Let the tide swallow me whole/
Like morning light through windows/
Let that dark water take me home/

When Peter woke up to an unfamiliar white ceiling, his brain had to do some swift catch-up, playing him a high-speed filmstrip of memories until he finally understood where he was. Las Vegas. Linderman.

Candice.

A colossal headache made itself violently known, splintering his vision into jagged red-and-black bits. He tried to bring his hand up to his head, but it stopped short with a painful jerk and he felt metal cutting into his skin. Confused, he looked up at his hand and found it cuffed at the wrist, chained to the wall behind him. He sat up slowly, careful not to aggravate the pain in his already-screaming head—and found himself skewered by a pair of predatory brown eyes.

He felt his breath catch, his heart stop, and he lost a dizzying black second to the recognition of those eyes and that sharp shark-smile. "God!" he said, putting his face in his hands, glad to find that the cuff would let him do so. "Could this day get any worse?"

"You probably shouldn't ask that," Sylar said in that creepy-intense voice that made Peter want to cover his ears. "Not in here."

"Was I talking to you?" Peter snapped, anger overriding fear and bad memories, relieved by the realization that Sylar was also chained at the wrist, to the opposite wall.

"You might as well," Sylar told him. "As far as I'm concerned, it's just a matter of time now. You know they can't hold me forever, and here you are, locked into a room with me." His eyes were unnervingly bright, glossy with barely-contained covetous lust. "You really can't fight it, Peter, it's evolution, survival of the fittest. At least your death will do some good—your abilities will continue on with me."

Peter wasn't thrilled at the prospect of spending the rest of his life (which could be short or long, it was a toss-up at this point—he remembered Mr. Bennet mentioning something about vivisection) trapped in this bad horror movie. "I've never killed anyone before," he told Sylar, locking eyes with the man despite the slight vertigo it gave him, "but considering that you've tried to kill my niece twice and me once, I think there would be a good case for 'self-defense' where you're concerned."

"Is she really your niece?" Sylar mused. "How…sweet."

Peter had never seen anything like Sylar in his life. The closest he could think of was a few religious fanatics he'd met, but even they couldn't touch the deep mad intensity of Sylar's conviction. He was on par with the men who blew themselves up in bus stations, who dove their planes into the enemy with a defiant scream and a column of flame—only Sylar had the power to take that flame and keep walking through, to explode and put the pieces back together. There was no stopping him. He was too obsessed, too sure, and too far gone to ever change course.

It would have been bad enough, though Peter, had he not been the obsession in question. This rabid nightmare was fifteen feet away from him and there was no Nathan to stand between. It occurred to him that, really, he was the only person who could ever stop Sylar (except, it seemed, The Company), what with the whole empath thing. This realization immediately increased his headache, sending shooting pains of responsibility through his temples. He hadn't asked for this.

Okay, so maybe he had.

But it wasn't supposed to belike this. He'd wanted a destiny, not a deathmatch.

"It's so close," Sylar breathed, staring at Peter, very hungry, very feral. He was deadly mania, barely curbed, nearly sane, a tenuous hold on the reins. Then, the calm broke like salted ice and he threw himself forward, lunging at Peter until he hit the end of his chain, straining against the bolt in the wall.

Peter backpedaled instinctively, feeling the ridges of the wall bite into his back as he pressed against it, needing more distance between him and this man and his vendetta. What was he doing, thinking about saving the world? There was a very good chance he wouldn't make it out of this place alive.

He heard someone behind him laughing, and suddenly he was reminded that Sylar wasn't the only thing he had to worry about. He turned to the pane of glass that served as their left wall, and there was Candice, standing like she was posing for a centerfold photo shoot, looking delighted with herself.

"Calm down there, cowboy," she said patronizingly to Sylar. "Incidentally, I know how you feel, but we do want him breathing until we decide otherwise." She swept them with acid eyes, lingering just long enough on Peter to make him uncomfortable. "I told them this was a bad idea. Oh well," she said lightly. "There's a pretty lively betting pool as to which of you is going to kill the other first. Do me a favor and don't let anyone win yet?"

She opened the nearly-invisible cell door and clicked across the concrete in her red heels, heading towards Peter, who was doing his level best to ignore her. Between Sylar and Candice, he almost—almost—would have picked Sylar. He wished it wasn't a choice he had to consider. She grabbed his hair and pulled his head to the side, stabbing a needle into the hollow between his neck and shoulder. He gripped the edge of his bed and didn't react—he wasn't the fool she was, he knew about actions and consequences—and after a few seconds, she pulled the needle back out studied it under the dim light.

"Thanks, sweetheart," she said. "That's all we need—at least, until our specialists get here. Believe me, you'll know when they arrive." She tousled his hair like an indulgent mother and walked back out, leaving Peter with Sylar and a very deep sense that everything had gone wrong.

---

Both Hana and Claire were trying very hard not to look at the cell phone. Identical apprehensions were floating above their heads like thought bubbles, but they refused to acknowledge them, choosing instead to grit their teeth and hit harder, taking out their anxieties on each other and understanding when the other didn't quite pull their punches. Hana swung at Claire and the girl blocked her head, falling back with little of the determination she'd shown in earlier hours. Claire saw the sun going down behind Hana, the sky healing over dark like a scab and the city shuddering into second life beneath it, flick-flick-flick, neon lights and stars. Trying to swallow down the hysterical anxiety she felt, she missed Hana's leg sweeping in to cut her down and was dumped unceremoniously onto the floor.

She'd already begun scrambling to her feet, preparing for the next attack, when she realized that it wasn't coming. Hana was standing, bronzy skin lit like a statue in the new moonlight, shaking her head. "What?" Claire asked immediately, concern compounding at Hana's grim expression.

"It's no use," Hana said, sitting down on her futon and tossing Claire a water bottle. "We're both making stupid mistakes, we aren't going to do any good practicing like this."

Claire pulled her hair out of its sloppy, uncaring bun and dragged a hand through it. "I know," she said. "I'm sorry, my focus is terrible. I just—can't stop thinking about Peter." There—she'd said it, and now they could both admit that there was a problem.

"He should have been back hours ago," Hana said pensively, staring at the still-silent phone. "He's been gone for nearly a full day, and he hasn't even called us. Something is wrong, Claire."

Claire picked up her phone and flipped it open, telling herself just to dial instead of crying—the last thing she wanted to do was cry in front of this woman, this model of strong, beautiful survival. She wasn't sure Hana had ever cried, and she wasn't going to be the one to go to pieces, she wasn't. "I don't care if he said not to call," she told Hana fiercely. "By now he's either safe or in too much trouble for it to matter anymore." The phone rang dully, each monotonous tone like one of Hana's solid right hooks slamming into her. Finally, feeling very much like throwing a six-year-old fit but restraining herself with sixteen-year-old discipline, she tossed the phone back onto the table. "He's not picking up."

"Right," Hana said, steeling herself to make a suggestion that tasted like defeat to her pride. "I think it's time to call your father."