[heroes] Alter States

[whomever]

A very late dedication to raitheemohugger, for the Sylar/Claire Fanfic-A-Thon, and thanks to worthless_hope, as I'm not sure I could have finished it without her there to distract me. ♥ Also for heroes15 prompt#12: learning.

Title: Alter States
Pairing: Sylar/Claire Bennet, Alex Woolsly/Claire Bennet
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Claire Bennet learns that madness, like so many things, is not given inherently but learned by example. [SPOILERS: S03E18]

Alter States
_______________________________________________

Claire was dragging herself through a dog-eared copy of Fahrenheit 451 when three little taps at her closet door seized her attention. She set the book down, pages splayed open and spine bent like a broken bird, and called, “It’s all right.”

The door slid open and Alex gave her a frank stare. “That’s not the code.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “Then why did you open the door?”

“Obviously no one’s in here.”

“There could be. What if it was someone who could fly? You wouldn’t hear footsteps.”

Alex smiled, as if impressed. “Wait a second, were you testing me?”

She hadn’t been, but if it would get him off her case about the code, then… “Yeah. I was testing you.”

“Touché,” he said, opening the door a little more and reclining against the frame.

“Did you finish that book I gave you?” she asked. “I can get you another one.”

“No,” he said, waving her mom’s old copy of Wuthering Heights. A receipt flapped between the pages. “I’m only halfway through.”

Not for the first time, she grimaced. “Sorry I couldn’t get you something more manly.”

“Hey, it was either this or Sweet Valley High.” As always, his nonchalance put her at ease. “You know what I’d really like, though? The new issue of Ultimate X-Men. I don’t suppose you could…”

“I’ll see what I can do,” she said. “Are you hungry? I can get you a snack.”

“Dinner just about filled me up,” he said, rummaging around for a moment and then tossing a Subway wrapper in the trash can. “Thanks.”

She wondered if this was how fugitives lived, only in motels more often than closets. Never with their choice of anything, always scrounging off what they could find or what others would give them. It saddened her, but she wasn’t frightened by it; it held a certain allure, the dangerous and unknown, the life nobody wanted for her that she somewhat wanted for herself.

Graceless footfalls told her Lyle was approaching. Alex immediately closed the closet door; the thin scar of light beneath it disappeared. She resumed reading by the time Lyle looked into her room.

“It’s your turn to do the dishes,” he said monotonously.

“Lyle, I kind of have this lit assignment to work on, and I’m already really behind. Do you think you could -”

“Do the dishes for me, just this once?” he finished, raising his voice an octave to impersonate her. “Like yesterday and the day before? No way. I have homework too.”

“Yeah,” she grumbled as she set her book down and he walked away, “but it’s not like you ever do it.”

The sink moaned as water drained from it. Claire dried her hands as the pruny imprints on her fingertips smoothed back into healthy, dry skin. On her way past the pantry, she grabbed two NutriGrain bars and an apple for Alex, waved to her mom politely, and climbed the stairs.

She gave him her contraband and told him he could turn the light on again (she’d moved her desk light into the closet with the help of an extension cord, and put all her shoes under her bed to make room for his sleeping bag). Then, with half a book to finish and a literary essay to complete in two days, she read until she fell asleep.

When Claire woke up, her cheek was stuck to page 148, her drool darkening the letters. Lethargically, she crawled onto her hands and knees and pushed her homework off her bed, then got under her covers. Her eyes closed on the image of green letters reading 2:02 AM, and she fell asleep to the harsh crinkle of a NutriGrain bar being unwrapped.

Claire endured the next day of college with as little alacrity as possible, and stopped by the comic book store afterward. Alex had told her that morning, when she’d snuck him a piece of toast and a banana, that she was looking for issue one-hundred, and it was important for it to be in a plastic sleeve.

She didn’t waste her time trying to find it herself. The comic book store might as well have been a labyrinth for all that she understood it. Instead, she approached the man at the counter, who was probably only a bit older than Alex, and asked him. Though she was sure he could have just pointed her to the proper rack, he rushed around the counter and eagerly ushered her there himself.

“This the one?” he said, handing it to her.

She nodded. “Yeah, thanks.”

He fiddled with his hands as he walked her back to the counter. Finally, he asked, tone somewhat wary, “Hey, you were here the last day Alex was working, right?”

Claire swallowed a lump in her throat and faked a clueless smile. “Who?”

“Tall guy, dark hair, glasses, stupidly good-looking for a geek, not that I’ve noticed.” The comic book lay untouched on the counter between them. The clerk made no move toward the till. “Weren’t you talking to him? And then you two ran out like Magneto had just showed up or something.”

She shook her head. “Sorry, I’ve never been in here before. I’m just picking this up for my brother.”

For a moment, she thought she had convinced him, but when the speculative gleam returned to his eye, she felt the air in her lungs go stale. “No, no, it was definitely you. You were,” he paused, gaze sweeping up and down her, “kind of memorable.”

“Well, obviously he wasn’t or I’d be able to help you,” she said curtly, putting her wallet away and shoving the comic book toward him. “Forget it, I’ll buy it at Barnes & Noble.”

Her face was already hot by the time the sun touched it, her heart hammering in her chest and her fingers white-knuckled over the strap of her purse. She squinted into the bright sunlight reflecting off the street, noticing a van parked some twenty feet away that she was sure she’d seen as she’d reversed out of the community college parking lot.

The feeling of being watched from both sides, trapped between walls of glass, was paralyzing for a sharp second. Then she forced herself forward, trying to move as carefree as possible, and got into her car.

When she arrived home, she took a shower to wash off the feeling of being followed. Once she’d changed, she collapsed back onto her bed and squeezed her eyes shut.

Three soft knocks elicited a sigh from her, and she said it right that time: “Where did I leave my pen?”

The closet door opened and Alex was there. She knew he was smiling but she wasn’t in the mood to see it.

“So,” he said playfully, “got anything for me?”

“Is that really all you can think about?” she snapped, rolling onto her chest and glaring at him. “You’re running from the government, possibly for your life, and the first thing that comes to mind is comic books?”

He stared at her as if she were wearing a different face. The silence between them clogged the air. Claire perforated it with another sigh, frustrated with herself, and flopped face-first onto her mattress.

“Sorry,” she conceded, voice muffled. “Sorry, sorry.” She lifted her face, then sat up. “It’s just… we have to get you out of here. Soon. I think people know.”

“What people?”

“The guy you work with, for one.”

