Fic: "Girl In The Mirror", ch 1, Veronica/Sylar, Heroes/VM. R.
Title: Girl In The Mirror, chapter 1.
Author: wily_one24, Jacqui.
Rating R.
Characters/fandoms:. Veronica and Sylar, yes... it's a Veronica Mars/Heroes crossover. Also contains cameos of some other cast favourites, including Keith, Claire, Angela, Noah, Logan, Sandra, Wallace, Lyle, Chardo's little cousin.
Timeline/Spoilers: Set two or so years after the VM finale and at the end of Chapter 3, Heroes.
Warnings: Although this fic does not contain non- or (as of yet)dub-con, it does contain fears of it. Also, may contain traces of violence and complete mind fuckery. Manufactured with machinery that may be used to process Angst.
Wordcount: 15,400, this chapter.
Disclaimer: Oh, yeah, they're totally mine. Absolutely.
Summary: This is what happens when a Serial Killer and a Serial Victim meet.
*~*~*~*~*
GIRL IN THE MIRROR
*~*~*~*~*
It started with a flash of blue.
He saw it out of the corner of his eyes and it made his throat close up tight. It had to be an illusion, a trick of his overloaded, out of control, careening mind. But Sylar knew he hadn't imagined it. A blue spark down the end of an alley, a jolt of electricity. Saliva trickled down his canines as he watched, a yearning and guilt warring with need.
And then she was there, whole, uninjured, alive.
Elle.
He couldn't look away and he couldn't move as he watched her wrench her arm away from a rapidly falling figure. It jerked on the ground and she turned and walked away. It was her and yet everything was different. The obvious stress, the panic riding her hard at being restrained by the man, the fact that she'd stunned the man and not shot to kill. Even the way she walked was different.
It had been over a month since the explosion, since that day on the beach elbow deep in her blood.
Killing Elle had not been his goal. It was not something he had planned to do. Once upon a time, long long ago, she had almost seemed like his saviour, somebody who could help him, but then she had turned into a deceitful, traitorous, backstabbing manipulator who had pushed him into a slippery slope so steep he could never get out. Her betrayal had stung, stung to the point where killing her like a dog just after her father hadn't even rated a second thought, until she'd stopped him. The only person to truly repel his attempts.
Truth be told, he saw deeper into things than that, and what really hurt about Elle was that she was a kindred soul to him, broken and wrong and guileless and irredeemable, subjected to misery and guilt by uncaring parents, but the absolute worst thing about Elle had been her eyes.
Blue, wide, beautiful eyes staring up at him on that beach, after all that he'd done, to others and to her, staring up at him and saying fix me, fix me, begging him, pleading him, needing him and he'd been there knowing there was no way to repair broken china, no way to make the surface flawless and clean again.
He couldn't lie to her, couldn't say no. So he'd killed her. She'd known and she hadn't fought, accepting her fate like a good company girl.
And he hadn't been able to forget it since.
Sylar had been busy licking his wounds, laying low, keeping out of the finely tuned gun barrel sights of anyone named Bennet or Petrelli, at least for the moment. He'd heard of a disapparator in Los Angeles and had come to try it out. Disapparition would come in very handy.
He followed her as she scurried along the darkened street until her whole body seemed to shiver, shimmer, and she changed her whole demeanour from stressed to calm, a facade he was more used to. Then she smiled at a boy in the crowd and let him put his arms around her shoulder and lead her into a restaurant.
And Sylar saw red.
The boy was inconsequential, barely a blink as Sylar's mind lifted him up out of his seat and threw him against the wall as she cried out unintelligible syllables. The restaurant was busy and people began to scatter. The blind hazy panic of a mob with no clue about what was going on right around them. And Elle, pretty, whole, unscathed, traitorous Elle, had the audacity to look confused and horrified.
"You!" It was a snarl as he stalked towards her. "You!"
He kept her down in her seat, despite her struggles to get up, and managed to push everyone else away, create a twenty foot circle of clear space around her, people, chairs and tables scattering against the floor.
"How?" He demanded. "How did you do it?"
The entire restaurant was a buzzing inside his head, the growing hum of confusion and panic, a drone he ignored for the wide eyed blonde in front of him. They way she threw her head from side to side as if to look for someone behind her, as if he wasn't speaking directly to her, the way she shook her head in denial and confusion and a growing hysteria.
She'd never been this good an actress before. It was almost as if she didn't know him, did not understand why he should be so upset to see her there.
"Was it Claire?"
He sneered as he stalked closer, chest puffing and shoulders straightening reflexively at the growing obviousness of her fear.
"Did the cheerleader come fix you up?"
The very thought of Claire Bennet finding, or even searching for, the charred, broken mess he'd left Elle's body in, the thought of her looking down and knowing she could undo his mistakes yet again galled him beyond all measure. He would find a way to end Claire Bennet, one way or another, if it was the last thing he ever did.
"I... I... who?"
She trembled as she spoke and he gritted his teeth. With one flick of his right wrist her chair skittered back against the tiled floor and she was thrown against the wall. Her spine jarred and he saw the pain and shock twist her face, the disbelief that numbed her features.
"Don't lie to me!"
A sound, a disturbance in the buzzing in the back of his head made him look to the left. The boy who'd draped himself over her before was rushing at him, red faced and angry and beyond all point of rational, ordinary human logic. In the deepest, most hidden parts of himself, Sylar often felt sorry for the ordinary humans. They would never understand greatness or power and they were forever doomed to live their boring, average, ordinary lives.
On the other hand, they were foolish and futile and he tossed the boy aside, pinning him to the floor as he began a soft, gentle squeezing motion with his left hand. The boy's face grew red and then purple, mouth gaping open like a fish as his limbs sprawled uselessly around him looking for purchase.
"Stop it!" She cried, pitiful and pleading. "Please, I'll tell you anything, just stop it!"
He turned to look at her again, stuck to the wall, feet hanging one foot off the floor as her fingers raked hopelessly against the air at her throat. The heels of her stilettos tapped furiously against the wall and her torso twisted delightfully.
"Anything, Elle?" He curled his lip and stepped closer, tightening his right hand in mid air. "I asked for the truth."
She shook her head back and forth.
"My name's not Elle."
Sylar did not feel a lie.
With a viciousness that suddenly leaked out of him, he made his right hand into a complete fist and watched her face darken purple, then her body go limp. Her form was familiar and almost weightless when he picked it up. The crowd parted like the red sea for Moses and he left the restaurant, left the city, left his sanity behind.
***
***
Veronica woke with a crick in her neck.
It took her several minutes to realize where she was. On a sofa in an empty apartment with a dark, frightening looking man staring at her. She remembered in an instant the restaurant and how he'd moved her, moved everyone, without even touching them. Her fear and her confusion multiplied, tingling in her nerve endings. She sat up quickly, bringing her arms in close to her body.
"Who are you?"
He quirked his head and blinked.
"You said you weren't Elle."
It wasn't an answer. She knew this, it was classic interrogatory techniques. Don't give the subject any control over the situation, keep them on their toes, make them answer your questions. She thought about the feeling of air compressing her throat so hard it felt like a steel vice and she couldn't find it in herself to fight back right then.
"My name is Veronica."
He burrowed his brows at her.
"You're not lying."
But it was only a momentary lull, the intensity and venom returning almost instantly as he grabbed her wrist and twisted it cruelly towards him. She resisted the pull, held her back stiff so she wasn't pulled completely off balance, but her throat gave her away as she yelped in pain.
"Stop twisting the truth." He hissed. "I saw you, I saw the electricity in the alley, I saw it."
The...?
Then it hit her. It was a case, just a stupid case gone wrong, and this was some retribution plan gone even more horribly wrong. Phil Robson had been embezzling from his bosses for years, hundreds of thousands of dollars gone to gambling and hookers and imported cars. He had not been impressed to find out she'd secured proof and even less impressed to find she'd followed him to LA for some follow up.
She'd managed to convince Logan to take her out to a dinner in LA without too much suspicion on his part, had even managed to keep a firm eye on her mark for the first half of the night without raising his hackles, although she suspected that was mostly due to their newly professed intentions to both trust each other and not push the boundaries too much. She'd ducked out of Logan's view for fifteen minutes, a perfectly plausible amount of time, citing the need to pick up some aspirin for a sudden headache at a nearby convenience store while he waited for their table.
Mr. Robson, however, had made her and had not been shy in telling her exactly what he was going to do to her if she passed the photos on to his bosses. She suspected that the bruising on her left forearm might be his, but that was a hard sell given the current circumstances, held hostage by a mad man.
But if this man were one of Phil Robson's friends or partners, out for nothing more than simple revenge, she could find a way out of that without too much damage. Might even find herself back home with her father and Logan and Backup, with little more than a brain full of memories she was beginning to doubt more and more as the headache she'd feigned began to materialize with a vengeance.
"He's your friend?" She sounded too eager, too desperate and she knew it, but she was honestly terrified. "I didn't hurt him, I promise! It was just a tazer. Standard issue. I dazed him, nothing more. It wouldn't hurt a child, I promise."
Far from making it better, her words seemed to anger him even further.
"A tazer?" He frowned and tilted his head again, eyes scanning her face. "You're telling the truth."
And then he not only let her wrist go, he tossed it away from him, tossed her back to the sofa with a grimace.
"You're ordinary? You're..." He stopped pacing and seemed to deflate. "You're ordinary."
Her brain swerved over the possibilities, trying to understand what he meant and what answer would keep him sane. She couldn't do it, couldn't come up with one single plan, her mind kept throwing those impossible images back to her, what he'd done. It couldn't be true, couldn't possibly, she had to be remembering it wrong.
And yet, no matter what did or did not happen back at the restaurant, it didn't change the fact that she was still there as his hostage.
She looked up at him, rubbing her wrist slowly.
"If I say yes, will you let me go?"
A great gust of wind appeared and slammed a door behind him. She hadn't even realized it had been open.
"No." His eyes looked her up and down, taking in every inch of her posture. "Not again."
***
***
The resemblance was uncanny.
He could not stop watching her. If she cut her hair and straightened it, she would be able to fool Bob Bishop himself, if he was still alive. The longer he looked, however, the more differences he began to see. She held herself differently and, despite the panic that seemed to be riding her hard, she seemed infinitely saner than Elle had ever been able to pretend to be.
She tried to escape only once.
He hadn't bothered to tie her up or make a big show of locking each and every conceivable exit, he merely took the blow and watched her run towards the door, stopping her still the second she tried to open it. She was pulled back into the room, face blanked out in realization and fear as he walked around to face her.
"There's no use trying to get away." He told her, eye to white wide eye. "This here? Telekinesis? Stopping you with my mind? It's the least I can do. You don't even want to find out about the rest."
She shivered in front of him and her fear teased the edges of his nostrils.
"Here." He produced one of his kitchen knives and handed it to her, released her from his hold. "You want to have a go? Lash out at me, go on."
Taking a step back, he opened his arms wide and presented her with his torso as a willing target. She looked at him with disbelief and desperation and he was able to see the war happening behind her eyes. He stood between her and the door and all she had to do was use the weapon he'd given her.
She wasn't a natural killer, she was barely a natural aggressor.
"Come on, Veronica." It was a natural taunt, her name, drawing out it in three long, slow syllables. "I hurt you, I'm most likely going to continue hurting you. Don't you have any self preservation?"
