Fic: "Girl In The Mirror", ch 1, cont...
Continued from the first half of the chapter: found here.
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On the fifth day he woke unrested and uneasy to a slight tugging on his fingers.
Blinking his eyes open, he saw his hand twisted in long strands of blonde hair and he stilled immediately. She hadn’t woken up and he turned fully onto his side to face her. Her mouth was slightly open, but it was the only sign of peace as the corners of her eyes were crinkled and tight, her brow furrowed.
It overwhelmed him suddenly and he yanked harder at the same time lunging forward to bury his face in the curve of her neck, nose lodged deeply under her ear in between skin and hair, and he inhaled. Again and again as he held her down, the sleepy form waking suddenly to a blind, unconscious panic, he breathed.
She didn’t smell like Elle. When he had his eyes closed and wasn’t looking at her from a distance, she didn’t resemble her at all. She smelled like his soap and shampoo, lacking in any overly delicate and feminine fragrance, a plain scent that he craved.
She wasn’t Elle, but she was female and near and he…
He was not and never would be anything to her.
“Get up.”
She whimpered as he let go and disentangled himself, a loud gasp of relief that grated up and down his spine. His skin itched to rear up, pull himself up to full height and draw every power at his disposal to flay her alive. He wanted to push her to the very edge, hurt her, punish her, and the urge came in flashes too strong to ignore.
The feeling was both familiar and frightening.
They made it halfway through a hastily prepared breakfast, cereal and milk, before it sparked again. She was dragging her spoon grudgingly through the bowl, stirring the contents idly as if slow, continuous movement of the increasingly soggy mess would facilitate her escape.
From him.
He fixed the immediate problem by shoving the bowl completely off the table and watching her jump back in surprise as milk and congealed oats clung to her ankles.
And later, when she showered and he paced the apartment trying not to think about milk washing down slender ankles, the entirety of the situation closed down on him. He was not prepared for this, not prepared for her or her constant presence. The walls were closing in, ample room for one but not really for two.
Simple and basic and plain, he preferred apartments rented by the week than cheap hotel rooms. He would have preferred to get an actual permanent residence, total autonomy that came with privacy, but this option offered an easy exit. It would not raise too many questions if he left suddenly and that was key in keeping a low profile.
In the meantime, he did not know what to do with her. He watched her warily as she avoided him, a wild life enthusiast keen to observe an animal adjust to its new habitat without interfering. He watched her get weaker, often times dizzy and unfocused before he took an interest in how much she actually ate at each meal. He watched her try not to appear to watch him, her clandestine observational skills clearly honed as she grew shuddering, tottering little legs like a newborn calf, learned to walk through the apartment and navigate him.
They spoke little, bare necessities, orders and requests, suffocating in the silences between. They had even less physical contact, like two magnets pulsing with the same polarization, edging around each other. She treated him like a particularly sensitive bomb set to explode and he didn’t do much to dissuade her of the habit, too tempted to play on her fear and apprehension.
There were some moments, few and far between, brief little flashes of intelligence and wit, a wry sarcasm and fiery temper hidden underneath the submissive and cowering creature. They sparked an interest in him, intrigue and fascination and greed, but most of all they made him resent the subservience she showed him all the more.
It grated down his spine and stuck in his brain, shot jolts through him that made him bite the inside of his cheek.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, he was already there and she had nowhere to go without flattening herself against the wall, trying to slink past him without making contact. It was ludicrous, this obvious farce of trying not to draw notice. He was standing right in front of her, nothing she could do would make her invisible.
“Wait…”
He wanted it to come out strong and powerful and instead it sort of mewled out like a desperate little plea.
She stilled immediately, frozen, shoulders slumped as she waited. He knew instantly that his own hesitancy scared her more on a visceral level than the flashes of anger and violence. She shook, back pressed against the wall and wrists pulled in close to her chest.
“What were you thinking about?” He demanded, an urge out of the blue, pure curiosity getting the better of him. “When you were eating?”
She blinked and her face fell.
His questions unnerved her, he could tell. Initially her answers came quick and confident, rushed, but he’d been able to pick easily the lies and fabrications and he always pulled her up on it. Creating lies on the spot to cover herself obviously came easily to her and the unease and mortification when she was forced to tell the truth anyway was delicious to watch.
“My dad.” She bit out and waited, gave her answer that extra second of testing to see whether he would react or not. “I miss him.”
The second sentence was her downfall and he felt the creep of the lie up his spine.
“That’s not it.”
She blinked and sighed, eyes rolling wild to the side and back again.
“He’s looking.” It came out struggling, as if she could swallow the words before their meaning reached him. “I know it, he won’t give up. He’ll find me.”
The moment she said it, she flinched, already aware of the dangerous ground she was covering. The flash ran through him hotly, a bright spark of jealousy and possessiveness. She could not go, she was not allowed to.
She gasped as he pushed her back against the wall, hand in the hollow of her throat.
“He won’t.” It came out bitten, a controlled hiss through his teeth as he bought his face down next to hers. “And if he does…”
He left the sentence hanging in the air and she shook her head, tendons of her neck stretching against his hand.
“No.” She whispered it, begged it. “Not my dad, not him… please.”
The way her voice cracked sparked in his brain, snapped him back to the first night when he’d taken her cell phone. The images that flashed through an object with Barbara Bailey’s power were sometimes blurry and indistinct, a radio wave not tuned in properly, but the ones he’d gotten then were little pops, like old camera flashes, seconds worth of strong, pure emotion.
Veronica collapsing on the top of a roof, shrouded in black night and neon flares, whispering and whimpering for her daddy. Veronica, thick and heavy and half conscious, crawling into a closet, dark and close, clutching a hammer and clumsily pressing the right buttons.
They’d come and gone in seconds and he’d discarded them at the time.
“Your father?” The words tasted foul in his mouth. “Your father!”