“Mark,” he half-laughed. His ease made her bristle. “He also thinks we never landed on the moon and Soylent Green was based on real events. Don’t worry about him.”

“Yeah, well, can you discount the blue van I’m pretty sure followed me to the comic store? Which I don’t think followed me back?” she said, her voice a hissed whisper. “Conspiracy nut or not, they’re gonna believe him, especially if he mentions my dad.”

Alex’s face fell. “What can they do? They can’t search your house, can they?”

“I don’t know.” She rubbed the heels of her palms into her eyes. “I don’t know who they’re answering to: Nathan or his psycho hunter. Either way, if they’re coming, I’ll have notice.”

“Your mysterious text messager?”

“Rebel,” she corrected. “Yeah.”

His shoulders slumped, like the weight of the situation had finally settled on them, and he let out a noxious laugh. “You’re right. Why bother reading comic books when I’m practically living in one.”

Claire wanted to say something, but her tongue stuck to the bottom of her mouth. She recognized all of this, as if she were looking at her own life through a two-way mirror. The veil of safety had just been lifted from in front of Alex - he really, truly realized now that his old life was over. That adventure and reality were not necessarily one and the same.

She pulled out her binder and her book and began reading, trying not to frown when Alex closed the door and she didn’t hear the flick of her desk lamp from inside.

She’d fallen asleep frustrated, torn between two decent conclusive sentences. When she was rattled awake, she almost choked on the pen in her mouth. She spat onto the pillow and wiped her lips; blue streaks smeared across her hand.

“That’s gross,” she mumbled, cringing at the taste of ink.

“Claire?” a voice asked quietly, and she looked up to see that it was Alex who had woken her. The closet door yawned open, and he was sitting on her bed, his silhouette wide and dark against her moonlit room.

“Alex?” she asked, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Is something wrong? Are they here?”

“No, no,” he said hastily. “Nothing like that.”

“Then what are you waking me up for?” she asked. Relief filled her, like a cool flood through her veins, quickly chased by fiery annoyance.

“You were…” he paused awkwardly, and she glared at him, though she wasn’t sure he could see, “kind of crying.”

She blinked once, twice, then felt the tautness in her cheeks and the wet flutter of her eyelashes. She raised fingers to her face and they came away glistening.

“Oh,” she said dumbly. Hazy fragments of her dream began to come back to her. “I think I was having a nightmare.”

“You kept saying something. ‘Sylar.’”

Claire groaned, falling back against her pillows. That bastard. She had the nightmare every once in a while: trapped in her house with no windows, and doors that led into brick walls. Knives jabbed into the furniture like pins into cushions, folders covering the floor as thick as leaves. A tall shadow flitting from room to room, attached to nothing, simply there. It was not something she’d intended on sharing with anyone.

“Forget about it,” she said. “Just go back to sleep.”

“Are you sure?” he asked. She could almost see his concern turning the dust in the air. “This isn’t the first time you’ve -”

“Go back to sleep.” Her tone was brick hard, and she turned away from him.

His hand lingered on her shoulder, then the mattress rose as his weight disappeared. The closet door creaked quietly shut, and Claire kept her eyes on the clock as they dried.

She got out of bed at 7:30 AM, exhausted from a lack of sleep. The shower ran scalding hot to wake her up; her skin blushed vibrant red, but the burn faded quickly. She got dressed and grabbed her essay. Downstairs, while bacon simmered on the stove, she tried to remember one of the two sentences she’d thought up the night before but nothing came to mind. Defeated, she improvised a much less stellar sentence, having ceased caring at that point.

Sipping orange juice, she sat on the counter and watched the bacon. Soon her eyes wandered, to the half-empty fruit bowl she’d been siphoning from (she told her mother she was on a new diet to cover it up), to her keys and cell phone by the mail. Her cell phone light was blinking, and she immediately slid off the counter and rushed towards it.

She’d gotten a text message last night. It was time-stamped at 9:13 PM.

HELP IS COMING.
- REBEL

She texted back immediately, asking what he meant. It was an immense relief to know she hadn’t missed a message telling her the government was coming. They’d all be locked away and she’d have nothing to blame but her own inattention. But what was help? Claire was under the impression that she was the help - that these were the kinds of messages Rebel sent to other people, like Alex.

Willing the new text alert to come up, she stared at her phone until she thought she’d put a hole through it. Her other senses began to drown out; she forgot about the breakfast she was preparing and the bitter, leftover tang of orange juice and toothpaste in her mouth. When her phone buzzed in her hands, she started, and opened the message with burning fingers.

GOOD LUCK.
- REBEL

He hadn’t answered her question. Her jaw clenched and her nostrils flared; the scent of charred meat jolted her back to reality and she spun to face the stove.

Her lips fell open and her heart seemed to scream against the bonds of her ribcage: the element was turned off and standing there, pan in hand, was Sylar.

He smiled at her. “Your bacon was burning.”

Sand was on her tongue. Her mouth opened and closed several times, trying to squeeze words out of her throat, or moisture in from the air. She set her phone down and circled slowly to the knives, finding her voice to quietly hiss, “What the hell are you doing here?”

He reached into his pocket and she tensed. He pulled out a little black cell phone and flipped it open, pressing a few buttons and tossing it to her. “I got this and thought I’d pay you a visit.”

26008 MANZANITA AVENUE.
COSTA VERDE, CA.
CLAIRE BENNET NEEDS YOUR HELP.
- REBEL

Hot tears pricked her eyes as betrayal coiled within her. Rebel, whom she’d trusted with her life, the lives of her family, and the life of Alex, had led a serial killer to her front door.

“Rebel’s wrong,” she said, struggling to keep her voice even. “I don’t need your help.”

“Obviously you do,” he said, nodding his head toward the burnt bacon and setting it back down on the cooling element.

“I can cook my own breakfast, thanks.”

“What about your friend upstairs?” He grinned at her again; her stomach twisted into sick knots. “He’s in your bedroom, right?” Sylar tsked. “Never leave a guy alone with your underwear drawer, Claire.”

She felt the breath leave her. “How did you…?”

“I saw it,” he said, “when I turned the doorknob.” He didn’t allow her time to ask what he meant by that before he went on. “So, what am I here for? Am I saving you from his would-be ravishings or helping you two elope?”

She hated the humor he drew so effortlessly from a situation that caused her such fear. Her fingers closed around the handle of a knife, but when she tried to pull it from the block, it stuck like stone. Sylar gave her an obvious look and shook his head.

“Is that how you treat guests in this house? No wonder you never have company.”