The words seemed to spark something in her, a defiance, a reality, the confirmation he'd given to her suspicions about his cruelty. Her eyes wavered from him to the door behind him and he stepped sideways, presented her with a clear, unhindered pathway to freedom.
He was prepared for the slice through his skin, the feel of the blade in his organs. He expected it somewhere aimed to do damage, the stomach or liver or groin. It had been far too long since he had dealt with anyone prepared or willing to use moderation when it came to him.
He was not prepared for her to flip the knife in her hand so that she held the blade and knock the handle straight into his nose. The arch of bone in his nasal cavity crunched and his hands reflexively came up to cradle the shattered pulp. He heard rather than saw her footsteps thundering towards the door.
She flew back violently, body bending double as she hit the sofa, a loud exhalation of air gusting from her lungs.
"You chicken." He spat. "You have to wound to kill!"
To prove his point, he took the blade and sunk it deep and violently into his abdomen, felt the steel slice cleanly through muscle and sinew and blood. Unlike Claire, he could still feel the pain. Her eyes grew even wider and her hands came up to contain a little scream.
He pulled the knife out slowly, spreading the material of his shirt out so that she had an unobstructed view of his flesh and skin knitting together instantly.
"Do you see?" He crouched down, face pushed close into her. "Do you see, Veronica? You can't hurt me, you can't escape, and it's useless to even try. Do you understand?"
Her face was stretched out in horror, he knew she couldn't properly process the words and her head slowly began to shake from side to side in denial.
But Sylar felt the shudder that told him all he needed to know.
***
***
Noah Bennet was adding a middle layer of sauce to the lasagna when his phone rang.
His instincts were honed finely enough for him to fear it. A quick look across the island bench told him he wasn't alone. Sandra, while preferring to keep up a good charade for the appearance of family, was never really one to actually be clueless, no matter how she liked to pretend she didn't know. And Claire's tightly narrowed eyes gave her away easily.
He flipped the cell open and smiled, large and false and grandiose.
"Angela." Thick and deep and all schmooze. "What can I do for you?"
"Cut the crap, Noah." Quick and precise, she didn't waste time. "I have a job for you in California."
He could feel his eyebrows rise quickly and sharply to his hairline.
"You? Have a job for me? In California?"
"Is this a bad line?" She asked coolly, not rising to the bait. "It's relatively simple. Kidnapping case in some out of the way beachfront called Neptune. I want you down there interviewing the girl's father, see what you can find out."
She said simple, but he knew better. They weren't in the business of simple. And they certainly weren't in the business of mundane every day kidnappings. She wasn't telling him all he needed to know and he felt the distinct impression it was a test of sorts. It bothered him more than he liked to admit.
"Me and who else?"
A soft laughter echoed down the line, slightly chilling.
"Still a good old company man, Noah? One of you one of us? You have to admit, your number is dwindling rapidly these days."
He chuckled good naturedly, biting his tongue down on any retort he might have had. She cleared her throat before he could come up with any reasonable response.
"You can go alone. And Noah? That means Claire stays here."
The protest was automatic and instinctual and his fingers clenched tightly around the cell.
"She'll be fine, Noah."
The call ended and he turned to face his family. Their reactions were varied. Sandra had a resigned expression on her face as she continued to chop a tomato for the salad. Claire's lip had curled into a snarl she was barely holding back and he knew it was only a matter of time before she let loose. And Lyle... it was harder to read Lyle and Noah wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
"What was that?" Claire pushed forward first. "What do they want now?"
She was beginning to show a marked talent for discerning casual from professional when it came to her grandmother. One of his daughter's strongest weaknesses was her need for family, a need which had sometimes overridden good sense. One of her strongest dislikes was company missions that either took him away or that he didn't fully disclose. This was both and obviously rankled her.
"Probably more of your friends."
Claire huffed and shoved Lyle in the side.
"They're not my friends!"
He poked his tongue out.
"Sorry." Lyle snitted. "Family, then. Freak runs in the blood."
She cuffed the back of Lyle's head.
"Jealous? Don't worry, Lyle, we'd visit your family, too, if we lived closer to the zoo."
Noah cleared his throat.
"Children."
The rebuke was half hearted and nowhere near as stern as it could have been. It was all too rare to see Claire being a normal teenager doing such normal teenage things with her brother and Noah was happy to indulge them. She was beginning to slide further from the teenager he'd once thought he'd known into a dangerous, secretive creature hell bent on revenge and retribution. She thought he didn't know about the meetings and reading his folders and talking with Angela behind his back, didn't know about skipping school to tag along with other agents.
Both she and Lyle turned to him, faces captured in expressions of wide eyed innocence too perfect to be real.
"We're sorry."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone." He said eventually, turning his attention back to Sandra, their eyes meeting for a silent discussion. "Hopefully not too long."
It had been just over four weeks since they'd left Meredith and Sylar burning in the old Primatech building. He had spent a considerable amount of that time trying to convince Claire that there was nothing else they could have done for Meredith and nothing Sylar could have done to come back from that.
He had also spent that time with Sandra discussing the very real possibility that Sylar would come back in some form or another. They had both seen with their very eyes the absolute destruction from which Claire herself could regenerate, the girl had died several times over, had been obliterated by the nuclear disaster that was Ted, and was still flawless in her recovery. A blow to the head and a large fire might not have stopped him very long.
"Is it...?"
But Claire wasn't foolish by any stretch of the imagination and she knew when to be worried.
"It's a kidnapping." He told her. "That's not his MO. Besides, we've talked about this, he's gone..."
"Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "Gone, sure."
The problem was that while they had seen it, Claire had lived it and he knew she understood all too well the impermanency of death.
***
***
The problem with the apartment, besides the fact that it belonged to a deranged lunatic telekinetic mutant with super strength who could regenerate faster than Veronica could blink, was that it was small.
It had four rooms. A living room with one sofa, one small coffee table and nothing else, not even any artwork on the walls. A kitchen with, from the brief glance she had gotten, the basic necessities only. A meagre bathroom, with very few items in it beyond an impeccably folded towel and hand soap.
And only one bedroom.
In the hours since Veronica had woken up on the sofa and it became clear he wasn't going to let her go, she had been avoiding thinking about the inevitable. He hadn't spoken much, besides laying down a few ground rules and explaining to her the basics such as where he kept the glasses so she could get herself a glass of water or the towels when she wanted a shower, and had stuck mainly to watching her out of the corner of his eyes.
He did like to watch her, to the point where she was very uneasy. All her movements had become stilted and awkward and uneasy, scared that she would do the wrong thing, even more scared that she would do the right one.
Somehow all the freedom made the entire situation worse than if she'd been locked in some cement cellar with manacles around her wrists. That sense of autonomy and choice was flimsy and false and they both knew it, a surface sheen with no substance, because he controlled everything she did.
She couldn't even lie to him. He'd explained how that little super power worked just after he'd asked if she had any identifying wallets or cell phones on her person and she'd said no. She'd lost her cell phone and more than half of her ideas to get out and away from him.
He'd made a late dinner, citing the fact that she hadn't eaten at the restaurant, almost as if he cared, the thought tripped and stuck in her brain like a too large morsel hard to swallow. Frozen hamburgers and fries, because he said she had liked them. Sweet, sticky orange soda, because she had liked them.
Veronica didn't know which thought made her feel worse as she mulishly pushed the food around on her plate and tried not to let him see she hadn't eaten one bite, that he had all these ingredients in his kitchen because some woman who was obviously not coming back, smart girl, had liked them at one point or if he was waiting for her, repeatedly stocking his cupboards with her foods in the futile hope she'd return to him.
Everything he did, though sounding seemingly normal, felt to her as if was slightly off kilter, as if he was pretending, playing at being domestic.
She wouldn't be surprised if he thought she was here and staying by choice, despite the constant reminders of exactly how he could keep her here.
But that night, as she could feel the air cooling down even if she couldn't see a window to tell her how dark it was getting, Veronica could feel her panic starting to boil up, frazzling her nerves, making her extra skittish. Every move he made caused her to jump, eyes wide as her muscles tensed. She began to think he was playing with her, deliberately exciting her terror, toying with her. She was the fly in his spider's web, that was certain.
"I'm tired." He said pointedly.
Veronica looked straight down, closed her eyes and prayed he would leave her there, that if she sat still like a statue and didn't move an eyelash he would just get up and walk out of the room.
He didn't.
"Do you want me to make you move?"
She jumped at his words, the memory of being thrown across the room fresh in her mind. He could do it, of that she was certain. Of all the things she was confused and doubtful and still could not get her head around, the fact that he could throw her around like a rag doll, that he could hurt her and the fact that he would probably enjoy doing it was something she was sure of.
"Okay." She bit out as she stood up, surprized and impressed that she managed to do both at the same time without completely falling apart, despite the soft weakness and fear in her voice. "Okay."
The resulting expression was smug and she hated him for it.
Her breath became hot in her lungs, tight and hard to pull through her nostrils as she stood just inside the door, unable to take her eyes off the bed in the middle of the room. He breezed past her and began to fuss in an impeccably organized, if sparse, wardrobe. One thing she'd noticed was his near obsessive compulsion to detail.
He came out wearing sweat pants and nothing else.
"Which side do you want?"
She started, swallowed hard and tried to fire a neuron or two into a coherent response that wasn't a truth to get her killed.
"I... I... don't..." want any of this you sick, psycho freak. I want to go home. I want to shove an ice pick through your eye socket. I want to find some way to kill you, I want... "Please..."
It ended in a bubbled, broken plea and she felt tears in her eyes, hot and burning.
"Here." He casually tossed a shirt at her. It was large, white and buttoned up the front. "I'm sorry, I don't have any clothes for you. I'll get some tomorrow."
He ignored her mini breakdown and she shuddered at yet another indication that she was his current pet, his toy, and he had no plans of letting her go. When the silence grew pointed, she braved a look up at him and he looked back at her, then pointedly to the shirt lying crumpled at her feet and then back up at her with raised eyebrows.
She couldn't do it, she couldn't...
"Do you need some help?"
"No." She blurted out before he could suggest anything else. "I'll... I can..."
But she had no words to finish that sentence and instead bent her knees slowly, inching down to pick up the material and then stand again. Her legs were shaking and she looked up to see him watching her. Almost without thinking she turned around, but stopped three quarters of the way, frozen, and waited.
He didn't react or order her differently, so she continued to face the other way as she changed as quickly and simply as she could, trying not to draw out the process, acutely aware of the feel of his eyes on any skin she inadvertantly showed. She did not want to do this.
She bit her lip and tried to calm her breathing. Her brain was working furiously, racing through any possibility she could think of, trying to calm the near hysteria that threatened to overtake her. He was too powerful and vicious to outfight, too seemingly deranged and purpose driven to be dissuaded.
"Can...? Can I have a pillow?" But it didn't stop her from trying, weak and timid and she hated it. "I'll sleep on the floor. I don't mind."
"Get in the bed."
It came at her like a growl, deep and predatory. Her eyes squeezed shut of their own accord. It wouldn't be the first time, her brain gave a valiant effort at comfort, but immediately contradicted itself, but you were unconscious for that. He had super strength, strange powers she couldn't begin to understand, maybe she could ask him to knock her out so she wouldn't have to live it, remember it, experience it.
But he was all powerful and she hated the imbalance of it, even voicing the question would be a sign of weakness. The thought grew like a spark in her brain. She could not fight back, she could not defy him, they were truths that nothing would change, but her rebellion could come in another form.