Her eyes widened with regret and fright a fraction of a second before he threw her across the room, spine crashing against the wall and skull thudding after as her face crumpled in pain.
“We talked about this! He did nothing but hurt you.”
By the time he reached her, she was struggling against the force that held her there, hands scratching at the plaster. Her head shook from side to side to try and avoid his hand as he reached for her, took her chin between his fingers and forced her to look forward.
“He made you what you are and I did you a favor by killing him.” He had to hold tight to stop the shaking of her head, the denial built in automatically. “And I will kill him again if I have to.”
The fight drained out of her, terror making her deathly still and Sylar looked at the floor as he let go.
“He’s no good for you, Elle.”
“I’m not…” She coughed against the words, throat hoarse. “I’m not Elle.”
His eyes flew back to her, Veronica, flattened against the wall and too scared to move as tears began to form.
The problem was simple. Simple and obvious and irreversible.
“Get on the bed.”
Her mouth opened and he saw the word ‘no’ before she could even begin to form it, a wide whitening in her eyes.
“I wasn’t asking.”
She scrambled, body shaking as she brought her limbs in close to her body and moved quickly as she could in response to the low toned threat in his voice.
“This isn’t working.” He told her quietly as he went to the wardrobe and found the last of his purchases so many days before. “I have to do it.”
And when the metal clanged against itself, her body went still and her face fell. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said it was with recognition.
Killing Elle the way he had was a mistake, he’d known it even as he was doing it, her unblinking and forgiving eyes watching as he lifted his finger to the air above her forehead, but he hadn’t been able to stop. He couldn’t even blame the hunger, that stupid insipid title slung around his neck by his supposed father and brothers.
He wanted to kill, sometimes even needed to do it, but it was hardly a hunger. It was a primal drive, an urge to evolve and use the powers others resented and tried to be rid of. Ultimately, he did them a service in dispatching them so readily and permanently. They wasted themselves and their gifts.
Somewhere along the line, and he had absolutely no qualms in admitting it, that purpose had gotten skewed to the point where he didn’t even really need the powers, sometimes he took them just to keep up appearances. The reason became the excuse. He didn’t kill to take the powers, he took the powers to kill.
And Elle… he had fought her to the ground that day and she’d beaten him back, overloaded both him and herself. She’d lived, but he’d still managed to take everything from her. Her father, her job, her entire life’s meaning, and her power being the only thing that had ever truly been hers in her entire life, he’d turned it around on her until it became her tormentor.
When he had found her in that cell, chained to the floor like a dirty animal, at the end of her tether and without a shred of anything to live for, she’d begged him to take her life, end it, kill her like the mercy it would have been. She’d begged him and he’d refused. Instead, he’d built her up again, not only gave her back control of her power, but empowered her even further as he’d let her teach him, gave her hope and human connection and the promise of the only things she’d ever wanted in her entire life. Normality, praise and affection.
Then, and only then, when he’d gotten her to a point of begging for her life, had he taken it.
He’d given in to some stupid primal urge and it had cost him something he hadn’t even realized he’d wanted in the first place. All because he hadn’t wanted to deal with her at that moment. It was simple, her only request, give up using the powers that had skewed them both so much and go back to the two simple, easy beings who laughed over pie and pasta.
The futility of it overwhelmed him.
“I can’t not kill.”
She began to beg in earnest when he slapped the standard women issue cuffs over her wrists and clicked them shut over the bed head.
But he didn’t mean her and he supposed she figured it out when he gagged her and left the apartment, quietly locking the door behind him.
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Veronica was fast losing any sense of sanity and her control had long gone.
He seemed to be two different men at once and both of them scared her. There was no way to predict which he would be at any moment in time and the same things seemed to bring them both out. Violent, sadistic and completely without remorse one moment, he turned simpler, easier, meeker, almost eager to please the next.
Any sign of reluctance on her part to follow his orders could send her flying across the room, yet any obvious signs of obedience or compliance on her part was sure to be followed by an outburst and him testing her limits. It was like walking through an unmarked minefield, no cues to the explosives hidden under each step.
She had taken to freezing, muscles tight and frigid in anticipation, whenever he addressed her directly, feeling his attention honed to her like an eagle sighting prey.
The low, even cadence of his threatening voice sent instant shivers down her spine, where the higher, pleasant, conversational tones made swarms of tiny little nerve endings crawl, and both of them made her lose step, made her awkward and dumb with dread.
He was suffocating in a low budget apartment with no space. There was no escape. Every time she moved his eyes followed her, as if he expected her to do something spectacular at any given moment, and often times he appeared disappointed by her. She tried to keep as still as possible, sitting in one place often for hours on end, until even that sparked his curiosity and natural inclination to torment her.
There was little to do in the apartment shy of washing, eating and reading books. He had a strange combination of titles, machinery and psychology and genetic texts, and her eyes blurred over the fine detail of Swiss craftsmanship, retaining little if any of the actual information. Head burrowed in a book, whether she read the words or not, was the only way to stop his all encompassing attention.
She was on constant alert, a physically draining and exhausting awareness that hummed through her body with every thought. She spent the entire day on a high wire and only ever got to let down her guard once they went to bed.
It had turned into her only salvation, the only place she could relax, lying on the mattress next to her tormentor. The entire mood of the apartment changed when she slipped under the covers, her tight and taut muscles finally letting go. All the threat dissipated and she breathed easier.
Once or twice she had woken in the middle of the night to feel him, his hand on her arm or in her hair, but even that was preferable to his waking hours. She had slept several nights by Duncan’s side when she could get around her curfew, several more by Logan’s the year after when college allowed her a greater freedom and, even though she had spent significantly less time with the male persuasion since then, she still remembered the difference between sexual and possessive gestures.
In sleep his hands, like his mind during waking hours, are her leash.
Her brain barreled down into hysteria for a brief second and she choked around the gag in a brief giggle. She was cuffed to a bed, held hostage by a mad man with super powers and she was actually weighing the pros and cons of sleeping next to him.
