"The manatee is on the brink of extinction," Claire read out, holding out the open book in front of her and Mr. Muggles growling at the pictures. Yeah, like you look any better. "There's one at the aquarium in Lubbock, and the marine biologist said we could drop by any time." I nodded to back her up though considering my track record my input was less than none given.
"You're asking my permission to skip school?" Sandra asked slowly to make sure she heard every word right and rescuing Mr. Muggles from the comparisons of sea cow and ... whatever he was.
"No, if I wanted to skip school, I'd check into home room and then sneak out Ms. Roberts window like Jess taught me," Claire explained and Sandra glanced over to raise her eyebrows at me. I quickly lowered my gaze to my bowl cereal and dug through the soggy remains. Always at breakfast. "But you've always stressed honesty, so I'm being honest. The manatee is a very noble creature." I snorted and this time I could tell that all of them were watching and covered the sound with a cough.
"Corn flake," I gasped and exaggerated the cough once more to carry on the excuse before dropping it all together and continuing my breakfast.
"Is your car in working order, Zachary?" Sandra wondered and I snuck a glance at Zach again, still puzzled by his fashion choice of wearing suspenders and making it obvious each time I made a face at them. Though I wasn't really one to talk about good fashion sense.
"Just had the oil changed," he nodded and raising his eyebrows at the face I made that I dropped as soon as he looked. He'd be getting enough heck from everyone else before the day was done anyway.
"Any tickets?" She pressed, Mr. Muggles licking at the back of her hand.
"Just parking," he assured her. She took it into consideration for a moment before turning on me. Uh oh this couldn't be good.
"You will be home for dinner?" She asked, glancing over at Claire halfway through the question to indicate that she was talking to the both of us.
"Yes," Claire eagerly promised.
"That's not a question," she pointed out though it sounded suspiciously like one. "I'm making fajita's. Zach, you're welcome to join us." Claire grinned and pulled her mom close to her chest as Sandra giggled with her eyes twinkling over the top of Mr. Muggles head. I smiled with her but felt a tightness in my chest all the same and swirled my spoon through the soggy remains of my cereal and looking for a salvageable flake.
"Let's go," Sandra kissed Mr. Muggles on the head and pulled her purse over her shoulder to carry him to the door with her footsteps retreating and finally the door closing. Claire's smile dropped and she urgently turned to me and Zach.
"We'll wait fifteen minutes and then head out," she said in an urgent whisper before turning to me. "Are you sure you can't come?"
"Yeah, I promised mom I'd help out with some things around the house," I said and tilting my bowl to scrape at the bottom. "I told her it's a half day. She believed me." Zach laughed and I got up to walk around the counter and dump the rest of my cereal into the sink.
I rolled my shoulders back as I closed the door behind me and kicked my shoes off to rest in the pile of others. For two people we sure had a lot of shoes and I could only recall owning one pair of them. So either mom had a shoe fetish or we had people living in our house that I didn't know about. Dun dun dun. I stepped around the table and to the hallway before making the long trip up the stairs with my feet dragging with each step. I probably shouldn't have lied to Claire but there was something about her meeting her biological mother that made me feel put off to the side. Like I'd finally found a part of her life that I couldn't be included in. And it was selfish and stupid but I didn't want to be there for that. I didn't want to witness a part of her life that couldn't include me. I was just that torn up inside and not able to let go of her holding me. Ah I got so poetic when I was alone. I pushed my bedroom door open before kicking it shut behind me and tossing my bag up on my bed. Well now that I was home I could get some tidying done, right? Oh I make myself laugh. Something moved in the corner of my eye and I froze. My heart beat seemed to stop and I could feel every pulse of my blood. Someone was in here. Someone who wasn't supposed to be. I swallowed hard and tried to gather the energy in my palm so I felt the pulsing of it between my fingers. One ... two ... I spun and threw the energy as hard as I could but the man behind me deflected it as easily as a wayward football and the remains of it simmered and faded into the air with a crackle. He turned his head to look at me, his chin angled out on a tilt and a smirk on his lips.
"Now that wasn't very nice," He said his voice almost deadly calm and that smirk growing into a grin. I tried to take a breath but it caught in my chest and I tried to take an inconspicuous step back to the door and hating myself for shutting it behind me. He raised a finger and waggled it back and forth with a tsk tsk sound from behind his teeth.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he warned and taking a step closer to me. "You know I could kill you before you tried and it would be a lot more fun if we had the chance to talk first ... Jessica." I froze. How did he ... I heard screeching of flesh deafening in my ears, a scream and then blood bubbled over a single word: run. He saw the gears click into place in my head and his grin became sickeningly wider.
"So you do remember me. I was hoping you would though in my poor manners I forgot to introduce myself. My name is Sylar," He made a move as if to shake my hand but abandoned it when I shrank back. He looked me up and down in place of it and I felt paralyzed under the look. "You're prettier then I remember," he congratulated, his eyes finally resting on my face and the look I found there cold.
"Can't say the same about you," I said, licking my dried lips and squeezing my hands into fists to stop them shaking. He stared at me in surprise for a moment before laughing, the sound of it echoing low in his throat.