If she refused to let him break her, if she didn't give him a reaction, her fear and terror, then what real power would he have?
Shaking, she slipped into the bed, the feel of crisp, cool cotton sliding against her bare legs, and lay flat on her back, gripping the sheet high up to her chin. Her eyes remained closed and she held her breath, counted out the seconds in the darkness. After several agonizing minutes of silence, she finally felt the mattress dip.
But the sheets didn't pull away and when she opened her eyes to look, he'd curled up on his side, back facing to her, and his body was on top of the covers.
Relief flooded her body, came out in an exhalation too loud to be missed, and her breathing began to settle.
"You're exactly like her." He told the wall, in a low, dangerous voice that made her cringe. "Everywhere. Your body shape, everything. Exactly."
It wasn't anger, it was grief.
She didn't want to, couldn't ask the question. There was no way that knowing would make her situation any better or easier, but once the niggling thought entered her brain, she couldn't let it go.
"What...?" Lying ramrod straight, sheet clutched up to her chin, next to this man and talking to him as if it was nothing was surreal. "What happened to her?"
He sighed.
"I killed her." The cold, casual, matter of fact voice chilled her. "Murdered her in cold blood. About a month ago."
Suspicion confirmed, Veronica's terror multiplied in the dark.
***
***
He was not surprised to wake in the morning and find her lying there with her eyes wide open.
He doubted she'd slept at all.
When he rolled to his side to face her, her eyes looked straight up at the ceiling and her body was tense. There were shadows on her face that belied the panic she was coasting on. He could see her entire body flinch, just a fraction, whenever he moved. It became a game of sorts and he faked a lot of simple gestures to see the many different ways she could break just a little bit further.
A clenching of her fingers, the pull of air through teeth, the tightening of skin at the corners of her eyes, the way her gaze flickered left to right and back again over the ceiling as if she could read the secret to her escape up there if only she looked hard enough. Anything to pretend she wasn't about to burst into tears.
The urge to hunt down Matt Parker, kill him and take his telepathy just so he could read her mind was suddenly very overpowering.
It became too much and he had to continue the motion, did not stop his hand before it reached her face, lightly dabbed the middle of her forehead with his fingertips and then traced the outline of her nose and lips. She shuddered underneath him, goddamn shuddered, and something inside him thrilled, kick started into gear.
He wanted to push her down and flay her skin right off, see if the insides were just as identical to Elle as her outsides, wanted to see if she would bleed the same, sound the same as she screamed. He flashed back to that day down in level five, Elle lying broken after he'd flung her across the room and her face as he'd begun to cut, just before the overload had thrown him back.
Sometimes her screams visited him in his sleep, but he had never chased them before, never wanted and ached for them like he did right then.
"I have to go out."
He said it simply and her eyes were the only thing of hers that moved, sliding sideways so that she could look at him. He got bolder with his hand, flattened his fingers and palm on the side of her face.
"I have nothing here, I wasn't expecting a guest. I shouldn't be too long."
Her skin was cold and clammy, but soft. It left little buzzing nerve endings in his fingertips and he had the strangest compulsion to clamp his fingers so tightly against her cheeks that the skin would burst. A slight flicker of hope in her eyes made him smile gently.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't leave you unattended or free to roam."
The little spark dimmed and it made him grin.
He did tighten his fingers then, forefinger and thumb closed over her chin like a vice as he pulled her face towards him.
"Tell me you won't leave me."
Her jaw set stubbornly and her eyes watered. He could see the thought process behind them and the tip of his tongue flicked out past his lips. He shook her chin gently, the slightest pressure, the smallest little threat.
"I... I won't."
A shudder, dark and deep and cleansing washed over him.
"You're lying. Tell me you want to stay."
She bit her lip and tried to shake her head, tried to pull back, but he tightened his grip even more as she gave a slight yelp.
"I want..." It burst out of her like a held breath. "I want to stay."
The shudder returned.
"You're lying!"
He pushed her back against the pillows roughly, let go and rolled away. His hip spun over the edge of the bed and his feet landed with a satisfying thud on the floor before he stood up. Behind him, he could hear the pants of frustration and relief coming from the bed.
"Get up, I don't have all day."
He hadn't lied. He didn't have much in the apartment, certainly not enough for a second person. It hadn't escaped his notice that he lived somewhat frugally when it came to both material and nutritional things. He'd stocked his cupboard and refrigerator with the bare necessities: milk, bread, fruit, eggs, frozen supplies for one. There was no real room for elaboration. The night before, he had put more effort into cooking than he could remember doing for himself.
Elle had liked all manner of things, he remembered from the brief memories he had of her when they'd been calm and happy. She had been his only real experience of catering to a woman. His mother had never liked anyone doing things for her when she could do them for herself.
He had absolutely no idea what he would need.
He made a quick, easy breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast as she sat at the kitchen bench with her head down and arms pulled in protectively around her torso. It was slightly difficult to concentrate, focusing hard on the skillet in front of him instead of the sight of her bare legs under his shirt. Clothes was one of the things definitely on his list.
After he had eaten and she had pretended to, he made her sit outside the bathroom door and recite the alphabet as he showered, ears finely tuned to the cadence of her voice to make sure she didn't move.
He pulled her into the bathroom then, his fingers finding the familiar feel of her wrists and tightening hard until she winced. She tried not to resist, but he could feel the reluctance in her limbs, a reflex to physically resist anything he wanted. Not taking any care for her comfort, he wound one end of a belt around her left wrist, another belt around her right and joined the two above the shower rod.
Her whole body stretched, arched as she stood there, and his eyes travelled downwards, taking no care to avoid the line of her hips and legs this time. She caught him staring and became still. There was something completely satisfying about creating a small ball of blue electricity in the palm of his hand and holding in front of her face as her eyes widened in panic.
"This was hers." The words came out before he could stop them, teased her. "Apparently it hurts like a bitch."
She jerked, a small cry escaping her mouth as he let a spark fly up from his hand. It didn't touch her, but it fused the metal of the belt buckles together, made the manacles firm and inescapable. He tossed another few sparks up the top, where the two belts met over the bar, and watched the three bubble and then solidify.
There was a lot less room for her to move after that.
"I won't be gone long."
He stuffed a small cloth into her mouth and taped it there.
Before he left, he ran a hand down the side of her hip, let himself caress the heat of skin there, and smiled at the way she jerked away from him, the fear in her eyes even if she tried not to show him. On impulse, he shot a small spark at her hip and watched her dangle on the line, legs skittering out from underneath her until she could regain her balance around a muffled cry.
There were a million ways she was just like Elle and a million more way she wasn't.
***
***
It was seven am and Keith was already dressed and ready to walk out the door when it knocked.
He'd already been on the telephone for at least an hour and had talked to no less than three different law enforcement agencies and several more contacts that weren't entirely legal at all. Nobody, legit or otherwise, had any useful knowledge or leads concerning Veronica's possible whereabouts.
It wasn't entirely a surprise. Nobody had any concrete or solid evidence to give about the abduction itself, despite the hundred or so actual eye witnesses that saw it. Their stories conflicted and made no sense and some bordered on the wrong side of sane altogether.
He had been stunned the night before when he'd gotten the near hysterical telephone call from Logan.
His night was only just beginning as he got down to the scene only to find a scene of mass confusion and panic. Some claimed she'd known the man, others said he hadn't been a man at all, some assumed it had all been a theatrical stunt for a Hollywood project yet to be released.
All Keith knew for sure was that Veronica had not returned home that night, she had not called or left a message for him anywhere, and he was unable to get a trace on her cell phone. She either had it turned off or it had been destroyed. He didn't much like thinking about the last possibility.
As for Logan, the boy was barely comprehensible. He spoke of being thrown across the room, of being attacked by some unseen force, of impossible things that were truly unlike him at all. But his terror and fear for Veronica were real, Keith could see that.
It didn't help his own growing fears.
When he opened the door, he saw a well dressed, stern looking man with dark hair and thick, round glasses extend his right hand and flashed an ID card with his left. He gave a smile that showed the corners of his teeth that looked to Keith as if it was meant to be pleasant and comforting, but had entirely the opposite effect.
"Mr. Mars?" The man started without pausing for acknowledgement. "I'm John Delmer, special agent with the FBI. I've come to talk about your daughter."
Keith did not move, he looked the man up and down and sighed before meeting his eyes.
"You're not FBI."
The claimed Mr. Delmer slowly withdrew his hand.
"And you know this because...?"
He didn't blink.
"My daughter has direct contact with the FBI, they've taken her case on personally already. I've just spent the morning talking to her direct superior. Nobody even mentioned you."
"Worth a try." The man brushed off the lapels of his coat. "Will you accept that I'm one of the top agents in a privately funded security firm that has a direct interest in returning your daughter to you safely and without harm, and I've been appointed personally to this case?"
He hated to admit it, hated to even entertain the idea, but the first image that came to his head was Jake Kane and Clarence Weidman. Through most of Veronica's teen years, Jake Kane had held a distant, yet somewhat pleasant view of Veronica. Keith respected the man's position, even if he resented the situation it had occurred in. He would have believed instantly that Jake would have set this kind of thing up without blinking during that period
And yet, after she had solved Lilly's murder, Jake had turned decidedly sour in regards to Veronica and Keith had a hard time reconciling the possibility that Jake would give up a dollar, let alone countless thousands investing in this level of extra-governmental security.
His next thought was Logan and, even if he admitted that it should have been his first thought given the boy's complete devotion to his daughter, he dismissed that just as quickly. Logan would not have been this subtle or surreptitious when it came to her safety.
He shook his head, he really didn't have much time.
Granted, he really didn't have much to work with, either.
"Are you working for anyone by the name of, directly or indirectly connected to, once known as, currently disguising their identity, or as an intermediary for the names Kane or Echolls?"
The man's eyes widened at the same moment they blanked out in confusion, it told Keith all he needed to know before the man could even shake his head or respond in the negative. One thing Keith did know was that Veronica had as many allies as she had enemies and just as powerful, any one of them could be behind it and none of them should be trusted.
“Look.” The man started again. “Obviously we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Let‘s be honest, I don’t want to be here and you don’t want me here. But for some reason my boss has it in her head that this is a case that deserves a top agent’s attention even though our entire company does not handle anything remotely as mundane as a kidnapping. It’s a waste of my time and my abilities, as no doubt it’s a waste of yours. Let’s just get the formalities out of the way so I can go my way and you can do whatever you need to, okay?”
That, Keith could agree with and he opened the door slowly, deciding to keep an eye on every move the man made. It had not escaped his notice that the man had yet to identify himself.
“So, let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first? She was taken in public in full view of an entire restaur…”
The man’s bored question dwindled down into nothing, an aborted brief of the file that he held in his hand and had doubtless skimmed over on his way to the apartment complex. Keith watched him as, slack jawed, the man began to approach the shelves in the hallway.
“This…?” The man reached out, paused, then reached out again, fingers closing on a frame. “This is your daughter?”
It was one of the more recent photos of Veronica, Keith noted with a spark of awareness, a keen hunger to weed out the truth from this man and possibly make him pay if he had anything to do with hurting her.
“That’s Veronica, yes.”
Immediately the change in the man was obvious, boredom and surface politeness gave way to purpose and excitement, the thrill of the chase. Keith recognized it, in that moment he catalogued the sudden interest and knew that Veronica was not this man’s target or goal.
