Blood
The lawyer was shooting over his shoulder – since when did lawyers carry guns? – like in an action movie, while he and his client Peter were running to take cover. He didn´t hit anything but he made the bullets stop for a moment. And then, just as he took cover behind that car, Peter was hit. Two times in the back. He jerked at every impact and a moment later, he hit the ground and lay still.
"Oh, my god." Gus gasped next to Shawn.
The bullets were still raining down on the car behind which the lawyer was now bowed over Peter. Shawn looked ahead of the street and saw the culprits. Two guys in suits, like mafia hitmen. They came running for the two hidden men and would have reached them in no time if not suddenly someone else was shooting at them. Both men were hit. But obviously they were wearing bulletproof vests under their shirts, because they only swirled around and opened fire at their attackers.
"S.B.P.D." Shawn heard McNab shout. "Throw the weapons away."
Again the culprits were under fire. Not from McNab but from the still unseen third party of this event. The two agents obviously decided that it was better to retrieve and eventually bolted and ran away. McNab and the other officer tried to follow them. Shawn didn´t wait any longer. He bolted too – for Peter and his lawyer, who was still trying to bring his client around.
"Is he dead?" Shawn asked when he reached them.
The lawyer threw him a brief and frustrated glance but didn´t say anything. And then, there were footsteps approaching them. The lawyer swirled around and aimed at the hood of the car, where he expected them to appear. A young blonde girl was standing there. She was holding a gun too. Her eyes were hard. The glance she got in response, was one of pure shock. Shawn looked from one to the other and didn´t know if he should expect a rescue or a new shootout.
"You … You are Claire Bennet!" Gus cried excited. She and the lawyer turned around to him, startled. So did Shawn.
"She´s the girl from the video." Shawn stated with a frown.
"What video?" Gus frowned back.
"The video Lassie showed us on his computer. If you hadn´t been at the vending machine to get yourself a snack …"
"I was stressed, Shawn."
Claire Bennet didn´t wait any longer and quickly knelt down next to the unconscious (dying?) Peter.
"I … I followed her on twitter." Gus explained while she checked Peter´s breathing. "And I know your website. „People with abilities exist". I´m magighead101. I´m one of your regular subscribers. God, I don´t believe it´s really you. Can you really …?"
"Dude." Shawn interrupted him. "What the heck are you talking about?"
"It´s an online community, Shawn. People who claim to have abilities and others who believe them. I know it sounds absolutely crazy but there are scientific explanations and evidence that prove there are …"
"Dude, there is a bleeding man lying before us … wait a second. So you´re saying you knew about that stuff? How long?"
"Since I got out of hospital."
"But …"
"Hey guys!" the lawyer cried, losing his patience.
Claire Bennet hurriedly got an empty syringe out of her pocket. A second girl arrived, just in this moment. She had long dark hair and she was holding a gun as well – it seemed that everybody had a gun these days. The brunette quickly took the situation in and spotted the man on the ground.
"Oh god, Peter." she cried.
Claire Bennet flipped the plastic cap off the needle with her mouth, simultaneously rolling up her own sleeve.
"What are you doing?" Shawn cried.
He got no answer. The girl just set the syringe at her arm – Shawn and Gus flinched and looked away when the needle pricked in – and filled it with her own blood. After that was done she set the shot at Peter´s arm, injecting it.
"What the hell are you doing?" Shawn cried again. "You can´t just make a transfusion like that. What if … if you have the wrong blood type? You could kill him with that. Right?" he looked at Gus for confirmation.
The blonde girl looked up at him with a startled frown. She exchanged a glance with her friend.
"I have blood-type 0 negative." she told Shawn.
Shawn blinked a little embarrassed, not quite understanding why that made a difference, but then he shrugged. "And what makes you think a transfusion will save him anyway?" he kept asking.
"It will." she assured him and turned back to Peter. Shawn noticed another cold glance she threw at the lawyer before she turned her attention back to Peter.
"Come on." she whispered urgently. "Get better."
"Don´t worry, Shawn." Gus said. "She´s healing him with her blood. Right? That´s what your blood can do. When injected into someone, it can heal him."
"That´s right." Claire affirmed, smiling almost like a teacher would smile at a good student. She was thinking for a moment. "Magichead101. I think I remember you. You were the one who suggested plasma transfusions."