“You’re not a guest,” she bit off, “you’re an intruder.”

“I’m the only chance you have,” he said, his phone floating out of her hand and back to his. “According to this person.”

“Rebel must not know who you are.”

“He knows who I am, Claire,” he said. “They could have sent me to help anyone, but they sent me after you, the one person I can’t and won’t kill. Give him some credit.”

“So why did you come?” she asked, scanning the room for another weapon. If he weren’t blocking her from the frying pan she’d have bashed it over his head already.

“Because if the government locks all of us away, it’ll make my job a lot harder.”

“Killing people?” she laughed darkly. “I thought that was more of a hobby.”

He shrugged. “Either way, a problem for me.”

Her voice grew steadily colder as she took control over her fear. “I won’t let you hurt Alex.”

“Relax. I’m not hunting anyone with the fuzz right outside your door.”

“Excuse me if I fail to be convinced.”

“You’re excused,” he said tiredly, strolling through the kitchen like he knew it. A slow flick of his hand drew the cupboard door open, and he dumped the bacon in it and kicked it shut again, dropping the pan in the sink. His fingers hovered over the counter - over her essay.

“Community college?” he asked, amused. “What, was Stanford out of your price range? Or are you just not that bright?”

“You should know,” she growled. “You’ve seen my brain.”

He chuckled. “Yeah, probably a money thing.”

How could the man who had sliced her head open speak to her so leisurely, like a friend or good acquaintance? It drove her mad, and she’d had enough of his presence.

“My family is home,” she stressed through gritted teeth. A glance at the clock reminded her that her mother and Lyle would be up soon. “You need to leave.”

“Actually, Sandra and I get along quite well,” he said. “We did last time, before the conversation took an unfortunate turn.”

There was a quiet moan in the walls, followed by the rush of water through pipes. Her mother was in the shower.

Claire stepped toward him, subconsciously trying to be feral, and whispered harshly, “Get out right now.”

Sylar shrugged, plucking an apple from the fruit basket and tossing it jovially a few times before stepping past her in no great hurry. “See you soon, Claire.”

She had venomous words to throw at him, but somehow caught them before they left her mouth, just as Lyle wandered into the kitchen with hair askew, still in his pajamas.

“Talking to yourself again?” he asked. She knew it was rhetorical.

“I wish,” she answered under her breath.

To take her mind off that morning’s events, Claire read over her essay in the car. Perhaps it was her negative frame of mind or the alarming clarity that accompanied an encounter with Sylar, but she realized it wasn’t very good. By the fourth page, there was a scowl on her face, and she wondered how she could have ever written something so awful. The topic sentence was flimsy, the entire introduction needed to be scrapped, and she’d misspelled Fahrenheit more than once.

As she read on, she contemplated whether it was worth handing in - whether any of this was really worth doing. Keeping up appearances, attending irrelevant classes, stressing over midterms when she should be stressing over the precariousness of her civil rights. Her car was in the parking lot, and around her doors slammed as students left for their classes, binders and computers in their hands. Some of them might have been special. Claire had no way of knowing, and it all rung so hollow.

She flipped to the last page, forehead propped up by the steering wheel, and finished reading. It deserved to be crumpled up and left to the curb. A long, exhausted breath swilled out of her and she raised her head, lining the papers up together on her lap. She bent the thin packet into a tube and released it from one hand, letting the pages fan her as they straightened. It was then that her wandering thoughts forcibly snapped back to attention. There was writing on the back of the first page that she hadn’t seen before. The angles were sharper than hers, the ends crisp.

It was a phone number - Sylar’s, which he must have put there telekinetically when he was blocking her view, drawing her eye to the shiny red apple as he tossed it into the air. Her throat tightened. She remembered feeling safer the moment he’d vanished from sight - but shouldn’t that have frightened her? Why had she left the house that morning? Even if Lyle and Sandra had gone, Alex was still there. Her mind had been messy, and she was only capable of latching onto routine in order to keep her emotions straight. She had been stupid.

Claire folded up the page and arched her hips to slide it into her pocket, tossing the others to the floor of the driver’s seat. She turned on the ignition and pulled out of the parking lot, cursing the slowness of crossing pedestrians and impermissible traffic. The ride back to her house was hazy, her joints and muscles following the movements systematic upon driving this route. She didn’t think about the van that had been trailing her. She didn’t care. She might actually need a few armed soldiers to distract Sylar while she and Alex escaped.

There were no cars in her house’s driveway; it looked as unassuming as possible. Not bothering to lock her car, she sprinted up to the door and fumbled with the keys, finally shoving one into the lock and bursting in.

“Alex?” she yelled, glancing around frantically. Nothing in the foyer or the kitchen had been displaced. Claire ran up the stairs to her room, yelling his name again. Her fingers latched onto the closet door, but it opened of its own volition; her hammering heart stopped, terrified of Sylar stepping out of the shadows, blood drenching his shirt like rainfall.

Instead there was Alex, looking concerned. His hand was on the closet door - he had opened it. “Claire, what’s the matter?”

She didn’t think before throwing her arms around him, ecstatic with relief. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Why, what happened?” he asked, alarmed. “Did they attack you?”

She let him go, heat rushing to her cheeks, and struggled to explain. Her phone buzzed in her pocket, cutting off the first word she tried to speak.

With shaky hands, she checked the newest text message.

STAY WITH SYLAR.
- REBEL

“Sylar?” Alex asked, looking over her shoulder. “The guy from your dreams?”

Air had become harder for Claire to breathe. She rushed to the window, cracking open the curtain - two people in suits, a man and a woman, were walking down the street toward her house. The van was behind them. Its door was open.

“Oh shit,” she said, fear-stricken. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

“What are we going to do?” he asked, and it inexplicably frustrated her. Alex was only asking questions; she had to provide answers she didn’t have. “They’ll have the back covered, won’t they? I mean, they’re like the government, right? They’ve thought of that.”

They had. She knew that. Her dad would have covered the back. Any idiot would have.

She stayed absolutely still as her mind raced for an escape route. Her eyes were glued to the agents coming steadily closer. One was on the phone. They were calling reinforcements. The mental image of Alex with a tube up his nose flashed.

“Claire.” He shook her; he sounded both panicked and rational, and it was strange - sobering. “Claire, come on!”

“Get your stuff,” she said, forcing her voice not to waver. With his help to ground her, she resigned herself to the situation and reached for the folded paper in her pocket.