It was the other.
“Now it’s my turn.” He said, breaking into Keith’s reverie. “Do you or your daughter know of or have you ever been in contact with anyone by the name of Angela, Arthur, Nathan or Peter Petrelli, Noah or Claire Bennet, Elle or Bob Bishop?”
Keith frowned.
“There was a girl in my daughter’s high school class with the last name Bishop, but I don’t think there was a Bob or Elle in the family. And isn’t Nathan Petrelli a congressman in New York?”
Whatever he’d been looking for, the man obviously got his answer in Keith’s reaction, because he relaxed and his smile turned more genuine as he flipped his briefcase up to the bench and began clicking open the tabs.
“My name is Noah Bennet.” Before Keith could react to that, Noah continued. “And I know who has your daughter. We have no time to lose.”
Keith quirked his head.
“I thought this case was mundane?”
Noah didn’t hesitate or give any kind of reaction, instead he lay three photographs on the island bench, one by one, slapping them down with a finality that sunk into Keith’s chest.
“His name is Sylar. He’s incredibly dangerous, psychotically unstable and homicidal and the local or national law enforcement agencies are not equipped to handle him. You have to stay out of it, let me take it from here. Do you understand?”
Keith eyed the photos and what he saw did not make him feel any better. The man had dark hair and darker eyes, his expression one of clear malevolence and he got the impression that nothing good could come of crossing him. The photos sat on the bench like a physical materialization of Logan’s description.
He had seen many photos like this in his day and knew immediately that they were a little beyond the standard local police issue from an everyday arrest. The quality alone would suggest Federal Police, Keith would have believed FBI if he hadn’t already known better.
Keith highly doubted a Federal fugitive just happened across Veronica in a crowded restaurant and instantly snapped, kidnapping her with no reason whatsoever, as had been Logan’s description of the event. Obviously Noah knew more than he was willing to say.
“Why?” He challenged. “Why would he take Veronica like that?”
Sighing deeply, Noah slipped another photograph out of his briefcase.
“I didn’t understand why this was part of the file until now, but…” He held it up. “This was Sylar’s girlfriend.”
Keith’s throat closed.
He could not describe the flash that went through him at the sight of the woman in the photo. It was Veronica, give or take a different haircut and several years worth of pain in the eyes. In the past few years, Keith had witnessed Veronica survive more than anyone had a right to, but the woman in the photo had eyes that made him hurt.
“Her name was Elle.”
Keith looked up sharply.
“Was?”
Although he knew before Noah said anything what the answer would be.
“She was murdered several weeks ago.”
Years of training and observation had honed his instincts to a fine sharpness that sometimes cut him more deeply than those they were turned on and Keith felt his chest tighten as his left hand made a fist.
“He did it, didn’t he?”
Noah did not meet his eyes, intent on gathering the file and snapping it all neatly back in the little briefcase.
“I don’t think…”
Keith’s hand slapped the lid closed on Noah’s fingers.
“That’s my daughter! You tell me right now, did…?”
The case jerked a little as Noah pulled free, cold and calm and personable.
“Yes.” Bitten out and bitter, it held the same notes as the reluctant words of a police officer charged with the duty of delivering bad, bad news. “As far as anyone can tell, he killed her because she got in his way. Now you have to leave this with me.”
“Like hell.” Keith was smaller in stature, he had no badge of status anymore, he knew he was nothing to look at, slightly pudgy and rounded with middle age in a way that made a lot of people underestimate him, but he had not held the title Sheriff of Neptune or Veronica’s father without a sliver of steel in his spine. “I will find my daughter with or without you. And you will tell me everything you know about this Sylar. Is that clear?”
Noah’s shoulders rounded in defeat.
“I hope your daughter knows how to follow the rules, Mr. Mars.”
***
***
She hadn’t slept the night before, too afraid to move with the specter of her mirror image’s murderer lying next to her. There had been about half a foot between them on the bed, but even that had felt negligible. She’d been intensely aware of each and every breath the man had taken, every shuffle or twitch.
And it showed.
The longer she hung in the shower, three tiled walls closing in on her, the more Veronica came to realize how quickly the body could overcome physical pain to shut down. She had caught herself drowsing off, head slumping forward until she jerked awake, the sudden movement sending a volley of new aches and spasms through her cramping muscles.
There was something seriously wrong with preferring being chained up in small, white bathroom with nothing to look at to being free to move around, but if it meant he wasn’t nearby, then it was infinitely better. The encapsulation of the tiles around her, coming in to her sides and back, was almost comfortable. She relished the feel of solidity.
A small stinging burn on her right hip was a constant reminder of just how unstable he was.
There was no real hook to play to make him lower his guard. At first she’d figured that maybe she could pretend to give into his obvious attraction and fascination with her, but then the lust in his eyes had revealed a sadism that liked to play with pain and her fear.
He seemed to assume her obedience, treating her one or two failures to jump to his orders as the petty rebellions of a disobedient child. He overcame them with an even voiced ultimatum. Do it, he had offered, or I’ll make you.
That train of thought led nowhere good as her brain began to tick over the things she knew he could do and the things she suspected he could do. The more she thought about it, the more it terrified her. There was no way she could see to get around it.
She had faced many threatening people before, from Aaron to Cassidy to Mercer and Liam Fitzpatrick, but never had she been so at their mercy. She had always had some avenue of defense, whether it had been her father or Logan or even crawling half drugged into a closet and clutching a hammer.
Thinking about her father made her moan, a low keening sound in the back of her throat. The last thing she’d said to him before she’d left for her date with Logan was to remind him to pick up fabric softener. It was such a mundane, stupid little comment, nothing at all like she would really want to tell him.
She wondered if she’d get the chance to tell him everything, all the things he knew about how much she loved him and appreciated the things he’d done, how even the small things were special, like the way he added extra oregano to the pasta sauce, or the voiced he used to do when he read her books when she was little, wanted to tell him how she‘d never doubted him, not once, and never regretted standing by him. She wanted him to bust through the door, like he had before, guns blazing, wanted him to wrap her up in his arms and take her home again.
His guns would be no defense, she realized, nothing he had would stand up to super powers and the weight of her father’s dedication versus his vulnerability suddenly hit her like a sledgehammer against her chest. He wouldn’t stop until he found her and what would he find? What would the man do to him if he tried to take her away?
In the middle of that thought, the cold terror, she heard him. A soft snicking of a key in a lock, quiet but noticeable in the silence that had surrounded her all morning. Her ears picked up every movement, the steps into the apartment and across the room. Casual easy sounds of any man entering his apartment, bags hitting the floor, the fridge door opening, taps running.
She wasn't sure what she should be expecting, she didn't really know what the proper etiquette was for returning home to a bound and gagged hostage. Had it been her, the bathroom would have been the first place she would have headed.
The expectation grew in her mouth, saline leaking into the cloth gag, and her eyes tried to peer through the walls, tried to see him. Her body straightened and her calf muscles screamed at the change in posture.
Keep him complacent, her brain told her in a rush, speaking as if she was a separate person, don't give him a reason to get angry.
"Miss me?"
Although she'd been looking for it, his appearance at the door still surprised her and she jumped against the bonds, already on edge. His words and his tone indicated a playful teasing of sorts, but the entire impression he gave off was one of trying too hard, trying to cover for something else.
Veronica did not like to think about what the something else might be.
"Sorry." He straightened his face and entered the room, reaching out to her face. "I took longer than I thought."
The tape tore off hard and it felt like it took parts of her skin with it. She bit her tongue to stop from crying out loud, but couldn't stop the flinch, the little moan, and she saw the way it drew his eyes right to her, little pinpoints of hunger that bored right in.
“I bought you clothes.” He whispered, too near and too intimate, voice near her ear. “I hope they fit.”
He’d done it, he’d actually done it. Clothes cemented her place here and she felt something drain out of her. The twisted metal that had once been belt buckles began to groan and she looked up to see them twisting against her wrists, slackening and loosening.
It still took her breath away to see things move without being touched.
Her arms fell down, literally, useless and heavy weights. She had to lurch forward to stop from being tumbled completely over and she fell against him with a muffled humph, face in his shoulder. He smelled like aftershave and soap and his hands closed in on her shoulders, catching her and pushing her back up to stand on her own.
She shriveled under the gaze he gave, intense and violent for a second, shaking feeling back into her arms.
Just as quickly as it flared, his interest faded, pushed down under a brisk, nervous flutter of almost embarrassment. He suggested she shower and dress as he waited out of the room in the same tone of voice that made her suspect it was less of a choice than an order.
Her shower was hurried and rushed, over before it began as she sped through the movements, taking only the time needed to bring feeling back to her limbs. She didn’t want to linger in there longer than necessary, whether he was in the room or not.
When she entered the bedroom she found several clothes laid out on the bed for her. The choices surprised her, simple cut stylish clothes, almost business like blouses and skirts and pant suits. An economy pack of plain, no frill underwear.
And they fit.
She didn’t want to think too much about it. Even though they sat more or less straight on her frame, comfortable and easy, she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d just been dressed to fit the image of someone else. The tightrope was getting trickier and trickier to navigate as she tried not to linger on the thought of who and why.
The afternoon passed slowly and torturously. She was too scared to move without permission, without being told, and each moment of obvious compliance and fear seemed to agitate him further until she feared that anything she did would garner that narrowing of his eyes, the flicker of annoyance on his face.
Her body was tired and sore and hungry, dry and aching from thirst, but she kept her teeth firmly clenched tight and her face pointed towards the floor. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, although she wondered what he would do if she stood up to go to the kitchen and make herself at home, raid his fridge, complain about the oppressive company.
She wondered if he had alcohol.
For his part, he spent the afternoon watching, waiting, seemingly trying to out wait her. For what she wasn’t sure. The tension stretched and drew taut, stretched some more, playing havoc with her nerves until she seriously considered making a break for it, getting up and running for the door just to give him something to do.
She nearly laughed at the thought, then had to bite down to stop laughing at the question of what he would do in answer to that.
Maybe she was getting slightly hysterical.
She was definitely going crazy.
By the time he questioned her about dinner, she would have agreed to eat just about anything, grateful for the chance of purpose and intention. His answering smile made him appear friendly and pleased and comfortable and she suspected she’d finally done something right.
It was not to last.
The more comfortable he was, the more animated he became and his first quick gesture made her flinch back from the table, an unthinking gesture that had him scowling and monosyllabic instantly. She swallowed water from her glass and felt it run into all the cells of her body, dehydration sucking it up like a sponge. Her head felt dizzy and she blinked it away, tried to focus.
Her fork pushed food around her plate and she knew he watched her, eyes calculating and shrewd, and she forced down several mouthfuls until he seemed placated. Her stomach contracted into a sharp little knot, protesting.
He cleaned up and she sat there. He looked through a book and she sat there. He watched her out of the corners of his eyes and she sat there.
Waiting for the inevitable.
That night was the same as the last. He took her into the bedroom, went to the wardrobe to change and waited until she was yet again dressed in one of his shirts. He’d neglected to buy her nightclothes, she noticed. Afterwards, he lay on top of the covers and she counted sheep and stars and whatever shreds of luck might be left until her body finally gave up and she dozed underneath.
***
***
Post too large, my bottom! Click for the second half of ch1: <YOU HAVE TO WOUND TO KILL!>
Author: wily_one24, Jacqui.
