Dream every night/
That one will come true/
But only bad ones ever do/
Candice found it very easy to hate Peter Petrelli when he wasn't in the room. In fact, that was what she had been spending a majority of her time doing—remembering the way he'd flinched when she cut him with her words, the moment when he'd pulled back from the kiss and she'd seen from the look in his eyes that it had all been some kind of a trick. It was an easy and enjoyable pastime, and there wasn't terribly much else she could do, trapped in the cliché-of-guest-bedroom with its needlepoint pillows and dust ruffles. They hadn't even released her hands yet, and she hadn't dared trying to stand up handless yet, so she simply sat with her legs tucked into her, steaming through with impotent rage.
Unfortunately, when Peter came into the room, all her hard work came tumbling down like an upset block castle, and she grasped frantically at her hate but it slid out of her hands, leaving her with only a furious, thirsty sort of wanting. She ceased to remember the moment after he kissed her and only remembered the kiss, his searing desperation and the way his lashes framed his closed eyes like a charcoal drawing. It was the first time since she could remember when she hadn't been in absolute control of a partner—and perversely, maybe that was what attracted her.
He sat down in the chair across from her, leaned across the space between them, and pulled the duct tape off her mouth. She ignored the screams of her intense-but-inappropriate crush as his fingers brushed her and masked it with a reproachful glare. "Ow," she complained.
"Nice to see you, too," Peter replied, balling the tape in his hand and tossing it to the other side of the room. "Though I have to admit, I like this new version of our relationship a lot better."
"Thrilled I could help," she said bitingly. "Now are you going to get this tape off my hands, or what? My blood is being restricted and I think I'm developing some sort of clot."
"You can't develop a blood clot from not getting enough blood," he said reasonably.
"Says who?" she snapped childishly.
"Well, I am a nurse," he reminded her, getting to his feet and running a hand through his hair in a way she found particularly attractive. "Stand up, I'll let you free."
She began to struggle to her feet, and after a few seconds she felt his hand on her arm, keeping her from pitching headfirst onto the flimsy-looking nightstand. She leaned carefully into him as he cut away the tape at her wrists, employing her well-practiced talents to make sure him she was touching him just enough that he couldn't help but notice, but couldn't suspect her of anything. Even without her abilities, Candice was a seductress of the very highest order, and she was going to give this everything she had left.
Her hands came free and she brought them in front of her, sitting on the decorously floral-patterned bed to rub them back into circulation. "So what do you want?" she asked him bluntly. "I doubt you're here to save my hands from falling off."
He sat back down on the chair, steepling his fingers under his chin. "There are some things that we're trying to work out, and we think you might be able to help us. I need some information on a certain file."
She crossed her arms, clearly preparing to be obnoxiously stubborn. "And what are you going to do if I say no?"
Peter leaned back in the wicker chair, hearing it crackle beneath him, quietly throwing out his hope that it wouldn't come down to this. He should have known better than to think Candice would cooperate. "Listen," he said quietly, holding her cocoa-brown eyes with his lighter ones. "I'm not going to hurt you, and you know that." She smirked insolent agreement at him, but he wasn't done. "However, there are at least two people outside that door who have no such compunctions, and neither of them like you very much. Do you really want to play this game?"
"Bennet," she said with some trepidation—Peter was right, he wouldn't think twice about anything he did to her, he had never had much of a problem with blood, "and…who? Nathan? I suppose I could see him getting his hands dirty."
"His hands are already dirty," Peter said bluntly. "You wouldn't be anything more than a footnote, a single dead fish in an massive moral oil spill. You see, none of us cares about you, Candice, and quite a few of us hate you. There's only one way for you to preserve your value in this situation."
"And what about when I tell you everything I know? What happens if I don't have the answers you need?" she shot at him, standing and stalking over to him until she was close enough to see the white scar slashing over his brow. "I know how this works, Peter Petrelli, and I dare you to tell me I'll be alive in a week, despite anything I do."
"If you tell us what we need, I'll make sure nothing happens to you," he promised immediately, with a straight, sincere honesty that rocked her back on her foundations of deception and careless vice.
He means it, she realized, he hates me but he'll protect me. God, this kid is a saint—how has he survived all these years, in this world, in this family? "Fine," she said, voice glittering with hard malice. "Go get them, I'll answer your damn questions."
He turned away from her and walked toward the door—giving her exactly the opportunity she'd been waiting for. The instant his back was to her, she grabbed the chair and swung it at him with all her strength, breaking it across the back of his head. He crumpled, dropping to the carpet, and she pounced on him, pinning him to the ground with her knees and pulling one spike-heeled shoe off her foot to use as a weapon. As she brought it down with savage force, he caught her wrist and held it, forcing them both into an awkward, tangled standstill.
He was so close she could smell him, soap and coffee and cinnamon chewing gum, feel him breathing against her neck. She couldn't help it—she kissed him. For a startled split-second, he let her, his mouth opening under hers, all his muscles frozen, tense—then he came slamming back into focus, throwing her off him with telekinesis, hard enough that she hit the wall behind them. They both scrambled to their feet and stood staring at each other, Peter stunned, Candice snarling like a cat, teeth bared.
Feeling as if he'd survived some sort of natural disaster, Peter stumbled out of the room, nearly running into Nathan, who stood with his head down, arms folded outside the door, a still life of patience and quiet danger. Taking in Peter's tousled appearance and shell-shocked eyes, he asked quickly, "Are you all right?"
"Yeah," Peter said vaguely, looking back into the room. "Yeah. I'm fine."