"Why isn´t he healing all on his own?" the lawyer asked, obviously trying to bring their attention back to Peter. "Shouldn´t … shouldn´t he adapt your powers now that you touch him?"
Claire Bennet only threw him another cold glare. What a quick change from that sweet and hearty girl to that hard and cold woman, who obviously tried to kill this lawyer only with her scowl.
"He said, they injected him with something when he was in the hospital." her friend explained on her behalf. "Probably a variation of Suresh´s virus."
"Suresh?" Gus whispered to Shawn and then turned back to Claire Bennet. "I remember that you mentioned that name on your website."
"Could you stop talking about the website?" the lawyer cried.
A wet sound that came from Peter made them all look around. They looked just in time to see the two bullets that had almost killed him, plop out of the wounds and the wounds closing themselves just a second later. Gus immediately started to gag and turned around to keep from vomiting. Shawn on the other hand could only stand there, unable to move or to take his eyes away from what had happened in front of his very own eyes. A few more seconds went by and all the sudden the almost dead Peter opened his eyes, gasping loudly when his lungs started to work again. The three people around him sighed with relief.
Gus came back to Shawn´s side, unable to miss what was happening, no matter how sickening it was.
"Lazarus is back." was all Shawn knew to say.
In the distance they heard horns approach. The backup McNab had called for.
"We need to hurry." Claire Bennet urged and helped Peter to get up.
"What?" Shawn cried. "You want to run? Why?"
"They´ll arrest us." the girl cried back at him, already in the process of shoving Peter away.
"I´ll get the car." her friend said and was gone.
"What?" Shawn cried again. "No. I mean … we can tell them that you didn´t …"
"There´s no time for long explanations." the lawyer told him, blocking his way so he couldn´t follow them. "We can´t risk that."
Shawn looked around, desperately trying to figure out his next step. "All right." he then said. "We bring you someplace save."
"No." the lawyer said.
"But …"
"I have a place where we can go." he stated.
"Then I´ll come with you." Shawn changed his course and looked at Peter. "Dude. I need to know what´s going on."
"No, you don´t." the lawyer was stubborn. But so was Claire Bennet as it seemed. Where he denied Shawn to tag along, she was immediately for it.
"You can ride with us." she said and skillfully ignored the baffled face the lawyer threw her.
"Claire!" he cried after her but she wouldn´t turn around.
Shawn was on the tenterhooks. He swirled around to Gus. "Dude." he cried. "You go to my dad´s and tell him that …"
"You must be out of your damn mind, Shawn, if you think I let you go with these people alone. I know much more about Claire and her mission than you do. I´m coming with. In my own car."
"If that is so, you might wanna give me a ride." the lawyer asked him, sounding somehow exhausted. "It seems my daughter won´t be too crazy about me driving in the same car as her."
...
It was the docks they were driving to and an old storehouse where they finally stopped. A big but old and faded sign on the front wall read penguin paper-productions. The same name was printed on the old and abandoned boxes that stood at the delivery place. Peter gave them a look and turned to his lawyer with a raised eyebrow.
"Homesick for Odessa, Noah?" he asked but got no answer.
"Odessa?" Shawn repeated. "Sounds like that princess in dug lake."
"You mean Swan Lake, Shawn." Gus corrected. "And her name was Odette."
A door was opened and a blonde woman came out of the abandoned storehouse. When she noticed that there were much more people than she obviously had expected, she threw Noah an asking glance. But before he was able to say anything, she´d spotted Claire. Alone this fact seemed to make every other explanation unnecessary. The girl´s presence also seemed to make Shawn and Gus secondary as visitors to this welcome committee.
"Come in." the woman said at last. "It´s better not to hold this conference out here."
"Dude." Shawn whispered at Gus. "Is it just me or is something boiling here?"
"Claire and her father haven´t spoken for over a year." the dark haired girl explained. "She thinks he betrayed her. I think she´s right." The stoic look on her face changed to a smile. "I´m Gretchen by the way." she introduced herself.
Shawn shook her hand, a little uncertain after this summary. "Gretchen?" he asked. "Like in Fist?"
"It´s Faust, Shawn." Gus corrected.
"And? That´s the proper translation for this word. Isn´t it? Though I never understood what the whole play had to do with a fist. There weren´t even any fistfights in it."