Rating R.
Characters/fandoms:. Veronica and Sylar, yes... it's a Veronica Mars/Heroes crossover. Also contains cameos of some other cast favourites, including Keith, Claire, Angela, Noah, Logan, Sandra, Wallace, Lyle, Chardo's little cousin.
Timeline/Spoilers: Set two or so years after the VM finale and at the end of Chapter 3, Heroes.
Warnings: Although this fic does not contain non- or (as of yet)dub-con, it does contain fears of it. Also, may contain traces of violence and complete mind fuckery. Manufactured with machinery that may be used to process Angst.
Wordcount: 15,400, this chapter.
Disclaimer: Oh, yeah, they're totally mine. Absolutely.
Summary: This is what happens when a Serial Killer and a Serial Victim meet.
*~*~*~*~*
GIRL IN THE MIRROR
*~*~*~*~*
It started with a flash of blue.
He saw it out of the corner of his eyes and it made his throat close up tight. It had to be an illusion, a trick of his overloaded, out of control, careening mind. But Sylar knew he hadn't imagined it. A blue spark down the end of an alley, a jolt of electricity. Saliva trickled down his canines as he watched, a yearning and guilt warring with need.
And then she was there, whole, uninjured, alive.
Elle.
He couldn't look away and he couldn't move as he watched her wrench her arm away from a rapidly falling figure. It jerked on the ground and she turned and walked away. It was her and yet everything was different. The obvious stress, the panic riding her hard at being restrained by the man, the fact that she'd stunned the man and not shot to kill. Even the way she walked was different.
It had been over a month since the explosion, since that day on the beach elbow deep in her blood.
Killing Elle had not been his goal. It was not something he had planned to do. Once upon a time, long long ago, she had almost seemed like his saviour, somebody who could help him, but then she had turned into a deceitful, traitorous, backstabbing manipulator who had pushed him into a slippery slope so steep he could never get out. Her betrayal had stung, stung to the point where killing her like a dog just after her father hadn't even rated a second thought, until she'd stopped him. The only person to truly repel his attempts.
Truth be told, he saw deeper into things than that, and what really hurt about Elle was that she was a kindred soul to him, broken and wrong and guileless and irredeemable, subjected to misery and guilt by uncaring parents, but the absolute worst thing about Elle had been her eyes.
Blue, wide, beautiful eyes staring up at him on that beach, after all that he'd done, to others and to her, staring up at him and saying fix me, fix me, begging him, pleading him, needing him and he'd been there knowing there was no way to repair broken china, no way to make the surface flawless and clean again.
He couldn't lie to her, couldn't say no. So he'd killed her. She'd known and she hadn't fought, accepting her fate like a good company girl.
And he hadn't been able to forget it since.
Sylar had been busy licking his wounds, laying low, keeping out of the finely tuned gun barrel sights of anyone named Bennet or Petrelli, at least for the moment. He'd heard of a disapparator in Los Angeles and had come to try it out. Disapparition would come in very handy.
He followed her as she scurried along the darkened street until her whole body seemed to shiver, shimmer, and she changed her whole demeanour from stressed to calm, a facade he was more used to. Then she smiled at a boy in the crowd and let him put his arms around her shoulder and lead her into a restaurant.
And Sylar saw red.
The boy was inconsequential, barely a blink as Sylar's mind lifted him up out of his seat and threw him against the wall as she cried out unintelligible syllables. The restaurant was busy and people began to scatter. The blind hazy panic of a mob with no clue about what was going on right around them. And Elle, pretty, whole, unscathed, traitorous Elle, had the audacity to look confused and horrified.
"You!" It was a snarl as he stalked towards her. "You!"
He kept her down in her seat, despite her struggles to get up, and managed to push everyone else away, create a twenty foot circle of clear space around her, people, chairs and tables scattering against the floor.
"How?" He demanded. "How did you do it?"
The entire restaurant was a buzzing inside his head, the growing hum of confusion and panic, a drone he ignored for the wide eyed blonde in front of him. They way she threw her head from side to side as if to look for someone behind her, as if he wasn't speaking directly to her, the way she shook her head in denial and confusion and a growing hysteria.
She'd never been this good an actress before. It was almost as if she didn't know him, did not understand why he should be so upset to see her there.
"Was it Claire?"
He sneered as he stalked closer, chest puffing and shoulders straightening reflexively at the growing obviousness of her fear.
"Did the cheerleader come fix you up?"
The very thought of Claire Bennet finding, or even searching for, the charred, broken mess he'd left Elle's body in, the thought of her looking down and knowing she could undo his mistakes yet again galled him beyond all measure. He would find a way to end Claire Bennet, one way or another, if it was the last thing he ever did.
"I... I... who?"
She trembled as she spoke and he gritted his teeth. With one flick of his right wrist her chair skittered back against the tiled floor and she was thrown against the wall. Her spine jarred and he saw the pain and shock twist her face, the disbelief that numbed her features.
"Don't lie to me!"
A sound, a disturbance in the buzzing in the back of his head made him look to the left. The boy who'd draped himself over her before was rushing at him, red faced and angry and beyond all point of rational, ordinary human logic. In the deepest, most hidden parts of himself, Sylar often felt sorry for the ordinary humans. They would never understand greatness or power and they were forever doomed to live their boring, average, ordinary lives.
On the other hand, they were foolish and futile and he tossed the boy aside, pinning him to the floor as he began a soft, gentle squeezing motion with his left hand. The boy's face grew red and then purple, mouth gaping open like a fish as his limbs sprawled uselessly around him looking for purchase.
"Stop it!" She cried, pitiful and pleading. "Please, I'll tell you anything, just stop it!"
He turned to look at her again, stuck to the wall, feet hanging one foot off the floor as her fingers raked hopelessly against the air at her throat. The heels of her stilettos tapped furiously against the wall and her torso twisted delightfully.
"Anything, Elle?" He curled his lip and stepped closer, tightening his right hand in mid air. "I asked for the truth."
She shook her head back and forth.
"My name's not Elle."
Sylar did not feel a lie.
With a viciousness that suddenly leaked out of him, he made his right hand into a complete fist and watched her face darken purple, then her body go limp. Her form was familiar and almost weightless when he picked it up. The crowd parted like the red sea for Moses and he left the restaurant, left the city, left his sanity behind.
***
***
Veronica woke with a crick in her neck.
It took her several minutes to realize where she was. On a sofa in an empty apartment with a dark, frightening looking man staring at her. She remembered in an instant the restaurant and how he'd moved her, moved everyone, without even touching them. Her fear and her confusion multiplied, tingling in her nerve endings. She sat up quickly, bringing her arms in close to her body.
"Who are you?"
He quirked his head and blinked.
"You said you weren't Elle."
It wasn't an answer. She knew this, it was classic interrogatory techniques. Don't give the subject any control over the situation, keep them on their toes, make them answer your questions. She thought about the feeling of air compressing her throat so hard it felt like a steel vice and she couldn't find it in herself to fight back right then.
"My name is Veronica."
He burrowed his brows at her.
"You're not lying."
But it was only a momentary lull, the intensity and venom returning almost instantly as he grabbed her wrist and twisted it cruelly towards him. She resisted the pull, held her back stiff so she wasn't pulled completely off balance, but her throat gave her away as she yelped in pain.
"Stop twisting the truth." He hissed. "I saw you, I saw the electricity in the alley, I saw it."
The...?
Then it hit her. It was a case, just a stupid case gone wrong, and this was some retribution plan gone even more horribly wrong. Phil Robson had been embezzling from his bosses for years, hundreds of thousands of dollars gone to gambling and hookers and imported cars. He had not been impressed to find out she'd secured proof and even less impressed to find she'd followed him to LA for some follow up.
She'd managed to convince Logan to take her out to a dinner in LA without too much suspicion on his part, had even managed to keep a firm eye on her mark for the first half of the night without raising his hackles, although she suspected that was mostly due to their newly professed intentions to both trust each other and not push the boundaries too much. She'd ducked out of Logan's view for fifteen minutes, a perfectly plausible amount of time, citing the need to pick up some aspirin for a sudden headache at a nearby convenience store while he waited for their table.
Mr. Robson, however, had made her and had not been shy in telling her exactly what he was going to do to her if she passed the photos on to his bosses. She suspected that the bruising on her left forearm might be his, but that was a hard sell given the current circumstances, held hostage by a mad man.
But if this man were one of Phil Robson's friends or partners, out for nothing more than simple revenge, she could find a way out of that without too much damage. Might even find herself back home with her father and Logan and Backup, with little more than a brain full of memories she was beginning to doubt more and more as the headache she'd feigned began to materialize with a vengeance.
"He's your friend?" She sounded too eager, too desperate and she knew it, but she was honestly terrified. "I didn't hurt him, I promise! It was just a tazer. Standard issue. I dazed him, nothing more. It wouldn't hurt a child, I promise."
Far from making it better, her words seemed to anger him even further.
"A tazer?" He frowned and tilted his head again, eyes scanning her face. "You're telling the truth."
And then he not only let her wrist go, he tossed it away from him, tossed her back to the sofa with a grimace.
"You're ordinary? You're..." He stopped pacing and seemed to deflate. "You're ordinary."
Her brain swerved over the possibilities, trying to understand what he meant and what answer would keep him sane. She couldn't do it, couldn't come up with one single plan, her mind kept throwing those impossible images back to her, what he'd done. It couldn't be true, couldn't possibly, she had to be remembering it wrong.
And yet, no matter what did or did not happen back at the restaurant, it didn't change the fact that she was still there as his hostage.
She looked up at him, rubbing her wrist slowly.
"If I say yes, will you let me go?"
A great gust of wind appeared and slammed a door behind him. She hadn't even realized it had been open.
"No." His eyes looked her up and down, taking in every inch of her posture. "Not again."
***
***
The resemblance was uncanny.
He could not stop watching her. If she cut her hair and straightened it, she would be able to fool Bob Bishop himself, if he was still alive. The longer he looked, however, the more differences he began to see. She held herself differently and, despite the panic that seemed to be riding her hard, she seemed infinitely saner than Elle had ever been able to pretend to be.
She tried to escape only once.
He hadn't bothered to tie her up or make a big show of locking each and every conceivable exit, he merely took the blow and watched her run towards the door, stopping her still the second she tried to open it. She was pulled back into the room, face blanked out in realization and fear as he walked around to face her.
"There's no use trying to get away." He told her, eye to white wide eye. "This here? Telekinesis? Stopping you with my mind? It's the least I can do. You don't even want to find out about the rest."
She shivered in front of him and her fear teased the edges of his nostrils.
"Here." He produced one of his kitchen knives and handed it to her, released her from his hold. "You want to have a go? Lash out at me, go on."
Taking a step back, he opened his arms wide and presented her with his torso as a willing target. She looked at him with disbelief and desperation and he was able to see the war happening behind her eyes. He stood between her and the door and all she had to do was use the weapon he'd given her.
She wasn't a natural killer, she was barely a natural aggressor.
"Come on, Veronica." It was a natural taunt, her name, drawing out it in three long, slow syllables. "I hurt you, I'm most likely going to continue hurting you. Don't you have any self preservation?"
The words seemed to spark something in her, a defiance, a reality, the confirmation he'd given to her suspicions about his cruelty. Her eyes wavered from him to the door behind him and he stepped sideways, presented her with a clear, unhindered pathway to freedom.
