CHAPTER 29
Mira wiped her mouth and leaned back against the tub in her bathroom. Just thinking about what happened made her sick. She couldn't stomach the guilt of killing someone. She finally understood how Sylar felt, but at the same time, she didn't know how he could do it
Well, maybe anyone else could just shut off their emotions, but not her. Even though she could control them now, she couldn't shut them off completely. Noah tapped on the bathroom door.
"Mira, are you okay?" he asked softly. She swung the door open.
"Do I look like I'm okay?" she asked, with rings of mascara under her eyes. She wiped at them with the sides of her hands.
"It's hard, when something like that happens," Noah said. He knew what he wanted to say, but was afraid it would upset her. "Mira, I…" he stopped when he thought he heard something in the front room. He turned around with his gun in hand, motioning for Mira to stay back.
"Mira?" a voice asked from the living room. Noah rounded the corner. Mira grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
"Don't do it," she said to Noah as she whisked the gun away with her telekinesis.
"What the hell is going on here?" he asked, feeling cornered. Sylar smiled.
"Oh don't worry, I'm not here to kill anyone," Sylar teased. Noah stared at him defiantly.
"Why is he here?" Noah asked Mira.
"He's helping me."
"I thought that's why you called me?"
"I needed all the help I could get," she replied to Noah. "He offered and I couldn't turn him down. Remember, it's not about us. It's about baby Noah…and my life." She turned to Sylar. "So what did you find out?" Sylar tossed a stack of files onto the table.
"He had a shrine up on his wall devoted to the people he killed. He even has a some of you," Sylar said, flipping through his cell phone.
He brought up a picture of the mural and showed Mira the black and white photos of herself tacked onto the wall. She shook her head in disgust. There were dozens of pictures and notes about his other victims, like he had been tracking them for years.
"Obviously a whacko," Sylar stated. Noah and Mira both looked up at him, and the irony of his statement.
"How many files do we have here?" Noah asked, trying to at least make some sense of the situation. He flipped through each one rapidly. Each file had pictures, statistics, and information on powers. He noticed the first page in each chart had a red stamped X over their close-up photo.
"How many of these files are crossed out?" Noah asked, becoming slightly frantic.
"I didn't count," Sylar responded dryly. Noah got to the last chart and stopped reading. He flung the chart back on the table.
"Only 8 marked out. Besides Mira, he has one more person to go. We need to find him, and stop him," Noah said as he pulled out his cell phone. Sylar telekinetically flipped the phone closed again. Noah looked at him, impatiently.
"I've already taken care of him," Sylar said.
"What do you mean?" Noah narrowed his eyes at him and took a step forward.
"I took care of it," Sylar growled.
"So you killed him? Great. There was more information we could have got out of him!" Noah began to raise his voice.
"I don't care about information!" Sylar yelled in defense. "Martin Collins already killed eight people. Read the list of powers he needed samples of. If I hadn't killed him, he would have become strong enough to exact revenge on anyone whoever wronged him."
"You're a hypocrite," Noah accused. He narrowed his eyes at Sylar. "You don't care about what he was going to do. You just want to be special. You want to get people out of the way that threaten your power."
"No, that was just an added bonus," Sylar replied with a smug smile. Bennet gritted his teeth.
"Did you tell Mira about your latest power?" Noah questioned him. Sylar was taken back.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Sylar growled.
"You told Peter it was something 'you picked up along the way'. Somehow, you became emotionally empathic, like Mira," Noah informed them.
"Sylar, what's he talking about?" Mira asked, becoming concerned.
"There have been a few deaths you haven't known about," Noah admitted to her.
"Deaths? What?" She tried to comprehend what he was saying. "Who did you kill?" she directed her focus on Sylar.
"Dr. Collins," he answered.
"Don't-" she warned him. "Don't play games with me. What did you do?" she demanded. Sylar was silent. "God damn it, tell me!" she screamed.
"Mira, do you know anyone else with the power of emotional empathy?" Noah asked, trying to re-jog her memory. Her mind suddenly clicked and her jaw dropped.
"You don't mean…" she trailed off, waiting for someone to acknowledge her fears. Noah nodded.
"I went to check on your mother a few days ago. Her doctor couldn't find any signs of foul play, but he thought it was suspicious," Noah answered. She stared at Sylar, who was staring right back at her.
"No, no…you wouldn't…" she whispered in disbelief. "You wouldn't kill my mother," she muttered. Sylar stepped towards her, reaching for her shoulders.
"She begged me to," he answered softly. "She said she couldn't live with it anymore. I felt sorry for her."