He had killed, by his own admission he had both killed and done so easily, without thought or regret, and she was afraid that any action on her part would be her last. When he had cuffed her to the bed and told her he couldn’t not kill, she had felt a cold stone dread in her heart that her number was finally up.
But it hadn’t been and it really did not make her feel any better to realize what he had meant. She’d annoyed him to the point where he’d had to go out and kill someone else and she had no idea who. A silver trickle of icy fear down her spine suspected that, given their conversation five seconds prior to his outburst, he was going to go kill her dad.
She squeezed her lids shut and tried not to think about that, about what she would do if he did.
It wouldn’t be him, it wouldn’t be him, it couldn’t… hysteria threatened to bubble over again as she realized she was silently praying for him to kill anybody, as long as it wasn’t someone she knew. Guilt flooded her system and she consciously forced her thought process to wish for nobody to die.
Nobody, she insisted, her brain stamping the word with emphasis as if to erase the thought from moments ago, please let him kill nobody, nobody, nobody...
A loud crash made her jump and before her brain had any time to process it, a sudden frustrated growling yell sounded in the next room and she knew he was back. Back, and more volatile than she had seen him yet. Another crash sounded, followed by thumps, and she imagined chairs turning over. Smashing glass began to sound from the kitchen and she strained to follow his steps, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t come near her in that mood.
Her wrists began to pull against the cuffs, trying again to free herself, even if it was only to find somewhere to hide. The skin was already raw and chafed from her earlier efforts and it made her cry out against the gag, her foot sliding to the edge of the bed. It was a futile effort as her ankle hooked over the edge and yielded nothing.
“He’s gone!”
Her blood froze and she felt all her nerves shrink, skin tightening in close.
“I tracked him for a week before you and now he’s gone!”
She didn’t know what he meant, but she knew it couldn’t be good when he strode into the room, eyes flashing coldly as the doors to the wardrobe flew open and clothes began to fly out.
“They know.” His voice was barely contained, anger seeping through a clenched jaw. “They know I’m here and they warned him.”
Maybe it was her feverishly hopeful brain talking, but she hoped that meant he hadn’t actually gotten to kill anyone, that possibly he’d had someone in mind all along and it had never been her father. Her father, all her friends, Logan… they were safe.
Breath came easier, but she still strained her neck trying to follow his movements through the room. It all became clear when she saw him open a large bag and begin putting all the clothes inside it.
His and hers.
She felt her heart sink.
“We have to leave.”
His words were unnecessary, but at least his voice was a little calmer. With each thrust of clothing into the bag, the anger seemed to drain from him, his entire stance melting from frenzy into calm, but it had the opposite effect on her. Leave, as in go away, as in move further from LA and Neptune and anyone who might have a vested interest in finding her.
He left her for last, forcefully packing the few material things in the apartment and loading the car before coming back for her. The rules, he explained in a voice that suggested it was not a negotiation as he released her wrists, were simple. She was to keep her head down, as if she were sleeping against the window, or anyone she drew the attention of would pay the price.
Veronica did not doubt he meant it.
She blinked in the sudden sunlight when he led her outside and it struck her that she hadn’t seen the outside world in over five days. Her lungs expanded immediately in the fresh air and she turned her face upwards. The natural heat felt good on her skin.
It was a plain car, Veronica assumed a rental, a white Honda Civic and he slammed the door shut behind her and then, once he was seated behind the wheel, reached over to cuff her again to the passenger door handle, both wrists locked into place. His shoulder pressed firmly into her abdomen and she held her breath, tried not to press the contact further.
They drove south with bland music playing on the radio and Veronica kept her forehead pressed against the glass, her eyes watched listlessly as buildings and trees and people sped by her. It would be easy, so easy, to cause a scene. To get even one person’s notice at a stop light or busy intersection, but as the buildings and crowds quickly gave way to open roads and brief glimpses of the ocean, she kept silent.
It grew like a buzzing in her nerves, a little secret thrill that threatened to bubble up and out of her throat. She tried to stay still, terrified he could read it on her face, on her skin. The longer they drove south, the closer they got to Neptune and the better she behaved the easier it would be to form an escape plan.
After an hour, the PCH grew more familiar, she knew exactly where she was and he’d shown no signs of stopping or changing direction. She’d driven along the same stretch of road herself countless times. Familiarity bred its own comfort, knowing that if she could miraculously get away from him she would be able to find a way back home.
A low rumble sounded in the distance and she almost smiled. It had been several years since Weevil had ridden a motorbike, but she would forever associate the sound with him. She shifted in her seat, adjusted the angle of her vision and he turned to look at her closely. She tried to settle back down to non existence in her corner of the car.
Traffic built up again the closer they got to Long Beach and Veronica spent her effort on breathing slowly, trying to settle her own frazzled nerves. She felt the engine slow down and watched blankly as the car pulled up to a red light.
The motorbikes returned, rumbling up to the same intersection and Veronica looked up. She must have been hallucinating, because she thought she saw Weevil looking back at her, familiar shoulders in a leather jacket and puzzled frown behind mirrored glasses.
She launched up from the seat and was immediately jerked back down by the cuffs around her wrist. The movement was not lost on the boy on the bike and he looked closer, lowered his glasses. Veronica gasped as recognition hit her.
Julio, Chardo’s brother all grown up. He must have been about mid teens by now, she thought, and obviously taking after his older cousin. They called him Engles, after Julio Iglesias, and she remembered hearing from a disappointed Weevil that he had taken an interest in the PCH.
“Veronica?”
And he obviously recognized her.
“Veronica!”
The action was immediate, a quick gesture to the side, and swarms of bikes surrounded the little car, motors revving threateningly as Julio bored down and began to slap his hand at the glass of the window, more fists hit the bonnet and the entire body of the car shook on its axis. For a split second, Veronica felt hope. They knew, people were looking for her and they had found her and it would all be over.
