Fic: "Girl In The Mirror", ch 2, (Veronica/Sylar), Heroes/VM. R.
Title: Girl In The Mirror, chapter 2.
Author: wily_one24, Jacqui.
Rating R.
Characters/fandoms:. Veronica and Sylar, yes... it's a Veronica Mars/Heroes crossover. Also contains some other cast favourites, including Keith, Claire, Angela and Noah.
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: 11,625.
Disclaimer: Oh, yeah, they're totally mine. Absolutely.
Summary: It didn’t matter how much she knew going in, eyes wide open she would still fall under.
Previous Chapters: Found here.
*~*~*~*~*
GIRL IN THE MIRROR, ch2
*~*~*~*~*
Veronica did as she was told for the several hours it took him to drive to a motel far away from the little diner.
Her head was thick and blurry, a heavy ache making her close the one eye that wasn‘t already swollen shut, it pounded hard inside her skull. Her forearms stung, pulsed with the bruises she knew would be there if she looked.
She didn't watch the road, the lights blurred and shone and stung her eyes, and she lost track of the direction they were headed.
In her mind, she couldn't forget the sight of the innocent busboy, his face turning purple and struggling against the pressure around his throat. He'd died for his cell and hadn't even known why. Her own injuries, a swollen, blackened eye where he'd pulled her across the diner and into the side of a booth, the marks where he'd held too tightly to her wrists and arms, they were nothing. Nothing.
When he left to pay for the room, Veronica sat in the car and didn't even think about moving.
Her hand shook as she lifted fingers to her forehead, they came away sticky with half dried blood. She'd gotten away easy, too easy as she thought about all the screams they'd left behind.
"Come on."
He was back before she knew it, opening her door and reaching in to pull her out.
She flinched away from his hand and his jaw tightened.
"I didn't kill them all."
He made it sound like a good thing and she refused to look up at him as she eased herself out of the seat, twisted to avoid his touch altogether.
"I told you." His voice rose a little, twanged too high for the pure anger he'd been coursing with since he'd found her with the cell. "I told you what would happen."
She nursed the only comfort she had, a small one at that, denying him. The more she ignored him, the more he volleyed for her attention. In any other situation it might have been amusing, but there was nothing positive to be found in his need for her approval.
The motel room was no surprise, small and bare and of questionable hygiene, the same as any small motel room at any small highway stop. She stood in the doorway and felt her knees shake, felt her entire body tremble with exhaustion and the sludge that came with expended adrenaline.
Dizziness overwhelmed her and she stumbled, taking a clumsy step forward to balance, but his hand on the small of her back pushed her further into the room and she pushed her hands out to soften the fall as he entered with two bags and closed the door.
The lock clicked with a finality that made her stay down on the worn carpet.
“You tricked me.” He said it calmly, but she heard the undercurrent buried underneath it as he placed the bags on a side table and turned around. “And let me tell you, Veronica, I don’t like being tricked.”
Pushing herself up on her elbows, she caught the gasp of pain that flashed through her forearms and bit her lip to slowly bring her legs in under her and turn around. The room spun and she leaned her back against the foot of the bed, sitting on the carpet still with her knees brought up to her chest.
“I’m sorry.”
It came immediately to her mouth and she wanted to cry at the weakness of it. She’d said nothing else as he’d dragged her to the car and screamed out of the lot without paying for the gas, just the same two craven words over and over again until he’d told her in no uncertain words to stop it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She bit the words back when she noticed his brow furrowing, swallowed them and forced her brain to come up with something else. “I… I didn’t plan it, I wasn’t going to… I…”
She stopped speaking to consider her words. It struck her that he was already treading a fine line of control and wouldn’t appreciate one of his flashes if she lied. It wouldn’t help her case to plead innocent, to say she hadn’t meant to. Nobody accidentally steals another person’s cell phone and then risks everyone’s life to use it.
What had she done? She’d known what would happen, she’d known it before she’d even stepped through the door. Had known it even as she’d spotted the cell in the boy’s pocket, god he must have been in his mid teens, and formulated her plan. Had known it as she’d nodded briefly to a mother trying to get her toddler to eat in vain before sitting down.
“What, Veronica?” He demanded. “You what?”
And she said the first thing that came to her head.
“I missed my dad.”
The words broke something inside her and sobs began to bubble out of her chest, large, painful, gurgling sobs as she struggled to breathe through them. She didn’t want to cry, but the knowledge of the truth in her statement overwhelmed her and she couldn‘t stop.
“I thought you were going to kill him and I know you’re going to kill me eventually and you don’t even care. I’m never going to see him again and you, you could kill me by blinking and you won’t and I can’t do this, I can’t take it and you just killed three people in a diner because I used a phone and left everyone else severely injured and traumatized…”
He knelt down in front of her and it made her stop mid sentence. Somewhere in the middle of her breakdown he’d gotten one of the tea towels left by the sink and run it under water. His head quirked to the side as he examined her forehead.
“I forgot.” He explained simply, voice soft in wonder. “Sometimes I forget what it’s like to bleed.”
She shivered, but kept still as he pressed the damp cloth to the cut on her head. It stung and she closed her eyes, almost welcomed the pain, definitely welcomed the cool wetness. Her words came back to her and she clenched her jaw in regret as she realized the weapon she’d given him.
But it gave her an idea.
He was not going to let her go, she understood that by now, a fact borne out by the elaborate acts he’d performed to keep her with him and the immediate violence done to anyone who looked like they might help her, even unknowingly. There was no way she could get away from him herself, he was inhumanly powerful and she couldn’t even lie.
He would not let her go, but he was easily angered and somewhat unaware of the body’s natural limits. He had hurt her several times by accident, by the sheer implausibility of not thinking what would happen if he slammed her head into a booth as he dragged her past, by throwing her across the room or shoving her head into a car seat.
It was possible that she could anger him, push him past the point of his control, to the point of hurting her badly enough that he would have no choice but to take her to a hospital, or even taking her out of the equation altogether.
The thought scared her, but not as much as the realization that she was seriously considering it.
“Forget?” Her sudden question startled him and she watched the confusion ride his face. “Like you would even know.”
The second she said it, she stopped breathing, biting her tongue, and counted down, one, two, three… nothing. He didn’t react, just watched her with careful eyes. He sat back on his heels and considered her face, eyes darting left to right as he twisted the bloody cloth in his lap. Her body tensed in anticipation, muscles seizing.
“I did know.” His calm unnerved her. “The regeneration is new. I got it from a cheerleader not that long ago.”
Like he was explaining the purchase of a briefcase. Like he wasn’t staring at the cut on her head or reaching out to push at the wound with his finger until it started to bleed again. Like it didn’t make his eyes flash with something she was afraid was desire.
Did the cheerleader come fix you up?
She flashed back to the restaurant and the entire misunderstanding that brought her there, his anger and the outrage he‘d shown at the very idea. The scene took on a new meaning, disturbing on a new level now that she understood he’d thought she was a woman he’d killed that had come back at the hands of someone else.
“Got it? As in, she gave it to you?”
He chuckled, a satisfied, smug little remembrance that chilled her.
“Something like that.”
Veronica did not want to know exactly what that meant, she wanted to stop the conversation and pretend it had never happened, but she was afraid she already knew.
“You stole it, you…” He did not back down, did not even pretend to deny it. “That’s why you kill them.”
He nodded, a smile growing on his face, following her train of thought and obviously pleased with her ability to put the pieces together. The slow thudding of her brain sharpened to a scratching reminder on her hip, the red slash of a healing burn.
“And the sparks? They belonged to…?”
She could not voice the thought, didn’t even have the words.
His hand came up between them and sparked again, a crackling ball of blue light and for a second his eyes looked almost fascinated with it, entranced, and she tried not to scuttle backwards, tried not to appear too afraid.
“Elle. Her name was Elle” It was a brief flash of annoyance before it was gone and his eagerness continued. “And no, I didn’t kill her for the electricity, nor did I kill the eternally regenerating cheerleader of sickening optimism. Not for lack of trying.”
“Is that…?” It stuck in her throat, vile and choking. “Is that how you have all these powers? You kill for them?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes.”
He handed her the cloth and brought her hands up to hold it against her forehead, understanding that apparently movement or awareness was beyond her at that moment. An hysterical little giggle bubbled up in her chest, cracking harsh and dry out of her lips.
“You just… you just kill people?”
He hesitated for a moment, considering.
“Those with powers I want, yes.”
She shuddered and closed her eyes, slumping even further down against the bed, an unconscious effort to put space between them. He was casual, too casual about the entire thing. She had spoken to people who had killed others before, some deranged like Aaron and some even and calm like Cassidy, lying to everyone for over two years, but each one of them had shown some emotion, a flicker of acknowledgement that what they’d done had an import greater than choosing which socks to wear or buying bread.
He was being honest, she knew without even analysing the conversation or the apparent lack of tells. There was something too stark and honest about his words. They were too brutal to be false.
“What...?” She paused, unsure, and saw the smallest little gesture of his head to encourage her to continue. The freedom of talking after a week of near silence ran through her, sang in her veins and she took a deep breath before continuing. “What’s your name?”
His surprise was evident in the way his eyebrows rose to his hairline, but the light in his eyes spoke of his approval. She felt it curl in her belly, sweet like thick ice-cream that curdled and turned sour. She had done something right, something that wouldn’t result in pain or terror. Almost instantly, she had to remind herself that she didn’t want to seek his approval or appreciation, she was not out to garner little kernels of reward from him.