Mira shoved him away from her and Noah darted between the two. Mira began to cry as she hid behind Bennet. Sylar was overwhelmed with guilt. Her grief was too much for him, and he fell to his knees.
"Why were you there?" Noah asked him. "What did you want from Glenda in the first place?" Sylar looked up at Mira who was staring at him and covered his face again.
"I just wanted to understand you," his speech was directed at Mira. "I wanted to know your history, to understand you."
"You could have just asked me," she defended, walking around Noah to confront Sylar. "And now, because of you, she'll never get to meet her grandson. You took the one thing away that could have possibly made her happy. He could have brought her back to sanity…at least for a while," she fantasized.
"Your mother was strapped to a bed, in an induced coma. What did she have left to live for?"
Sylar and Mira continued to argue. Bennet's cell phone rang and he lifted it to his ear. He stepped aside to listen quietly, nodded, thanked the person on the other end and hung up.
"Mira," he pulled her aside. "Jazz is still alive. She's telling people that you tried to kill her. The cops will be coming here soon."
A shiver ran down Mira's spine. She was thankful that she hadn't killed her, but she never thought about the repercussions of what would happen if she didn't. She looked over at Sylar, who was curious to their conversation.
"You tried to kill someone?" he was intrigued.
"Jazz…" she whispered.
"The chick from the watch shop? I thought you were over that?" Sylar asked, sarcastically. She narrowed her eyes at him.
"I didn't mean to. I couldn't help it. I had to know what she was hiding," she murmured, almost in a trance as she relived the moment.
"You wanted her power…" Sylar concluded remorsefully. He looked at her with pity.
"But I didn't kill her after all," she defended herself.
"Did you get her power?" he asked.
"I don't know." Sylar looked at her in disbelief. "She wouldn't tell me what she could do. I haven't tried anything yet." They were all quiet as they thought about the possibilities.
"What she could do doesn't matter now. Mira, we need to leave," Noah said, looking at the call time on his phone. She walked towards her bedroom.
"Where are you going?" Sylar asked as he followed her into the bedroom. He picked up the dingy, worn out teddy bear laying on her dresser. He had a flash of when she had found it in her old, dilapidated house the day they were attacked by Nathan and his men. He could see back farther, Mira was a young child, hiding under her bed. A man's hand reaches under the bed and grabs her. She screams and the bunny is left behind as she's dragged out.
"Wait, what?" Sylar asked, suddenly snapping back into reality.
"I said I don't know! But Noah's right, I have to get out of here," she restated as she stuffed clothes into a duffel bag, and ran around the room, emptying her drawers and dumping jewelry out of her jewelry box. The gold dandelion Sylar gave her fell onto the bed and he picked it up.
"I know somewhere we can go," he said as he twirled the little weed between his fingers. He was taken back to the day he gave it to her. The awe in her eyes as he turned it to gold. He could feel his eyes well up with tears, feeling what she had felt. It began to emotionally drain him. He dropped it back on the bed and sat down.
Mira looked up at him, tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear as she stood up straight.
"You killed my mother…I'm not ready to forgive you for that. I don't know if I'll ever be." She could feel his rejection and remorse.
"I promise you," he said as he stood up and walked over to her. He grabbed her hand and held it tightly with both of his. "I will never kill again. I want to be a good father. I want my son to have what I didn't."
"I can't believe you," she said, starting to show signs of a breakdown. "I can't get my hopes up. Because you may not…for a while, but it'll happen again. I know what it feels like now," she whispered as hot tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
Sylar was quiet as he contemplated what she said. She tried to kill someone because of the bit of his power she absorbed. What if his power corrupted her? She wasn't ready to handle them. It would only get worse the longer they were together.
"Cops are here, come on, get us out of here, Mira!" Noah warned her. She threw a few more things into her bag and joined Noah in the living room. Sylar followed suit.
"Okay, let's get out of here," she said as she threw the bag over her shoulder. She grabbed Noah's hand and looked at Sylar. "You coming?" she asked. He shook his head.
"No, I'll find a way out, I'm sure," he refused. She sighed and cocked her head at him.
"Well, I guess I'll see you when I see you," she said with an empty smile. He stared at her, she could feel his heart breaking. With a blink of her eye, they were gone.
Sylar looked around the home for personal mementos. A sonogram picture was on the refrigerator. He moved the magnet out of the way and picked it up. He could see her excitement as she watched the baby move on the monitor. He could see the day clearly, and what she had gone through. He stuffed the picture in the breast pocket of his jacket and left the apartment. He morphed into Mira's neighbor once more and disappeared into the elevator just as police passed him, walking quickly towards Mira's apartment.
He smiled as he slipped away quietly and undetected.
*