"As if you ever read it."
"I´ve seen it on TV once. Accidentally."
From inside the storehouse they could hear shouts now. Obviously the discussion was already well developed in there. Gretchen groaned, letting her head hang for a moment. "Not again." she mumbled to herself, before hurrying over to the door.
Shawn and Gus could only follow her.
"If you´re here to help, then where have you been when he was attacked in the hospital?" they heard Claire shout at her father.
"We had to take care of these two." Noah replied, pointing into a certain direction.
"What two?" Shawn wondered. It was always a difficult thing to catch up when coming in late on an already heated argument. But then he spotted two figures that were bound to chairs, both of them wearing dark clothing, and suddenly he knew what had happened to Lassie´s suspects.
"What do you want?" Bennet now asked his daughter. "I got him out of prison long before you even got here. What is an unnecessary risk by the way. I´d figured you for smarter, Claire."
"I can´t get harmed." was her response.
"But you can get captured. And take it from me. You don´t wanna spend the best years of your life in a cell of the Company."
"Don´t pretend that this is all about me."
"I don´t need to pretend. You made that pretty clear one year ago, when you decided that you had the right to decide for every person that has an ability, that it is time to come out to the world. People who lived incognito for years until you came along. Do you have any idea how things could have ended if we hadn´t stopped the wave?" he turned to Peter all the sudden. "You´ve seen that future, Peter. How can you possibly be a part of this?"
"I saw a future destroyed by a virus." Peter argued. "The truth is no virus. It´s the healing."
"God, what was my crime?" Bennet groaned. "It seems to be my curse that I have to fight against ignorance beyond good and evil."
"You had no right to take that chance away from us." Claire told him.
"Chance for what? To get locked away in concentration camps? Being experimented on? Chased by hooded people with torches?"
"In what world do you live?" she cried.
"In this world, Claire." he told her. "The world of reality. And I live in it a few more years than you do."
"Oh, please. I see how you live in this world." She pointed around the storehouse.
"You think what you did, was the better solution?" Bennet fired back at her. "Living in an underground community? Hiding from the world? Fighting the Company all on your own? Maybe you can´t get hurt but what about the others? Gretchen for gods sake. She isn´t even a Special."
"Oh, I can watch out for myself." Gretchen assured him and held up her gun to prove that.
"What about your education, Gretchen?" Bennet asked. "You started highschool when we first met. How is this kind of life correlating with your plans in life? An education. A training."
"Electronic distance learning." Gretchen shrugged and Bennet rolled his eyes.
"And where´s your mother?" he turned back to Claire.
"Dead as far as I know." Claire shot back and an expression of shock appeared on Noah´s face. "She died in a cell of the Company." Claire explained, realizing what he´d thought. "Because of Sylar."
Shawn and Gus exchanged a glance at this.
"I´m talking about Sandra." Noah said after he´d overcome the shock. "Your mother."
"What´s the matter, dad?" Claire asked, now a hundred percent aggressive again. "You can´t get hold of her new phone number?"
"Claire, that´s enough."
"Dude, this is so awesome." Shawn whispered at Gus. "It´s better than a soap opera."
"Shawn!" Gus shushed him, an expression of shame on his face.
"I don´t have to listen to you." Claire declared and was in the process of leaving, when her father grabbed her arm to hold her back. "Let me go." she hissed at him.
"As your father, I forbid you to …"
She jerked her arm away from him. "You are not my father." she hissed.
Bennet looked at her for a moment. "Maybe not." he then admitted. "But since Nathan isn´t here…"
"Wait a sec." Shawn spoke up, turning to Gus with a frown. The two of them had by now taken on the parts of not participating watchers. "I thought he is her father. Did I miss something?" Gus could only shrug. "You don´t know that?" Shawn cried scandalized. "I thought, you know so much about her."
"I know about her ability and her mission. She doesn´t post her family history."
"Mission? What mission?"
"To let the world know that people with abilities exist."
"But what about him being her father or not being her father? That´s what I don´t understand. I mean …"
"Noah´s her adoptive father." Gretchen informed them to cut the discussion short. The two of them opened their mouths, understanding at last.
"Of course, that makes sense."
"Don´t talk about him as if it was his fault that he isn´t here." the argument between father and daughter went on undisturbed.