The thought stuck in her brain, a desperate horror, the sickening truth of how easy that trap would be.
“They call me Sylar.”
His voice rang so many warning bells she practically shuddered on her own.
“They call you?”
That satisfied, smug little grin came back and it was just as unnerving as it had been before.
There was a knock on the door, too sudden and too loud to be anything good.
He looked at her with a silent warning on his face and she nodded without thinking, scrambled onto her feet and headed for the little bathroom. The sudden movement made her dizzy and she leaned heavy against the doorframe. She could hear him shuffling, stalling for just a second, and then the clink of the chain being released and the knob turning.
“Can I help you?”
The shift was startling, from chilling murder admissions to amicable normality in the blink of an eye. She would have been hard pressed to find a flaw in his show of a tired man roused from his motel room at nearly midnight.
“Sorry to bother you, sir.” The voice that floated through the small room was a man in his fifties or near enough. “I know it’s late, but you just booked in and I assumed you were still awake…”
A peek around the door gave Veronica a view of his hand holding the front door open, his fingers tense and tight around the wood. His left foot was hooked up and his toes were tapping impatiently on the floor. She flicked her eyes back up to head height to listen further.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“I got a call from one of the other guests, said they saw you bring in a woman, mighty beat up they said. They wanted to call the police, but I thought I’d check it out first, privacy of my customers and all.”
“That’s…” He paused and Veronica’s brain began to shift into gear. “Awfully considerate of you. But there’s nothing here…”
“Look, sir.” The manager’s voice began to cool, suspicion making it sharper. “Just let me talk to her and I’ll be out of your hair. I don’t want to call the cops…”
Across the room, Veronica watched a lamp rise from the small bedside table, its wire dangling ominously as it hovered towards the door.
It was a split second decision and before she knew it, Veronica was disobeying her second order in five hours as she roughly smoothed her hair back and dug the heel of her palm into her one good eye before she stepped forward.
Sylar gave the slightest little jump as she rounded him with a hand on his waist and a weary, weak smile on her face.
“Hi.” The blur of exhaustion in her voice wasn’t entirely an act. “I’m causing a lot of trouble, aren’t I? I must look a mess.”
The manager standing on the doorstep was balding and pudgy, several years past middle age, and he frowned as he eyed her face, his beady, concerned eyes doing one large arc over her features before flicking back to the man at her side. She felt the forming bruise and the swelling more than ever.
“I was attacked earlier tonight.” She explained a little breathlessly, a little scared and trembly. “In our house. We’ve just spent the last six hours with the police and I… I just… I can’t go back there tonight.”
With every word, she’d gotten more upset and the tears that came to the surface weren’t entirely an act. She felt the sympathy ooze from the manager in front of them as she buried her head in her captor’s neck, curled her whole body into the crook of his arm. Sylar stilled for just a second before his hand carefully rose and wrapped around her shoulders, fingers settling easily into her hair and stroking it.
“Shh.” He whispered softly into her ear, a completely believable performance. “It’s okay now.”
“I’m sorry.” Came the rushed, apologetic voice of the manager. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Please.” Sylar’s calm, even voice echoed as she felt it rumble out of his chest. “We’d really like our rest.”
Veronica stayed still, curled into his larger body as the door closed, again with the final little click. She counted the seconds as they slid by, waiting, trying not to push the limit any further. At any second she expected a reaction, loud and violent and angry. Anticipation of pain made her dizziness spiral.
Instead, he continued to stroke her hair.
The moment grew stifling, suffocating as she held herself still and frozen in his arms until he could no longer ignore her lack of response. And then he stepped back, released her in a rush of movement and crackling energy.
“You must be tired.” He told the carpet in front of his feet. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up first?”
In the bathroom she moved slow and unfocused, blinking at the bruises on her arms and wrists, peering into the mirror at the strange, non-symmetrical shapes of her swollen face. The water in the shower was only slightly warm and she shivered, opening her parched mouth and drinking the water, letting it soothe the dry, cracked, fuzzy feeling inside.
He was solicitous when she stepped out, buzzing around her like a swarming insect, leading her to the bed, bringing her a bottle of water from the small fridge, a plate of dry crackers and cheese that was the only edible thing he could find. He apologized for not letting her eat the entire day, for everything, and as her teeth automatically ground down on food she really didn’t want anymore despite the gnawing knot her stomach had rolled into, Veronica took note.
She had not spent the last three years neck deep in criminology and psych text books, throwing away the better parts of her summers slaving away at increasingly intense FBI internships, every single other spare moment of her time chasing down criminals and cheats for no reason.
Apparently, some of it had stuck, and it had a real life application.
The man before her now was not the unpredictable, violent psychopath who liked to spark electricity into her to watch her squirm as he told her of its origins, nor was he the deceptively quiet, gentle passive man with intelligence practically shining from his eyes as he devised even worse punishments.
She could see it as clearly as if it was laid out in front of her like a photo album.
An awkward, unsociable teen, few if any friends, always the butt of cruel jokes. A domineering parent, most likely a mother. Pushed to the side, never ever measuring up, drowning in his absolute mediocrity. Days, months, years of dreaming, wanting, needing to get out, get away, prove himself.
How he must have vibrated when he discovered his first power.
It followed: the entire story she didn’t know but could guess at, the sudden rush of superiority, not just imagined but fact, the desperation for more, the insatiable need to grow bigger and better and surpass everyone and everything.
And, through it all, the lonely, awkward shy boy that never fit in.
He would never stop searching for inclusion and how easy he must have been to manipulate to those that knew him. No matter that he could destroy anyone in his path, heal from any wound, he would never shake that feeling of being the last one left in the corner, watching the world go by.
She could still feel the way he’d tightened when she’d touched him. A simple gesture, her hand to his waist, but he’d been affected, had frozen momentarily. The way he’d lightly wrapped his arm around her shoulders, even though she’d practically buried herself into his embrace, spoke volumes about the ingrained fear of rejection.
For that moment, and for the moments after the door had closed and he hadn’t let her go, he must have felt it.
The longer she could engender that feeling, that us against them momentum, the stronger her chances were of making it out of this alive.
Later that night when he finally turned out the light and got into the bed, Veronica did not react when he slipped under the covers for the first time. She held herself still and as relaxed as much as possible as she felt the heat from his body close enough to her back to peel the skin away and his hand at her waist, an anchor that threatened to crush her.
She closed her eyes and forced herself not to think about bodies piled up in his wake, or about Logan slipping his hand into hers barely three weeks ago and admitting that he wanted to try again, the slow build up where both of them had promised to take things slow even though she could read the hunger and lust and frustration in Logan’s eyes, probably mirrored in hers.
It was no longer about morals; it had become a matter of survival.
***
***
It was barely six am when Noah knocked on Keith’s door, the sun peeking over the horizon and bleeding everything with a light orange glow. In the previous week, he had learned one irrefutable fact: there was no such thing as too early or too late for Keith Mars when it came to his daughter, only too slow. It was a feeling he could relate to.
On one hand, Noah could understand the urgency and near obsessive mania with which Keith moved, all the phone calls to the FBI or other contacts both official and not, the desperateness with which he’d coaxed information out of the hospitalized bikers. If it had been Claire, Noah would have wasted no time and left no resource untapped to find her, get her back from Sylar.
On the other hand, of course, there was the pure intellectual side in which Noah had first hand knowledge of and experience with Sylar. The man would not be caught with pure detective work alone, he was not a bail jumper running from the law. They had to be patient and wait for Sylar’s eventual weakness. The need to kill. No matter how low he flew under the radar, the man always managed to leave a trail of bodies behind.
Although, Noah had the sneaking suspicion that explaining this to Keith wouldn’t be productive at all.
It was one thing explaining that your daughter’s captor was a telekinetic super powered psychotic murderer, it was another thing altogether to suggest waiting for the pile of bodies that may or may not include your daughter’s ravaged form.
Personally, Noah didn’t believe Sylar would hurt Veronica. At least, not for a while, not lethally anyway.
He had studied Sylar all the way back to Gabriel Gray, mild mannered, meek little Gabriel that wooed Elle and showed remorse. And if there was one thing consistent between both of them, it was the deep, instinctual need for redemption.
The same Gabriel Gray that cried and tried to hang himself over Brian Davis was the same Sylar that drew on the floor in his adopted mother’s blood, that left the charred remains of Elle on a deserted Californian beach, that instantly recognized the horror of his actions and regretted them.
His reactions were different, of course, but the motivations were still the same.
And this time, with Veronica in Elle’s stead, Noah felt fairly confident it would not turn to murder anytime soon.
But this was not a theory he could share with Keith, it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t concrete and he would not stake his life on it, nor that of an innocent twenty two year old woman.
It was obvious when the door opened that Keith had not slept.
Not that Noah blamed him, he had listened to the voicemail himself and could only imagine the havoc it caused in Keith. Blackened shadows under his eyes told of little, if any sleep, a nightmare behind each closed lid, the imagined reliving of the actions that might have caused those screams and that awful little moan at the end.
Imagination was sometimes a cruel mistress and it was this thought that pushed Noah over the line of reasoning he’d been sitting on for the past hour. He sat his laptop on the small table and clicked it open, immediately bringing up an email.
