he didn’t deserve life.
She turned to the door next, snapping her hand away quickly.
Static chocks were normal in the dry weather but not this large. She bent over again, this time the bolt was larger. The shock was enough to knock her back onto her behind, spasms of pain making her cry out. The door knob must have been charged. He had trapped her.
She turned and stood on and headed for the bedroom, not sure why she was running, perhaps she simply moved because she now had the energy to do as she pleased. Lifting the bed was no problem in fact, it pretty much lifted itself.
She let go of the bed but it did not slam into place, it simply hovered gently before slowly setting itself down.
“What the hell is going on?”
It wasn’t obvious at first, but after a few seconds she noticed that the pain in her shoulder was gone. As with all other aches, this one had faded into the background, all but forgotten as the days wore on. She had learnt to deal with the pain, but she found that she no longer needed to.
Even if she knew the cut was no longer there, she needed to check. No matter how insane the past month had been, she still found this possibility, the chance that she might be able to heal wounds without a lapse of time, to be slightly absurd. But when she saw the shoulder, still covered in blood but the cut nowhere in sight, she fell onto the bed, too shocked to stand up on her own. Even the fragments of string had come out.
“Don’t do that again,” said a raspy voice from the front of the trailer.
She screamed for real when she saw him standing, hair a little worse for wear, still very much alive. He ran over to her, clamping a hand on her mouth, before her scream could come out and immediately snatching it away. His skin was brown and wrinkled, clinging to his bones with the last of its strength. She watched, fascinated, as it turned back into normal skin. Normal, living, healthy skin.
“You’re like me,” she whispered in shock, looking up at his eyes. They were brown, like tiger’s eye, but burgundy around the black of his eye.
“Not exactly.”
“You can do things that others can’t do. You can heal.”
“I can do much more than that”
Suddenly a ball of blue light was in his hands, crackling with energy, tendrils reaching out to the ceiling and the floor.
“Amazing.”
A part of her wanted to reach out, to have the sparks lick her fingers like a cold flame but a larger part screamed at her for being so foolish. Just because something was this beautiful did not mean it was harmless. In this case, she could tell that the sparks contained as much power as the man.
“I thought I was the only one,” she said once he had closed his hand on the ball, snapping her out of her thoughts and extinguishing the blue light.
“The only one?”
“Who was…” she hesitated on the word, almost spitting out monster. The last thing she wanted to do was offend a man who was able to create electricity or heal. She thought about it for another moment, running through words until she settled on, “special.”
He smiled as though she had mentioned a private joke he shared with someone else. He outstretched his hand once more, blue sparks crawling on his skin.
“There are a lot of us,” there as en edge to his voice and she was not sure who it was meant to target.
“A lot…” she encouraged.
He sent a calculating glance her way before restarting.
“Different groups, different companies. Good guys, bad guys.”
“Who are you? Good or bad?”
“I don’t work for those who kidnapped you.”
She had learnt a few things in her psychology classes and one was how to tell when one was not telling the whole story. He was quite obviously not giving her all of the information. She glanced at his hands, deciding not to push things further, nor point out the fact that he had not answered her question.
“What did they do to me?”
“They changed you, they change all of us.”
A flash of anger made her back away from him once more. She could feel the power, the anger, the thirst for revenge coming off of him in waves. She suddenly felt nauseated, but not because of the feeling he was emanating, rather the fact that she felt the same way when she killed.
“Can you make me like I was before?”
“That’s not my job. All I’m supposed to do it bring you back to the Base.”
“The Base? You’re one of them, aren’t you? A scientist, you say you’ll make me all better, you say that I’ll go back to normal then you poke me and prod me and…”
Suddenly his hands were on her shoulders, gentler this time but still firm, like a stern father, instead of aggressive, like a mugger in an alleyway. He looked down at her, face serious. Adrianna guessed this was as close to kind as he would get.
“I already told you, I’m to take you to the Base, they’ll do what they do to you there.”
“So… that makes you the delivery boy.”
The joke fell flat somewhere between them, although that didn’t give it much room. She was closer to any guy than she had been in a year -with a strict no touching rule, relationships were rather complicated- but he didn’t even seem to notice the proximity in the least.
You probably smell bad.
“That makes you the package then.”
“What if I don’t want to be delivered? What if I’m happy here?”
“Sure. But I know I didn’t stick around long when I killed my mother.”
She watched him intently for a moment but he did not indicate that he might have been joking. His face was a mask of rock, watching but not allowing anyone to understand him. After all, a statue had no emotions.
And a heart of stone.
“And, if you don’t come willingly, I’ll take you by force.”
“You wouldn’t…”
He smiled wickedly, a true emotion, as his hand crackled wildly.
She felt sobs arise at the thought of going through the same ordeal again. She hated showing weakness, especially with such a man. He seemed to radiate a sense of superiority, of unadulterated power. Weakness would make her seem like even less to this man who acted as though he owned most of the free world. A man a part of her wanted to impress. She’d just be a mouse to a big angry lion. Not even a bite would be needed to swallow her down.
But, she reminded herself, she had more pressing problems than looking good for a guy. She could not take another round of lab experiments. She would rather die here and now, with her family, than spend an eternity in a lab. She had broken out once; they would make sure she would not get the chance this time around.
She was staring at something worse than death in the form of a bizarrely attractive guy with bushy eyebrows.
And then, with the accumulation of everything else that had happened in the last month, with her family in the corner of her eye and with the man who was about to kidnap her once more…
She cried.
For the first time in a year, her cheeks were wet with salty wet drops of water. Suddenly she was happier than she had ever been.
“I’m crying,” she said, bring her fingers to her cheeks and rubbing the moisture.
Her fingertips were damp. Damp!
She focused on her finger a few moments, a part of her wondering if she could still use her powers. Then, as though flood gates were opened, she felt something rush to her finger and watched as the drop turned into a thin white layer of salt.
“You fixed me,” she said looking up at him.
Somehow, she knew that a part of him was smiling at this little victory, at the thought of fixing someone, but that part was buried deep.
“Okay, I’ll come with you; just let me have a good night’s rest.”
He scolded her, but only for a moment before stepping out of the room. She ignored him, walking into the bedroom and closing the paper door. A moment later, she opened it back up to see him standing on the same spot as before, looking slightly amused.
“What do I call you?” she asked.
“Sylar.”
“Suit yourself,” she said with a shrug. If he wanted an odd superhero nickname, that was his prerogative. She’d stick with hers.
She shut the door once again and crawled onto the bed. She slept without interruption into the next afternoon.
If you missed a chapter or two, you can consult the Chapter list