I sit on my bunk; taking a bite from the crap this place considers food, Lily sleeping peacefully next to me, curled into a ball, it's the first time she's slept without agitation. She's been in here for about a week, it's hard to keep track in this place. On the second day they tried to take her, she didn't try to fight, having been beaten into submission long ago, but I haven't! I took two of the three guards down without breaking a sweat, but I'd been hit with a dart, tying to fight off the effects of the sedative, thank you Claire Bennet, and the third backed out like the true coward he is!

She'd sat and shook for hours after, she still flinched whenever I made an unexpected movement or to just sooth her with a touch of comfort, so used to her empty solitude!

I look down at her head next to my lap, her hairs fanning out around her fair fleshed face calm and steady; I see a glimpse of the little girl I knew as she lays there. I move a stray black strand from her face and ask myself so many questions, like where the hell is her mother? Rachel wouldn't just let them take Lily…would she?

I look up into the camera with a cold glare, I know their watching, their always watching! Lily won't give me details about what they did, whenever I ask she shakes her head and crawls back inside herself, they broke the little girl she was and now I'm just trying to figure her out, they twisted and fractured her like they had me, made her cold and face the cruelty of the world, made the sweet fifteen year old girl they snatched grow up to quickly into the seventeen year old train wreck!

She starts to stair and I smile "good morning sleepyhead! Well I think its morning!"

She sits up slowly, rubbing at her neck "I stopped trying to guess if its day, it gets to confusing!"

She makes a nauseated face as she sees the food try in my lap, hers over on the table "the one thing you never get used to here is what they try to pass off as food! What I'd give for a burger and fries some days!"

I can't help but laugh "yeah, I miss pie!"

She closes her eyes with a small smile "yeah, a slice of apple pie with vanilla ice-cream... god that's heaven!"

She rests back against the wall with a sad little smile "I'm glad you're here… I don't mean… I'm not glad that your stuck here…I just meant…!"

I move the tray to the floor and chuckle "I know, I've been here before, sucked then to… this time is better!"

Her blue orbs widen at this and she sits alert "wait, you escaped… from here?"

I can't help my victorious smile at the memory "I did and I will again, we will!"

"You know for two years I was so sure I'd die here, and every time when they came for me, I thought… this is it! Hell I haven't even spoke to anyone for… I don't know how long and I can't help but think this is one of three things; first, I've lost it and started seeing things aka you! Second, I've slipped into some sort of dream stated coma and third… they… they killed me and I'm in some sort of limbo!" she says looking at her hands, nervous and scared like always.

I look at the poor girl and gingerly take her small, frail hand in my large strong one, she flinches ever so slightly as I do so "Lily, look at me!" I command softly

Her eyes break through the curtain of black tresses "you feel my hand, this is real, I am real and I'm going to get you out of here!"

She smiles and wipes at a stray tear "I believe you Sylar, I just… I don't think I could take it if anything took you away from me, I don't want to be alone again!"

I examine her face and ask my internal question "where's your mom? Why hasn't she reported you missing?"

She looks down and brings her knees to her chin "I don't…her …"

I can feel her closing up on me again and blurt "I killed my mom! It was an accident; after I showed her what I could do she attacked me with some scissors and told me I wasn't her son, turns out the last part is true!"

She looks at me wide eyed and I suddenly feel her arms circling my neck, her soft, cool, dry cheek brushing against my spiked warm stubble, she's so small she's basically sat on my lap! My arms embrace her small frame and she lets out a heavy sigh.

"I drew an apple, it came out of the page and I took a bite, offered it to my mom! She looked at me like I sprouted another head and backed away. After that she barely looked at me and when she did she seemed….! Then one day I came home from school and when I walked in this guy had his hand over my face and then I wake up here!" she mumbles into my neck, scared to pull away

When she does back up she asks "I always wondered about my mom, she really didn't tell anyone I was missing? My school didn't notice I was gone, my friends and my own mother… I disappeared off the face of the earth and not one person cared enough to notice, to look for me…" she sobs into her knees

I can't help but hang my head in shame, because I didn't notice either, I barely spared a thought for her since I discovered my ability, not till they threw her at my feet! I'll make it up to her; I'm just wondering what to do once I get us out of here? I'm not sure she could stomach my new murderous life, but I can't drop her back into reality after all this, besides they'd just find her again!

