Chapter 1

Unnatural

Mohinder Suresh's phone rang loudly. Experience had made him wary, so at first he wanted to ignore it. But the phone continued to ring. Finally, as he could no longer reasonably ignore it, or it would wake Molly up, he picked it up cautiously, like it was something that would attack him the instant it got close enough to his face. "Hello?" he said nervously, half-expecting it to be Sylar, calling to gloat in his newly restored powers.

"Is this Mohinder Suresh?" It was not Sylar, but rather an unfamiliar, clearly female voice. A voice that carried a sense of immense power and, remarkably, danger behind it, yet was indescribably beautiful.

"Yes," Mohinder replied hesitantly. He had learned the hard way not to trust that which seems unnatural, beautiful or otherwise.

"I believe I know the whereabouts of one of your 'special' individuals."

"Really? Um…where?"

"Forks, Washington. His name is Edward Cullen. I believe he's telepathic."

"Really?" Mohinder was interested now, all hesitancy forgotten. "Could I have your name, please?"

"I don't think you'll need it." The voice sounded excited now, and Mohinder didn't know what to think about that.

"But, I might need help finding this Edward Cullen."

"Oh, I don't think that will be a problem. Forks is a small town, and the Cullens stand out like a sore thumb. Goodbye, Doctor."

"Wait! I didn't get your name." But she had already hung up.

H H H H

"Edward Cullen." Bob scanned the names on his computer. "No, he's not on here. Are you sure about this, Doctor?"

"Yes, I'm sure," said Mohinder. "She seemed quite certain that he had abilities."

"But she wouldn't tell you her name?"

"She hung up before I could ask, but I'm not sure that counts as a refusal to tell me her name."

Bob thought for a moment. "Alright. If he is telepathic, we might want to check this out; we don't need another Maury Parkman on our hands."

"Definitely not," agreed Mohinder.

"But I'll send someone with you, to be safe; we don't want another 'Haitian-esque' incident, either."

Mohinder said nothing.

H H H H

The silence in the car was a very awkward one. Mohinder had never known quite how to act around Elle, even after she rescued himself and Molly from Sylar.

They had found out the Cullen's address very quickly--much to the disappointment of Elle, who had probably been hoping to torture it out of someone; the only thing left was to contact them. Mohinder wondered vaguely about why everyone seemed so cautious when it came to them, but was jerked out of his wonderings by Elle.

"There's the driveway!" she said suddenly.

Mohinder jerked the car to a stop. "Where?"

"Back there, you just passed it."

The road was too narrow to turn around, but there was no one coming, so Mohinder simply put the car in reverse and backed up until he could pull in.

The long gravel drive wound its way sharply through the trees. After about three minutes of painfully slow driving — the sharp, hazardous curves made reasonable speeds impossible — Mohinder made a stab at conversation with Elle.

"I suppose you're glad to be working in the field again?"

"I guess so," responded Elle, though she couldn't disguise the glee in her voice. Realizing her slip, she said, "Watch the road."

The driveway seemed miles long. When they finally reached the end of it, they found an enormous, old-fashioned house and several outbuildings. Everything was peaceful, yet Mohinder couldn't shake the feeling of something unnatural about the place.

His suspicions were confirmed when no one answered the door. Elle looked inside the building that appeared to be the garage, and found that there were no cars inside.

When they met up at their car, Mohinder said, "Do you think they moved?"

"Not on such short notice. I think they might've found out we were coming, and they're hiding somewhere nearby, waiting for us to leave."

"So…what do we do now?"

"We call for backup, search the house, and keep a constant surveillance afterwards, talk to the locals some more, and just…wait and see if they turn up, I suppose."

"Ah."

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