4. Cold Blooded
"Hey, take it easy."
"What the hell happened?"
"You fainted, Pete."
"Why?" Peter groaned and sat up with a little help from his brother. He blinked his eyes a couple of times as he tried to understand why he was suddenly lying on his back, outside on the terrace.
"How should I know? One moment you were talking, the next you were on the ground. It looked like you were having a panic attack." Nathan sounded annoyed as he spoke. "Look, Peter. Before you fainted, you said something. You said he was coming back. I need to know why you said that."
Peter frowned at first, but then he remembered why he was outside again and the reason why he had panicked. It was all coming back to him. "We need to leave, Nathan. We need to leave now."
"So you've said." Nathan glanced over his shoulder and around the garden, still checking if the intruder was really gone. He turned back to Peter when he was sure the coast was still clear and placed one of his hands on his brother's shoulder. "What makes you think he's coming back?"
Peter stood very abruptly and wiped his hands on his pants. "I heard his thoughts, Nathan." He pointed his finger at his own head, hoping to look more convincing that way. "In here. I heard his thoughts in here, as if... as if they were my own. I know it sounds crazy and I don't care if you believe it, but you'll just have to trust me, yeah? We need to go get the girls and leave before it's too late." He turned around and went for the door.
"You heard his thoughts?" Nathan asked with a hint of sarcasm in his voice.
"Yes." Peter opened the door and went inside with his brother on his heels. "What, you still think it's impossible? That it's all just in my head, even after what just happened? Get real, Nathan."
Nathan ignored his brother's words and walked to the center of the room with his hands back on his hips. "They're not here. Why aren't they here? Where are they?"
"I told Meredith to get Flint and I told Claire to stay inside," Peter answered as he walked towards the stairway. "Maybe they've gone to get him together."
"That's just great."
He stopped and turned around. Nathan was really starting to piss him off. "What else was I supposed to do, huh? You were already outside, going after that guy, that... that... I don't even know what he was." He was exactly what Peter had been trying to prove to Nathan for so long, someone with supernatural powers. It wasn't just his imagination. That guy had it. And then Peter himself turned out to have it as well. He wanted to be excited about it, to tell the others right away, but there was no time for it yet. Not while they were still in danger.
"All I know is that he's coming back and that's why we can't stay here. We've all seen what he's capable of." Nathan walked right past his brother, without even saying a word. Like he was deliberately avoiding the subject. "Nathan! Are you even listening? It's not safe here. We have to go."
Nathan stopped at the bottom of the stairs and looked up. "What did you hear?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
"When you were reading his mind, Peter! What did you hear? What was he thinking?"
Peter was taken aback by his brother's question. First, Nathan flat out denied the possibility of Peter ever being able to fly and now, now he had suddenly accepted his ability to read minds like it was the most normal thing in the world. He had gone from complete denial to acceptance in less than ten minutes. "Oh, so something actually needs to happen for you to finally believe me? That's messed up, Nathan."
There was a loud scream coming from upstairs.
"Meredith!" Nathan shouted, recognizing his wife's voice immediately. He ran (almost flew) up the staircase as fast as he could, taking two steps at the time, following the sound of Meredith's voice. It led him to the guest room, the room where Flint was currently staying.
"No, no, no," he kept hearing her say as he got closer and closer. Something was not right. He hastened to the end of the hallway and went through the door ons his right.
Meredith was there. She was sitting on the floor, on her knees, but it was too dark to see what she was doing.
"What's wro…"
And then he saw it.
It was Flint. He was also on the floor, flat on his back. Nothing more. He was just lying there. Meredith was sitting next to him with one of her hands clasped over her mouth. Nathan opened his mouth to ask if Flint was okay, but swallowed the words quickly. Meredith wasn't doing anything. If Flint needed help, she definitely would have gotten it already. That she wasn't doing anything could only mean one thing. "Is he…"
An eerie silence followed.
"Oh, God..." Nathan ran his hand over his face and through his hair, letting it rest there for a moment as he tried to make sense of what had happened. Flint couldn't be dead. There was no way he had died in the short time that he had gone upstairs. He was full of life at dinner. He wasn't acting weird or anything. Not more than usual, anyway.
It was only when Nathan got closer to his wife and brother in law, when his eyes finally began to adjust to the darkness, that he saw just exactly what had happened to Flint. "What the…"
The upper half of Flint's head and his brains were both gone. Like someone had taken a chainsaw, sawed Flint's head in half and took the content for God knows what reason. All that remained was a gaping hole and blood. A lot of blood. Thick, dark red liquid surrounded his empty head. It was a gruesome thing to look at. Like one of those things that only ever happened in horror movies.
But this was real and Nathan was overcome by a wave of nausea and fear as he looked at Flint's corpse. He knelt down beside Meredith and tried to ignore the pool of blood that grew bigger and bigger as it soaked the white carpet.
"How did this happen?" he asked. He saw the slightest shake of her head, meaning she had no idea either. It was obvious that someone had done this to Flint. Someone had broken in and had killed Flint in the most brutal way imaginable.
It wasn't hard to figure who that someone had been.
And then it was Nathan's turn to have a panick attack. "Mere… Where is she?"
