There were footsteps outside the basement door, and I instinctively started, my heart already pounding with the realization that Dr. Goswami was back with more sick ways to torture me. Because it was him. It was always him.
The door was flung open and footsteps ran down the stairs, but I didn't turn from the wall. He would either torture me or kill me, but not acknowledging his presence was the one thing I could control. As an added bonus, I knew it royally pissed him off.
"Hero? Jesus, it's you. Can you hear me?" I heard the padlock being ripped off its hinges, but I refused to turn. Dr. Goswami had used this tactic before, one of his more cruel forms of psychological torture: he had hired a shapeshifter and I'd only known it wasn't really Gabriel because they'd used the wrong shade of brown in his eyes. "Hero, it's me. Why won't you look at me?"
I waited until he put a hand on my shoulder, then lashed out with a fist to the man's face. It took him by surprise, but he caught my other wrist to subdue me, and I screamed in pain. Instantly, he released the broken arm with a look of horror and I cradled the appendage to my chest, shrinking away from him. "I'm sorry, I didn't know it was," he began, but jumped back as I clawed at his face with my good hand when he made to move closer; I wasn't going to let them kill me without fighting like a wildcat. We struggled for a moment as the man with Gabriel's face tried to restrain me, but finally an unseen force pushed me away from him, I dropped to a crouch with a snarl.
"Jesus Christ, Hero. What the hell did they do to you?" The Gabriel doppelgänger pretended to be both wary and heartbroken, but I didn't buy it. "Come on, let's get you out of here."
He reached for me again, but I lashed out again with a glare. "At least you got the correct eye color this time," I snarled.
Gabriel paused, a look of horror flashing across his eyes, before he finally raised his hands and took a step back. "Hero, it's me. I can prove it."
"She won't believe it. We've played through this particular scenario too much in the last few days." We looked over to see Dr. Goswami enter, flanked by five men. Taunting one man was stupid enough, but seven was asking for a beating. I slunk to the corner and huddled there, unconsciously trying to make myself as small as possible as I looked for the riding crop they liked to use. Gabriel's eyes darkened with fury when he noticed, and he planted himself protectively between me and the others, shielding me with his body.
Dr. Goswami arched an eyebrow as he glanced between us. "You shouldn't turn your back on a cornered animal, Sylar. She's got a set of claws on her, and she's proven particularly adept at using her teeth."
Sylar growled, and I shrank so far into the corner that I practically blended with the cinder blocks. The doppelgänger cut an imposing silhouette in the basement light, all dark and broad shouldered and powerful. For a second, I could almost pretend that he was really my Gabriel. "I am going to kill all of your men, and then I'm going to kill you. It's going to be slow, and I'm going to make it hurt, because she's mine and you touched her."
Dr. Goswami clicked his tongue. "So violent, Sylar."
"Well, I'm a little over-protective," he snapped sarcastically. With a sudden twist of his hand, he telekinetically snapped the neck of one of the henchmen.
The other four shifted uneasily when the man dropped, but Dr. Goswami just cocked his head to the side and pulled out a handgun. "There are still five of us, Sylar."
"I'm invincible, so I like the odds," Sylar retorted dryly.
Dr. Goswami's smile was coldly triumphant. "But she's not." I didn't have time to blink before the gun swung at me and fired, but I instantly tensed in anticipation of the pain.
But it never came. I cracked open one eye to see a bullet frozen a hair's breadth from my face. My eyes widened and met Gabriel's, and I knew finally in that moment that it was really him. Slowly, I plucked the bullet from the air and pushed myself off the wall, coming to stand at Sylar's side, throwing the bullet at Dr. Goswami's feet. My gaze flicked to the other four men as I shakily braced myself with my good hand on Sylar's shoulder. "I know you did what he told you to because you were hungry and he gave you cash. I get it. But don't die for this man. Leave."
The four men looked at each other, then at Sylar, who stood there in his black clothes looking for all the world like Evil incarnate. For added effect, Sylar smiled at them, a menacing baring of teeth that had even me a little startled, and the men scampered away up the stairs. Sylar's eyes turned to Dr. Goswami and he gently shoved me behind him, using his own body to shield me. I was too weak to do anything but let him.
"So this is the infamous Sylar," Dr. Goswami mused. "The man who killed dozens of specials and collected their abilities. You call me a murderer, Hero, yet you chose a serial killer. What does that - hurgh." His speech was abruptly cut short when Sylar telekinetically wrapped the garden hose around his throat.
Sylar's eyes glinted dangerously as he stalked forward. "You're done talking now. Hero is my mate and the mother of my child. Because you threatened my family, you will see exactly how ruthless I can be."