As she called Sylar’s number, she thought of how ironic it was that he’d written it on the back of the introduction, rather than the conclusion. She wondered if he’d done that on purpose.

He picked up before the first ring but said nothing.

Claire’s words came out sticky and reluctant. “Get us out of here.”

He sounded amused. “Ask nicely, Claire. At least one of your parents must have taught you that.”

Her knuckles turned white over her phone. “Help us,” she said, almost choking on it. “Please.”

Sylar sighed. “All right. You’re going to have to do everything I say.”

“Fine.”

“Really?” he said, and he drew it out, dangled her dignity in front of her. “Everything I say? I want you to think about what you’re committing to.”

“I know.”

“This is more than the next five minutes.”

“I know!” she screamed into the receiver. Alex looked up at her from zipping his backpack shut. The agents were crossing the street to her driveway. “I’ll do it, okay! Just get us out!”

She could hear the wicked smile in his voice. “Answer the door.” The line went dead.

“What?” she asked futilely, and then the doorbell rang. It sounded harsh and heavy, foreboding. She looked out the blinds, but the agents were nowhere to be seen.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Claire tucked her cell phone in her pocket and grabbed the packed suitcase she kept under her bed. With Alex following her soundlessly, she crept down the stairs. In the foyer, she set the suitcase down and grabbed one of Mister Muggles’s best-in-show trophies. She held it aloft, poised to strike, as she cautiously opened the door.

“Hello again, Claire.”

The sunlight silhouetted Sylar, making him appear darker than usual, and at his feet were the two agents, crumpled against the garage. The woman had a gash from where she’d struck her forehead; blood was running over her eyes and thickening in her brown hair.

Claire’s breath caught behind her teeth and settled there, drying out her mouth. Behind her, Alex made a gagging sound.

Without another word, Sylar turned and motioned for them to follow. Claire grabbed her suitcase and walked quickly after him, Alex following suit. They went past her car, across the street, past the van the agents had come in (with a sparing glance, she could see all the computer equipment on the inside), and kept going.

“Aren’t you afraid of this guy?” Alex whispered, keeping a brisk pace.

Claire didn’t bother lowering her voice. “At least with him, I know the risks.”

Alex asked nothing more. They stopped after turning a corner and arrived at a sleek black truck. Claire and Alex threw their baggage into the pick-up and got in. Alex sat in the back and Claire in the front. She struggled not to appear uncomfortable as Sylar got in and closed his door, telekinetically locking the cab. Claustrophobia knotted the muscles in her back and arms. She began to feel the effects of her dreams set in.

No one said anything until the truck pulled onto the highway some time later, heading west.

“I’m thinking New Mexico,” said Sylar. “Or maybe you want me to drop you off with Rebel.”

“I don’t even know where he is,” she muttered into her fingers. Her chin was cradled in her palm, elbow propped up on the windowsill. She looked over at Sylar, curious and surprised. “Do you?”

“No,” he said. “But if you thought I did, I could have left you anywhere. Might have been fun.”

She scowled and settled into her seat. “We could make it.”

“They can track daddy’s credit cards.”

“I have money,” she said. “I’m not an idiot.”

“What’ll you do when that money runs out?” he asked. “Oh, you’ll get a job, right. With what social insurance number?”

She kept her eyes on the road ahead, steadily being sucked under the wheels and left behind them. “I’ll figure something out.”

“What about your boyfriend?” Sylar asked. “Maybe his ability can help you.”

“I’m not telling you what it is,” she said. “Nice try.”

Without looking at him, she still knew he was grinning. “I’ll find out.”

“Can we stop talking about me like I’m not here?” Alex asked. His voice sounded unfamiliar to her; she’d actually forgotten he was with them.

“Absolutely, Alex,” Sylar said.

“Yeah,” he confirmed his name, visibly unnerved. “I’m guessing you’re Sylar.”

“So she’s told you about me.”

“Not exactly.”

“How about we stop talking about me like I’m not here?” she growled. Alex was nice but he was too liberal with words and information. There were plenty of things she’d rather Sylar not know.

“I saw Peter recently,” Sylar said conversationally, changing the subject.

Claire dared to look at him then, but he was impossible to read. Alex asked, “Peter?”

“Where?” she interrupted Alex as he repeated, “Who’s Peter?”

Sylar smiled. “Nowhere. That wasn’t much of a truth.” He looked over at Claire then, eyes bright and piercing. “Don’t you think it’s curious how Alex knows about me and not Peter?”

Her jaw clamped down hard. “No,” she said stonily.

“Hmm,” Sylar mused, then looked back at the road. “I do.”

“You think performing lobotomies on a coffee table is curious,” she muttered. “Your opinion doesn’t count.”

Silence resumed. Claire had nothing left to say, Sylar appeared to be satisfied with the conversation at the moment, and Alex, she could tell via the rear-view mirror, was suddenly too frightened to talk.

The sky had darkened to a dull orchid when they pulled into what Claire assumed would be a long string of seedy motels they’d be staying at for the foreseeable future. She offered to pay for two rooms but Sylar refused and only paid for one. She hated being brushed off, but it was true: they needed to conserve their money as much as possible. As long as Sylar was sleeping on the floor, she supposed it was livable.

When they entered their room, the first thing Claire saw was the clock. She hadn’t once looked at the truck dashboard. The glaring 7:47 PM was accusing, and she immediately took out her cell phone.

“Claire?” Alex asked, the first thing he’d said in hours.

“I forgot - I completely forgot.” She felt frazzled as she punched in the numbers. “I didn’t leave a note for Mom and Lyle, I didn’t leave anything. She probably thinks -”

Sylar plucked the phone from her ear and ended the call.

“What are you doing?” she asked. “Give that back!”

“They’ll trace it,” he said. “This thing’s a paperweight now.”

“I have to call my mom -”

“On her tapped phone line?”

“I’ll leave a message.”

“You’ll get us all caught,” he said and leveled his stare on her. “I’m not going to help you if you insist on doing stupid things.”

“Stupid?” she repeated, scandalized. “I want her to know I’m not dead!”

“Maybe Rebel will do that. In the meantime, curb your homesickness.”

“They’re my family!” she yelled and lunged for the phone. He easily and gracefully stepped out of the way, and she watched in horror as the plastic in his hand gradually took on an expensive gleam

“Holy crap,” Alex muttered as he watched her phone turn to gold.

“They’re a liability,” Sylar told her. “Right now, concentrate on me, you, and him.” He nodded his head toward Alex very slightly. “Everyone else comes second.”