“Get out of the car, Puta! Let her go!”
It was not so much his power than his hand as Veronica felt it slam her head back against the head rest.
“Get down!”
And then the bikers were gone.
“No!”
She watched Julio thrown across the road, his bike skittering after him, and heard the sound of several other bodies hitting asphalt, loud cries and grunts, the screech of metal on the road, slamming of brakes from oncoming traffic and then the most frightening sound of all.
The engine revving.
“Stop it!” She cried, scrambling up again to check the state of the writhing bodies that surrounded them. “Don’t hurt them! Please.”
The wheels spun frantically for a second and then found purchase. Veronica nearly sobbed when the car was propelled forward. She sank back against the seat and watched the road signs blur past. He obviously didn’t care about road rules or not bringing any more attention to themselves.
So close, she’d been so close, but she thought about the sickening sound of car tires hitting human flesh, the absolute disregard with which he’d done it. Although Julio often argued quite vehemently with Weevil regarding his involvement with the PCH, he was steadfastly loyal to him and Veronica knew that in the five minutes that had passed, he would already have made the call. Weevil, unwaveringly loyal to her, would have been on the phone to her father moments later. Her father would probably be out the door, would already be on his way.
She could have cried.
“We need to change cars.” She said instead, voice calmer than she ever would have thought. “They know it now. Change cars and only use cash.”
He looked at her in surprise, but his mouth slowly curved up in a smile and she swallowed the last of her hope.
“And we need to change direction.”
The car swung around and in less than half an hour she could no longer recognize the scenery. Ten minutes after that, they had a new car, she had her wrists free and he had several hundred dollars of cash she didn’t even want to question. More than throwing her from one side of the room to another, apparently his powers were good for opening car doors from the inside and then starting their engine.
They drove until it got dark, past towns and cities she could not name and never really wanted to, until her mouth caked together with thirst and her body ached, stomach knotting in on itself, until the radio station crackled several times over and had to be continuously adjusted and changed. They switched cars two more times. She wasn’t cuffed, but she didn’t move unless told, slumped down in her seat and watching the world fly by.
They drove until he finally decided to stop.
A gas station with a greasy spoon diner, glass windows from floor to ceiling. He hadn’t looked at her since she’d suggested the swap apart from the necessary transferring from car to car, and his glance now was curious and thoughtful and predatory.
He gestured to the people inside.
“I will kill them, do you understand? All of them.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, not really wanting to hear and not wanting to see the unknowing people he was talking about, the potential targets, women and men and children, but she nodded slowly.
“If I even think…”
“I won’t.” The words came quickly, rushed, a promise. “I’ll be good.”
He paused and she clenched her eyes tighter, hoped she’d pass his truth test. The rush of cool air when he opened his car door signaled her success and she breathed.
“Order two of whatever you want, I’ll have that.”
She watched him walk casually to the restrooms on the side of the diner and sat there for a minute, breathing. He had left her alone, completely free and untied, and automatically assumed she would follow his orders. Honestly, though, she knew too much to try and take advantage of it and he knew it.
Slowly, she looked in the rear view mirror and tried to fix herself to a level of disrepair that spoke of a long car trip and not a week long hostage crisis, smoothed the raw skin of her wrists until they looked only mildly pink. Then she opened her own car door and stood on shaky legs. A bell rang, loud and clattery as she entered and nobody looked up, nobody gave her a second glance except a single waitress who gestured for her to take a table.
There were several lone men, natives to a truck stop diner, one or two families with restless children, obvious travelers, and a smattering of seeming regulars. She gave the room a quick once over and decided on a small booth to the back and side, around a wall to the entrance. It was far back enough not to draw unwarranted attention.
A busboy collected dirty dishes on a tray as she sidled past him and they knocked into each other. He apologized in a quick, but bored fashion and she did the same, slipping by and taking her seat with her back to the entrance. She could not see the door, but she could also not be seen by the door, and she figured she would hear him the moment he entered as the bell would sound. She hadn't set out to disobey, but the opportunity had been too good to pass.
Veronica palmed the small silver cell she’d slipped from the busboy’s pocket and quickly dialed a familiar number.
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Keith strode out of the hospital with only the smallest measure of control left.
He and Bennet had spent the afternoon interviewing Long Beach traffic police, visiting the hospital to question Julio Navarro and the rest of the PCH gang in various levels of injury and consciousness. What he had learned had not made him feel any better. She’d looked okay, Julio had told him, but she’d been cuffed and afraid.
Then he hit her. Julio’s voice still rang in his ears. Bastard slammed her head into the seat.
That had been hours ago, already half a day.
Keith knew that wherever his daughter was, she was long gone. As he looked up at the night sky, he remembered to switch on his cell phone.
It beeped with a voicemail message.
“Dad. Oh my god, Dad.”
His fingers clenched in spasm around his cell as his heart plummeted when he realized he’d missed her call by only five minutes. She sounded slightly hysterical, rushed, voice hushed to a whisper.
“I’m okay. I’m okay, he hasn’t… he hasn’t done anything yet… I don’t know how long…”
The longer she spoke, the less control she seemed to have, her voice breaking down. Her exhaustion and fear were palpable and obvious and his jaw clenched.
“I’m really scared. I thought… I thought he was going to kill… I just want to come home… he thinks… his dead girlfriend… I don’t…
A muffled sound something like a sob made his heart bleed.
“You have to stop looking. Don’t come after me, Dad, promise me. Call off whoever it was, he knows them. Just… leave it alone. Stay away from him, you don’t understand…”
Then it happened and Keith could do nothing as he listened to the minutes old message of his daughter’s voice gasping, a low growl, and then the abject pleading in her voice. He could hear angry yelling and other pained cries of people in the distance, her frantic cries for leniency and then a dull thump followed by a hideously low, muffled moan easily recognizable as Veronica.
And then the message went dead.
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End chapter one.
Comments? Questions? Flames?