It could go either way, make Keith’s path clearer or cloudier, depending on the reaction, but Noah trusted his instincts. He saw in Keith a kindred spirit of sorts, the cold, clinical ability to process difficult things and use them for personal means.
The compulsive way Keith’s thumb flicked over his cell phone told Noah all he needed, confirmation that the man had spent the majority of his past waking hours listening to that voicemail over and over again. He knew that Keith had replaced the outgoing message to one directly addressing Veronica in case she made contact again.
He knew that Keith had spent the last night organising a new cell phone, a new number and had contacted somebody back in Neptune to arrange a mass email and message system alerting his contacts, every one of his past, present and possibly future clients, as well as anyone who might have even glanced at the sign on the door that he had a new number. The old cell was for his daughter only, the message strictly for her. One he’d obviously meant as comforting, would let her know her father was there and that he would never give up, no matter what she said, no man on Earth could keep him from his daughter. Keith would not leave her alone in this.
Keith seemed to care little for anyone he would alienate and Noah understood that, too.
They’d come to an uneasy truce and, for the moment, Noah believed neither of them were holding back information. They were similar creatures and seemed to run on the same protective father track.
The video footage on the laptop screen swam into focus.
Security footage of the gas station and diner Sylar had stopped at the night before. A blurry replay of the violence done, seen through obscure angles and cloudy windows. The cameras had been focused on the gas pumps, but the scene inside the diner could be made out with a keen eye.
He did not doubt Keith had one of those.
Noah knew what the footage showed, the car driving up to the pumps, the pause of inaction that any logical person could deduce as the threats and warnings, then Sylar leaving. He’d already seen it and so he watched Keith’s face as Veronica slowly got out of the car herself, saw a strange expression cross his features and knew what the man was thinking, that brief, inane, stupid second of hope as she was left alone. Keith obviously knew what came next, they both knew it, but he still had that reflex of you’re free, you’re free, run!. He watched Keith’s expression sink when she didn’t.
It was like a bad horror film as the footage continued, her walking into the diner and the moments that followed, the movement inside that must have been her sitting down, swiping the phone, making the call. And then Sylar, the commotion that followed, the destruction. People flying, blood and screams and everything they already knew from the audio.
He could name the three people that died, the busboy who’d lost his phone, the waitress who’d tried to help him and the first to die, a man who’d stepped up to help Veronica at the first sign of trouble, but this information would not help Keith, would not reassure him, only deepen the growing dread.
Noah kept them to himself.
Keith’s face scrunched, grew red and pained and Noah could only imagine what was going through his head. He’d told Keith, the boy witness had told Keith what had happened, but hearing about the abilities and seeing them for sure were two completely different things.
He knew what he was looking for as, on screen, Sylar grabbed Veronica and pulled her along. She was little more than a rag doll as she bounced off the wooden booth, her body going limp and sluggish and compliant. And he saw it, a brief little flicker of hope on Keith’s face.
They were similar creatures, Noah and Keith, and he knew what Keith had seen. The expression on Sylar’s face. Surprise and regret; swallowed up a moment later when the waitress came to help and then the murderous fury again.
He hadn’t meant to hurt Veronica and that fact was small comfort, but Keith would take what he could get.
Keith’s thoughts were basically written on his face: Maybe he would be more careful with her in the future, maybe he would feel enough guilt to let her go, maybe he would realize what a complete psychotic nutbar he was and give himself in.
Noah’s hopes didn’t go that far, but he figured it did signify a measure of reluctance to harm her and that could only be good.
“A little out of the way place called Bettie’s or Bertha’s or some charming name.” He finally said. “It’s in Tuscon, seven hour drive. They must have driven straight through, no stops.”
Keith fumbled with the cell in his hand, thumb itching over the replay button as Noah continued.
“We can be there in five or less if you let me drive and don’t question my methods.”
A loud sound vibrated against Keith’s thigh and Noah watched curiously as he held the second cell with a finger held up in the age old sign of delay.
“Oh.” Keith answered with a gesture to his phone before he answered it. “I’m not going.”
At least, Noah had believed they’d given each other full disclosure.
“You’re not going?” He asked the second Keith snapped his phone shut. “Veronica’s last known location and you’re...?”
“Camp Verde.” Keith explained. “It’s about three hours north of Tuscon, six hours from here. I’m going there.”
Next to the motel bed sat two small bags, already packed and ready. If there was one thing he’d learned it was that Keith knew how to travel light and travel fast, changing direction at the drop of a hat. Noah figured bail jumpers rarely if ever were very considerate of those chasing them.
“And I can make it in four if you don’t question my methods.”
He paused for a second and then nodded, absorbing the new information before packing up his laptop.
“He’s zagging.”
Keith smiled tightly.
“Motel night shift worker.” Keith locked the door behind them and palmed the keycard. “Saw a bruised, beaten blonde girl fitting Veronica’s description. They checked in late last night, around midnight. Didn’t report it, apparently it was sorted out in house. I have an old contact in the area.”
His shoes slapped against the concrete steps as they hustled down. Noah had already packed, his bags were safely in the trunk of the car. He noted that Keith didn’t question this. They walked in stride towards the manager’s office.
“And?” Noah prompted, the unspoken question heavy in the air.
“She covered for him.”
It was something of a relief not to have to over explain himself and have everything over explained in return. Noah had spent the majority of his life working for the company, hunting down people with abilities, working with people who either had them or knew about them and he was quite often surprised at how little people understood about the world around them.
Thankfully, Keith was half way capable and intelligent, able to follow the threads of a conversation, the meaning behind the words.
They waited until they’d handed in their keys and were back in the car before Noah continued.
“She’s good.”
Keith turned to Noah and nodded, a spark of visceral pride warring heavily with the fear that had to be inside his chest.
“People are already dead.” The words sounded hard to say, a mixture of fear that little stood in the way of his daughter being next and gratitude she wasn’t already. “She won’t risk more.”
Unfortunately for Keith, despite his best efforts, they both knew that left little chance of repeat contact.
She was slipping further and further from their grasp.
***
Sylar balanced the tray and bag in his right arm as he opened the driver side door. He slipped into the seat awkwardly and silently cursed Bennett and the fact he had tipped off the disapparator.
He held out one of the Styrofoam cups.
“Coffee?”
Veronica shrugged, sitting still in the passenger seat, slumped with her forehead against the window. She hadn’t said much since he’d woken her three hours before. They’d dressed, stripped the room of any sign they’d been there and driven far, far away from their last witness, stopping only once to change cars. She was now a prisoner of the latest car, one he’d chosen for its tinted windows, and was not able to leave until night when they stopped again.
He was not going to be so foolish this time, nor was he going to let anyone else get a stray glance at her face until it had healed. Bruises and swelling attracted too many questions.
He could still feel the slide of her hand on his skin and, more than that, the thrill of talking with her, with someone, anyone, without falsity or pretence. She had a truly invigorating ability to piece together strings of conversation, complete pathways that usually had to be spelled out to people. He hadn’t felt that way since Chandra Suresh.
When she’d woken, though, she’d been distant again and the car trip had been quiet and nerve wracking.
But she turned her head slowly to look at him and reached out to take the cup. He watched her bring it up to sniff, opening the lid just a little to let the steam waft into her face, and her nose wrinkled.
He flicked at the little sachets lying in the cardboard tray on the console between them.
“Sugar? Cream?”
“It’s okay.”
The resulting shudder made him chuckle.
“It’s crap.” He felt slightly gratified when she nodded, a brief, transient reflex before she caught herself and stopped. “Cheap, but available. For future reference, though, how do you like your coffee?”
She shrugged again and tried to force a mouthful, features twisted against the taste.
“It’s not important.”
He shuddered again and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Right.” She sighed, tinged with a little defeat. “I was a barista once. Coffee is essential.”
Sometimes he was almost convinced that the truth thing was better than all the other powers.
But never completely.
And when he reached down to get his own sugar packet, her hand was already there. Warm, thin, fragile skin under his fingertips and he held his breath. Almost instantly she pulled away, a scrape of molecules, but she stopped herself in the next second and her hand went still and flat, an inch away from where it had been.
He could see her posture change, the tightly held breath, the averted eyes, the tense corded muscles as she forced herself still. Her thought processes were written on her skin and he could practically hear the machinations at work in her head.
She thought he would be easier with her if she played things his way, if she sat still and let him run his fingers over hers.
The barest edge of his fingernail swung like a pendulum along the lines of the tendons in the back of her hand, back and forth, slow tracings of sinew and skin, and he watched the pulse of her throat speed up, her jaw clench tighter.
Her body was frozen as she forced it into submission and he was hit with a thunder clap of images, brief flashes of bodies and faces and other hands. Hands that had touched her, that had created a much different reaction in her body, in her expression. Skin she had touched back.
His fingers closed in on hers, trapping her fist like a spider, and his grip tightened, increased, as he watched the surprise on her face quickly turn to pain. He kept the pressure up, squeezed her fingers until he could feel her rushed, rapid pulse through the paper thin webbing, feel the bones grind against each other.
With a short, restrained cry, she pulled her hand out, tugging it free and cradling it up to her chest as the coffee cup balanced precariously in her other hand.
“I will kill them.” He promised. “If they find you.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered for a second, before bowing her head towards her chest, the skin around her eyes crinkling. Even without her eyes open, he could see the tears that threatened to break through. Then she breathed a big, deep lungful of air before she nodded.
