Author's Note: don't worry. this won't last. i can't stand to see these two in pain. but not before i test them. thanks for the reviews again. here is the next chapter.
CHAPTER 14: Theories
"When you're at the end of the road and you lost all sense of control." – 21 Guns, Green Day
"Hello Mr. Gray." Damn a new voice. Gabriel hated this. He woke from sleep. Had he spent a whole day in here without knowing it. He looked up. Another woman. Long brunette and with legs that went on for days. He groaned seeing she placed something for him in the food slot. "My name is Candice and I will be taking care of you until you snap like a tree branch." He shifted out of his blankets.
"Elle." He said as if asking, but merely had to hear himself say her name.
"We going to talk about her or are you going to start talking so you can see her again?" Gabriel stared at Candice for a long time before dipping his head to retrieve the food. "Now that's a good boy." Candice stated sitting herself on a stool. Gabriel found himself staring at a tray of scrambled eggs and a fruit cup. He took it feeling a hunger well up inside him. Real hunger.
"So your power, Bennet told me you know how things work. How did you take Brain Davis' ability than?" Gabriel peered up as he shoved a spoonful of eggs into his mouth as he sat on his cot. They were hard and gross, but food none the less. He had to talk or else he wouldn't see Elle again. Then again he always had Plan A. Escaping and rescuing Elle from the pain. He had fixed her so many times and here she was probably broken again.
"Everything is connected." He explained swallowing down the rotten eggs. "Everyone. Everything. We're all connected." He looked up at the woman and smiled. "And how we . . .tick is simple." He tapped his skull hoping to scare her.
"Brain?" She looked at him with raised eyebrows. "You open up his brain and what? Eat it?" Gabriel laughed softly.
"There's a trigger for abilities. Everything exists in the brain. Every impulse and emotion. We all work our lives through our minds." He had as well. Logic, reason. He hadn't found himself acquiring emotional contact until Elle. Now that he didn't know how she was or whether she was even alive, he felt his emotional need becoming priority. He needed her back. "Impulse, instinct, passion."
"Hate." Candice chimed in, but Gabriel merely laughed.
"That falls under passion." He explained mushing up the yellow goo. "Passion is an extreme emotion it can go in two directions. Extreme hate can turn into extreme love in a blink of an eye."
"That's why so many enemies fall in love." Candice concluded as if she knew.
"That and the temptation." He looked down at his plate. "Wanting something you can't have."
"That ever happen to you?" She asked and Gabriel found his eyes looking into hers. Dark and full of dread. Like she was a girl in a world full of bad things and she was the only one fighting them.
"Not to date." He said probably lying. He wasn't sure.
"So you open up the skull and mess with the brain and then wham!" She smacked her hands together. "Instant power?"
"I've only done it once." He didn't like talking about it. Elle understood that. Better than anyone ever could. "And I wasn't exactly focused, but yeah. That's basically how it happened."
"You got his name from Suresh." She said as if she knew all of Gabriel's dirty secrets. He didn't seem surprised she knew. Suresh had written a book after all. "Surprised you didn't go after others. He has a whole list."
"I didn't want to." He lied. "I don't want to be a killer." That was the truth. He didn't want to be a killer. It was his ability that drove him to it. Elle had numbed that hunger like cotton and ice. Taking away all the evil thoughts and replacing them with late night movies and sneaking kisses on the couch. Those innocent thoughts had turned into dirty thoughts, but now they had become innocent again. If only he could hold her. See that she was okay, maybe he could allow himself to be open to this situation.
"I guess no person ever really wants it." She concluded. "It just happens. Accidents or a disease."
"Is that your theory on serial killers?" He nearly laughed at her. "Of course they want it. It goes back to instinct. Evolution. We are killers. Humans killed for survival, so naturally some of those instincts would come back. My ability is an instinct. Kill for power. To be special. To be strong." All those seems were pointless now. He had Elle to focus his instinct on. Animalistic nature in another sense. She told him he was special and strong. She loved him and he believed her.
"And that Elle chick?" She asked as if she were a fly in another room. "Why'd she put her victim in a coma?"
"She's stronger than me." He explained remembering how badly she hoped she hadn't killed the man who had nearly raped her. "She did it out of instinct too. That man . . ." he ground his teeth. "I hope he dies."
"He hurt her." Candice realized a bit disappointed. These weren't cold blooded killers. They were people with instincts. One actually defending herself. "Robbery?"
"Rape." He said the word like it was a disease. She seemed a bit surprised. Sure Elle was a good looking girl and yeah Candice could see someone doing that to her, but for this girl to not kill a rapist, it was pretty powerful.