Death threats?
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On the fifth day he woke unrested and uneasy to a slight tugging on his fingers.
Blinking his eyes open, he saw his hand twisted in long strands of blonde hair and he stilled immediately. She hadn’t woken up and he turned fully onto his side to face her. Her mouth was slightly open, but it was the only sign of peace as the corners of her eyes were crinkled and tight, her brow furrowed.
It overwhelmed him suddenly and he yanked harder at the same time lunging forward to bury his face in the curve of her neck, nose lodged deeply under her ear in between skin and hair, and he inhaled. Again and again as he held her down, the sleepy form waking suddenly to a blind, unconscious panic, he breathed.
She didn’t smell like Elle. When he had his eyes closed and wasn’t looking at her from a distance, she didn’t resemble her at all. She smelled like his soap and shampoo, lacking in any overly delicate and feminine fragrance, a plain scent that he craved.
She wasn’t Elle, but she was female and near and he…
He was not and never would be anything to her.
“Get up.”
She whimpered as he let go and disentangled himself, a loud gasp of relief that grated up and down his spine. His skin itched to rear up, pull himself up to full height and draw every power at his disposal to flay her alive. He wanted to push her to the very edge, hurt her, punish her, and the urge came in flashes too strong to ignore.
The feeling was both familiar and frightening.
They made it halfway through a hastily prepared breakfast, cereal and milk, before it sparked again. She was dragging her spoon grudgingly through the bowl, stirring the contents idly as if slow, continuous movement of the increasingly soggy mess would facilitate her escape.
From him.
He fixed the immediate problem by shoving the bowl completely off the table and watching her jump back in surprise as milk and congealed oats clung to her ankles.
And later, when she showered and he paced the apartment trying not to think about milk washing down slender ankles, the entirety of the situation closed down on him. He was not prepared for this, not prepared for her or her constant presence. The walls were closing in, ample room for one but not really for two.
Simple and basic and plain, he preferred apartments rented by the week than cheap hotel rooms. He would have preferred to get an actual permanent residence, total autonomy that came with privacy, but this option offered an easy exit. It would not raise too many questions if he left suddenly and that was key in keeping a low profile.
In the meantime, he did not know what to do with her. He watched her warily as she avoided him, a wild life enthusiast keen to observe an animal adjust to its new habitat without interfering. He watched her get weaker, often times dizzy and unfocused before he took an interest in how much she actually ate at each meal. He watched her try not to appear to watch him, her clandestine observational skills clearly honed as she grew shuddering, tottering little legs like a newborn calf, learned to walk through the apartment and navigate him.
They spoke little, bare necessities, orders and requests, suffocating in the silences between. They had even less physical contact, like two magnets pulsing with the same polarization, edging around each other. She treated him like a particularly sensitive bomb set to explode and he didn’t do much to dissuade her of the habit, too tempted to play on her fear and apprehension.
There were some moments, few and far between, brief little flashes of intelligence and wit, a wry sarcasm and fiery temper hidden underneath the submissive and cowering creature. They sparked an interest in him, intrigue and fascination and greed, but most of all they made him resent the subservience she showed him all the more.
It grated down his spine and stuck in his brain, shot jolts through him that made him bite the inside of his cheek.
When she stepped out of the bathroom, he was already there and she had nowhere to go without flattening herself against the wall, trying to slink past him without making contact. It was ludicrous, this obvious farce of trying not to draw notice. He was standing right in front of her, nothing she could do would make her invisible.
“Wait…”
He wanted it to come out strong and powerful and instead it sort of mewled out like a desperate little plea.
She stilled immediately, frozen, shoulders slumped as she waited. He knew instantly that his own hesitancy scared her more on a visceral level than the flashes of anger and violence. She shook, back pressed against the wall and wrists pulled in close to her chest.
“What were you thinking about?” He demanded, an urge out of the blue, pure curiosity getting the better of him. “When you were eating?”
She blinked and her face fell.
His questions unnerved her, he could tell. Initially her answers came quick and confident, rushed, but he’d been able to pick easily the lies and fabrications and he always pulled her up on it. Creating lies on the spot to cover herself obviously came easily to her and the unease and mortification when she was forced to tell the truth anyway was delicious to watch.
“My dad.” She bit out and waited, gave her answer that extra second of testing to see whether he would react or not. “I miss him.”
The second sentence was her downfall and he felt the creep of the lie up his spine.
“That’s not it.”
She blinked and sighed, eyes rolling wild to the side and back again.
“He’s looking.” It came out struggling, as if she could swallow the words before their meaning reached him. “I know it, he won’t give up. He’ll find me.”
The moment she said it, she flinched, already aware of the dangerous ground she was covering. The flash ran through him hotly, a bright spark of jealousy and possessiveness. She could not go, she was not allowed to.
She gasped as he pushed her back against the wall, hand in the hollow of her throat.
“He won’t.” It came out bitten, a controlled hiss through his teeth as he bought his face down next to hers. “And if he does…”
He left the sentence hanging in the air and she shook her head, tendons of her neck stretching against his hand.
“No.” She whispered it, begged it. “Not my dad, not him… please.”
The way her voice cracked sparked in his brain, snapped him back to the first night when he’d taken her cell phone. The images that flashed through an object with Barbara Bailey’s power were sometimes blurry and indistinct, a radio wave not tuned in properly, but the ones he’d gotten then were little pops, like old camera flashes, seconds worth of strong, pure emotion.
Veronica collapsing on the top of a roof, shrouded in black night and neon flares, whispering and whimpering for her daddy. Veronica, thick and heavy and half conscious, crawling into a closet, dark and close, clutching a hammer and clumsily pressing the right buttons.
They’d come and gone in seconds and he’d discarded them at the time.
“Your father?” The words tasted foul in his mouth. “Your father!”
Her eyes widened with regret and fright a fraction of a second before he threw her across the room, spine crashing against the wall and skull thudding after as her face crumpled in pain.