“Maybe I should dye my hair.” She nestled the cup clumsily between her knees as she brought her hand up to cradle the injured one. “Or cut it. I’ll be harder to recognize...”
He didn’t answer as he tossed a wrapped blueberry muffin in the direction of her lap. The gears changed rapidly, angrily as he revved the engine and took off. His fingers gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white, wrists shaking, and he could hear the empty silence that was supposed to be her breath.
When her stillness became too stifling, he clenched his fists tighter around the wheel before releasing them.
“No.”
She turned to face him cautiously, eyes wide and wary.
“We’re too... I’m too noticeable. They’re looking for me, for both of us. If I changed my appearance...”
Maybe she covered well, moving on without blinking, her eyes a little too casual for the situation, but he’d caught it, that instinctual rewind, that pause and shudder at her inclusive statement. The retraction and purposeful separation from him.
He smiled gently and carefully and coldly.
“Bennet’s not looking for you. He doesn’t know how to find you. He’s looking for me and I know how to avoid him. I guarantee you he’s hours behind us sifting through the footage of that little di...”
The shadow that crossed her face made him stop. It probably wasn’t a good idea to remind her of all the dead people she apparently took to heart.
They drove on. He noticed she’d stopped watching the road signs, had stopped sometime the day before. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that.
“But my dad...” Her voice came in a quiet, unsure little tremble. “He makes a living finding people. And he’s good at it. He’s probably at the motel already.”
It was a quick, sideways glance in her direction, but he didn’t need it, not really. There’d been no shudder, not even a slight feeling of unease. She was telling the truth, at least the truth as she knew it. It sank deep into his abdomen, a tightening.
The thrill of the chase, hunted by new predators, the opportunity for more prey.
He smiled, the tip of his tongue pointing out from his teeth.
“I look forward to meeting him then.”
And when she sat back in the seat, head falling sideways, he watched the hands clutched to her chest fall limply down, knocking the muffin between her knees all the way to the floor. His eyes slid back up her legs, to the tangle of fingers and palms that sat loosely in her lap, the indent and bulge of her hips and waist bent into the seat, the press of her chest around the seat belt. All the way up the line of her neck and jaw and the side of her ear.
Saliva leaked from his canine teeth.
“Your appearance is what’s keeping you alive, Veronica, don’t be in too much of a hurry to change that.”
***
When the policeman pulled them over, Keith showed him his medical ID and quite urgently explained about the last minute emergency organ transfer, complete with fake cooler containing dry ice, second hand medical instruments and a scrubbed and trimmed cow liver.
Noah didn’t blink when he got back in the car, but there was a glint of amusement hidden behind the glasses.
“Do that often?”
“Only on Sundays.” Keith pulled the strap of his seatbelt over his chest. “Won’t work in most cities, but the further out you go, the less chance they’ll check the databases.”
A brief nod of understanding.
“It’s a lot easier than killing them and hiding the bodies, I guess.”
Keith bit his tongue and tightened his fingers on the wheel. He was ninety percent sure Noah was joking, but there was always that ten percent that wasn’t quite convinced the man was on the up and up. In fact, he was pretty damn sure Noah was fairly deep into the low and low. In the week they’d spent together, the man had released very little about the supposed private firm he worked for.
The less details Noah gave, the more suspicious Keith became.
They dealt with things, Keith hesitated to even think the word supernatural, of a different nature, people with powers, comic book stories and fables, that much was clear. And Noah barely even blinked as he talked of Sylar’s kills, the people that had died for their gifts.
He spoke of murder, bloodshed and death in the same tone of voice he ordered coffee and a bagel, he didn’t blink at Keith’s gun holster, naturally assumed information obvious to those familiar with law enforcement well, but was too willing and able to break the law to be a part of it.
If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, Keith really would have liked to take the time needed to drag all the information out of the man, some truths.
He highly suspected truth wasn’t an easy commodity in this man’s life.
Keith longed for the simple days of cheats, thugs, mobsters, blackmailers, frauds and murderers.
His cell rattled in the console between them and it made his jaw clench a little tighter. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand, as if he didn’t want to talk to them, but after eight calls in one day there was just no news to report and he was beginning to loathe being the one to tell Logan or Wallace the bad news.
It rang out.
Another buzz sounded between them and Keith focused on the road ahead. The secret to good car trips was to at least pretend not to eavesdrop. He kept his eyes on the blur trip blur of little white lines disappearing under the wheels, but of course he kept his ears inside the car.
“Wait? What do you mean she’s not there? Where would she...?” A pause, a tightly controlled breath. “Where do you think she is, Sandra?”
Soft squeaking and muffled, indistinguishable words.
“She’s supposed to be... I said...” More muffled, hushed, and even-voiced arguing. “Leave it with me.”
With a soft click, Noah sighed next to him as he began punching another number into his cell.
“I would kill her myself if I wasn’t too busy saving her hide.”
A knowing smile teased the edges of Keith’s mouth.
“Teenage daughter?”
A dry chuckle escaped.
“What gave it away?”
And then the moment ended, Noah’s voice slipping from friendly to cold and measured.
“Angela. Where’s my daughter? What do you mean, shopping?” But the careful indifference soon gave way to spluttering. “You gave her what?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Keith watched Noah’s face turn a deep pink.
“I know you’re her grandmother, but you can’t...” Another pause. “No, Angela, despite your ever increasingly frightening logic, not all seventeen year old girls deserve a fully funded no limit credit card.”
Leanne’s parents had never really met Veronica and his own had passed long before materialism had become an issue, but Keith tried to picture his own reaction had either of them gone over his head so blatantly. Despite the many times he’d fallen short in her teenage years, he prided himself on having taught Veronica the value of reward for honest work.
The conversation ended and the car filled with a cloud of awkward silence.
“In law?” At Noah’s confusion, Keith continued. “It seemed a little tense for it to be your own...”
But the tension in Noah disappeared and the distant control returned.
“No. Claire’s adopted.”
He tried to picture his reaction had it been Jake Kane who’d done the same thing and he was self aware enough to realise that it would not have been pretty. And probably not legal, either.
The road continued to disappear under their feet, the road signs blurred into each other, dilapidated road stop after dilapidated road stop flew by the windows. The air felt cold and stony, a blanket of unease and discomfort mothering them both.
“She likely to break the bank?” Keith offered. “Do some damage at the mall?”
If nothing else, fathers of teenage daughters were able to commiserate over...
“No.” The word was short, but the meaning behind them wasn’t. “She’s a little more focused than that.”
The words struck something in Keith, something familiar and bone deep he had not learned to overlook yet, despite his years of training.
“Focused on?”
To his right, Noah sighed.
“Sylar.” The name hung heavy and volatile between them and Keith waited for Noah to elaborate. “She’s going to come after him and Angela knows it.”
No one had ever accused him of being slow to pick up the clues and Keith calmly turned the indicator on and pulled the car to the side of the road before facing Noah fully.
“Why?”
Years of practice had fine tuned his instincts and he knew, knew without a doubt, that it was a moment of truth, that whatever Noah said then would be the truth.
“He took something from her. She wants revenge.”
The dots filled themselves in and Keith felt a slow growing anger boil up, rolling around in the pit of his belly.
“She’s one of them, isn’t she? She’s... and you didn’t tell me? He could be killing my daughter and you didn’t...!”
And then his brain caught up with his fury and he stopped. Noah hadn’t met his eyes.
“But she’s still alive. You said they all died, you said he killed...”
“She regenerates.” Was the answer, cold and emotionless and just on this side of guilty and defensive. “She can heal. It doesn’t matter what he did, she can’t die.”
Keith didn’t say anything else. He turned back to face forward, started the car, and began to drive.
He thought about Veronica at seventeen, her fanatical search for the truth and justice and how much damage she’d done to herself to get it, then he thought about the same girl given a bottomless pit of funds and how much more trouble she could have found. The possibility scared him witless.
Then he thought about the fact Noah’s daughter could never be burned in a refrigerator or thrown off a building or shot in the middle of an FBI training mission or slaughtered by a raving lunatic and his sympathy for the man’s situation lessened.
***
“Really?” Claire practically burst out of her seat. “You’re really giving me a credit card?”
Across the desk, Angela folded her hands over themselves, the pale whites of her meticulous French manicure landing softly in little pats over her skin.
“It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?” Angela smiled, the gesture not quite meeting her eyes. “Your father was never expected to fun his little excursions for the company, I’m not sure why you should have to.”
A thrill passed through her, vibrant and uncontrollable.
“Then I was right?” Claire sat up straighter. “Sylar’s alive?”
“Well.” Angela leaned back. “That’s just something you’re going to have prove, isn’t it?”
Claire smiled and it was a gesture she knew met her eyes, she could barely keep it from overriding her entire system. Her eyes blinked, lashes bouncing off the tops of her cheeks in a practiced motion.
“You know.” She suggested carefully. “My father also had a partner and guns.”
Angela’s smile was genuine this time and slightly indulgent.
“You realise you can’t be harmed, don’t you Claire?” Angela sat up straighter and pressed a button on the phone on her desk. “You’re also quite right.”
The door opened behind her and Claire turned to see two men enter.
***
Read the rest of this chapter HERE
Author: wily_one24, Jacqui.
Rating R.
