The light woke him, it moved across his face slowly, bringing him back to the land of the living. There was a dull pain in his side he rolled over to get himself more comfortable before realising that he was resting on something soft. He opened his eyes a fraction and looked around the room where he lay.
At his side he felt a slight pressure, a nudge, looking down the cat was getting itself comfortable beside him, under the covers something stirred.
Kayla's hair spread out over the pillow in a fan, she had the covers pulled up tight around her, he could remember her like this before, an image of a room, a small girl with braids and a bright red pinafore dress hiding behind the sofa, the shouting the fighting. Sylar felt a rage within him that he hadn't felt for a long time, a burning desire to protect her from harm. Flashes of the childhood that he wished he could forget and the bit of him that called out for forgiveness. As a child Gabriel had had to stand by and watch as she had been struck down, watched as his own mother had tended her wounds.
She had been sent away after her dad was locked up, he could remember it so clearly now in the quiet, the tears and the simple goodbye, two people who had never really been friends but had been thrust together by consequence. Was that what was happening now? The two of them thrust together by consequences?
He was aware that this was the first time he had slept on a bed in a long time. For now he would lie there and enjoy it. His body ached. Using his abilities was beginning to affect him, last night…
He wasn't sure what last night was about but there was something happening that he had no control over. Something that reached in to him and moved him towards her, and what scared him most was the fact that after that first aching for her abilities the craving had not returned.
A new craving had returned but not the one that was likely to kill her, he had watched the way that she had handled herself against Elle yesterday she had so much power, together they had so much power. But there was something else there as well and as she stirred on her pillow it reared its head, he found himself watching her so intently that he was sure that she must be able to feel his stares.
The world seamed to be at some sort of peace with itself. He knew that it wouldn't last.
He listened to the ticking of his fathers' clock, it was ticking out of time, but even that right now could not disturb him, he looked out across the open plan living area at the pendulum swinging from side to side, it seamed to rest his mind.
"Morning."
Sylar was moved from his hypnotic trance by the sound of her voice. He looked down at her, her head barley poking out of the covers. She watched him closely almost as if she was trying to assess if he were real.
Sylar pulled himself around and sat on the edge of the bed, this was too normal, this situation did not happen to him, this was not part of his master plan, he cradled his head in his hands and tried to block out the room around him.
He new she was watching him, knew she was staring at the back of his neck.
He got up and grabbed his coat from the back of the sofa, he couldn't look at her, and to look at her would be to admit that he didn't want to go. He pulled his coat on and glanced at the clock it was four minuets fast, he reached up and stooped the pendulum before sliding out the door and in to the corridor. He heard movement but she didn't follow him, when he reached the bottom of the second flight of stairs he was aware he wasn't alone, two large amber eyes had followed him down the stairs.
"Don't look at me like that." He said to the cat as it glared at him. "She's not safe as long as I'm here, not from me and not from them." The cat looked at him, he felt foolish, and he was talking to a cat for god's sake he was definitely cracking up. He lent down and stroked the beast behind the ear.
"Go sit with her, you need to look after her ok."
He slammed his fist against the door of an abandoned apartment and cursed under his breath, what was wrong with him, he was supposed to come here to kill her, not to sit and talk, not to drink tea and talk to cats. He was a cold-blooded murderer and anyone who knew of him would tell you that.
He cursed under his breath again and headed off in to the early morning that seamed to be happening without him.
He would stay away, she was no good for him, he would stay away and get strong and then go after Hiro and Peter, because a pointless murder and a bit of revenge was exactly what he needed now.
Kayla knew better than to try and follow him, he had rested and she had not, in that state if he tried to attack, in any form… she would be to weak to resist. She waited until she knew instinctively to reset the pendulum. She crossed over to the sofa and sank in to its almost thread bare cushions. The sound of the clock accompanied her thoughts. It didn't help them to become any clearer.
What was he sent to her for? What had she expected when he had turned up? She had expected to stand up for herself. She looked across at the unmade bed, her side messy and crumpled; the side that Gabriel had lay upon immaculate. He had been talking in his sleep thrashing about at things that haunted him, things that only he could see, so she had done what she though necessary and placed him on the bed before he bled all over her rug. He had looked so at ease when she lay him down, so innocent.
Yet she understood it more now that craving to know everything, to see what you can do how far you can push yourself.
Kayla stared down at her hand where she was holding a glowing ball of bright red light.
So Peter had gone nuclear had he? Yet he lived to tell the tale. She glanced over at the blue book on the kitchen counter, two seconds later it was in her hands. How does anyone survive a nuclear explosion?
She pulled her hair back from her eyes and flicked through the book.
She looked down at the papers and the book of cuttings that she had thrown at Gabriel last night.
Dr Suresh had been killed by Gabriel, which made him patient zero, she had read the files.
But according to Suresh 'Sylar' had one ability, not all the ones that Gabriel had.
She flicked through the pages till she found the page she was looking for. Her mind skimmed the page.
"I wonder." She said getting to her feet and walking towards the kitchen. The cat followed her and jumped up on the bench. She went to the large block of kitchen knifes and pulled out the largest.
"Peter blew himself up right? Yet he lived to tell the tale, there can only be one thing that could have caused that." She said to the animal that watched her expectantly.
Kayla then plunged the knife in to her own arm.
" Son of a…" the blood started streaming down her arm slowly she watched it trickle down her arm to the floor. She winced away the sight of the blood, and looked up at the cat.
"Don't say anything." She warned.
She stared down at the wound on her arm and lay the knife back on the bench. She watched as the wound carefully healed itself.
"That's interesting."