"You're funny," he observed and started to walk across the other end of my room and looking over the disorganization of the shelves. "It's a remarkable thing to be able to maintain a sense of humor. Even after everything that has happened to you." He looked back over his shoulder to wink at me before turning back and picking up a book. "One of the earlier copies of Charlotte's Web. You don't seem the type." He turned around to lean back against the wall and flipping through the pages with half interest. I tried to calm my breathing but my hands were still shaking and I was half torn between thinking of an escape route and silently begging that he didn't rip the pages. Stupid thing to be worried about considering it might be splattered with my blood any second. He put the book down and continued looking, his back to me and humming quietly under my breath. I glanced quickly at the door before taking another step towards it, trying to estimate how quickly I could open it and be down the stairs before he noticed. As if hearing my thoughts he raised an arm back behind him and the chest from my corner scraped across the floor to block the door from me getting through and crinkling the layers of the rug it went over. Fuck.
"You can tell a lot about a person by the things they own," he continued, lowering his arm and alternating between picking things up to examine them before putting them back with little interest. "You on the one hand give off a certain air of being closed off and harsh and yet ... you own the entire little house on the prairie books." He turned to indicate the books he meant before putting it back where he found it.
"What makes you think that I'm closed off?" I asked, trying to keep him talking as I tried to figure another way out. If I got to the window could I create energy to catch me as I fell or did it not work like that? I'd never tried it before though in all fairness this might be my last time to try.
"Well all your personal belongings are hidden by more basic things and you have no pictures of friends which gives off the suggestion that you don't have any," he opened up the top drawer of my dresser and began pulling apart what he found inside. Which thankfully wasn't my underwear drawer. "And as for being harsh ...," He glanced over his shoulder with that same smirk on his face. "...You ran and left your friend to die." I felt his words coldly in my stomach and his smirk widened upon realizing that his words struck a nerve. He looked around for another moment before making a proud exclamation and walking over to sit in my chair with the diary I hadn't written in for months in his hands. He settled back into the seat and began flipping through the pages with partial interest. My legs started to hurt from standing tense for so long and I half wondered I could sit down on my bed. Seeing how close it was to the chair where he sat though maybe not.
"You have an interesting writing style," he remarked, licking his thumb to turn another page and his gaze skipping back and forth down it. "Not bad penmanship."
"Is this what you do with all your victims?" I wondered, adjusting my weight and thinking that it would somehow make me more comfortable. "Go through their stuff and bore them with pointless details?"
"Funny that you find them pointless when so far I've only listed details of yourself," he surmised and sat suddenly upright and snapping the book shut. I tensed at the sound as he rested his chin on the edge. "You don't think very highly of yourself do you?"
"And let me guess you think too high," I guessed and was rewarded with another grin. He quickly stood and rested my diary onto my bedside dresser with his fingers lingering on the cover.
"Remind me to take this when I go," he said, indicating it again before turning back to my dresser. "I'm curious to see how it ends."
"By all means," I welcomed him and glanced at the window again. I hadn't opened it in years. Could it even open? I guess I'd find out.
"You know curious thing is that – that night in the school – I wasn't even looking for you," he explained and pulling out an old piano lessons notebook that I had gotten years ago and never bothered throwing out. "My target was your dear friend Miss. Claire Bennet." My throat tightened and my vision tunnelled at how coldly he said her name and the implications behind it. "But then you were there and forgive me but I was tempted."
"I'm flattered," I tried to say but my tongue had gone dry again and swallowing didn't help. He laughed and turned back with a snow globe in his hand and shook it so the "snow" flew around inside and blurred the scenery inside. I couldn't remember what it was. Dad had given it to me and I hadn't looked at it since. He rotated it in his hand for a moment, examining it from all sides before resting it back on the dresser.
"What are you going to do with me?" I dared to ask and feeling coils tense in my arms and legs that he hadn't made an implication yet either way. It would be better if he got it over with and killed me already but for some reason felt the need to drag it out. Being dead didn't scare me. Dying did.
"You really sure you want the answer to that?" The threat in the words made worse by the chuckle in his voice.
"Not really but if you insist on touching my things and making false assumptions then I'd prefer you get it over with," I crossed my arms over my chest in an attempt to hold myself closer together and so that when he turned I appeared more nonchalant then I really was. He cocked his head to the side and examined me like I was a new species he had just discovered and wasn't sure what to do with.
"Bit of a dangerous game you're playing, don't you think?" He asked and walking closer towards me. My insides screamed at me to move but I stayed rooted in place until he was less than a foot from me and towering so I could see the darkness of his eyes hidden beneath the heaviness of his brow.
"No more then you are," I reasoned, suddenly remembering Mr. Bennet and struck with a nearly crushing relief that he would somehow know Sylar was here and was probably on his way to deal with him. All I had to do was stall him until then. The thought gave me confidence and I even managed a smile. "You're all the same you know."
"Who are all the same?" He wondered, genuinely seeming curious.