Characters/fandoms:. Veronica and Sylar, yes... it's a Veronica Mars/Heroes crossover. Also contains some other cast favourites, including Keith, Claire, Angela and Noah.
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: 11,625.
Disclaimer: Oh, yeah, they're totally mine. Absolutely.
Summary: It didn’t matter how much she knew going in, eyes wide open she would still fall under.
Previous Chapters: Found here.
*~*~*~*~*
GIRL IN THE MIRROR, ch2
*~*~*~*~*
Veronica did as she was told for the several hours it took him to drive to a motel far away from the little diner.
Her head was thick and blurry, a heavy ache making her close the one eye that wasn‘t already swollen shut, it pounded hard inside her skull. Her forearms stung, pulsed with the bruises she knew would be there if she looked.
She didn't watch the road, the lights blurred and shone and stung her eyes, and she lost track of the direction they were headed.
In her mind, she couldn't forget the sight of the innocent busboy, his face turning purple and struggling against the pressure around his throat. He'd died for his cell and hadn't even known why. Her own injuries, a swollen, blackened eye where he'd pulled her across the diner and into the side of a booth, the marks where he'd held too tightly to her wrists and arms, they were nothing. Nothing.
When he left to pay for the room, Veronica sat in the car and didn't even think about moving.
Her hand shook as she lifted fingers to her forehead, they came away sticky with half dried blood. She'd gotten away easy, too easy as she thought about all the screams they'd left behind.
"Come on."
He was back before she knew it, opening her door and reaching in to pull her out.
She flinched away from his hand and his jaw tightened.
"I didn't kill them all."
He made it sound like a good thing and she refused to look up at him as she eased herself out of the seat, twisted to avoid his touch altogether.
"I told you." His voice rose a little, twanged too high for the pure anger he'd been coursing with since he'd found her with the cell. "I told you what would happen."
She nursed the only comfort she had, a small one at that, denying him. The more she ignored him, the more he volleyed for her attention. In any other situation it might have been amusing, but there was nothing positive to be found in his need for her approval.
The motel room was no surprise, small and bare and of questionable hygiene, the same as any small motel room at any small highway stop. She stood in the doorway and felt her knees shake, felt her entire body tremble with exhaustion and the sludge that came with expended adrenaline.
Dizziness overwhelmed her and she stumbled, taking a clumsy step forward to balance, but his hand on the small of her back pushed her further into the room and she pushed her hands out to soften the fall as he entered with two bags and closed the door.
The lock clicked with a finality that made her stay down on the worn carpet.
“You tricked me.” He said it calmly, but she heard the undercurrent buried underneath it as he placed the bags on a side table and turned around. “And let me tell you, Veronica, I don’t like being tricked.”
Pushing herself up on her elbows, she caught the gasp of pain that flashed through her forearms and bit her lip to slowly bring her legs in under her and turn around. The room spun and she leaned her back against the foot of the bed, sitting on the carpet still with her knees brought up to her chest.
“I’m sorry.”
It came immediately to her mouth and she wanted to cry at the weakness of it. She’d said nothing else as he’d dragged her to the car and screamed out of the lot without paying for the gas, just the same two craven words over and over again until he’d told her in no uncertain words to stop it.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” She bit the words back when she noticed his brow furrowing, swallowed them and forced her brain to come up with something else. “I… I didn’t plan it, I wasn’t going to… I…”
She stopped speaking to consider her words. It struck her that he was already treading a fine line of control and wouldn’t appreciate one of his flashes if she lied. It wouldn’t help her case to plead innocent, to say she hadn’t meant to. Nobody accidentally steals another person’s cell phone and then risks everyone’s life to use it.
What had she done? She’d known what would happen, she’d known it before she’d even stepped through the door. Had known it even as she’d spotted the cell in the boy’s pocket, god he must have been in his mid teens, and formulated her plan. Had known it as she’d nodded briefly to a mother trying to get her toddler to eat in vain before sitting down.
“What, Veronica?” He demanded. “You what?”
And she said the first thing that came to her head.
“I missed my dad.”
The words broke something inside her and sobs began to bubble out of her chest, large, painful, gurgling sobs as she struggled to breathe through them. She didn’t want to cry, but the knowledge of the truth in her statement overwhelmed her and she couldn‘t stop.
“I thought you were going to kill him and I know you’re going to kill me eventually and you don’t even care. I’m never going to see him again and you, you could kill me by blinking and you won’t and I can’t do this, I can’t take it and you just killed three people in a diner because I used a phone and left everyone else severely injured and traumatized…”
He knelt down in front of her and it made her stop mid sentence. Somewhere in the middle of her breakdown he’d gotten one of the tea towels left by the sink and run it under water. His head quirked to the side as he examined her forehead.
“I forgot.” He explained simply, voice soft in wonder. “Sometimes I forget what it’s like to bleed.”
She shivered, but kept still as he pressed the damp cloth to the cut on her head. It stung and she closed her eyes, almost welcomed the pain, definitely welcomed the cool wetness. Her words came back to her and she clenched her jaw in regret as she realized the weapon she’d given him.
But it gave her an idea.
He was not going to let her go, she understood that by now, a fact borne out by the elaborate acts he’d performed to keep her with him and the immediate violence done to anyone who looked like they might help her, even unknowingly. There was no way she could get away from him herself, he was inhumanly powerful and she couldn’t even lie.
He would not let her go, but he was easily angered and somewhat unaware of the body’s natural limits. He had hurt her several times by accident, by the sheer implausibility of not thinking what would happen if he slammed her head into a booth as he dragged her past, by throwing her across the room or shoving her head into a car seat.
It was possible that she could anger him, push him past the point of his control, to the point of hurting her badly enough that he would have no choice but to take her to a hospital, or even taking her out of the equation altogether.
The thought scared her, but not as much as the realization that she was seriously considering it.
“Forget?” Her sudden question startled him and she watched the confusion ride his face. “Like you would even know.”
The second she said it, she stopped breathing, biting her tongue, and counted down, one, two, three… nothing. He didn’t react, just watched her with careful eyes. He sat back on his heels and considered her face, eyes darting left to right as he twisted the bloody cloth in his lap. Her body tensed in anticipation, muscles seizing.
“I did know.” His calm unnerved her. “The regeneration is new. I got it from a cheerleader not that long ago.”
Like he was explaining the purchase of a briefcase. Like he wasn’t staring at the cut on her head or reaching out to push at the wound with his finger until it started to bleed again. Like it didn’t make his eyes flash with something she was afraid was desire.
Did the cheerleader come fix you up?
She flashed back to the restaurant and the entire misunderstanding that brought her there, his anger and the outrage he‘d shown at the very idea. The scene took on a new meaning, disturbing on a new level now that she understood he’d thought she was a woman he’d killed that had come back at the hands of someone else.
“Got it? As in, she gave it to you?”
He chuckled, a satisfied, smug little remembrance that chilled her.
“Something like that.”
Veronica did not want to know exactly what that meant, she wanted to stop the conversation and pretend it had never happened, but she was afraid she already knew.
“You stole it, you…” He did not back down, did not even pretend to deny it. “That’s why you kill them.”
He nodded, a smile growing on his face, following her train of thought and obviously pleased with her ability to put the pieces together. The slow thudding of her brain sharpened to a scratching reminder on her hip, the red slash of a healing burn.
“And the sparks? They belonged to…?”
She could not voice the thought, didn’t even have the words.
His hand came up between them and sparked again, a crackling ball of blue light and for a second his eyes looked almost fascinated with it, entranced, and she tried not to scuttle backwards, tried not to appear too afraid.
“Elle. Her name was Elle” It was a brief flash of annoyance before it was gone and his eagerness continued. “And no, I didn’t kill her for the electricity, nor did I kill the eternally regenerating cheerleader of sickening optimism. Not for lack of trying.”
“Is that…?” It stuck in her throat, vile and choking. “Is that how you have all these powers? You kill for them?”
“Not to put too fine a point on it, but yes.”
He handed her the cloth and brought her hands up to hold it against her forehead, understanding that apparently movement or awareness was beyond her at that moment. An hysterical little giggle bubbled up in her chest, cracking harsh and dry out of her lips.
“You just… you just kill people?”
He hesitated for a moment, considering.
“Those with powers I want, yes.”
She shuddered and closed her eyes, slumping even further down against the bed, an unconscious effort to put space between them. He was casual, too casual about the entire thing. She had spoken to people who had killed others before, some deranged like Aaron and some even and calm like Cassidy, lying to everyone for over two years, but each one of them had shown some emotion, a flicker of acknowledgement that what they’d done had an import greater than choosing which socks to wear or buying bread.
He was being honest, she knew without even analysing the conversation or the apparent lack of tells. There was something too stark and honest about his words. They were too brutal to be false.
“What...?” She paused, unsure, and saw the smallest little gesture of his head to encourage her to continue. The freedom of talking after a week of near silence ran through her, sang in her veins and she took a deep breath before continuing. “What’s your name?”
His surprise was evident in the way his eyebrows rose to his hairline, but the light in his eyes spoke of his approval. She felt it curl in her belly, sweet like thick ice-cream that curdled and turned sour. She had done something right, something that wouldn’t result in pain or terror. Almost instantly, she had to remind herself that she didn’t want to seek his approval or appreciation, she was not out to garner little kernels of reward from him.
The thought stuck in her brain, a desperate horror, the sickening truth of how easy that trap would be.