He was prepared for the slice through his skin, the feel of the blade in his organs. He expected it somewhere aimed to do damage, the stomach or liver or groin. It had been far too long since he had dealt with anyone prepared or willing to use moderation when it came to him.
He was not prepared for her to flip the knife in her hand so that she held the blade and knock the handle straight into his nose. The arch of bone in his nasal cavity crunched and his hands reflexively came up to cradle the shattered pulp. He heard rather than saw her footsteps thundering towards the door.
She flew back violently, body bending double as she hit the sofa, a loud exhalation of air gusting from her lungs.
"You chicken." He spat. "You have to wound to kill!"
To prove his point, he took the blade and sunk it deep and violently into his abdomen, felt the steel slice cleanly through muscle and sinew and blood. Unlike Claire, he could still feel the pain. Her eyes grew even wider and her hands came up to contain a little scream.
He pulled the knife out slowly, spreading the material of his shirt out so that she had an unobstructed view of his flesh and skin knitting together instantly.
"Do you see?" He crouched down, face pushed close into her. "Do you see, Veronica? You can't hurt me, you can't escape, and it's useless to even try. Do you understand?"
Her face was stretched out in horror, he knew she couldn't properly process the words and her head slowly began to shake from side to side in denial.
But Sylar felt the shudder that told him all he needed to know.
***
***
Noah Bennet was adding a middle layer of sauce to the lasagna when his phone rang.
His instincts were honed finely enough for him to fear it. A quick look across the island bench told him he wasn't alone. Sandra, while preferring to keep up a good charade for the appearance of family, was never really one to actually be clueless, no matter how she liked to pretend she didn't know. And Claire's tightly narrowed eyes gave her away easily.
He flipped the cell open and smiled, large and false and grandiose.
"Angela." Thick and deep and all schmooze. "What can I do for you?"
"Cut the crap, Noah." Quick and precise, she didn't waste time. "I have a job for you in California."
He could feel his eyebrows rise quickly and sharply to his hairline.
"You? Have a job for me? In California?"
"Is this a bad line?" She asked coolly, not rising to the bait. "It's relatively simple. Kidnapping case in some out of the way beachfront called Neptune. I want you down there interviewing the girl's father, see what you can find out."
She said simple, but he knew better. They weren't in the business of simple. And they certainly weren't in the business of mundane every day kidnappings. She wasn't telling him all he needed to know and he felt the distinct impression it was a test of sorts. It bothered him more than he liked to admit.
"Me and who else?"
A soft laughter echoed down the line, slightly chilling.
"Still a good old company man, Noah? One of you one of us? You have to admit, your number is dwindling rapidly these days."
He chuckled good naturedly, biting his tongue down on any retort he might have had. She cleared her throat before he could come up with any reasonable response.
"You can go alone. And Noah? That means Claire stays here."
The protest was automatic and instinctual and his fingers clenched tightly around the cell.
"She'll be fine, Noah."
The call ended and he turned to face his family. Their reactions were varied. Sandra had a resigned expression on her face as she continued to chop a tomato for the salad. Claire's lip had curled into a snarl she was barely holding back and he knew it was only a matter of time before she let loose. And Lyle... it was harder to read Lyle and Noah wasn't sure if that was a good thing.
"What was that?" Claire pushed forward first. "What do they want now?"
She was beginning to show a marked talent for discerning casual from professional when it came to her grandmother. One of his daughter's strongest weaknesses was her need for family, a need which had sometimes overridden good sense. One of her strongest dislikes was company missions that either took him away or that he didn't fully disclose. This was both and obviously rankled her.
"Probably more of your friends."
Claire huffed and shoved Lyle in the side.
"They're not my friends!"
He poked his tongue out.
"Sorry." Lyle snitted. "Family, then. Freak runs in the blood."
She cuffed the back of Lyle's head.
"Jealous? Don't worry, Lyle, we'd visit your family, too, if we lived closer to the zoo."
Noah cleared his throat.
"Children."
The rebuke was half hearted and nowhere near as stern as it could have been. It was all too rare to see Claire being a normal teenager doing such normal teenage things with her brother and Noah was happy to indulge them. She was beginning to slide further from the teenager he'd once thought he'd known into a dangerous, secretive creature hell bent on revenge and retribution. She thought he didn't know about the meetings and reading his folders and talking with Angela behind his back, didn't know about skipping school to tag along with other agents.
Both she and Lyle turned to him, faces captured in expressions of wide eyed innocence too perfect to be real.
"We're sorry."
"I don't know how long I'll be gone." He said eventually, turning his attention back to Sandra, their eyes meeting for a silent discussion. "Hopefully not too long."
It had been just over four weeks since they'd left Meredith and Sylar burning in the old Primatech building. He had spent a considerable amount of that time trying to convince Claire that there was nothing else they could have done for Meredith and nothing Sylar could have done to come back from that.
He had also spent that time with Sandra discussing the very real possibility that Sylar would come back in some form or another. They had both seen with their very eyes the absolute destruction from which Claire herself could regenerate, the girl had died several times over, had been obliterated by the nuclear disaster that was Ted, and was still flawless in her recovery. A blow to the head and a large fire might not have stopped him very long.
"Is it...?"
But Claire wasn't foolish by any stretch of the imagination and she knew when to be worried.
"It's a kidnapping." He told her. "That's not his MO. Besides, we've talked about this, he's gone..."
"Yeah." She rolled her eyes. "Gone, sure."
The problem was that while they had seen it, Claire had lived it and he knew she understood all too well the impermanency of death.
***
***
The problem with the apartment, besides the fact that it belonged to a deranged lunatic telekinetic mutant with super strength who could regenerate faster than Veronica could blink, was that it was small.
It had four rooms. A living room with one sofa, one small coffee table and nothing else, not even any artwork on the walls. A kitchen with, from the brief glance she had gotten, the basic necessities only. A meagre bathroom, with very few items in it beyond an impeccably folded towel and hand soap.
And only one bedroom.
In the hours since Veronica had woken up on the sofa and it became clear he wasn't going to let her go, she had been avoiding thinking about the inevitable. He hadn't spoken much, besides laying down a few ground rules and explaining to her the basics such as where he kept the glasses so she could get herself a glass of water or the towels when she wanted a shower, and had stuck mainly to watching her out of the corner of his eyes.
He did like to watch her, to the point where she was very uneasy. All her movements had become stilted and awkward and uneasy, scared that she would do the wrong thing, even more scared that she would do the right one.
Somehow all the freedom made the entire situation worse than if she'd been locked in some cement cellar with manacles around her wrists. That sense of autonomy and choice was flimsy and false and they both knew it, a surface sheen with no substance, because he controlled everything she did.
She couldn't even lie to him. He'd explained how that little super power worked just after he'd asked if she had any identifying wallets or cell phones on her person and she'd said no. She'd lost her cell phone and more than half of her ideas to get out and away from him.
He'd made a late dinner, citing the fact that she hadn't eaten at the restaurant, almost as if he cared, the thought tripped and stuck in her brain like a too large morsel hard to swallow. Frozen hamburgers and fries, because he said she had liked them. Sweet, sticky orange soda, because she had liked them.
Veronica didn't know which thought made her feel worse as she mulishly pushed the food around on her plate and tried not to let him see she hadn't eaten one bite, that he had all these ingredients in his kitchen because some woman who was obviously not coming back, smart girl, had liked them at one point or if he was waiting for her, repeatedly stocking his cupboards with her foods in the futile hope she'd return to him.
Everything he did, though sounding seemingly normal, felt to her as if was slightly off kilter, as if he was pretending, playing at being domestic.
She wouldn't be surprised if he thought she was here and staying by choice, despite the constant reminders of exactly how he could keep her here.
But that night, as she could feel the air cooling down even if she couldn't see a window to tell her how dark it was getting, Veronica could feel her panic starting to boil up, frazzling her nerves, making her extra skittish. Every move he made caused her to jump, eyes wide as her muscles tensed. She began to think he was playing with her, deliberately exciting her terror, toying with her. She was the fly in his spider's web, that was certain.
"I'm tired." He said pointedly.
Veronica looked straight down, closed her eyes and prayed he would leave her there, that if she sat still like a statue and didn't move an eyelash he would just get up and walk out of the room.
He didn't.
"Do you want me to make you move?"
She jumped at his words, the memory of being thrown across the room fresh in her mind. He could do it, of that she was certain. Of all the things she was confused and doubtful and still could not get her head around, the fact that he could throw her around like a rag doll, that he could hurt her and the fact that he would probably enjoy doing it was something she was sure of.
"Okay." She bit out as she stood up, surprized and impressed that she managed to do both at the same time without completely falling apart, despite the soft weakness and fear in her voice. "Okay."
The resulting expression was smug and she hated him for it.
Her breath became hot in her lungs, tight and hard to pull through her nostrils as she stood just inside the door, unable to take her eyes off the bed in the middle of the room. He breezed past her and began to fuss in an impeccably organized, if sparse, wardrobe. One thing she'd noticed was his near obsessive compulsion to detail.
He came out wearing sweat pants and nothing else.
"Which side do you want?"
She started, swallowed hard and tried to fire a neuron or two into a coherent response that wasn't a truth to get her killed.
"I... I... don't..." want any of this you sick, psycho freak. I want to go home. I want to shove an ice pick through your eye socket. I want to find some way to kill you, I want... "Please..."
It ended in a bubbled, broken plea and she felt tears in her eyes, hot and burning.
"Here." He casually tossed a shirt at her. It was large, white and buttoned up the front. "I'm sorry, I don't have any clothes for you. I'll get some tomorrow."
He ignored her mini breakdown and she shuddered at yet another indication that she was his current pet, his toy, and he had no plans of letting her go. When the silence grew pointed, she braved a look up at him and he looked back at her, then pointedly to the shirt lying crumpled at her feet and then back up at her with raised eyebrows.
She couldn't do it, she couldn't...
"Do you need some help?"
"No." She blurted out before he could suggest anything else. "I'll... I can..."
But she had no words to finish that sentence and instead bent her knees slowly, inching down to pick up the material and then stand again. Her legs were shaking and she looked up to see him watching her. Almost without thinking she turned around, but stopped three quarters of the way, frozen, and waited.
He didn't react or order her differently, so she continued to face the other way as she changed as quickly and simply as she could, trying not to draw out the process, acutely aware of the feel of his eyes on any skin she inadvertantly showed. She did not want to do this.
She bit her lip and tried to calm her breathing. Her brain was working furiously, racing through any possibility she could think of, trying to calm the near hysteria that threatened to overtake her. He was too powerful and vicious to outfight, too seemingly deranged and purpose driven to be dissuaded.
"Can...? Can I have a pillow?" But it didn't stop her from trying, weak and timid and she hated it. "I'll sleep on the floor. I don't mind."
"Get in the bed."
It came at her like a growl, deep and predatory. Her eyes squeezed shut of their own accord. It wouldn't be the first time, her brain gave a valiant effort at comfort, but immediately contradicted itself, but you were unconscious for that. He had super strength, strange powers she couldn't begin to understand, maybe she could ask him to knock her out so she wouldn't have to live it, remember it, experience it.
But he was all powerful and she hated the imbalance of it, even voicing the question would be a sign of weakness. The thought grew like a spark in her brain. She could not fight back, she could not defy him, they were truths that nothing would change, but her rebellion could come in another form.