Claire felt acid in her veins, making every pump of her heart painful and angry. “It must be lonely being you,” she said, and nudged him violently as she passed him. “I really hope it is.”

In the bathroom, she took a searing hot shower. Alex yelled through the door that Sylar had gone to get food and sell her phone; Claire didn’t respond. She stayed under the spray until it turned lukewarm and her flesh began to lose its rosy glow, then she toweled herself off and redressed, tying her hair back in a stinging ponytail.

Sylar still hadn’t returned, but Alex was sitting on the bed, watching the mute static writhe on the television screen. When he looked at her, his face was a mixture of emotions: worry, fear, confusion. She held in a sigh and sat down in a chair opposite him.

“Ask away,” she invited.

“Who the hell is Sylar?” The words burst out of him with graceless impatience.

She couldn’t in good conscience fault him for his lack of knowledge or composure under the circumstances, but it was still bothering her, like an itch in her skin.

“He takes peoples’ powers,” she told him, not sure how graphically to explain it. “He took mine.”

“But you still have it.”

“And I’m the only one,” she cautioned. “Mine let me live. Yours won’t, so don’t tell him what it is.”

“Why are we staying with him?” Alex asked. “If you’re so scared of -”

“I am not afraid of Sylar!” That he had mentioned it in the truck, in front of Sylar, was bad enough. To hear it out loud made her feel small and weak, and she couldn’t have that now.

“Right, sorry.” He sounded insincere - sarcastic - and it sharpened her nerves to a razor point. “You just have nightmares about the guy because you’re such good friends.”

It was a coping mechanism. She knew that. Alex didn’t like asking her for answers anymore than she liked receiving his questions, and maybe he was as frustrated with her as she was with him, but she couldn’t rationalize what he’d just said.

She stood up and walked toward the door. She told him in a cruelly calm voice that she was taking the bed that night and he could sleep wherever he wanted, and closed the door brusquely behind her.

The night air was cool but did nothing to salt her temper. She looked up at the skyline; she could only tell where trees met sky because the thin sprinkling of stars disappeared. Dim orange lights illuminated the parking lot poorly; the recognizable inky silhouette of Sylar was approaching their room door. Approaching her. Two white bags stood out starkly against his clothes. The plastic was stressed over Styrofoam take-out containers.

“I got Chinese,” he said once he’d neared her.

“Of course you did.”

Sylar looked at her, then the door. “Lover’s spat?”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” she said, knowing it was useless.

“Of course he isn’t.” With some difficulty, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a fat roll of cash. “What I got for your phone.”

She took it from him thanklessly, storing it in her own pocket. “That’s how you get by? Turn things into gold and pawn them?”

“Better than a day job.” He pushed past her, opening the unlocked door and stepping inside. “Dinner’s here,” he said, presumably to Alex, as the door closed behind him.

Claire didn’t want to eat. Her fingers felt light and tingly: she was certainly hungry, but she had no appetite. The phantom feeling of warm, slimy chow mein in her mouth made her stomach roil petulantly.

Her thoughts turned to her mother. If she’d come home to the agents lying across her front step and the door open, or if they had been cleaned up by then, with only a puddle of blood announcing their presence. Blood that could be Claire’s or Alex’s to Sandra. She had probably called Claire’s dad. Had anyone told Nathan or Peter? Did it matter if they knew?

She held out vain hope that Rebel would get a message to them, telling them she was okay - preferably not telling them who she was with. But that didn’t seem like something Rebel would do. Even she was rarely contacted unless there was an emergency.

When she finally went back inside, Alex was asleep on the floor and Sylar was reclining on the bed, watching people argue on television. The picture was flickering grey, but the sound stayed clear and constant. He kept the volume extremely low; Claire had to strain to hear it.

“I’m sleeping on the bed,” she said. “You can take one of the chairs or something.”

“Too uncomfortable,” he said. “You’re smaller. You’ll fit better.”

She stared at him, disbelieving he was trying to take this away from her as well. It was simple and comparatively insignificant to everything else that had happened today but it baffled her.

“If you want to sleep on the bed, go buy another room,” she said commandingly.

He rolled his eyes at the television. “Your manners really are poor. Haven’t you learned to share?”

She expected to feel sicker at the thought, and when the bile didn’t rise she assumed she was just too tired to be that physically offended. “I’m not sharing a bed with you.”

“Not in the biblical sense.”

The back of her neck felt hot. “You’re sick. Get out of my bed.”

“Our bed.”

“I said get out!”

He looked pointedly at her, then at soundly sleeping Alex. She bristled.

“I don’t care where you sleep, Claire,” he said. “You can be stubborn and uncomfortable and sleep on the floor, or you can sleep on the bed.”

Her glare was steady.

“I’m not going to try anything.” He looked repugnant at the thought. “How crass do you think I am?”

“‘Crass’ isn’t the word I would use.”

She didn’t want to sleep on a bed with him, but even less than that did she want to give him another victory over her. He was toying with her, trying to crack her - probably out of nothing more than boredom or idle curiosity, and she wouldn’t be cracked.

She thought about this as she changed in the bathroom. He was twisted, but he wasn’t going to win. And even if it meant a few moral sacrifices on her part, she was going to turn the tables and find the chink in his armor. Just for the look on his face.

“You’re staying on top of the covers,” she said as she crawled under them. The television was still on. “If you come within five inches of me I’ll break every bone in your body.”

“You’ll try,” he said. “Goodnight, Claire.”

She turned away from him, keeping as close to the edge of the bed as possible. “Go to hell.”

Claire woke up to the sound of the shower, sunlight burning her eyelids. She was lying in the middle of the bed with the covers twisted between her legs. A quick look around revealed that Alex was still asleep, for which she silently thanked God. She disentangled herself immediately and waited, foot tapping impatiently, for the shower to stop running and Sylar to exit the bathroom.

When he did, she entered without a word, though she forced herself to look at him. She wasn’t ashamed - she had nothing to be ashamed of. Meeting her gaze, he didn’t look particularly smug or entertained, and she was grateful.

Once Sylar had woken up Alex and everyone had showered, they piled into the truck again and resumed heading west. They stopped at a diner about an hour down the road, where Claire, who hadn’t had dinner the night before, could barely stop herself from eating voraciously. When they got back into the truck, Sylar switched the radio on telekinetically, and they listened to country music without talking for the next four hours. She hadn’t even realized they had been in Nevada all night until they passed a NOW ENTERING UTAH sign.

