AN: Thanks to jeck for the always entertaining comments. :)

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Chapter 7

Of course. That was why the name was so familiar. Elle could have smacked herself for not remembering it earlier.

She had given him a Raymond Weil watch on their first anniversary. Gabriel had been amazed when he saw it. Apparently, he had never heard of them ever having produced a solid gold watch before. When he had opened it carefully, even the tiny mechanisms had been wrought in gold. He had asked her in wonder that day how she had managed to convince the notoriously difficult company to produce such an item. Elle had simply smiled.

She frowned at the computer screen in their home office, now. She had decided to work from home for once. Gabriel was not in of course and ever since deciding that she would quit The Company as soon as this assignment was over, she had found herself wanting to be away from Primatech. Now, as she flipped through the manufacturer information on Raymond Weil, she had to wonder – why did Sylar always choose watch brands as aliases?

Elle glanced down when her cell phone gave off a soft beep, indicating a new voice message. She had missed Noah's call while grabbing a coke from the kitchen. She flipped it open.

"I'm emailing you a copy of the sketches Isaac put together. Stay alert."

Elle was just about to close it again when another message came on. It was Gabriel's message that she had forgotten about when she came home the night before.

"Elle, I need you to call me as soon as you get this message. It's urgent, Elle. I - please just call me." Elle frowned. He sounded horribly strained and anxious. She remembered his words from the night before. He had thought she had been hurt. At the time, he hadn't told her why. Now, listening to his tense message, she could hear the faint sounds of a fire alarm amidst what sounded like far way screaming and shouts in the background. She quickly replayed the message. It sounded like…

Elle stumbled away from the desk, dropping the phone from a shaking hand. She felt ill and forced down a wave of nausea. There was no way. The very idea was ridiculous – Gabriel could not have been at the club that night. She kept on repeating this to herself even as she rushed upstairs to fling open the polished wooden box that sat atop Gabriel's dresser. Inside gleamed all the special timepieces he had been collecting throughout the years. Elle fumblingly examined each one with trembling hands. The Raymond Weil lay in the special case to the right and there were eight more beside it, all carefully laid out. None of them bore the Sylar brand. Elle closed her eyes and gave a strained laugh in relief. Of course. What had she been thinking?

But still…where had Gabriel been last night?

At the sound of the front door slamming shut, Elle straightened up and quickly put the contents of Gabriel's box in order, making sure it was shut tight. It sounded like he was home early.

Crap!

She had left the computer on. It didn't have anything incriminating on it aside from the page that was opened to the Raymond Weil homepage but even so…Elle felt an overwhelming urge to close it. Erasing the momentary panic from her face and plastering on a smile, she hopped down the stairs, taking them two at a time.

Her smile was wiped away the instant she breezed into the living room.

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Sylar seethed in silent rage as he sped through the city, breaking traffic laws without a thought. As the image of No. 13's furious face came to mind, he regretted for the first time in a very long time that he had given up a life of random violence for that of structured, corporate approved violence. If he had just finished No. 13 off instead of taking him back to Pinehearst for testing as his father had insisted, he wouldn't have this problem now.

Now, the only person to ever survive his special brand of brain surgery was on the loose and Sylar knew for a fact where he was headed and what he wanted – revenge.

He had only seen him once since bringing him in to Pinehearst. It was before they had begun injecting him, when they had only been testing the limits of his powers. Killing him and bringing him back to life again and again for more tests, more pain and more abuse. The testing he had gone through at Sylar's hands had been the last thing they had tried before starting him on Mohinder's drugs.

That day, as Sylar subjected him to every one of the deadly powers he possessed, he had taunted Sylar with threats sprinkled in amidst cutting remarks and screams of rage and pain. Some of his comments had hit closer to home than Sylar cared to admit but the one thing that had enraged him was hearing the sly comment about what a pretty little wife he had heard Sylar had. The rage that he had displayed at that comment had brought a knowing smile to his adversary's face. He'd cooled himself immediately but it was too late - he'd given himself away.

Afterwards, when Sylar found out which one of Mohinder's lab techs had been gossiping around the test subjects, the good doctor had been forced to scrape his associate's remains off of four walls. The stench had lingered for weeks.

Sylar had a sick feeling now that his former assignment was going to do everything in his power to make good on his threats. After all, Sylar was responsible for everything that had happened to him within the last six months. And although Sylar himself was indestructible, that didn't mean that he couldn't be hurt. He had a weakness and the bastard knew what, or rather who, it was. And a quick call to the tech department before Sylar left had confirmed that someone had indeed stolen a Specialist computer access card and interfaced the restricted employee database.

Gabriel Gray's personal files had been compromised.

And with the knowledge, experience and now unknown abilities that their lab rat possessed, he couldn't help but feel sick with worry.

Pulling the car so fast into his driveway that it swung around and partially embedded itself into the garage, Gabriel vowed that if Elle was in any way harmed, Adam Monroe would spend the rest of his considerably long life begging for death.

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