“We talked about this! He did nothing but hurt you.”
By the time he reached her, she was struggling against the force that held her there, hands scratching at the plaster. Her head shook from side to side to try and avoid his hand as he reached for her, took her chin between his fingers and forced her to look forward.
“He made you what you are and I did you a favor by killing him.” He had to hold tight to stop the shaking of her head, the denial built in automatically. “And I will kill him again if I have to.”
The fight drained out of her, terror making her deathly still and Sylar looked at the floor as he let go.
“He’s no good for you, Elle.”
“I’m not…” She coughed against the words, throat hoarse. “I’m not Elle.”
His eyes flew back to her, Veronica, flattened against the wall and too scared to move as tears began to form.
The problem was simple. Simple and obvious and irreversible.
“Get on the bed.”
Her mouth opened and he saw the word ‘no’ before she could even begin to form it, a wide whitening in her eyes.
“I wasn’t asking.”
She scrambled, body shaking as she brought her limbs in close to her body and moved quickly as she could in response to the low toned threat in his voice.
“This isn’t working.” He told her quietly as he went to the wardrobe and found the last of his purchases so many days before. “I have to do it.”
And when the metal clanged against itself, her body went still and her face fell. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said it was with recognition.
Killing Elle the way he had was a mistake, he’d known it even as he was doing it, her unblinking and forgiving eyes watching as he lifted his finger to the air above her forehead, but he hadn’t been able to stop. He couldn’t even blame the hunger, that stupid insipid title slung around his neck by his supposed father and brothers.
He wanted to kill, sometimes even needed to do it, but it was hardly a hunger. It was a primal drive, an urge to evolve and use the powers others resented and tried to be rid of. Ultimately, he did them a service in dispatching them so readily and permanently. They wasted themselves and their gifts.
Somewhere along the line, and he had absolutely no qualms in admitting it, that purpose had gotten skewed to the point where he didn’t even really need the powers, sometimes he took them just to keep up appearances. The reason became the excuse. He didn’t kill to take the powers, he took the powers to kill.
And Elle… he had fought her to the ground that day and she’d beaten him back, overloaded both him and herself. She’d lived, but he’d still managed to take everything from her. Her father, her job, her entire life’s meaning, and her power being the only thing that had ever truly been hers in her entire life, he’d turned it around on her until it became her tormentor.
When he had found her in that cell, chained to the floor like a dirty animal, at the end of her tether and without a shred of anything to live for, she’d begged him to take her life, end it, kill her like the mercy it would have been. She’d begged him and he’d refused. Instead, he’d built her up again, not only gave her back control of her power, but empowered her even further as he’d let her teach him, gave her hope and human connection and the promise of the only things she’d ever wanted in her entire life. Normality, praise and affection.
Then, and only then, when he’d gotten her to a point of begging for her life, had he taken it.
He’d given in to some stupid primal urge and it had cost him something he hadn’t even realized he’d wanted in the first place. All because he hadn’t wanted to deal with her at that moment. It was simple, her only request, give up using the powers that had skewed them both so much and go back to the two simple, easy beings who laughed over pie and pasta.
The futility of it overwhelmed him.
“I can’t not kill.”
She began to beg in earnest when he slapped the standard women issue cuffs over her wrists and clicked them shut over the bed head.
But he didn’t mean her and he supposed she figured it out when he gagged her and left the apartment, quietly locking the door behind him.
***
***
Veronica was fast losing any sense of sanity and her control had long gone.
He seemed to be two different men at once and both of them scared her. There was no way to predict which he would be at any moment in time and the same things seemed to bring them both out. Violent, sadistic and completely without remorse one moment, he turned simpler, easier, meeker, almost eager to please the next.
Any sign of reluctance on her part to follow his orders could send her flying across the room, yet any obvious signs of obedience or compliance on her part was sure to be followed by an outburst and him testing her limits. It was like walking through an unmarked minefield, no cues to the explosives hidden under each step.
She had taken to freezing, muscles tight and frigid in anticipation, whenever he addressed her directly, feeling his attention honed to her like an eagle sighting prey.
The low, even cadence of his threatening voice sent instant shivers down her spine, where the higher, pleasant, conversational tones made swarms of tiny little nerve endings crawl, and both of them made her lose step, made her awkward and dumb with dread.
He was suffocating in a low budget apartment with no space. There was no escape. Every time she moved his eyes followed her, as if he expected her to do something spectacular at any given moment, and often times he appeared disappointed by her. She tried to keep as still as possible, sitting in one place often for hours on end, until even that sparked his curiosity and natural inclination to torment her.
There was little to do in the apartment shy of washing, eating and reading books. He had a strange combination of titles, machinery and psychology and genetic texts, and her eyes blurred over the fine detail of Swiss craftsmanship, retaining little if any of the actual information. Head burrowed in a book, whether she read the words or not, was the only way to stop his all encompassing attention.
She was on constant alert, a physically draining and exhausting awareness that hummed through her body with every thought. She spent the entire day on a high wire and only ever got to let down her guard once they went to bed.
It had turned into her only salvation, the only place she could relax, lying on the mattress next to her tormentor. The entire mood of the apartment changed when she slipped under the covers, her tight and taut muscles finally letting go. All the threat dissipated and she breathed easier.
Once or twice she had woken in the middle of the night to feel him, his hand on her arm or in her hair, but even that was preferable to his waking hours. She had slept several nights by Duncan’s side when she could get around her curfew, several more by Logan’s the year after when college allowed her a greater freedom and, even though she had spent significantly less time with the male persuasion since then, she still remembered the difference between sexual and possessive gestures.
In sleep his hands, like his mind during waking hours, are her leash.
Her brain barreled down into hysteria for a brief second and she choked around the gag in a brief giggle. She was cuffed to a bed, held hostage by a mad man with super powers and she was actually weighing the pros and cons of sleeping next to him.