Meredith lifted her head slowly, black mascara tears falling to the floor instead of her hands. "I-I… told her to stay downstairs and wait for you and Peter," she answered with shuddering breaths between words.
Nathan turned around and saw his brother standing in the doorway. Peter was obviously in shock. He was looking terrified as hell. "Peter..." Nathan said as he felt his heart rate increase. "Could you…?"
But thankfully Peter snapped out of it as soon as he heard his name. "I'm on it," he said and ran back down the stairs, straight into the living room. "Claire?"
He didn't need the lights on to know that she wasn't there. He heard a sound coming from the kitchen. "Claire?!" He followed the sound, through the dining room, straight into the kitchen. And there she was, sitting at the table, just like before. "Claire? Are you okay?" She wasn't moving. "Claire?" It was too dark to see her face. "Claire? Listen to me. This crazy son a bitch just killed Flint. We need to..." His mouth suddenly closed by itself.
"You should really learn to watch your tong."
Peter moved towards the table and sat down opposite from his niece. It was exactly like before. He had no control over his body at all. His limbs moved, without his permission. Like a puppet, attached to invisible strings.
As soon as he sat on the chair, facing his niece, he noticed the state she was in. She was shaking. There was something on her face, but he couldn't quite tell what it was. He wanted to ask her what happened, but he wasn't allowed to use his voice.
"I think we're almost complete."
The lights turned back on and the same man from before became visible.
Peter squinted against the bright light. Once his eyes had adjusted, he was able to see Claire's face more clearly. He almost choked when he saw that there was blood on her face. A thick smear of blood, just above her eyebrows. It had been dripping down the sides of her head, over her brow and nose, but there were no wounds. She was okay as far as he could see.
"Oh, right. I tried to kill her."
Peter glared at him. The guy couldn't stop grinning somehow. He was just standing there, leaning against the counter, holding and occasionally sipping from a mug that had the word 'Dad' written on it, watching the two generations of Petrellis sitting opposite from each other.
"Tried?" Peter was suddenly able to ask. He frowned as he realized that he had spoken out loud. It was his chance to ask all the questions he needed to ask and he took it. "What did he do to you, Claire? Why is there blood on your face? Are you hurt?"
"Well, well, well. Isn't that interesting," the man said as he placed the mug on the counter and approached the two Petrellis slowly. He pointed his finger at Claire and smirked. "You haven't told him."
"Haven't told me what?"
"He tried to kill me." Claire didn't know what else to say. She didn't know how to explain that she had healed almost instantly after she had been attacked.
"And?" the man pushed.
"What do you want from me?" Claire asked, another tear rolling down her cheek.
The man went to stand at the head of the table and leaned forward. "Honesty," he answered through gritted teeth. "I have a feeling that this family needs a bit more of that." He leaned to his right, towards Claire. "You. Tell him what happened after I tried to kill you."
"Just... leave us alone, please..."
"Tell him, or I will kill him now and you'll never get the chance to tell him again."
Claire turned her head to Peter. "It's complicated..."
"It's okay, Claire. You don't have to say anything. He can't make you say anything if you don't want to."
"Wrong!" The man pointed his finger at Peter's forehead and moved it very slowly from the left, all the way to the right.
Claire couldn't look away. What that man had done to her, what he had tried to do to her, he was doing the same thing to Peter. He was cutting Peter's head open, just by pointing his finger at him. That's all it took for him to inflict pain somehow.
And Peter screamed. He screamed so loud and Claire couldn't help but scream as well. Tears were pouring out of her eyes and she pleaded for it to stop. She didn't know what else to do. He was in so much pain and she couldn't do anything about it. He was going to die and she was going to watch it happen.
Or maybe not.
Peter's cut was healing. He was healing, just like Claire had done. He was like her. He was able to regenerate, just like her. He wasn't going to die. They were both going to survive this thing.
Claire felt one brief moment of joy, before it was taken away again by the man who had failed to kill both her and her uncle.
"Some family," he said with a glistering in his eye.
Peter was breathing in and out so fast, he didn't know how to slow it down. "What was that? What did I do?"
The man placed his hand on the back of the Claire's head. "Tell him."
"You can heal too?" Claire asked as she tried to pull her head away as far as she could, trying to get that hand off her head, even though she knew it was pointless. "How long have you known?"
"What do you mean, you can heal too? Is that what you just did? He tried to kill you, but you healed? Claire, why have you never said anything?"
"I thought I was the only one! If I had known that you were the same... You didn't know?"
"That this would happen...? No."
"This turns out to be even more interesting than I had hoped for. I wonder…" The man turned his head to look up at the ceiling.
"Don't touch them!" Peter shouted.
Claire didn't know exactly what happened next. All she saw was the man, flying backwards and crashing against the cupboards above the counter. The wooden cupboard doors broke in half and the man fell on the kitchen floor, groaning from the pain in his back. She looked at Peter with wide eyes. "Did you just do that?"
With his mouth hanging open and drops of sweat (probably blood too) gliding down the side of his head, Peter nodded. "I think I did." He and Claire frowned at each other when the man started laughing, loudly. He laughed so loud, it was like he had won the lottery or something.