If she refused to let him break her, if she didn't give him a reaction, her fear and terror, then what real power would he have?
Shaking, she slipped into the bed, the feel of crisp, cool cotton sliding against her bare legs, and lay flat on her back, gripping the sheet high up to her chin. Her eyes remained closed and she held her breath, counted out the seconds in the darkness. After several agonizing minutes of silence, she finally felt the mattress dip.
But the sheets didn't pull away and when she opened her eyes to look, he'd curled up on his side, back facing to her, and his body was on top of the covers.
Relief flooded her body, came out in an exhalation too loud to be missed, and her breathing began to settle.
"You're exactly like her." He told the wall, in a low, dangerous voice that made her cringe. "Everywhere. Your body shape, everything. Exactly."
It wasn't anger, it was grief.
She didn't want to, couldn't ask the question. There was no way that knowing would make her situation any better or easier, but once the niggling thought entered her brain, she couldn't let it go.
"What...?" Lying ramrod straight, sheet clutched up to her chin, next to this man and talking to him as if it was nothing was surreal. "What happened to her?"
He sighed.
"I killed her." The cold, casual, matter of fact voice chilled her. "Murdered her in cold blood. About a month ago."
Suspicion confirmed, Veronica's terror multiplied in the dark.
***
***
He was not surprised to wake in the morning and find her lying there with her eyes wide open.
He doubted she'd slept at all.
When he rolled to his side to face her, her eyes looked straight up at the ceiling and her body was tense. There were shadows on her face that belied the panic she was coasting on. He could see her entire body flinch, just a fraction, whenever he moved. It became a game of sorts and he faked a lot of simple gestures to see the many different ways she could break just a little bit further.
A clenching of her fingers, the pull of air through teeth, the tightening of skin at the corners of her eyes, the way her gaze flickered left to right and back again over the ceiling as if she could read the secret to her escape up there if only she looked hard enough. Anything to pretend she wasn't about to burst into tears.
The urge to hunt down Matt Parker, kill him and take his telepathy just so he could read her mind was suddenly very overpowering.
It became too much and he had to continue the motion, did not stop his hand before it reached her face, lightly dabbed the middle of her forehead with his fingertips and then traced the outline of her nose and lips. She shuddered underneath him, goddamn shuddered, and something inside him thrilled, kick started into gear.
He wanted to push her down and flay her skin right off, see if the insides were just as identical to Elle as her outsides, wanted to see if she would bleed the same, sound the same as she screamed. He flashed back to that day down in level five, Elle lying broken after he'd flung her across the room and her face as he'd begun to cut, just before the overload had thrown him back.
Sometimes her screams visited him in his sleep, but he had never chased them before, never wanted and ached for them like he did right then.
"I have to go out."
He said it simply and her eyes were the only thing of hers that moved, sliding sideways so that she could look at him. He got bolder with his hand, flattened his fingers and palm on the side of her face.
"I have nothing here, I wasn't expecting a guest. I shouldn't be too long."
Her skin was cold and clammy, but soft. It left little buzzing nerve endings in his fingertips and he had the strangest compulsion to clamp his fingers so tightly against her cheeks that the skin would burst. A slight flicker of hope in her eyes made him smile gently.
"Oh, don't worry, I won't leave you unattended or free to roam."
The little spark dimmed and it made him grin.
He did tighten his fingers then, forefinger and thumb closed over her chin like a vice as he pulled her face towards him.
"Tell me you won't leave me."
Her jaw set stubbornly and her eyes watered. He could see the thought process behind them and the tip of his tongue flicked out past his lips. He shook her chin gently, the slightest pressure, the smallest little threat.
"I... I won't."
A shudder, dark and deep and cleansing washed over him.
"You're lying. Tell me you want to stay."
She bit her lip and tried to shake her head, tried to pull back, but he tightened his grip even more as she gave a slight yelp.
"I want..." It burst out of her like a held breath. "I want to stay."
The shudder returned.
"You're lying!"
He pushed her back against the pillows roughly, let go and rolled away. His hip spun over the edge of the bed and his feet landed with a satisfying thud on the floor before he stood up. Behind him, he could hear the pants of frustration and relief coming from the bed.
"Get up, I don't have all day."
He hadn't lied. He didn't have much in the apartment, certainly not enough for a second person. It hadn't escaped his notice that he lived somewhat frugally when it came to both material and nutritional things. He'd stocked his cupboard and refrigerator with the bare necessities: milk, bread, fruit, eggs, frozen supplies for one. There was no real room for elaboration. The night before, he had put more effort into cooking than he could remember doing for himself.
Elle had liked all manner of things, he remembered from the brief memories he had of her when they'd been calm and happy. She had been his only real experience of catering to a woman. His mother had never liked anyone doing things for her when she could do them for herself.
He had absolutely no idea what he would need.
He made a quick, easy breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast as she sat at the kitchen bench with her head down and arms pulled in protectively around her torso. It was slightly difficult to concentrate, focusing hard on the skillet in front of him instead of the sight of her bare legs under his shirt. Clothes was one of the things definitely on his list.
After he had eaten and she had pretended to, he made her sit outside the bathroom door and recite the alphabet as he showered, ears finely tuned to the cadence of her voice to make sure she didn't move.
He pulled her into the bathroom then, his fingers finding the familiar feel of her wrists and tightening hard until she winced. She tried not to resist, but he could feel the reluctance in her limbs, a reflex to physically resist anything he wanted. Not taking any care for her comfort, he wound one end of a belt around her left wrist, another belt around her right and joined the two above the shower rod.
Her whole body stretched, arched as she stood there, and his eyes travelled downwards, taking no care to avoid the line of her hips and legs this time. She caught him staring and became still. There was something completely satisfying about creating a small ball of blue electricity in the palm of his hand and holding in front of her face as her eyes widened in panic.
"This was hers." The words came out before he could stop them, teased her. "Apparently it hurts like a bitch."
She jerked, a small cry escaping her mouth as he let a spark fly up from his hand. It didn't touch her, but it fused the metal of the belt buckles together, made the manacles firm and inescapable. He tossed another few sparks up the top, where the two belts met over the bar, and watched the three bubble and then solidify.
There was a lot less room for her to move after that.
"I won't be gone long."
He stuffed a small cloth into her mouth and taped it there.
Before he left, he ran a hand down the side of her hip, let himself caress the heat of skin there, and smiled at the way she jerked away from him, the fear in her eyes even if she tried not to show him. On impulse, he shot a small spark at her hip and watched her dangle on the line, legs skittering out from underneath her until she could regain her balance around a muffled cry.
There were a million ways she was just like Elle and a million more way she wasn't.
***
***
It was seven am and Keith was already dressed and ready to walk out the door when it knocked.
He'd already been on the telephone for at least an hour and had talked to no less than three different law enforcement agencies and several more contacts that weren't entirely legal at all. Nobody, legit or otherwise, had any useful knowledge or leads concerning Veronica's possible whereabouts.
It wasn't entirely a surprise. Nobody had any concrete or solid evidence to give about the abduction itself, despite the hundred or so actual eye witnesses that saw it. Their stories conflicted and made no sense and some bordered on the wrong side of sane altogether.
He had been stunned the night before when he'd gotten the near hysterical telephone call from Logan.
His night was only just beginning as he got down to the scene only to find a scene of mass confusion and panic. Some claimed she'd known the man, others said he hadn't been a man at all, some assumed it had all been a theatrical stunt for a Hollywood project yet to be released.
All Keith knew for sure was that Veronica had not returned home that night, she had not called or left a message for him anywhere, and he was unable to get a trace on her cell phone. She either had it turned off or it had been destroyed. He didn't much like thinking about the last possibility.
As for Logan, the boy was barely comprehensible. He spoke of being thrown across the room, of being attacked by some unseen force, of impossible things that were truly unlike him at all. But his terror and fear for Veronica were real, Keith could see that.
It didn't help his own growing fears.
When he opened the door, he saw a well dressed, stern looking man with dark hair and thick, round glasses extend his right hand and flashed an ID card with his left. He gave a smile that showed the corners of his teeth that looked to Keith as if it was meant to be pleasant and comforting, but had entirely the opposite effect.
"Mr. Mars?" The man started without pausing for acknowledgement. "I'm John Delmer, special agent with the FBI. I've come to talk about your daughter."
Keith did not move, he looked the man up and down and sighed before meeting his eyes.
"You're not FBI."
The claimed Mr. Delmer slowly withdrew his hand.
"And you know this because...?"
He didn't blink.
"My daughter has direct contact with the FBI, they've taken her case on personally already. I've just spent the morning talking to her direct superior. Nobody even mentioned you."
"Worth a try." The man brushed off the lapels of his coat. "Will you accept that I'm one of the top agents in a privately funded security firm that has a direct interest in returning your daughter to you safely and without harm, and I've been appointed personally to this case?"
He hated to admit it, hated to even entertain the idea, but the first image that came to his head was Jake Kane and Clarence Weidman. Through most of Veronica's teen years, Jake Kane had held a distant, yet somewhat pleasant view of Veronica. Keith respected the man's position, even if he resented the situation it had occurred in. He would have believed instantly that Jake would have set this kind of thing up without blinking during that period
And yet, after she had solved Lilly's murder, Jake had turned decidedly sour in regards to Veronica and Keith had a hard time reconciling the possibility that Jake would give up a dollar, let alone countless thousands investing in this level of extra-governmental security.
His next thought was Logan and, even if he admitted that it should have been his first thought given the boy's complete devotion to his daughter, he dismissed that just as quickly. Logan would not have been this subtle or surreptitious when it came to her safety.
He shook his head, he really didn't have much time.
Granted, he really didn't have much to work with, either.
"Are you working for anyone by the name of, directly or indirectly connected to, once known as, currently disguising their identity, or as an intermediary for the names Kane or Echolls?"
The man's eyes widened at the same moment they blanked out in confusion, it told Keith all he needed to know before the man could even shake his head or respond in the negative. One thing Keith did know was that Veronica had as many allies as she had enemies and just as powerful, any one of them could be behind it and none of them should be trusted.
“Look.” The man started again. “Obviously we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. Let‘s be honest, I don’t want to be here and you don’t want me here. But for some reason my boss has it in her head that this is a case that deserves a top agent’s attention even though our entire company does not handle anything remotely as mundane as a kidnapping. It’s a waste of my time and my abilities, as no doubt it’s a waste of yours. Let’s just get the formalities out of the way so I can go my way and you can do whatever you need to, okay?”
That, Keith could agree with and he opened the door slowly, deciding to keep an eye on every move the man made. It had not escaped his notice that the man had yet to identify himself.
“So, let’s get the easy stuff out of the way first? She was taken in public in full view of an entire restaur…”
The man’s bored question dwindled down into nothing, an aborted brief of the file that he held in his hand and had doubtless skimmed over on his way to the apartment complex. Keith watched him as, slack jawed, the man began to approach the shelves in the hallway.
“This…?” The man reached out, paused, then reached out again, fingers closing on a frame. “This is your daughter?”
It was one of the more recent photos of Veronica, Keith noted with a spark of awareness, a keen hunger to weed out the truth from this man and possibly make him pay if he had anything to do with hurting her.
“That’s Veronica, yes.”
Immediately the change in the man was obvious, boredom and surface politeness gave way to purpose and excitement, the thrill of the chase. Keith recognized it, in that moment he catalogued the sudden interest and knew that Veronica was not this man’s target or goal.
