"Would you like to help me with this one?"
He didn't turn to her to speak; he was looking straight ahead, taking in the sight of the double-wide ahead of them. He was mentally casing the place, calculating exits, trying to determine how many windows and doors he'd have to mentally lock all at once.
"You don't need my help," she replied, matter-of-factly. Of course he didn't. In the past few months they'd criss-crossed their way across the country, and Sylar had stolen more powers than could be counted on fingers and toes. Some were more handy than others; it wasn't often that he exercised his ability to draw perfect circles. But one power in particular was proving wonderfully useful; a man near Lincoln, Nebraska, had been able to detect powered persons within a fifty-mile radius. It had taken Sylar a while to use this ability, as so much of the plains states were sparsely populated, but he was delighted to find that it allowed him pinpoint accuracy in finding their locations.
One thing this power did not tell him, however, was what he'd be up against. There was no telling what power lay in this double-wide, whether it was contained in man, woman or child, whether anyone else was in the house. Sylar could understand Elle's trepidation. "I won't let anything happen to you."
She reached down and massaged her thighs. Her sciatic nerve was killing her from being in the car so long, with the weight of the baby pressing down on her legs; a little exercise certainly wouldn't hurt. She inhaled deeply, and looked up to meet Sylar's gaze, but he was still staring straight ahead. She unbuckled her seatbelt and let herself out, halfway to the door before Sylar even hurriedly stumbled out of the car.
The door was unlocked, and Elle let herself in, Sylar closely behind. The place was trashed - the stale smell of cheap beer and dead cigarettes choked her. The wood paneling was peeling away from the walls, and the pressboard furniture had scummy patina.
Before she turned around, Elle was violently pushed against the wall, the barrel of a gun pressed into her throat. She instinctively reached up and grabbed it, releasing enough voltage to stun her attacker into submission. The man fell backwards, twitching on the ground and groaning in pain.
"Don't kill him, he's the one with the power," Sylar told her. Two more men, one armed with another gun, lingered at the doorway, caught between the urges of fight and flight. "But they're all yours."
Elle had forgotten how much fun it was to kill indiscriminately. The odor of beer and cigarettes soon gave way to the more satisfying scent of ozone.
There wasn't a lot to loot except cold, hard cash, but they judged from paraphernalia in the kitchen that they had walked into a meth lab.
"Want to practice your sharpshooting?" he asked her. When they returned to the car, they drove as far as they could with the doublewide still in sight. Leaning against the car, Elle cocked her hand like a gun and sent a small but precise spark through the air. A moment later the building exploded, the heat of it almost as intense as the heat of Sylar's arm wrapping around Elle, pulling her towards him in forceful kiss.