“How far are we going?” she asked as they pulled into the Sevier Lake Motel.

“At least three states.” Sylar turned the key and the engine quieted, along with the radio.

“Can we go somewhere without country music?” Alex grumbled, shifting and trying to stretch his legs in the backseat. They all exited, grabbed their things, and bought a room - this time with Claire’s money.

“There,” she said as she unlocked the door. “I bought the room, I get the bed.”

“What about me?” Alex asked, though not petulantly, and Claire felt a pang of guilt.

“Oh, right. Okay, you get the bed tonight.” When Sylar said nothing, she couldn’t help but ask, “What, no objections?”

Sylar shrugged and stepped inside.

The place was tacky as expected, with browning orange wallpaper and an ugly brown carpet. All the furniture aside from the bed was wicker. The cheapness should have bothered her, but she was concentrating on Sylar’s silence, and his lack of interest in the bed. Even after a day of borderline ignoring her, he was trying to get under her skin.

That night was quiet, as were the few that followed it. As they drove through Utah and breached Colorado, the monotony began to wear on her. Sometimes she bought dinner, and sometimes Sylar did, but rarely Alex - he did, however, occasionally complain over their choices. Sylar seemed not to notice Alex most of the time, which was simultaneously relieving and comforting. He wasn’t that interested in Alex’s power (as Alex had found no use for it in their week of traveling together, Sylar must have assumed it was not worth coveting), but his attention was focused on her. Sometimes he teased her - especially that first night, and the third. But other days he would say very little, or only speak to her as though she were an equal. And no matter how he appeared to be feeling toward Claire that day, he always treated Alex curtly.

“Why does he do that?” asked Alex. It was Sunday night and they were in Seibert, Colorado, just off of highway seventy.

“Do what,” she asked without really asking at all. Alex had suggested they go out for a walk, without Sylar, and she was forced to oblige as it was preferable to the alternative. All the shops around them were closed; the gas station at the end of the street was the only building with lights on. Seibert, like so many others they’d passed, was a very drive-through town.

“Ignore me,” he said. “He doesn’t ignore you. And don’t take this the wrong way, but I mean… he’s already got your power.”

Claire sighed. “You want him to pay more attention to you? Because I guarantee that wouldn’t be a good thing.”

“No, no way,” he quickly corrected. “I just want him to treat me like a human being.”

“He doesn’t care about ‘human beings,’” she said. “He doesn’t really care about anyone. Just forget about him.”

“If you hate him so much, why are we still with him?” Alex asked, sounding agitated. “We can leave, right now. I can… probably figure out how to jack a car. You could break the glass with your arm.”

She didn’t even entertain the thought. Earlier that week, she very well might have, but now… Even walking with Alex, she was thinking of Sylar. She had become obsessed with what was going through his head at any given time, what his motivations were behind a certain action or word. Trying to figure him out, to get inside his head as he seemed to so easily get inside hers. It was unhealthy but she wouldn’t acknowledge that. Instead, she gave Alex the excuse that had become tired thin from constant repetition.

“Because Rebel told me to stay with Sylar.”

There was a pause. The silence surprised her but she didn’t dislike it, then Alex broke it with, “Us.”

“What?”

“Rebel told us to stay with Sylar.”

“Oh,” she said, feeling suddenly ill. “Yeah, that’s what I meant. Us.”

Alex nodded but didn’t look at her again. She glanced at his face, and her falling gaze lingered on his hand. Swallowing the indecision in her throat, she reached out and took it, squeezing reassuringly. He gave her a smile - it was so easy to make him smile - and she returned it with slightly less sincerity.

They walked to the gas station and back to the motel, by which time the parking lot was full of cars and the NO VACANCY lights were blazing. Claire’s fingers released Alex’s first, even though the room key was in her other hand.

The harsh neon helped to illuminate the soft, dark shapes in the room. The trash can was full of Styrofoam and it smelled of Italian food. Sylar had fallen asleep on the bed, and without a second thought, Claire began to climb under the covers, not caring to change into her pajamas.

“You know,” Alex whispered, “you could sleep on the ground if you want. With me.”

His bed was composed of mismatched cushions stolen from the lounging chairs and the sleeping bag he’d brought from her house. Having slept on it last night, while Alex took the bed and Sylar slept on the bare floor, she knew for a fact it wasn’t comfortable for one person, let alone two. She realized then that whenever she had crawled into bed beside Sylar, Alex had been asleep.

“Um, yeah,” she said, unsure how to turn him down. The bed didn’t put cricks in her neck (annoying while they were there, though they disappeared instantly once she straightened up), and sleeping beside Sylar didn’t disgust her anymore. That thought was alarming. “Sure.”

It was a warm night, so they flattened the sleeping bag out next to the cushions. She slept on top of it and Alex on his uneven pseudo-mattress. While she was drifting off, she felt warmth at her back: his chest pressed against her.

Claire woke up the next morning to find that Alex had sprawled across the sleeping bag, and she had rolled onto the floor.

She tried to look at him as little as possible as they packed; he didn’t seem to notice. When they were ready to leave, they stepped into the parking lot, Claire and Alex going instinctively for the black truck. Sylar stopped them with a simple, unbidden telekinetic nudge. Claire glared at him, and Alex was still disturbed by Sylar’s seemingly endless repertoire of powerful abilities.

“I hope you haven’t left anything in there, because we’re switching cars.”

Sylar chose an old white Volvo 240 with rusted doors and a missing bumper. It was the only thing in the lot with enough trunk space that wasn’t a Mack truck or Volkswagen van. With the snap of his fingers, he popped the locks, and Alex and Claire climbed in.

“How are you going to start it?” Alex asked.

Sylar answered by placing his finger to the keyless ignition and firing a bolt of blue electricity. The car started instantly; Claire’s heart constricted.

“You killed Elle.”

“Yes I did,” Sylar affirmed as they backed up. “Does that bother you?”

For some reason, she expected to be more offended than she was. Had she been spending so much time around him, that Sylar killing someone had become merely expected behavior? That sent her thoughts into turbulence.

“Of course it bothers me,” she said.

“I’ve also got this handy new one that tells me when people are lying.” He looked away from the highway, directly at her. He wasn’t smirking.

She turned to face the passing scenery, and swallowed a thick lump in her throat.

Sylar continued, “You’re going to have to kill, too, Claire. I’m glad you’re getting used to it.”

“You’re insane. You don’t ‘get used’ to murder.”

He chuckled. “We’ll see.”