"Nathan isn´t the point here." Bennet tried to get the talk back to a reasonable level.
"Right." his girlfriend agreed, speaking up for the first time since the whole argument had started. "We have to assume that the Company knows about your group, Claire. The fact that they attacked you in an open street, indicates that they start to get impatient."
"Why should they be impatient?" Claire asked, not buying what she heard.
"Because, now they know that you are close." Bennet told her.
"Me?"
"And your friends. You might not understand that in your idealism but your group is a big fat buffet for these guys. They are hunting people with abilities, Claire. What do you think would be better for them than a community like yours that has contacts to so many of them? They are after you. And when they´ll find you, they´ll first kill your friends and then they´ll use your channels to find all the people you had contact with."
For a moment, Claire seemed to be off balance. But this moment went by rather quickly and the stubborn look was back in her eyes. "Don´t worry." she said. "They won´t find them."
"Are you really that oblivious of reality or do you only pretend to be?" her father cried. "If you should ever get caught …"
"I won´t." was all she said to that. "And even if, I would never say anything. I´m not a traitor." Unless some other people, her gaze spoke what her words didn´t.
"Claire, believe me, they have ways to make you talk." Bennet said. "To get the information out of your mind and you won´t be able to stop them from doing so. You must stop to live this delusion that you are invincible just because you can heal. I´m trying to protect you. And your friends."
Claire snorted. "Yeah, sure."
Shawn´s cell phone started to ring, disturbing the brief but heavy silence that had followed these last words. Everybody turned around and looked at him. He flinched and hurried to get it out of his pocket.
"Sorry." he said and held it up. "That´s … that´s my dad. Sorry, I ehm … I have to take that." He turned around and answered the call.
"Yeah?"
"Shawn, where the hell are you?" Henry barked on the other end. "There was a shooting, a car exploded. McNab said you were suddenly gone."
"It´s all right, dad. I´m fine." Shawn assured him. "Just …"
"Fine?" Henry interrupted him. "I´ve been worried to death. Juliet has been worried to death."
"Okay, I´m … I´m sorry." Shawn apologized as genuine as he was able to in this moment. Behind him the argument had been picked up again and he felt his feet glowing to get back there. "Listen." he said therefore. "I´m in the middle of something big and I really can´t talk right now."
"Shawn, what the hell are you doing?" Henry snapped. "You´re not supposed to be out there on your own. You lost your bodyguard."
"Well, you know, dad. I never could look after my stuff. But if you look at the lost and found office, I´m sure he´ll be there. Got to go. See you later. Bye, dad."
"Shawn, don´t you dare to hang up on m …"
Shawn disconnected the line and let his cell slip back into his pocket. As fast as he could, he went back to the arguing people. To gain their attention he clapped his hands together loudly, wincing a little when the shotwound in his shoulder protested. But at least he made them all look up at him.
"All right, guys." he cried enthusiastically. "I was just told that I have to be home at ten, so maybe we could cut this whole family session a little shorter and come to the point. What´s the plan?"
Everybody just looked at him frowning. Even Gus.
...
Later that evening, Shawn was totally exhausted and ready to fall into his bed without changing. Gus dropped him at his place. The two officer´s who were assigned to watch him, were in the process of getting out of their car but Shawn tiredly waved for them to stay where they were, that everything was fine. After a short hesitation, the two cops sat back down.
"Dude, seriously." Shawn groaned. "That was the most exhausting afternoon I´d ever had."
"Tell me about it." Gus agreed and got back into his car. "I never thought that Claire had so many issues in her private life. In her articles at the website she always sounded so strong and confident."
"People are never what they seem from far away." Shawn spilled some of his rare philosophies and Gus could only nod in agreement.
"At least now we know who sent this boy from San Francisco for us." he summarized.
"Yeah." Shawn said, frowning deeply when he remembered what Claire had told them about her friend´s ability. "How can someone tell if someone has an ability or not, just by touching him?" he wondered.
Gus just shrugged and dismissed the question as unanswerable. "One thing´s for sure." he said instead. "I´ll sleep like a rock tonight."
"Me too." Shawn agreed and waved his friend good bye when he drove off.
God, what a day. Conspiracy theories, shootings and exploding cars. Not to mention all that drama about fathers and daughters and brothers and dead family members. Halfway through the whole thing he´d lost track of who was actually related to whom in all that. Probably because they´d kept yelling accusations at each other instead of properly answering questions.