He had killed, by his own admission he had both killed and done so easily, without thought or regret, and she was afraid that any action on her part would be her last. When he had cuffed her to the bed and told her he couldn’t not kill, she had felt a cold stone dread in her heart that her number was finally up.
But it hadn’t been and it really did not make her feel any better to realize what he had meant. She’d annoyed him to the point where he’d had to go out and kill someone else and she had no idea who. A silver trickle of icy fear down her spine suspected that, given their conversation five seconds prior to his outburst, he was going to go kill her dad.
She squeezed her lids shut and tried not to think about that, about what she would do if he did.
It wouldn’t be him, it wouldn’t be him, it couldn’t… hysteria threatened to bubble over again as she realized she was silently praying for him to kill anybody, as long as it wasn’t someone she knew. Guilt flooded her system and she consciously forced her thought process to wish for nobody to die.
Nobody, she insisted, her brain stamping the word with emphasis as if to erase the thought from moments ago, please let him kill nobody, nobody, nobody...
A loud crash made her jump and before her brain had any time to process it, a sudden frustrated growling yell sounded in the next room and she knew he was back. Back, and more volatile than she had seen him yet. Another crash sounded, followed by thumps, and she imagined chairs turning over. Smashing glass began to sound from the kitchen and she strained to follow his steps, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t come near her in that mood.
Her wrists began to pull against the cuffs, trying again to free herself, even if it was only to find somewhere to hide. The skin was already raw and chafed from her earlier efforts and it made her cry out against the gag, her foot sliding to the edge of the bed. It was a futile effort as her ankle hooked over the edge and yielded nothing.
“He’s gone!”
Her blood froze and she felt all her nerves shrink, skin tightening in close.
“I tracked him for a week before you and now he’s gone!”
She didn’t know what he meant, but she knew it couldn’t be good when he strode into the room, eyes flashing coldly as the doors to the wardrobe flew open and clothes began to fly out.
“They know.” His voice was barely contained, anger seeping through a clenched jaw. “They know I’m here and they warned him.”
Maybe it was her feverishly hopeful brain talking, but she hoped that meant he hadn’t actually gotten to kill anyone, that possibly he’d had someone in mind all along and it had never been her father. Her father, all her friends, Logan… they were safe.
Breath came easier, but she still strained her neck trying to follow his movements through the room. It all became clear when she saw him open a large bag and begin putting all the clothes inside it.
His and hers.
She felt her heart sink.
“We have to leave.”
His words were unnecessary, but at least his voice was a little calmer. With each thrust of clothing into the bag, the anger seemed to drain from him, his entire stance melting from frenzy into calm, but it had the opposite effect on her. Leave, as in go away, as in move further from LA and Neptune and anyone who might have a vested interest in finding her.
He left her for last, forcefully packing the few material things in the apartment and loading the car before coming back for her. The rules, he explained in a voice that suggested it was not a negotiation as he released her wrists, were simple. She was to keep her head down, as if she were sleeping against the window, or anyone she drew the attention of would pay the price.
Veronica did not doubt he meant it.
She blinked in the sudden sunlight when he led her outside and it struck her that she hadn’t seen the outside world in over five days. Her lungs expanded immediately in the fresh air and she turned her face upwards. The natural heat felt good on her skin.
It was a plain car, Veronica assumed a rental, a white Honda Civic and he slammed the door shut behind her and then, once he was seated behind the wheel, reached over to cuff her again to the passenger door handle, both wrists locked into place. His shoulder pressed firmly into her abdomen and she held her breath, tried not to press the contact further.
They drove south with bland music playing on the radio and Veronica kept her forehead pressed against the glass, her eyes watched listlessly as buildings and trees and people sped by her. It would be easy, so easy, to cause a scene. To get even one person’s notice at a stop light or busy intersection, but as the buildings and crowds quickly gave way to open roads and brief glimpses of the ocean, she kept silent.
It grew like a buzzing in her nerves, a little secret thrill that threatened to bubble up and out of her throat. She tried to stay still, terrified he could read it on her face, on her skin. The longer they drove south, the closer they got to Neptune and the better she behaved the easier it would be to form an escape plan.
After an hour, the PCH grew more familiar, she knew exactly where she was and he’d shown no signs of stopping or changing direction. She’d driven along the same stretch of road herself countless times. Familiarity bred its own comfort, knowing that if she could miraculously get away from him she would be able to find a way back home.
A low rumble sounded in the distance and she almost smiled. It had been several years since Weevil had ridden a motorbike, but she would forever associate the sound with him. She shifted in her seat, adjusted the angle of her vision and he turned to look at her closely. She tried to settle back down to non existence in her corner of the car.
Traffic built up again the closer they got to Long Beach and Veronica spent her effort on breathing slowly, trying to settle her own frazzled nerves. She felt the engine slow down and watched blankly as the car pulled up to a red light.
The motorbikes returned, rumbling up to the same intersection and Veronica looked up. She must have been hallucinating, because she thought she saw Weevil looking back at her, familiar shoulders in a leather jacket and puzzled frown behind mirrored glasses.
She launched up from the seat and was immediately jerked back down by the cuffs around her wrist. The movement was not lost on the boy on the bike and he looked closer, lowered his glasses. Veronica gasped as recognition hit her.
Julio, Chardo’s brother all grown up. He must have been about mid teens by now, she thought, and obviously taking after his older cousin. They called him Engles, after Julio Iglesias, and she remembered hearing from a disappointed Weevil that he had taken an interest in the PCH.
“Veronica?”
And he obviously recognized her.
“Veronica!”
The action was immediate, a quick gesture to the side, and swarms of bikes surrounded the little car, motors revving threateningly as Julio bored down and began to slap his hand at the glass of the window, more fists hit the bonnet and the entire body of the car shook on its axis. For a split second, Veronica felt hope. They knew, people were looking for her and they had found her and it would all be over.
“Get out of the car, Puta! Let her go!”