“They call me Sylar.”
His voice rang so many warning bells she practically shuddered on her own.
“They call you?”
That satisfied, smug little grin came back and it was just as unnerving as it had been before.
There was a knock on the door, too sudden and too loud to be anything good.
He looked at her with a silent warning on his face and she nodded without thinking, scrambled onto her feet and headed for the little bathroom. The sudden movement made her dizzy and she leaned heavy against the doorframe. She could hear him shuffling, stalling for just a second, and then the clink of the chain being released and the knob turning.
“Can I help you?”
The shift was startling, from chilling murder admissions to amicable normality in the blink of an eye. She would have been hard pressed to find a flaw in his show of a tired man roused from his motel room at nearly midnight.
“Sorry to bother you, sir.” The voice that floated through the small room was a man in his fifties or near enough. “I know it’s late, but you just booked in and I assumed you were still awake…”
A peek around the door gave Veronica a view of his hand holding the front door open, his fingers tense and tight around the wood. His left foot was hooked up and his toes were tapping impatiently on the floor. She flicked her eyes back up to head height to listen further.
“Is there something I can help you with?”
“I got a call from one of the other guests, said they saw you bring in a woman, mighty beat up they said. They wanted to call the police, but I thought I’d check it out first, privacy of my customers and all.”
“That’s…” He paused and Veronica’s brain began to shift into gear. “Awfully considerate of you. But there’s nothing here…”
“Look, sir.” The manager’s voice began to cool, suspicion making it sharper. “Just let me talk to her and I’ll be out of your hair. I don’t want to call the cops…”
Across the room, Veronica watched a lamp rise from the small bedside table, its wire dangling ominously as it hovered towards the door.
It was a split second decision and before she knew it, Veronica was disobeying her second order in five hours as she roughly smoothed her hair back and dug the heel of her palm into her one good eye before she stepped forward.
Sylar gave the slightest little jump as she rounded him with a hand on his waist and a weary, weak smile on her face.
“Hi.” The blur of exhaustion in her voice wasn’t entirely an act. “I’m causing a lot of trouble, aren’t I? I must look a mess.”
The manager standing on the doorstep was balding and pudgy, several years past middle age, and he frowned as he eyed her face, his beady, concerned eyes doing one large arc over her features before flicking back to the man at her side. She felt the forming bruise and the swelling more than ever.
“I was attacked earlier tonight.” She explained a little breathlessly, a little scared and trembly. “In our house. We’ve just spent the last six hours with the police and I… I just… I can’t go back there tonight.”
With every word, she’d gotten more upset and the tears that came to the surface weren’t entirely an act. She felt the sympathy ooze from the manager in front of them as she buried her head in her captor’s neck, curled her whole body into the crook of his arm. Sylar stilled for just a second before his hand carefully rose and wrapped around her shoulders, fingers settling easily into her hair and stroking it.
“Shh.” He whispered softly into her ear, a completely believable performance. “It’s okay now.”
“I’m sorry.” Came the rushed, apologetic voice of the manager. “I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Please.” Sylar’s calm, even voice echoed as she felt it rumble out of his chest. “We’d really like our rest.”
Veronica stayed still, curled into his larger body as the door closed, again with the final little click. She counted the seconds as they slid by, waiting, trying not to push the limit any further. At any second she expected a reaction, loud and violent and angry. Anticipation of pain made her dizziness spiral.
Instead, he continued to stroke her hair.
The moment grew stifling, suffocating as she held herself still and frozen in his arms until he could no longer ignore her lack of response. And then he stepped back, released her in a rush of movement and crackling energy.
“You must be tired.” He told the carpet in front of his feet. “Why don’t you go get cleaned up first?”
In the bathroom she moved slow and unfocused, blinking at the bruises on her arms and wrists, peering into the mirror at the strange, non-symmetrical shapes of her swollen face. The water in the shower was only slightly warm and she shivered, opening her parched mouth and drinking the water, letting it soothe the dry, cracked, fuzzy feeling inside.
He was solicitous when she stepped out, buzzing around her like a swarming insect, leading her to the bed, bringing her a bottle of water from the small fridge, a plate of dry crackers and cheese that was the only edible thing he could find. He apologized for not letting her eat the entire day, for everything, and as her teeth automatically ground down on food she really didn’t want anymore despite the gnawing knot her stomach had rolled into, Veronica took note.
She had not spent the last three years neck deep in criminology and psych text books, throwing away the better parts of her summers slaving away at increasingly intense FBI internships, every single other spare moment of her time chasing down criminals and cheats for no reason.
Apparently, some of it had stuck, and it had a real life application.
The man before her now was not the unpredictable, violent psychopath who liked to spark electricity into her to watch her squirm as he told her of its origins, nor was he the deceptively quiet, gentle passive man with intelligence practically shining from his eyes as he devised even worse punishments.
She could see it as clearly as if it was laid out in front of her like a photo album.
An awkward, unsociable teen, few if any friends, always the butt of cruel jokes. A domineering parent, most likely a mother. Pushed to the side, never ever measuring up, drowning in his absolute mediocrity. Days, months, years of dreaming, wanting, needing to get out, get away, prove himself.
How he must have vibrated when he discovered his first power.
It followed: the entire story she didn’t know but could guess at, the sudden rush of superiority, not just imagined but fact, the desperation for more, the insatiable need to grow bigger and better and surpass everyone and everything.
And, through it all, the lonely, awkward shy boy that never fit in.
He would never stop searching for inclusion and how easy he must have been to manipulate to those that knew him. No matter that he could destroy anyone in his path, heal from any wound, he would never shake that feeling of being the last one left in the corner, watching the world go by.
She could still feel the way he’d tightened when she’d touched him. A simple gesture, her hand to his waist, but he’d been affected, had frozen momentarily. The way he’d lightly wrapped his arm around her shoulders, even though she’d practically buried herself into his embrace, spoke volumes about the ingrained fear of rejection.
For that moment, and for the moments after the door had closed and he hadn’t let her go, he must have felt it.
The longer she could engender that feeling, that us against them momentum, the stronger her chances were of making it out of this alive.
Later that night when he finally turned out the light and got into the bed, Veronica did not react when he slipped under the covers for the first time. She held herself still and as relaxed as much as possible as she felt the heat from his body close enough to her back to peel the skin away and his hand at her waist, an anchor that threatened to crush her.
She closed her eyes and forced herself not to think about bodies piled up in his wake, or about Logan slipping his hand into hers barely three weeks ago and admitting that he wanted to try again, the slow build up where both of them had promised to take things slow even though she could read the hunger and lust and frustration in Logan’s eyes, probably mirrored in hers.
It was no longer about morals; it had become a matter of survival.
***
***
It was barely six am when Noah knocked on Keith’s door, the sun peeking over the horizon and bleeding everything with a light orange glow. In the previous week, he had learned one irrefutable fact: there was no such thing as too early or too late for Keith Mars when it came to his daughter, only too slow. It was a feeling he could relate to.
On one hand, Noah could understand the urgency and near obsessive mania with which Keith moved, all the phone calls to the FBI or other contacts both official and not, the desperateness with which he’d coaxed information out of the hospitalized bikers. If it had been Claire, Noah would have wasted no time and left no resource untapped to find her, get her back from Sylar.
On the other hand, of course, there was the pure intellectual side in which Noah had first hand knowledge of and experience with Sylar. The man would not be caught with pure detective work alone, he was not a bail jumper running from the law. They had to be patient and wait for Sylar’s eventual weakness. The need to kill. No matter how low he flew under the radar, the man always managed to leave a trail of bodies behind.
Although, Noah had the sneaking suspicion that explaining this to Keith wouldn’t be productive at all.
It was one thing explaining that your daughter’s captor was a telekinetic super powered psychotic murderer, it was another thing altogether to suggest waiting for the pile of bodies that may or may not include your daughter’s ravaged form.
Personally, Noah didn’t believe Sylar would hurt Veronica. At least, not for a while, not lethally anyway.
He had studied Sylar all the way back to Gabriel Gray, mild mannered, meek little Gabriel that wooed Elle and showed remorse. And if there was one thing consistent between both of them, it was the deep, instinctual need for redemption.
The same Gabriel Gray that cried and tried to hang himself over Brian Davis was the same Sylar that drew on the floor in his adopted mother’s blood, that left the charred remains of Elle on a deserted Californian beach, that instantly recognized the horror of his actions and regretted them.
His reactions were different, of course, but the motivations were still the same.
And this time, with Veronica in Elle’s stead, Noah felt fairly confident it would not turn to murder anytime soon.
But this was not a theory he could share with Keith, it wasn’t pretty and it wasn’t concrete and he would not stake his life on it, nor that of an innocent twenty two year old woman.
It was obvious when the door opened that Keith had not slept.
Not that Noah blamed him, he had listened to the voicemail himself and could only imagine the havoc it caused in Keith. Blackened shadows under his eyes told of little, if any sleep, a nightmare behind each closed lid, the imagined reliving of the actions that might have caused those screams and that awful little moan at the end.
Imagination was sometimes a cruel mistress and it was this thought that pushed Noah over the line of reasoning he’d been sitting on for the past hour. He sat his laptop on the small table and clicked it open, immediately bringing up an email.
