AN: Sorry for the long wait between posts! In honor of Heroes coming back online, I was inspired to write again. Thanks to everyone for their encouragement while I went through a bit of writer's block. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

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Chapter 8

As soon as she hit the bottom of the stairs, Elle noticed a blond head facing away from her in the living room that was definitely not Gabriel's. She immediately clawed her hand, discreetly charging up energy for an attack in case one was needed. At the sound of her shoes hitting the polished wood flooring, the blond intruder swiveled around to face her, belligerently pulling up his hand level with her head. Elle gasped at the first glimpse of his face.

"YOU!" They both uttered in unison, Elle with a bit more growl to her voice. Adam dropped his hand at seeing her, his surprise obvious.

"What the hell are you doing here?" she hissed at him. "I thought I told you I never wanted to see you again!" She gave him a jolt straight to his chest to drive home the sentiment. He grunted and winced a bit, rubbing the spot gingerly with one hand while the other came up to gesture to her placatingly. His tone was soothing and slightly guarded as he spoke to her.

"Sweetheart, I assure you, any other time and I'd be more than happy to oblige you but it seems like we're both after the same thing here."

"Don't you 'sweetheart' me, you asshole," Elle growled menacingly. Her hands were still clawed, itching to throw another bolt at him. "You left the company years ago and you never looked back. I don't see how we could both be after the same -"

"Look, you're obviously after Sylar but I'm afraid you're a bit too late. I've got a bigger bone to pick with him so I get dibs. But as a favor," he smiled cunningly at her, seemingly regaining his equilibrium, "I'd be happy to let you have him - right after I'm done with him."

Elle's eyes narrowed. "How did you know that I've been assigned to the Sylar case?"

Adam rolled his eyes. "Darling –"

"Do not call me that!"

"— it's obvious. Why else would you be..." Adam's voice trailed away as his eyes caught sight of a picture located on the fireplace mantelpiece. He quickly crossed over to get a better look at it, lifting it into his hands to stare down blankly at the smiling faces contained within. She watched uneasily as a riot of emotions swam across his face. Finally, he seemed to collect himself and lifted his eyes, stonily holding the picture up so she could see it.

"You got married." He thrust the beautifully framed picture of Elle and Gabriel on their wedding day in her direction. Elle took a deep breath, feeling strangely guilty although she knew she had no reason to be.

"Yes."

"To him." His eyes were hard and Elle bristled at the comment.

"What? Did you think I'd be waiting around for you? Don't kid yourself. And where the hell have you been anyway?" she asked, really looking at his battered form for the first time. "You look like shit."

He frowned as he looked at her searchingly for a long moment before seemingly coming to a decision. Turning away, he slowly set the picture back in its place, bringing his body to rest against her mantelpiece. He shook his head slowly and Elle watched with narrowed eyes as he laughed a bit as if in disbelief. Still facing away from her, he closed his eyes as he smirked self-deprecatingly to himself. "Oh Elle," he muttered. "My poor, blind darling. If it had been anyone else I would have...*sigh* Why do you always have to make everything so difficult?" With that last cryptic comment, Elle felt her tenuous patience break.

"Adam – I don't know what the hell you think you're doing here but I've had just about enough of your weird shit. You need to take your shabby ass and get the hell out of here before I forget about the no harm clause in your severance contract and fry you three ways from Sunday."

"Don't worry dear, I'm leaving –"

"Good. Let's NOT do this again in another four years."

"— and you're coming with me."

There was dead silence for a moment before Elle brought both her hands up and zapped Adam with all her might, yelling profanities at him. Or, at least – she tried to zap him.

As soon as Elle's hands came up, so did Adam's. A clear blue shell formed around him, deflecting her jagged bolts of electricity harmlessly to the side and Elle gasped in surprise, watching as her energy winged over the couch and short circuited a large flat screen TV. They both watched it explode with a loud crack and then go up in flames.

"I just bought that," she whispered before turning back to him, her hands still raised. "How the hell did you do that?"

Adam looked at her coldly, the beginnings of impatience on his face. "I can do a lot of things now, Elle. But I'm afraid we don't have time for explanations. We need to go to Primatech and speak with your father."

"I'm not going anywhere with you." Elle slowly backed away, crackling blue hands still held up defensively. He rolled his eyes at her.

"You always were too pigheaded for your own good." And then, he crouched low and sprang at her, his movements quick and erratic, like a marionette without its strings. Elle watched him come at her in sick fascination – what the hell had happened to him?

Coming to her senses, she directed quick bursts of electricity from her hands while stumbling back. Most of her shots flew off into the house, torching the furniture and igniting the rug but she managed to wing him with one of her bolts. It barely seemed to slow him before he was knocking the burning couch out of the way and coming at her again. Instinctively, Elle filled the entire room with a miasma of cracking, burning blue energy only to see Adam form another tinted shell of deflective energy around him. She grit her teeth in annoyance.

Why did this crap always have to happen to her?

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"Bob, I've emailed you sketches of the specials we're investigating."

"Good. I'll circulate them to the other agents today. Did you find anything useful?" Bob asked, referring to Noah's trip to the club. He shifted his phone as he reached over his desk to his computer to access his email account. It pulled up quickly and Bob clicked on Noah's file.

"One of them has enhanced strength," Noah replied. "We picked up some prints, too. We'll need to run those through the database to see if we can find any matches. Not too much else. Has any other activity been detected recently?" There was a moment of silence. "Bob? Are you still there?" After another long moment, Bob's voice came back over the phone.

"...is Elle with you?" he asked calmly.

"...no. We split up. She went back to do some research."

"She never came back here. Bennet...this man that you saw - Sylar - how accurate is this picture of him?"

"I would say it's dead accurate."

Bob Bishop clenched his free hand atop his desk. His unwavering gaze locked on the picture of Sylar, the super human serial killer, the man he had been tracking for over four years.

The man who had married his daughter.

There was no mistake. He could never forget that face - the face of the man who had been pulling Elle away from him for the last three years, slithering his way into her heart and mind insidiously like a worm in a new apple. Elle had never known but he had secretly been there that day she had wed him in a civil ceremony at city hall in her soft white dress and veil, the only other witnesses the judge and city officials. He had been so angry that day. He could no longer ignore him - had had to see the face of the man she had chosen to squander her life on. When he saw how happy they were that day, he had known that someday she would throw away all the time and effort he had put into training her. That someday, the important work they were doing would no longer appeal to her. What a perfect waste that would have been.

It had taken all of his careful manipulation to keep her at the company this long.

But now...well, now...it seemed like his luck was finally changing.

"Bennet, you need to go pick Elle up now. Take the Haitian with you. Do whatever you have to do to make sure she comes with you. "

"What do you mean, 'whatever I need to do?'" Noah asked suspiciously.

"She's an asset to us on this case and she's in danger. Sylar knows who she is." With that, Bob hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, resting his hands together with the fingertips forming a pyramid that he tapped against his lips. He smiled. It was time to bring Elle back into the fold.

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AN: Sorry there is no Sylar in this chapter. We'll see what he's up to next time!