Claire just barely caught Alex’s whisper of, “This is so fucked up.”

On Tuesday they were in Topeka, Kansas. It was a much larger town than they’d been accustomed to since leaving Costa Verde, and they allowed themselves to stay in an actual hotel. Their room had two beds and plush furniture, and a thirty-inch television with forty channels that Alex glued himself to immediately. Sylar took the vase full of flowers from the nightstand, emptied it, and turned it into gold. He announced that he was going to go sell it just as Claire was preparing for a walk.

The lack of change, insalubrious dinners and stiff sleeping conditions of the past week had shortened Claire’s temper and wearied her wholly. She hadn’t been as patient with Alex as she had back home, and the refreshing city air of Topeka had struck her with the perfect way to apologize. They had driven past a comic book store, perhaps ten blocks away - she’d finally get that X-Men comic for him, and hopefully that would breathe some congeniality back into their friendship.

She devised all this in the bathroom, as she tied her wet hair back in the tight ponytail she’d become habituated to wearing. A lock of short, stubborn hair hung loosely in front of her eyes; she dug around in her pocket for a hair clip, and found one, along with the folded first page of her essay. These were the same jeans she’d worn the day they’d left, she noticed belatedly. Running graphite made the edges of the lined paper grey, but the pen streaks were still clear where Sylar had left his number. Unsure what to do with it at the moment, she clipped her hair back and left the page on the counter.

As she was tying her shoes, Sylar invited her to accompany him on his way to the pawn shop, and she accepted without being unnerved. She wasn’t sure if she had simply stopped reacting to Sylar’s bait, or if it no longer had any effect on her.

“Is this how you live?” she asked as they waited for the elevator to reach the ground floor. “One motel to the next?”

“Only sometimes.”

“You have no anchor.” She hadn’t known what that was like until all this started. She couldn’t return to Costa Verde, possibly for the rest of her life. She had no home to orbit around, no safe place to go when she felt lost or alone. She wondered what happened when that overtook your life completely. Was that how Sylar became Sylar?

“I know,” he said. “Isn’t it freeing?”

A smile spread across his face and his voice was airy, light, but she sensed some insincerity in the closed, tight space around them. Something similar to the way he’d looked when he’d admitted to killing Elle.

“Are you afraid of me right now?” he asked, a question that startled her.

She considered the six-by-eight metal box they were in, probably between floors and suspended in a lonely vertical tunnel. Just she and him, and she wasn’t afraid. She hadn’t had a nightmare since that first night they’d shared the bed.

“No.”

His smile didn’t falter. “I think you’ve forgotten.”

“Forgotten?”

“Who I really am.”

The elevator lurched to a stop and the doors slid open. He walked out in front of her, as if he’d never been speaking to her at all.

Sylar’s pawn shop had been much closer than her comic book store. All the while, he had walked at least ten feet in front of her. They never talked or acknowledged one another, and she strode right past him when he veered off to sell the vase. She continued on and, finding the comic book store had closed in the time it took for her to return, she kept walking until she found a nearby Barnes & Noble. When she finally came back to their hotel room, it was 10:56 PM, and both Sylar and Alex were asleep, each on a different bed. The sleeping bag was propped up on a large chair by the window.

Claire set the comic book on top of the television. With a hiss, it slid down behind the television stand. Claire was tired, and the cardboard sheet and plastic sleeve would prevent it from becoming misshapen, so she left it for the morning. Her feet were sore and she stared unhappily at the sleeping bag. Kicking off her shoes, she turned her back on the sleeping bag and crept into the nearest bed.

She woke up being violently nudged by Sylar. The lights were off, but enough sunlight had pooled beneath the drapes to give the room a glow. She looked over: Alex was on the other bed, running a hand over his face. Claire had slept on top of the covers.

There wasn’t time to contemplate what that meant.

“We’re leaving,” Sylar said. He flipped the cell phone in his hand closed and tucked it into his pocket. “Now.”

Without question, she shot off the bed and grabbed her suitcase. The red letters on the alarm clock read 6:04 AM.

“What’s going on?” Alex asked no one in particular, and no one answered. He was the last to fasten his shoes, and Sylar and Claire waited impatiently outside the door. They took the stairs down to the lobby - it was eerily vacant, with no concierge at the front desk.

“This isn’t good, is it,” Alex said, and Claire shushed him. A few seconds of strange silence went by, and then men in black SWAT suits poured in from the front door and hallways, yelling military orders. Claire clamped her eyes shut as tranquilizer darts flew at them with tumultuous bangs.

One hit Alex and she heard him groan and fall to the floor; another whizzed past Claire’s left ear, close enough for her hair to flutter. And then there were only the sounds of the soldiers’ confusion. She opened her eyes to see the darts hovered in the air around them, and Sylar with a hand held aloft.

“They never learn,” he intoned dryly. The darts spun around and flew rapidly toward the people that had shot them. Some of them missed, and some of them stuck in Kevlar vests: there were five armed men still standing, all staring at Sylar, unsure what to do.

“Knock them out,” Claire whispered. “Let’s go.”

Sylar said nothing. At a gurgling sound, she turned her head: the soldier standing behind her was messily spitting up blood. It covered his lips and chin, and met the line of red slashed across his neck.

“Sylar!” she yelled. Cold shock rocketed straight to her gut. She didn’t know when the last time she’d said his name was. The piercing clarity of the moment yanked her violently from the resigned routine she’d fallen into, and it hurt. It hurt almost gloriously.

“I’ll handle these three,” he said to her, staring at the trio of men with their backs to the front door. He didn’t have to tell her the rest; she fixed her gaze on the one standing at the mouth of the west hallway. The one staring right past her. The one Sylar had left - had given her.

With Sylar’s back turned, the soldier made a break for him, discarding his empty gun and brandishing a knife. As he lunged, Claire put herself between him and Sylar; the knife entered her chest clumsily, scoring one of her ribs. All she felt was an odd tingling sensation.

She seized his moment of shock like her father had taught her to, wrenching his hand away from the knife and pulling it out of her chest. It must have ruptured her lung: she coughed up blood, and he stared at her like she was something out a film.

“Sorry,” she said, unsure if she meant it, if he would have been sorry to do the same to her, as she stabbed the knife into his throat.

It was all very surreal. It hadn’t felt like her, or like she’d actually been there, or like she’d actually killed a man, until Sylar threw Alex over his shoulder, they entered the parking lot, stole a silver BMW, and were driving through Topeka’s streets. All the people on the sidewalks were going along happily, leisurely. The normality of their lives directly contrasted what she had just done, and she asked Sylar to pull over so that she could throw up. There were pink streaks of blood in her vomit; seeing them caused her to throw up again. When she was done, he told her to get back into the car and shut the door with a thought.