It could go either way, make Keith’s path clearer or cloudier, depending on the reaction, but Noah trusted his instincts. He saw in Keith a kindred spirit of sorts, the cold, clinical ability to process difficult things and use them for personal means.
The compulsive way Keith’s thumb flicked over his cell phone told Noah all he needed, confirmation that the man had spent the majority of his past waking hours listening to that voicemail over and over again. He knew that Keith had replaced the outgoing message to one directly addressing Veronica in case she made contact again.
He knew that Keith had spent the last night organising a new cell phone, a new number and had contacted somebody back in Neptune to arrange a mass email and message system alerting his contacts, every one of his past, present and possibly future clients, as well as anyone who might have even glanced at the sign on the door that he had a new number. The old cell was for his daughter only, the message strictly for her. One he’d obviously meant as comforting, would let her know her father was there and that he would never give up, no matter what she said, no man on Earth could keep him from his daughter. Keith would not leave her alone in this.
Keith seemed to care little for anyone he would alienate and Noah understood that, too.
They’d come to an uneasy truce and, for the moment, Noah believed neither of them were holding back information. They were similar creatures and seemed to run on the same protective father track.
The video footage on the laptop screen swam into focus.
Security footage of the gas station and diner Sylar had stopped at the night before. A blurry replay of the violence done, seen through obscure angles and cloudy windows. The cameras had been focused on the gas pumps, but the scene inside the diner could be made out with a keen eye.
He did not doubt Keith had one of those.
Noah knew what the footage showed, the car driving up to the pumps, the pause of inaction that any logical person could deduce as the threats and warnings, then Sylar leaving. He’d already seen it and so he watched Keith’s face as Veronica slowly got out of the car herself, saw a strange expression cross his features and knew what the man was thinking, that brief, inane, stupid second of hope as she was left alone. Keith obviously knew what came next, they both knew it, but he still had that reflex of you’re free, you’re free, run!. He watched Keith’s expression sink when she didn’t.
It was like a bad horror film as the footage continued, her walking into the diner and the moments that followed, the movement inside that must have been her sitting down, swiping the phone, making the call. And then Sylar, the commotion that followed, the destruction. People flying, blood and screams and everything they already knew from the audio.
He could name the three people that died, the busboy who’d lost his phone, the waitress who’d tried to help him and the first to die, a man who’d stepped up to help Veronica at the first sign of trouble, but this information would not help Keith, would not reassure him, only deepen the growing dread.
Noah kept them to himself.
Keith’s face scrunched, grew red and pained and Noah could only imagine what was going through his head. He’d told Keith, the boy witness had told Keith what had happened, but hearing about the abilities and seeing them for sure were two completely different things.
He knew what he was looking for as, on screen, Sylar grabbed Veronica and pulled her along. She was little more than a rag doll as she bounced off the wooden booth, her body going limp and sluggish and compliant. And he saw it, a brief little flicker of hope on Keith’s face.
They were similar creatures, Noah and Keith, and he knew what Keith had seen. The expression on Sylar’s face. Surprise and regret; swallowed up a moment later when the waitress came to help and then the murderous fury again.
He hadn’t meant to hurt Veronica and that fact was small comfort, but Keith would take what he could get.
Keith’s thoughts were basically written on his face: Maybe he would be more careful with her in the future, maybe he would feel enough guilt to let her go, maybe he would realize what a complete psychotic nutbar he was and give himself in.
Noah’s hopes didn’t go that far, but he figured it did signify a measure of reluctance to harm her and that could only be good.
“A little out of the way place called Bettie’s or Bertha’s or some charming name.” He finally said. “It’s in Tuscon, seven hour drive. They must have driven straight through, no stops.”
Keith fumbled with the cell in his hand, thumb itching over the replay button as Noah continued.
“We can be there in five or less if you let me drive and don’t question my methods.”
A loud sound vibrated against Keith’s thigh and Noah watched curiously as he held the second cell with a finger held up in the age old sign of delay.
“Oh.” Keith answered with a gesture to his phone before he answered it. “I’m not going.”
At least, Noah had believed they’d given each other full disclosure.
“You’re not going?” He asked the second Keith snapped his phone shut. “Veronica’s last known location and you’re...?”
“Camp Verde.” Keith explained. “It’s about three hours north of Tuscon, six hours from here. I’m going there.”
Next to the motel bed sat two small bags, already packed and ready. If there was one thing he’d learned it was that Keith knew how to travel light and travel fast, changing direction at the drop of a hat. Noah figured bail jumpers rarely if ever were very considerate of those chasing them.
“And I can make it in four if you don’t question my methods.”
He paused for a second and then nodded, absorbing the new information before packing up his laptop.
“He’s zagging.”
Keith smiled tightly.
“Motel night shift worker.” Keith locked the door behind them and palmed the keycard. “Saw a bruised, beaten blonde girl fitting Veronica’s description. They checked in late last night, around midnight. Didn’t report it, apparently it was sorted out in house. I have an old contact in the area.”
His shoes slapped against the concrete steps as they hustled down. Noah had already packed, his bags were safely in the trunk of the car. He noted that Keith didn’t question this. They walked in stride towards the manager’s office.
“And?” Noah prompted, the unspoken question heavy in the air.
“She covered for him.”
It was something of a relief not to have to over explain himself and have everything over explained in return. Noah had spent the majority of his life working for the company, hunting down people with abilities, working with people who either had them or knew about them and he was quite often surprised at how little people understood about the world around them.
Thankfully, Keith was half way capable and intelligent, able to follow the threads of a conversation, the meaning behind the words.
They waited until they’d handed in their keys and were back in the car before Noah continued.
“She’s good.”
Keith turned to Noah and nodded, a spark of visceral pride warring heavily with the fear that had to be inside his chest.
“People are already dead.” The words sounded hard to say, a mixture of fear that little stood in the way of his daughter being next and gratitude she wasn’t already. “She won’t risk more.”
Unfortunately for Keith, despite his best efforts, they both knew that left little chance of repeat contact.
She was slipping further and further from their grasp.
***
Sylar balanced the tray and bag in his right arm as he opened the driver side door. He slipped into the seat awkwardly and silently cursed Bennett and the fact he had tipped off the disapparator.
He held out one of the Styrofoam cups.
“Coffee?”
Veronica shrugged, sitting still in the passenger seat, slumped with her forehead against the window. She hadn’t said much since he’d woken her three hours before. They’d dressed, stripped the room of any sign they’d been there and driven far, far away from their last witness, stopping only once to change cars. She was now a prisoner of the latest car, one he’d chosen for its tinted windows, and was not able to leave until night when they stopped again.
He was not going to be so foolish this time, nor was he going to let anyone else get a stray glance at her face until it had healed. Bruises and swelling attracted too many questions.
He could still feel the slide of her hand on his skin and, more than that, the thrill of talking with her, with someone, anyone, without falsity or pretence. She had a truly invigorating ability to piece together strings of conversation, complete pathways that usually had to be spelled out to people. He hadn’t felt that way since Chandra Suresh.
When she’d woken, though, she’d been distant again and the car trip had been quiet and nerve wracking.
But she turned her head slowly to look at him and reached out to take the cup. He watched her bring it up to sniff, opening the lid just a little to let the steam waft into her face, and her nose wrinkled.
He flicked at the little sachets lying in the cardboard tray on the console between them.
“Sugar? Cream?”
“It’s okay.”
The resulting shudder made him chuckle.
“It’s crap.” He felt slightly gratified when she nodded, a brief, transient reflex before she caught herself and stopped. “Cheap, but available. For future reference, though, how do you like your coffee?”
She shrugged again and tried to force a mouthful, features twisted against the taste.
“It’s not important.”
He shuddered again and looked at her with a raised eyebrow.
“Right.” She sighed, tinged with a little defeat. “I was a barista once. Coffee is essential.”
Sometimes he was almost convinced that the truth thing was better than all the other powers.
But never completely.
And when he reached down to get his own sugar packet, her hand was already there. Warm, thin, fragile skin under his fingertips and he held his breath. Almost instantly she pulled away, a scrape of molecules, but she stopped herself in the next second and her hand went still and flat, an inch away from where it had been.
He could see her posture change, the tightly held breath, the averted eyes, the tense corded muscles as she forced herself still. Her thought processes were written on her skin and he could practically hear the machinations at work in her head.
She thought he would be easier with her if she played things his way, if she sat still and let him run his fingers over hers.
The barest edge of his fingernail swung like a pendulum along the lines of the tendons in the back of her hand, back and forth, slow tracings of sinew and skin, and he watched the pulse of her throat speed up, her jaw clench tighter.
Her body was frozen as she forced it into submission and he was hit with a thunder clap of images, brief flashes of bodies and faces and other hands. Hands that had touched her, that had created a much different reaction in her body, in her expression. Skin she had touched back.
His fingers closed in on hers, trapping her fist like a spider, and his grip tightened, increased, as he watched the surprise on her face quickly turn to pain. He kept the pressure up, squeezed her fingers until he could feel her rushed, rapid pulse through the paper thin webbing, feel the bones grind against each other.
With a short, restrained cry, she pulled her hand out, tugging it free and cradling it up to her chest as the coffee cup balanced precariously in her other hand.
“I will kill them.” He promised. “If they find you.”
She closed her eyes and shuddered for a second, before bowing her head towards her chest, the skin around her eyes crinkling. Even without her eyes open, he could see the tears that threatened to break through. Then she breathed a big, deep lungful of air before she nodded.
