"Hi Claire."
It was as if the image from my nightmares (filled with sliced heads and homecoming banners) had come alive before me and my wide terror filled eyes and decided to take a bite out of me and my head.
"Sylar."
The name had become too familiar on my tongue, something that was said every day with a bit of fear in them and the wait for him to come and gobble us up, brains and all.
The moment his name (that was itching with so much hate it came out on fire) passed through my lips it was over for me.
All the running (past locker doors and blood stained stairs) was for nothing, all the hiding (one big family called butler) had been useless and all I could do (little miss cheerleader, little miss miracle grow was going to fall to the floor head sliced open for the world to see and this time no Peter to be totally my hero, no this time I was utterly alone) was close my eyes and welcome this final death.
"Sylar! Stop that. Your not earning any truth points, put my daughter down. I don't want to shoot you (oh yes I do)."
"Fine. I was just having a little fun before this little dry spell of mine, I have to get my kicks someway and your little Claire-bear was the closest breathing thing. Sorry, honey."
It was a slap in the face a wake up call that I really didn't need from the man that stomped his way through my nightmares and always found a way to ruin my dreams (dreams that had shattered so many years ago).
"Your working with him? Dad? Him?!"
"Claire it's our only chance to take down the company and we can't give that up. Oh and Sylar, say Claire-Bear one more time and I will shoot you. Now, we have a lot of work to do."
It was hard to work not because of the lack of want to do the job (no I wanted the company to fall into ruins and burn) but the people we had to work with, meaning Sylar.
My heart (the one that beat wildly in my cheat that could be easily broken and put back together again) sped up every time he came near, not in the good way (the way that it always acted when Peter came around, which was less and less) but in the bad one, the one that had my veins filled with nothing but fear.
"Are you okay, Claire-not-bear? You seem a little green around the gills, something wrong?"
"Better get to work, I wouldn't want to shoot you now would I, Sylar?"
My lips (that wanted to let lose a blood boiling scream) curved up in a smirk that was daring him (him who should be looking at my pink-red brain by now) to kill me now and forever.
Daring him to rip his little 'truth' into pieces by just rising one little finger and doing what he had been waiting a year for.
"I see what your doing, Claire. But it's not going to work, right now I want them (those sons of bitches that dared to mess with me, me!) to pay more then I want your wonderful little power, so lets get to work and play our little game later, uninterrupted."
Later seemed to come sooner then I hoped it would (alone time with a psychopathic serial killer is not my idea of fun), it came when Daddy was face down in his 'paper-work' and the only people awake was me and him.
"Now isn't that the sweetest thing, he must have a week of no sleep to make up. Well, more time for some games, right Claire-bear?"
Right when I saw his smirking face and the way his eyes followed me (like I was a tasty treat that he was about to consume) something inside snapped.
All the rage (at this messed up world, always hanging on a thin thread) and all of my compressed feelings came spinning out of control and all focused at him.
This little attack caught him off guard and his little smirk fell to the ground and it might stay there for a long time (gathering dust and blood).
Before he could get me off (little old me, the southern princess with her breakable nails biting into the face of the boogeyman) I took a good chuck of him with me before the crunch of my bones filled the air and his fingers finally came up to finish me.
"Let her go, Sylar!"
The point of his gun came up as rehearsed at the so-called 'partner' who had his little Claire-bear's throat in his grasp and he was dying to take every last breath from it.
"Do it, Sylar! Haven't you been waiting for this moment for a year, do it!"
For the first time (and it wouldn't be the last) he let me fall to the ground and picked up his smirk from the dusty ground like it was an old friend he had been dying to see again and show off.
"Bennett, we should get to work, the company might pick up and move god-knows where when where over here wasting our time."
I had been waiting for the moment that his fingers (always a little bloody from his latest kill) sliced into my skin and opened me up like a book.
Wanting the thing that I dreaded to be finally over and done with but it seemed that I would have to wait even longer now that he watched me with those grinning eyes rather then the greed that had shone in them the first night.
"Claire-not-bear, I think we're going to have oh-so much fun, this is just the beginning."