“You made me do that,” she said, wiping her lips. They were driving again. “You made me kill him.”

“I made the situation available,” he corrected her. “I gave you the opportunity and it was your choice to take it.” He looked at her and smiled crookedly. “You wanted to protect me more than you didn’t want to kill him.”

When she realized it was true, she wanted to throw up again. Seeking solace or rebuttal - someone to tell her she didn’t have a choice, she didn’t pick Sylar over anyone else - she twisted to look back. Alex was sprawled across the backseats. There was still a flashing dart in his shoulder.

“You let him get hit.” She was in too much shock to keep her thoughts inside her head. They couldn’t stay there - there were too many. Claire scrambled to reach over and pull the dart from Alex’s body.

“Just be glad I didn’t leave him there.”

She swallowed the last dregs of copper left on her teeth and tongue and turned back toward the front.

“So how about now, Claire?” Sylar asked as they approached the highway. “Are you afraid of me?”

In perfect honesty, she was more afraid of herself.

It wasn’t until Alex began to stir that Claire realized she’d forgotten about the comic book entirely. She had remembered her suitcase, the sleeping bag, the folded paper she’d left on the bathroom counter… but she’d forgotten the comic book she’d spent almost four dollars on. As Alex steadily regained consciousness, she decided not to tell him about it.

“What the hell happened?” he asked groggily.

“You were shot with a tranquilizer,” Claire told him.

“Jesus. How about you? Were you hit?” He was only asking Claire and his concern was palpable. She expected her heart to squeeze. It didn’t.

“Yeah,” she lied. “But I’m fine. Fast healing.”

“Good, I’m glad.” He reached between the seats and took her hand, startling her. He only held it briefly, as if comforting her, and then straightened up and buckled his seatbelt. Claire shifted in her seat, crossing her hands over her legs.

“What’s your power?” Sylar asked.

Alex didn’t answer, and Claire looked at both of them, unsure what to do.

“I don’t want it,” he clarified. “It’s clearly worthless. I’m just wondering what ability you have that you can’t even find a use for it to protect the girl you so obviously have feelings for.”

If Claire had been driving, she would have stopped the car. It felt as if the scene needed to be put on pause while she and Alex dealt with the brutal undressing Sylar had just given their relationship. But the car kept moving.

Heat rushed to her face and cheeks, and she stared at Sylar. “You can’t just say things like -”

“Breathe underwater,” Alex cut across her. She looked back at him, but his eyes were fixed on the window. His voice was stone cold. “I can breathe underwater.”

“Wow,” Sylar said, sounding anything but impressed. “Well, kid, if I kill you, it’ll be for fun, not sport.”

They drove in silence the rest of the day, and Claire fought to keep from crying. There was pity tightening in her stomach and she could still taste vomit on the back of her teeth. Her heart forced out slow beats, and not one of them sounded like sympathy.

Alex voluntarily slept on the floor that night, and Claire lay on top of the covers, staring at the ceiling for a long time. As usual, Sylar was above the covers as well, and though his eyes were closed, she could tell he wasn’t asleep.

“You didn’t have to say that,” she whispered. Her tone was strangely devoid of accusation, juxtaposed with her words. “You really hurt his feelings.”

A small, short laugh made the mattress sink momentarily. “Said the pot to the kettle.”

She hated that even after how much she’d observed him, he could always say things that left her nonplussed. “Excuse me?”

“It’s pathetically easy to tell he likes you, you know that.” He opened his eyes and propped himself up on his elbow, turned toward her. “Yet you’ve been ignoring him for over a week. That’s pretty heartless, Claire.”

“I haven’t been ignoring him,” she argued quietly. “I’ve been kind of busy with this whole running from the government thing.”

“Busy watching me instead.” Her mouth fell agape and he tapped his finger to his lips, like he was sharing a secret. “I’m attentive, remember? You thought I wouldn’t notice?”

“I haven’t been watching you.”

“It tingles when you lie.”

She screwed her face up. “You’re such a freak.”

“And so are you,” he said. “You were smiling when you killed that soldier.”

Her face fell again. “You’re lying.”

He shook his head. “I watched you. It was like art, Claire. You’re becoming so much more than you were before.”

“I wasn’t smiling.”

And then he began to smile, and she began to doubt his words less and less. “And you were sarcastic, too. You said your little apology in the most mean-spirited way.”

She replayed it in her mind - that moment she’d felt so out of her own body, let another part of herself take control. She had. She had. She’d felt a thrill in taking a man’s life.

“He would have killed me,” she tried feebly to defend herself.

“You can’t die, and neither can I.”

“He would have taken Alex away.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t let him.”

She closed her eyes. All this new information about herself was overwhelming: the little and large ways she’d changed just by being around Sylar, absorbing his madness. Life on the road had made her wonder if immortality felt at all the same: an endless cycle of repetition, becoming a spectator in your own life. Taking subconscious comfort in the fact that Sylar was like her, he would live forever, and he seemed spirited and alive. When had it all stopped being about hatred and started being about kinship?

“He can’t do anything for you - he can’t comfort you, and do you know why?” She remained silent. “Because he doesn’t know what you’ve done. What you are. None of them do anymore, and none of them have for awhile, have they?”

Her eyelashes were flickering rapidly in front of her. She kept blinking.

“It is lonely, Claire,” he said, calloused fingers brushing a lock of hair from her face. “Until you find someone just as lonely as you are.”

A tear slid down her cheek, and then she began to convulse in huge, ugly sobs. She curled onto her side and cried, mourning the girl she’d left behind in Costa Verde. She cried because she just didn’t care about anyone beyond this bed: Alex curled up on the floor, her father in New York or her mother in California. The man she murdered in the Hyatt Place lobby.

She shivered closer to him, pressing her forehead to his chest, and he put an arm around her waist as he whispered, “Welcome, welcome,” with his lips against her hair. Her eyes were tightly closed but she didn’t sleep all night, just repeated his name until it finally felt right on her tongue. He whispered instructions to her and she followed them, just as she’d promised she would. Before daybreak, they climbed into the BMW and began driving north, toward Nebraska. Claire left the motel room key beside Alex, who was still sleeping on the floor, along with four one-dollar bills - enough to buy breakfast, or a comic book (the name of which she had forgotten).