"I'm sorry you've had to go through that but don't worry, I'm here now!" I smile, cupping her cheek lightly as she nuzzles into my palm.

A few minutes later I notice the gas seeping in from the vent, it's getting weaker with its effect on me now, my regenerative power adjusting to the drugs their giving me, not that I'd let them know that, I pretend to still be passed out for at least two hours extra . Just a little while longer, just a little more waiting then we'd be free and I'd figure everything else out, but for right now I let the drugs take hold and look into the closing eyes of Lily… the not so little girl I once knew!

Hours later I come to, but don't move, expecting the silence as the drug drowns away, what I don't expect is to be laying at a strange angle against a hard softness, two slender arms wrapped around my neck and upper torso. I can feel a woman's chest heaving against the back of my head, her knees either side of me as I hear her faint sobs. Yes I usually wouldn't move despite the discomfort, but the sobs and scent of copper makes me shirt with worry!

"S…Sylar?" Lily's broken voice sobs as I start to sit up

As I turn I gasp in shock, her marble completion was now tainted with a large purple bruise across the right of her jaw, another lined with a long cut on the outside tear soaked cheek of her right eye and her lip sporting a bloodied split.

"Lily what the fuck happened?" I quickly yell

Her doe blue eyes water as she sobs "when…when they came, I was starting to pass…out and they got out this needle… they injected you, then they tried to… take me away! I fought them off but one of the guards...well… then he undid his… he was going to…but that woman was by the door, Angela? She stopped him and then they left!"

I feel my blood boil, the rage flare through my veins "Lily… has it ever happened before, with the guards?"

She looks down slightly "…no, it's just this one, Rodgers… my old cell needed a special key to get in, like this one, but only one guard had it, needed it and Rodgers was only on look out so he could never… but he would say things, tell me stuff… he scares me Sylar!"

I reach out and ghost my hand over the marks on her face, I'm sure she must be covered in bruises, but their hidden by the white cover of her clothes, that are now sprinkled with crimson, she backs off a little from the shot of pain then looks me dead in the eyes.

"When you said you hurt people, did what you mean to say was that you sliced their heads open found out how to steal their powers and then get rid of their brain?" she asks in a sheepish voice

I look at her for a moment but she carries on "that's where you went when you left New York, collecting abilities! She said… she said that you were supposed to kill me to, that was the plan, that's what you do and she wanted to know what made me different… honestly I'm kind of curious myself!"

I sit back and run a hand through my disheveled hair "I changed my name when I first started… collecting abilities, my original ability came with something…not just the knowledge to know how things work but this hunger, to know more, to be more! For the longest time I tried to control it, deny it, now I just accept it as a part of who I am. I'm a killer and I like it, and I had every intention of killing you as well… until I realized it was 'you'!"

She lets out a long breath of relief "why not just kill me though, what changed it?"

"Because you're Lily Thornwood! You were a part of my life long before any of this; you're the annoying kid that used to hum while I tried to work and always had a pencil behind your ear or in your pocket. They were just nothings that didn't deserve the abilities they'd been given, but you… your just Lily, it's that simple!" I try my best to explain to her, when I can barely explain it to myself

Her eyes meet mine a glimmer of darkness screaming from the ocean of her eyes "I'm not that cute little kid anymore and you're far from the geeky watchmaker she had a crush on! ...do you think I could come with you, I mean you said you weren't going to stop and I can't exactly just go home, I don't think I would if I could! …I think about it, killing people, a lot actually over the last two years! what it you be to like… how would I do it… what would their last words be, their expression, but mostly…I think about the way it would make me feel, would it be like the rush on a roller-coaster or the thrill of doing something naughty?"

As she speaks her eyes glaze over with a dazed gleam and a sinister smile on her face, and I have to say as her doe blue eyes, sweet lips mirror my signature stare… she looks beautiful!