It was not so much his power than his hand as Veronica felt it slam her head back against the head rest.
“Get down!”
And then the bikers were gone.
“No!”
She watched Julio thrown across the road, his bike skittering after him, and heard the sound of several other bodies hitting asphalt, loud cries and grunts, the screech of metal on the road, slamming of brakes from oncoming traffic and then the most frightening sound of all.
The engine revving.
“Stop it!” She cried, scrambling up again to check the state of the writhing bodies that surrounded them. “Don’t hurt them! Please.”
The wheels spun frantically for a second and then found purchase. Veronica nearly sobbed when the car was propelled forward. She sank back against the seat and watched the road signs blur past. He obviously didn’t care about road rules or not bringing any more attention to themselves.
So close, she’d been so close, but she thought about the sickening sound of car tires hitting human flesh, the absolute disregard with which he’d done it. Although Julio often argued quite vehemently with Weevil regarding his involvement with the PCH, he was steadfastly loyal to him and Veronica knew that in the five minutes that had passed, he would already have made the call. Weevil, unwaveringly loyal to her, would have been on the phone to her father moments later. Her father would probably be out the door, would already be on his way.
She could have cried.
“We need to change cars.” She said instead, voice calmer than she ever would have thought. “They know it now. Change cars and only use cash.”
He looked at her in surprise, but his mouth slowly curved up in a smile and she swallowed the last of her hope.
“And we need to change direction.”
The car swung around and in less than half an hour she could no longer recognize the scenery. Ten minutes after that, they had a new car, she had her wrists free and he had several hundred dollars of cash she didn’t even want to question. More than throwing her from one side of the room to another, apparently his powers were good for opening car doors from the inside and then starting their engine.
They drove until it got dark, past towns and cities she could not name and never really wanted to, until her mouth caked together with thirst and her body ached, stomach knotting in on itself, until the radio station crackled several times over and had to be continuously adjusted and changed. They switched cars two more times. She wasn’t cuffed, but she didn’t move unless told, slumped down in her seat and watching the world fly by.
They drove until he finally decided to stop.
A gas station with a greasy spoon diner, glass windows from floor to ceiling. He hadn’t looked at her since she’d suggested the swap apart from the necessary transferring from car to car, and his glance now was curious and thoughtful and predatory.
He gestured to the people inside.
“I will kill them, do you understand? All of them.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, not really wanting to hear and not wanting to see the unknowing people he was talking about, the potential targets, women and men and children, but she nodded slowly.
“If I even think…”
“I won’t.” The words came quickly, rushed, a promise. “I’ll be good.”
He paused and she clenched her eyes tighter, hoped she’d pass his truth test. The rush of cool air when he opened his car door signaled her success and she breathed.
“Order two of whatever you want, I’ll have that.”
She watched him walk casually to the restrooms on the side of the diner and sat there for a minute, breathing. He had left her alone, completely free and untied, and automatically assumed she would follow his orders. Honestly, though, she knew too much to try and take advantage of it and he knew it.
Slowly, she looked in the rear view mirror and tried to fix herself to a level of disrepair that spoke of a long car trip and not a week long hostage crisis, smoothed the raw skin of her wrists until they looked only mildly pink. Then she opened her own car door and stood on shaky legs. A bell rang, loud and clattery as she entered and nobody looked up, nobody gave her a second glance except a single waitress who gestured for her to take a table.
There were several lone men, natives to a truck stop diner, one or two families with restless children, obvious travelers, and a smattering of seeming regulars. She gave the room a quick once over and decided on a small booth to the back and side, around a wall to the entrance. It was far back enough not to draw unwarranted attention.
A busboy collected dirty dishes on a tray as she sidled past him and they knocked into each other. He apologized in a quick, but bored fashion and she did the same, slipping by and taking her seat with her back to the entrance. She could not see the door, but she could also not be seen by the door, and she figured she would hear him the moment he entered as the bell would sound. She hadn't set out to disobey, but the opportunity had been too good to pass.
Veronica palmed the small silver cell she’d slipped from the busboy’s pocket and quickly dialed a familiar number.
***
***
Keith strode out of the hospital with only the smallest measure of control left.
He and Bennet had spent the afternoon interviewing Long Beach traffic police, visiting the hospital to question Julio Navarro and the rest of the PCH gang in various levels of injury and consciousness. What he had learned had not made him feel any better. She’d looked okay, Julio had told him, but she’d been cuffed and afraid.
Then he hit her. Julio’s voice still rang in his ears. Bastard slammed her head into the seat.
That had been hours ago, already half a day.
Keith knew that wherever his daughter was, she was long gone. As he looked up at the night sky, he remembered to switch on his cell phone.
It beeped with a voicemail message.
“Dad. Oh my god, Dad.”
His fingers clenched in spasm around his cell as his heart plummeted when he realized he’d missed her call by only five minutes. She sounded slightly hysterical, rushed, voice hushed to a whisper.
“I’m okay. I’m okay, he hasn’t… he hasn’t done anything yet… I don’t know how long…”
The longer she spoke, the less control she seemed to have, her voice breaking down. Her exhaustion and fear were palpable and obvious and his jaw clenched.
“I’m really scared. I thought… I thought he was going to kill… I just want to come home… he thinks… his dead girlfriend… I don’t…
A muffled sound something like a sob made his heart bleed.
“You have to stop looking. Don’t come after me, Dad, promise me. Call off whoever it was, he knows them. Just… leave it alone. Stay away from him, you don’t understand…”
Then it happened and Keith could do nothing as he listened to the minutes old message of his daughter’s voice gasping, a low growl, and then the abject pleading in her voice. He could hear angry yelling and other pained cries of people in the distance, her frantic cries for leniency and then a dull thump followed by a hideously low, muffled moan easily recognizable as Veronica.
And then the message went dead.
***
***
End chapter one.
Comments? Questions? Flames?
Death threats?
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