It was the other.
“Now it’s my turn.” He said, breaking into Keith’s reverie. “Do you or your daughter know of or have you ever been in contact with anyone by the name of Angela, Arthur, Nathan or Peter Petrelli, Noah or Claire Bennet, Elle or Bob Bishop?”
Keith frowned.
“There was a girl in my daughter’s high school class with the last name Bishop, but I don’t think there was a Bob or Elle in the family. And isn’t Nathan Petrelli a congressman in New York?”
Whatever he’d been looking for, the man obviously got his answer in Keith’s reaction, because he relaxed and his smile turned more genuine as he flipped his briefcase up to the bench and began clicking open the tabs.
“My name is Noah Bennet.” Before Keith could react to that, Noah continued. “And I know who has your daughter. We have no time to lose.”
Keith quirked his head.
“I thought this case was mundane?”
Noah didn’t hesitate or give any kind of reaction, instead he lay three photographs on the island bench, one by one, slapping them down with a finality that sunk into Keith’s chest.
“His name is Sylar. He’s incredibly dangerous, psychotically unstable and homicidal and the local or national law enforcement agencies are not equipped to handle him. You have to stay out of it, let me take it from here. Do you understand?”
Keith eyed the photos and what he saw did not make him feel any better. The man had dark hair and darker eyes, his expression one of clear malevolence and he got the impression that nothing good could come of crossing him. The photos sat on the bench like a physical materialization of Logan’s description.
He had seen many photos like this in his day and knew immediately that they were a little beyond the standard local police issue from an everyday arrest. The quality alone would suggest Federal Police, Keith would have believed FBI if he hadn’t already known better.
Keith highly doubted a Federal fugitive just happened across Veronica in a crowded restaurant and instantly snapped, kidnapping her with no reason whatsoever, as had been Logan’s description of the event. Obviously Noah knew more than he was willing to say.
“Why?” He challenged. “Why would he take Veronica like that?”
Sighing deeply, Noah slipped another photograph out of his briefcase.
“I didn’t understand why this was part of the file until now, but…” He held it up. “This was Sylar’s girlfriend.”
Keith’s throat closed.
He could not describe the flash that went through him at the sight of the woman in the photo. It was Veronica, give or take a different haircut and several years worth of pain in the eyes. In the past few years, Keith had witnessed Veronica survive more than anyone had a right to, but the woman in the photo had eyes that made him hurt.
“Her name was Elle.”
Keith looked up sharply.
“Was?”
Although he knew before Noah said anything what the answer would be.
“She was murdered several weeks ago.”
Years of training and observation had honed his instincts to a fine sharpness that sometimes cut him more deeply than those they were turned on and Keith felt his chest tighten as his left hand made a fist.
“He did it, didn’t he?”
Noah did not meet his eyes, intent on gathering the file and snapping it all neatly back in the little briefcase.
“I don’t think…”
Keith’s hand slapped the lid closed on Noah’s fingers.
“That’s my daughter! You tell me right now, did…?”
The case jerked a little as Noah pulled free, cold and calm and personable.
“Yes.” Bitten out and bitter, it held the same notes as the reluctant words of a police officer charged with the duty of delivering bad, bad news. “As far as anyone can tell, he killed her because she got in his way. Now you have to leave this with me.”
“Like hell.” Keith was smaller in stature, he had no badge of status anymore, he knew he was nothing to look at, slightly pudgy and rounded with middle age in a way that made a lot of people underestimate him, but he had not held the title Sheriff of Neptune or Veronica’s father without a sliver of steel in his spine. “I will find my daughter with or without you. And you will tell me everything you know about this Sylar. Is that clear?”
Noah’s shoulders rounded in defeat.
“I hope your daughter knows how to follow the rules, Mr. Mars.”
***
***
She hadn’t slept the night before, too afraid to move with the specter of her mirror image’s murderer lying next to her. There had been about half a foot between them on the bed, but even that had felt negligible. She’d been intensely aware of each and every breath the man had taken, every shuffle or twitch.
And it showed.
The longer she hung in the shower, three tiled walls closing in on her, the more Veronica came to realize how quickly the body could overcome physical pain to shut down. She had caught herself drowsing off, head slumping forward until she jerked awake, the sudden movement sending a volley of new aches and spasms through her cramping muscles.
There was something seriously wrong with preferring being chained up in small, white bathroom with nothing to look at to being free to move around, but if it meant he wasn’t nearby, then it was infinitely better. The encapsulation of the tiles around her, coming in to her sides and back, was almost comfortable. She relished the feel of solidity.
A small stinging burn on her right hip was a constant reminder of just how unstable he was.
There was no real hook to play to make him lower his guard. At first she’d figured that maybe she could pretend to give into his obvious attraction and fascination with her, but then the lust in his eyes had revealed a sadism that liked to play with pain and her fear.
He seemed to assume her obedience, treating her one or two failures to jump to his orders as the petty rebellions of a disobedient child. He overcame them with an even voiced ultimatum. Do it, he had offered, or I’ll make you.
That train of thought led nowhere good as her brain began to tick over the things she knew he could do and the things she suspected he could do. The more she thought about it, the more it terrified her. There was no way she could see to get around it.
She had faced many threatening people before, from Aaron to Cassidy to Mercer and Liam Fitzpatrick, but never had she been so at their mercy. She had always had some avenue of defense, whether it had been her father or Logan or even crawling half drugged into a closet and clutching a hammer.
Thinking about her father made her moan, a low keening sound in the back of her throat. The last thing she’d said to him before she’d left for her date with Logan was to remind him to pick up fabric softener. It was such a mundane, stupid little comment, nothing at all like she would really want to tell him.
She wondered if she’d get the chance to tell him everything, all the things he knew about how much she loved him and appreciated the things he’d done, how even the small things were special, like the way he added extra oregano to the pasta sauce, or the voiced he used to do when he read her books when she was little, wanted to tell him how she‘d never doubted him, not once, and never regretted standing by him. She wanted him to bust through the door, like he had before, guns blazing, wanted him to wrap her up in his arms and take her home again.
His guns would be no defense, she realized, nothing he had would stand up to super powers and the weight of her father’s dedication versus his vulnerability suddenly hit her like a sledgehammer against her chest. He wouldn’t stop until he found her and what would he find? What would the man do to him if he tried to take her away?
In the middle of that thought, the cold terror, she heard him. A soft snicking of a key in a lock, quiet but noticeable in the silence that had surrounded her all morning. Her ears picked up every movement, the steps into the apartment and across the room. Casual easy sounds of any man entering his apartment, bags hitting the floor, the fridge door opening, taps running.
She wasn't sure what she should be expecting, she didn't really know what the proper etiquette was for returning home to a bound and gagged hostage. Had it been her, the bathroom would have been the first place she would have headed.
The expectation grew in her mouth, saline leaking into the cloth gag, and her eyes tried to peer through the walls, tried to see him. Her body straightened and her calf muscles screamed at the change in posture.
Keep him complacent, her brain told her in a rush, speaking as if she was a separate person, don't give him a reason to get angry.
"Miss me?"
Although she'd been looking for it, his appearance at the door still surprised her and she jumped against the bonds, already on edge. His words and his tone indicated a playful teasing of sorts, but the entire impression he gave off was one of trying too hard, trying to cover for something else.
Veronica did not like to think about what the something else might be.
"Sorry." He straightened his face and entered the room, reaching out to her face. "I took longer than I thought."
The tape tore off hard and it felt like it took parts of her skin with it. She bit her tongue to stop from crying out loud, but couldn't stop the flinch, the little moan, and she saw the way it drew his eyes right to her, little pinpoints of hunger that bored right in.
“I bought you clothes.” He whispered, too near and too intimate, voice near her ear. “I hope they fit.”
He’d done it, he’d actually done it. Clothes cemented her place here and she felt something drain out of her. The twisted metal that had once been belt buckles began to groan and she looked up to see them twisting against her wrists, slackening and loosening.
It still took her breath away to see things move without being touched.
Her arms fell down, literally, useless and heavy weights. She had to lurch forward to stop from being tumbled completely over and she fell against him with a muffled humph, face in his shoulder. He smelled like aftershave and soap and his hands closed in on her shoulders, catching her and pushing her back up to stand on her own.
She shriveled under the gaze he gave, intense and violent for a second, shaking feeling back into her arms.
Just as quickly as it flared, his interest faded, pushed down under a brisk, nervous flutter of almost embarrassment. He suggested she shower and dress as he waited out of the room in the same tone of voice that made her suspect it was less of a choice than an order.
Her shower was hurried and rushed, over before it began as she sped through the movements, taking only the time needed to bring feeling back to her limbs. She didn’t want to linger in there longer than necessary, whether he was in the room or not.
When she entered the bedroom she found several clothes laid out on the bed for her. The choices surprised her, simple cut stylish clothes, almost business like blouses and skirts and pant suits. An economy pack of plain, no frill underwear.
And they fit.
She didn’t want to think too much about it. Even though they sat more or less straight on her frame, comfortable and easy, she couldn’t shake the feeling she’d just been dressed to fit the image of someone else. The tightrope was getting trickier and trickier to navigate as she tried not to linger on the thought of who and why.
The afternoon passed slowly and torturously. She was too scared to move without permission, without being told, and each moment of obvious compliance and fear seemed to agitate him further until she feared that anything she did would garner that narrowing of his eyes, the flicker of annoyance on his face.
Her body was tired and sore and hungry, dry and aching from thirst, but she kept her teeth firmly clenched tight and her face pointed towards the floor. She didn’t want to draw attention to herself, although she wondered what he would do if she stood up to go to the kitchen and make herself at home, raid his fridge, complain about the oppressive company.
She wondered if he had alcohol.
For his part, he spent the afternoon watching, waiting, seemingly trying to out wait her. For what she wasn’t sure. The tension stretched and drew taut, stretched some more, playing havoc with her nerves until she seriously considered making a break for it, getting up and running for the door just to give him something to do.
She nearly laughed at the thought, then had to bite down to stop laughing at the question of what he would do in answer to that.
Maybe she was getting slightly hysterical.
She was definitely going crazy.
By the time he questioned her about dinner, she would have agreed to eat just about anything, grateful for the chance of purpose and intention. His answering smile made him appear friendly and pleased and comfortable and she suspected she’d finally done something right.
It was not to last.
The more comfortable he was, the more animated he became and his first quick gesture made her flinch back from the table, an unthinking gesture that had him scowling and monosyllabic instantly. She swallowed water from her glass and felt it run into all the cells of her body, dehydration sucking it up like a sponge. Her head felt dizzy and she blinked it away, tried to focus.
Her fork pushed food around her plate and she knew he watched her, eyes calculating and shrewd, and she forced down several mouthfuls until he seemed placated. Her stomach contracted into a sharp little knot, protesting.
He cleaned up and she sat there. He looked through a book and she sat there. He watched her out of the corners of his eyes and she sat there.
Waiting for the inevitable.
That night was the same as the last. He took her into the bedroom, went to the wardrobe to change and waited until she was yet again dressed in one of his shirts. He’d neglected to buy her nightclothes, she noticed. Afterwards, he lay on top of the covers and she counted sheep and stars and whatever shreds of luck might be left until her body finally gave up and she dozed underneath.
***
***
Post too large, my bottom! Click for the second half of ch1: <YOU HAVE TO WOUND TO KILL!>