Man. And he´d though he had problems with his dad. With all that drama, who needed shapeshifting psycho killers and assassination commandos that were sent out by some Company to kill people with abilities?
Shawn got into his apartment, closed the door and went straight to his couch. His shot wound was throbbing dully. He lay down, careful not to disturb his arm in the sling. But as strange as it was, the throbbing pain lulled him to sleep even faster. Barely a minute after he lay down, he was fast asleep. But even stranger than that … he was aware that he was asleep. Because this time he wasn´t part of the dream. This time he was watching it.
...
The car stopped in front of the house. It was sunset by now and the street was lying there in a sleepy atmosphere. Only a few people were around and surely no one payed attention to the two men who just got out of the car.
"You see, when I went to that dance performance, I had no idea that Mina had an ability." Sylar told Mohinder. "But when I realized that she had one, I couldn´t stop thinking of her. It was like a magnet that drew me in. It´s not that I planned to do that, it just happened."
The two men had reached the gate and without a warning, Mohinder swirled around and pushed Sylar against the pole.
"Stop that." he hissed into the face of the man who´d murdered the wife of his cousin. "Why are you telling me this?"
"So you will understand." Sylar said. "That´s how it feels when the monster takes over. This part of your soul. When the urge inside is getting too strong to resist. It´s like a …"
But Mohinder pushed against Sylar´s chest one more time in his anger, to make him stop already. Eventually he let go of him, the anger in his eyes as strong as always.
"You don´t need to tell me how it feels." he said. "I was ready to kill you. I still am. So let´s not explore this any further. For the sake of this mission."
The scientist turned around, so he didn´t have to see the smile that appeared on the killer´s face. What he saw instead, made him halt in his steps. There was yellow crime scene tape at the door of this house. Immediately he rushed over to it. After a short moment of hesitation, he took the doorhandle and broke it open without much effort. He ducked down and slipped in, looking around in disbelieve.
"Dear god." he whispered when he saw the blood strains on the carpet. "What happened here?"
Sylar came in, behind him, looking around. Only he reacted much calmer than Mohinder.
"I´d say someone died in here." was his dry comment. "That´s just a guess of course. I could be wrong."
"Sasha was supposed to convince Takolov to help us plant the virus." Mohinder cried in desperation.
Sylar whistled quietly as if he hadn´t known that plan already. "Good people are hard to find." he commented. When Mohinder threw him a dark glare, he dismissed his own joke. "You knew that something was wrong when this police detective answered her phone." he told the scientist, slowly getting impatient and pointed at the blood on the floor. "Don´t tell me that this is such a surprise."
"No." Mohinder shook his head in denial. "This can´t be. Takolov was our only chance."
"We´ll have to find another way." Sylar emphasized, speaking slowly so the doctor would hear what he said.
"Which way?" Mohinder demanded to know. "The computer is inside of the facility. There is no way that we can get there without help." He halted. "I´m calling Bennet." he then decided, taking his new prepaid phone out.
"Noah´s face is as well known to the Company as ours." Sylar objected, grabbing the phone so Mohinder couldn´t dial the number. "And if it is true what you said, that they can disturb my vibes, it won´t help us either if I took on another face."
"So what do we do?" Mohinder wanted to know.
Sylar just smiled confidently. "We´ll have to ask someone else for help." he said.
"Who?" Mohinder demanded an answer.
But Sylar only turned his head and looked at a mirror that hung at the wall. He couldn´t have told how he´d known that but when he saw Shawn Spencer´s face in it again, he wasn´t surprised. Shawn on the other hand was more than freaked out, when he realized that he wasn´t just watching the whole thing. He was watching it from behind this mirror. And that Sylar actually knew he was there. He could freaking see him.
He tried to skip away from that mirror when Sylar slowly approached it, but something was in his back. Not a wall. Something soft. Something that felt like cushions. The cushions of his couch.
Shawn opened his eyes and gasped in relief to find that he was safe and sound back in his apartment. That all this had been only a dream. And then a hand was on his face, closing his mouth so he wouldn´t scream. Two dark brown eyes appeared over him, regarding him with genuine curiosity. Sylar smiled.
"Well, well." he said. "Now I finally get an idea where my weird dreams came from."