"Serial killers," I shrugged like the label didn't scare and fascinate me. "An inflated sense of importance and that the world has somehow done you wrong. So you take it out on them person by person and all the while growing smaller as a person as you begin to realize it's not the world that's wrong." The seconds ticked as he stared at me and I felt panic rise that I had gone too far before he laughed and walked around and past me, turning as he did to follow his gaze before he started rummaging through the drawers of my vanity. I could see is reflection looking down in the mirror and his brow crinkled as he searched.
"And how do you presume to know all that?" He wondered as he pulled out an old shirt I had and tossing it aside with disinterest.
"I took a class on law," I shrugged and leaned back against my bed with the weight of it behind me almost making my legs sag in relief. "Did a project on serial killers."
"So you think you know me," he laughed at the idea and picked up a tiny ballerina figurine that an aunt had given me with the idea that since I had been six I clearly liked ballet. It was a testament to my organizing skills that I hadn't thrown it out yet.
"You presume to know me," I pointed out though it clearly wasn't the same. He raised his eyes to look at me in the reflection.
"You're easy to understand," he said solemnly and straightening.
"And you're not?" I guessed as he turned back to face me and running his fingers through a necklace. He made a pointed step closer to me then another and another until he was almost nose to nose with me and his head titled down so he still towered but closer than before.
"I'm not like everyone else," he whispered, his voice low and harsh and crawling over my spine like a finger tracing its way down.
"Of course not. You're special," I forced it out between my teeth, making myself maintain eye contact and not liking what I found. His eyes were not as dark up close, a lighter shade of brown with the sense that they had once been shy but had hardened over too many times for anything good to break through. They moved back and forth over my face and I dug my fingers into my palm to keep from closing my eyes and imagining what was coming. I'd pushed him too far. I'd hit that nerve. He was going to kill me. I was going to die screaming like Jackie.
"And you're not," he pulled away like that and was moving away from me with his footsteps unexpectedly loud on the floor and like an extra heartbeat in my chest. I looked over my shoulder as he picked my diary back up and weighed it his hands.
"You mind if I keep this?" He wondered and carried it with him back around the bed without waiting for an answer.
"By all means. Let me know what you think and whether you know me better after reading it," I said and he came to stand in front of me again, still weighing the book in his hands as if seeing if it was worth the bother. He glanced over at me and I held my breath knowing that this was it. The grand finale. The moment he'd been waiting for. I struggled against closing my eyes so I wouldn't see it coming and instead stared at his neck where I could see his pulse beating. But it didn't come. I watched and I waited and finally looked back up at him as he weighed the decision of killing me as easily as he did the two pound book.
"You can breathe easy now. I'm not going to kill you," he finally said and my shoulders sagged in relief while the rest of me tensed. Serial killers liked to do that too. Give you that last shred of hope – no matter how feeble – before taking it away.
"Why not?" I asked, curious and putting him off another moment and listening for the footsteps of Mr. Bennet or the Haitian coming upstairs. If anything I thought they'd have been here sooner. He considered for a moment, not one hundred percent sure why himself.
"I like you," He finally decided and lifting a finger to brush my hair back from my face where the bruise had finally faded but was still tender to touch. "You fascinate me. You're not like the others with their screaming and begging for their life. Perhaps that'll change one day and I'll lose interest. Until then though ... I wish you well." He dropped his fingers from my face and moved back to the door, flicking his wrist so the chest moved from blocking the door and hitting the wall sharply across from it. The door opened a second later and he turned back to sweep a bow and tip an imaginary hat, my diary still pressed to his chest.
"Until next time, Jessica." And he walked back through the doorway so it slammed shut behind him and his receding footsteps sounding after. I listened to them go before everything collapsed inside of me and I let out a choking gasp before crumbling to the floor.
I clung onto the edges of my pillow, flicking the zipper of the pillow case back and forth and my heartbeat stopping with every creak or groan of the house. My phone buzzed again and I slid it under my pillow to muffle the sound and the fact that it was the sixth time that Claire had texted. I told her I couldn't make dinner and she had messaged me every hour after asking what was wrong. I nearly died. Again. The wind pressed against the window pane and I buried my face into the pillow to block out the sound and ignoring how hard my pulse was going and how it felt like ice hardening and melting under my skin. I could hear my dad in my head. See the uneasy smile on his face and his nervous readjusting as my seat belt as he said that we were going on a little trip where I would be safe and then the sound of gunfire that shattered my insides with each recollection. They should have just killed me with him. It would have been so much easier. If I had known what came after I probably would have asked them to myself. Tears welled in my eyes and I struggled against choking on the sob in my throat. I turned my face away from my pillow and saw the glitter of the streetlight off the edge of my snow globe with the flakes still on the buildings inside from where Sylar had shaken it. I felt how close he had stood to me and how ready I was to accept whatever came next as long as it was quick and I didn't feel it. As long as I was dead and there was no more pain. The sob came up anyway and I bit in my sleeve to keep it quiet and started to quietly cry into my arm in an attempt to not wake mom in the other room. I didn't care if I died. It was dying that scared me.