"You're right. She is stronger." Candice concluded. "Some serious self control there." Candice sometimes wished she had that kind of control.
"One of the many things that keeps me connected to her." He swallowed some fruit down. "Makes me love her."
"That love can turn into hate based on your own theory." He looked up wanting to cuss her out for suggesting it. "Just saying." With that he watched Candice get up. "I'll see you a little later Gabe. We'll talk more about these theories of yours."
Gabriel watched Candice leave. As he did he wondered. What could her power be?
--
Elle was better. The electric stopped buzzing and snapping at her insides. She sat up looking at the needle stuck in her arm. She wanted to cry because she hated them. Hospitals, needles. It was a phobia of hers. She had thrown up at least twice since becoming set in lock down at this company.
"Hungry?" It was the woman. The one with the short hair. The one Elle recognized from the department store. She came in with a tray of toast and butter. Elle looked at with an almost new found lust. The woman smiled stepping forward with the tray. "I'm Eden by the way."
Elle felt her hands descend upon the tray tearing the toast in half. Butter was not necessary at the moment. She needed something solid in her stomach. Eden let smile out. Elle made hunger noises as she downed her food.
"You sure eat a lot for a little woman." Eden laughed sitting in a small chair beside the cot.
"I'm starving. Plus you put like twenty volts of electricity into me." She munched on the third piece of toast.
"I'm sorry about that. The higher ups instructed Candice to do that. We got it sorted out." Eden seemed to smile.
"If I ask where my boyfriend is are you going to give me crap about it?" She wondered wiping crumbs from her lower lip. Eden just shrugged.
"Like he's fine? You'll see him soon? That kind of crap?" Eden asked. Elle shrugged as well. "We pumped him full of drugs to calm him yesterday because he flipped out. Today Candice is spending some one on one time with him."
"Flipped out?" She knew the reason, but asked just because she wanted to confirm it.
"He saw the lights flicker and heard you . .. screaming. He nearly broke through the glass to come after you." She shook her head. "That look in his eye . . .total determination." Elle let a smile small slip letting the crumbs fall to her fingers. "But you know there is a difference between determination and love." Elle shook her head.
"Are you saying he doesn't love me?" She asked as if she wasn't sure.
"No," Eden admitted. "I just have this theory on love."
"I'm not going anywhere." Elle stated squeezing her shoulders together. "Tell me."
"Just that there is a fine line. Between all emotions and true endless love." Eden said convinced. "There is no such thing. Love is an after effect of any emotion. The devotion and determination he feels toward you is a need of belonging. I've read his file. His mother overdoted and he is looking for someone to love him. Accept him like his mother never could." There was a file in the Company all on Gabriel?
"Got that all from a file?" Elle asked drinking in the fruit cup. "Do you know about me? Why I supposedly don't love Gabriel?" Eden just tilted her head to the side.
"I didn't say you didn't love him. I just said that emotions are vague. How can we trust someone to love us when they have so many hidden agendas?" She looked down at her hands as if they held the answer.
"Bad break up?" Elle asked with a little knowing smile.
"Too many. Longest was a little over a year." Eden explained rubbing her fingernails together. "How long have you been together with Gabriel?"
"Almost a year. I guess I thought it was an accomplishment." She loved him so much. "But I have a theory too. About love." Eden merely nodded ready to hear her theory. " Isn't happiness love? Shouldn't love and happiness go hand and hand? To be in love is to be happy. I'm happy with Gabriel. I feel joy over simple things with him. Movies, dinners, cooking, kisses, tea, and pie. I enjoy the little things."
"Better theory than mine. I guess you have to be happy to be in love. Though I still don't quite believe in a love everlasting." Eden explained. Elle hadn't exactly felt herself into love until she met Gabriel. When she was a little girl she was all dark handsome princes whisking her away to Never Never land. Now she believed in . . . well . . .she believed in Gabriel.
"Your opinion." She then slowly realized where she was. Trapped in a place without her boyfriend beside her. "God I'm basically kidnapped and I'm talking like I'm having a normal conversation." Eden just laughed with a smile.
"Guess that happens. Bad situations become good." Eden half smiled hoping it was becoming good. She liked Elle and Elle found herself liking Eden.
"Not good, but okay." She still missed Gabriel. She needed him. She felt her body tension. Her eyes shutting from the feeling of where the needle was or used to be. Eden just let her grin fall a bit. She wanted to make this situation good.
"I have a theory on making bad situations good." Eden started.
"Tell me about it." Elle asked forcing herself to smile as she thought about Gabriel. The man she so desperately needed.