“Maybe I should dye my hair.” She nestled the cup clumsily between her knees as she brought her hand up to cradle the injured one. “Or cut it. I’ll be harder to recognize...”
He didn’t answer as he tossed a wrapped blueberry muffin in the direction of her lap. The gears changed rapidly, angrily as he revved the engine and took off. His fingers gripped the wheel until his knuckles turned white, wrists shaking, and he could hear the empty silence that was supposed to be her breath.
When her stillness became too stifling, he clenched his fists tighter around the wheel before releasing them.
“No.”
She turned to face him cautiously, eyes wide and wary.
“We’re too... I’m too noticeable. They’re looking for me, for both of us. If I changed my appearance...”
Maybe she covered well, moving on without blinking, her eyes a little too casual for the situation, but he’d caught it, that instinctual rewind, that pause and shudder at her inclusive statement. The retraction and purposeful separation from him.
He smiled gently and carefully and coldly.
“Bennet’s not looking for you. He doesn’t know how to find you. He’s looking for me and I know how to avoid him. I guarantee you he’s hours behind us sifting through the footage of that little di...”
The shadow that crossed her face made him stop. It probably wasn’t a good idea to remind her of all the dead people she apparently took to heart.
They drove on. He noticed she’d stopped watching the road signs, had stopped sometime the day before. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to feel about that.
“But my dad...” Her voice came in a quiet, unsure little tremble. “He makes a living finding people. And he’s good at it. He’s probably at the motel already.”
It was a quick, sideways glance in her direction, but he didn’t need it, not really. There’d been no shudder, not even a slight feeling of unease. She was telling the truth, at least the truth as she knew it. It sank deep into his abdomen, a tightening.
The thrill of the chase, hunted by new predators, the opportunity for more prey.
He smiled, the tip of his tongue pointing out from his teeth.
“I look forward to meeting him then.”
And when she sat back in the seat, head falling sideways, he watched the hands clutched to her chest fall limply down, knocking the muffin between her knees all the way to the floor. His eyes slid back up her legs, to the tangle of fingers and palms that sat loosely in her lap, the indent and bulge of her hips and waist bent into the seat, the press of her chest around the seat belt. All the way up the line of her neck and jaw and the side of her ear.
Saliva leaked from his canine teeth.
“Your appearance is what’s keeping you alive, Veronica, don’t be in too much of a hurry to change that.”
***
When the policeman pulled them over, Keith showed him his medical ID and quite urgently explained about the last minute emergency organ transfer, complete with fake cooler containing dry ice, second hand medical instruments and a scrubbed and trimmed cow liver.
Noah didn’t blink when he got back in the car, but there was a glint of amusement hidden behind the glasses.
“Do that often?”
“Only on Sundays.” Keith pulled the strap of his seatbelt over his chest. “Won’t work in most cities, but the further out you go, the less chance they’ll check the databases.”
A brief nod of understanding.
“It’s a lot easier than killing them and hiding the bodies, I guess.”
Keith bit his tongue and tightened his fingers on the wheel. He was ninety percent sure Noah was joking, but there was always that ten percent that wasn’t quite convinced the man was on the up and up. In fact, he was pretty damn sure Noah was fairly deep into the low and low. In the week they’d spent together, the man had released very little about the supposed private firm he worked for.
The less details Noah gave, the more suspicious Keith became.
They dealt with things, Keith hesitated to even think the word supernatural, of a different nature, people with powers, comic book stories and fables, that much was clear. And Noah barely even blinked as he talked of Sylar’s kills, the people that had died for their gifts.
He spoke of murder, bloodshed and death in the same tone of voice he ordered coffee and a bagel, he didn’t blink at Keith’s gun holster, naturally assumed information obvious to those familiar with law enforcement well, but was too willing and able to break the law to be a part of it.
If the situation hadn’t been so desperate, Keith really would have liked to take the time needed to drag all the information out of the man, some truths.
He highly suspected truth wasn’t an easy commodity in this man’s life.
Keith longed for the simple days of cheats, thugs, mobsters, blackmailers, frauds and murderers.
His cell rattled in the console between them and it made his jaw clench a little tighter. It wasn’t as if he didn’t understand, as if he didn’t want to talk to them, but after eight calls in one day there was just no news to report and he was beginning to loathe being the one to tell Logan or Wallace the bad news.
It rang out.
Another buzz sounded between them and Keith focused on the road ahead. The secret to good car trips was to at least pretend not to eavesdrop. He kept his eyes on the blur trip blur of little white lines disappearing under the wheels, but of course he kept his ears inside the car.
“Wait? What do you mean she’s not there? Where would she...?” A pause, a tightly controlled breath. “Where do you think she is, Sandra?”
Soft squeaking and muffled, indistinguishable words.
“She’s supposed to be... I said...” More muffled, hushed, and even-voiced arguing. “Leave it with me.”
With a soft click, Noah sighed next to him as he began punching another number into his cell.
“I would kill her myself if I wasn’t too busy saving her hide.”
A knowing smile teased the edges of Keith’s mouth.
“Teenage daughter?”
A dry chuckle escaped.
“What gave it away?”
And then the moment ended, Noah’s voice slipping from friendly to cold and measured.
“Angela. Where’s my daughter? What do you mean, shopping?” But the careful indifference soon gave way to spluttering. “You gave her what?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Keith watched Noah’s face turn a deep pink.
“I know you’re her grandmother, but you can’t...” Another pause. “No, Angela, despite your ever increasingly frightening logic, not all seventeen year old girls deserve a fully funded no limit credit card.”
Leanne’s parents had never really met Veronica and his own had passed long before materialism had become an issue, but Keith tried to picture his own reaction had either of them gone over his head so blatantly. Despite the many times he’d fallen short in her teenage years, he prided himself on having taught Veronica the value of reward for honest work.
The conversation ended and the car filled with a cloud of awkward silence.
“In law?” At Noah’s confusion, Keith continued. “It seemed a little tense for it to be your own...”
But the tension in Noah disappeared and the distant control returned.
“No. Claire’s adopted.”
He tried to picture his reaction had it been Jake Kane who’d done the same thing and he was self aware enough to realise that it would not have been pretty. And probably not legal, either.
The road continued to disappear under their feet, the road signs blurred into each other, dilapidated road stop after dilapidated road stop flew by the windows. The air felt cold and stony, a blanket of unease and discomfort mothering them both.
“She likely to break the bank?” Keith offered. “Do some damage at the mall?”
If nothing else, fathers of teenage daughters were able to commiserate over...
“No.” The word was short, but the meaning behind them wasn’t. “She’s a little more focused than that.”
The words struck something in Keith, something familiar and bone deep he had not learned to overlook yet, despite his years of training.
“Focused on?”
To his right, Noah sighed.
“Sylar.” The name hung heavy and volatile between them and Keith waited for Noah to elaborate. “She’s going to come after him and Angela knows it.”
No one had ever accused him of being slow to pick up the clues and Keith calmly turned the indicator on and pulled the car to the side of the road before facing Noah fully.
“Why?”
Years of practice had fine tuned his instincts and he knew, knew without a doubt, that it was a moment of truth, that whatever Noah said then would be the truth.
“He took something from her. She wants revenge.”
The dots filled themselves in and Keith felt a slow growing anger boil up, rolling around in the pit of his belly.
“She’s one of them, isn’t she? She’s... and you didn’t tell me? He could be killing my daughter and you didn’t...!”
And then his brain caught up with his fury and he stopped. Noah hadn’t met his eyes.
“But she’s still alive. You said they all died, you said he killed...”
“She regenerates.” Was the answer, cold and emotionless and just on this side of guilty and defensive. “She can heal. It doesn’t matter what he did, she can’t die.”
Keith didn’t say anything else. He turned back to face forward, started the car, and began to drive.
He thought about Veronica at seventeen, her fanatical search for the truth and justice and how much damage she’d done to herself to get it, then he thought about the same girl given a bottomless pit of funds and how much more trouble she could have found. The possibility scared him witless.
Then he thought about the fact Noah’s daughter could never be burned in a refrigerator or thrown off a building or shot in the middle of an FBI training mission or slaughtered by a raving lunatic and his sympathy for the man’s situation lessened.
***
“Really?” Claire practically burst out of her seat. “You’re really giving me a credit card?”
Across the desk, Angela folded her hands over themselves, the pale whites of her meticulous French manicure landing softly in little pats over her skin.
“It certainly looks that way, doesn’t it?” Angela smiled, the gesture not quite meeting her eyes. “Your father was never expected to fun his little excursions for the company, I’m not sure why you should have to.”
A thrill passed through her, vibrant and uncontrollable.
“Then I was right?” Claire sat up straighter. “Sylar’s alive?”
“Well.” Angela leaned back. “That’s just something you’re going to have prove, isn’t it?”
Claire smiled and it was a gesture she knew met her eyes, she could barely keep it from overriding her entire system. Her eyes blinked, lashes bouncing off the tops of her cheeks in a practiced motion.
“You know.” She suggested carefully. “My father also had a partner and guns.”
Angela’s smile was genuine this time and slightly indulgent.
“You realise you can’t be harmed, don’t you Claire?” Angela sat up straighter and pressed a button on the phone on her desk. “You’re also quite right.”
The door opened behind her and Claire turned to see two men enter.
***
Read the rest of this chapter HERE