A towel drenched in water – the one he had used on me for days – came up and covered Dr. Goswami's nose and mouth as the garden hose bound his hands and feet. He choked and gagged and struggled as he fought against the sensation of drowning, the sensation that I had been subjected to for hours at a time over the past three days. What little sympathy I had for the homeless men he had hired to help him was absent now, as I gained a new perspective on what had been done to me. "Cover his eyes," I whispered hoarsely, my throat tight with remembered pain. "Make him drown in the dark like I did."
For the first time in my life, I stood by while a living thing suffered. Emotions swamped me as I watched him drown, images of Amanda's charred body, of pulling my injured colleagues from the lab, of rushing to the hospital and Marcella's parents screaming at me, of seeing Sylar fight off the hit man sent to kill me in my own home. This man had tortured me.
But as I watched him struggle fruitlessly to breathe, I suddenly felt like I was back on the wooden bench being tortured. I heard a high, keening wail from somewhere, and I realized it was me, and I was frantically yanking the towel from his face before I knew what I was doing. I couldn't do it. I couldn't let another living thing go through what I had, no matter how much I hated him. "Get it off! Stop it! Let him go!"
Instantly, the hose loosened and dropped to the floor as Sylar strode to my side. Dr. Goswami fell to his knees, coughing and gasping for air. As soon as I felt Sylar pull me to his chest, I broke down and burst into tears. "I can't," I gasped as Sylar held me to him, his arms wrapped around me protectively. "I don't...know what to do... Gabriel ... help me!"
Though I had fallen over the cliff, I knew Gabriel would catch me. He telekinetically hurled Dr. Goswami into the cage I'd been locked in for days and slammed the door closed. The padlock swiftly floated over to lock him in as Sylar slipped an arm beneath my knees and cradled me to his chest, marching up the stairs with surprising speed.
He didn't let me go until we were on the lawn, and I blinked against the harsh sunlight. Though he set me on my feet, I found myself laying down in the grass, crying all the harder because the sun and grass and fresh air felt so wonderful against my skin. People began to appear from their homes, and Gabriel barked at them to call 911, but I grabbed his shirt to get his attention. "I need to be in the air. I need to be...I was caged like an animal...so much cement..."
Gabriel didn't hesitate to pick me up again, and then we were flying through the air, my breathing and tears slowing as I felt the air rush by me. I was safe. Gabriel had saved me. There were no cages here, no darkness or bars or cold cement. The rushing air that blew in my face and hair calmed me almost as well as the quiet did. It was a clear summer day, and I tilted my head back to feel the sun on my face.
I could feel eyes on me as we flew, and I met Gabriel's concerned gaze. "I kept dreaming that you'd come for me, and you did. You rescued me."
He kissed me gently. "I will always come for you. Always. Nothing can keep me away from you."
0o0o0o0o0
Gabriel was hovering again, but I couldn't bring myself to mind. Emma was less smitten with him, however, and I was surprised her glare hadn't caused Gabriel to spontaneously combust. "I know every sensitive area of your body, and if you don't back off so I can read the chart, I will drop you like a bad habit."
I bit my lip to suppress a laugh. "Gabriel, come here and lay in bed with me," I said instead as I shifted to the side. Gabriel was literally the most powerful man on Earth, but even he was afraid of Emma when she had on her Try Me look, so I wasn't surprised when he climbed onto the bed and let me snuggle into his side.
Two days had passed since Gabriel had rescued me, and I was still stuck in the hospital, listed as a VIP patient under Emma's charge. No reporters were allowed in, though my family had been in and out since they'd all flown in the day before. Emma was treating me for severe dehydration and malnutrition, as well as letting me rest under observation from the more insidious effects of the waterboarding. The first day I was admitted, they'd set my broken arm and then sedated me for extreme exhaustion, after which I'd slept for 30 hours straight, Gabriel curled up next to me in the bed because I would get restless without him.
Emma had authorized a myriad of tests, but her first priority had been to determine the status of the baby. She'd done blood work as well as an ultrasound, and had finally reported that the fetus was alive and well, if a little malnourished, and had added prenatal vitamins to the IV drip attached to my arm.
Peter and Emma had been godsends. She had taken the time to help me bathe and wash my hair, the first time I'd been clean since I'd been taken captive, though I'd had a minor panic attack at the sound of running water. Still, it was worth it to be clean again, especially given that, as soon as we were alone, Gabriel had planted a ring box on the bed and told me in no uncertain terms that he was going to marry me. I couldn't help but laugh; how utterly like him to make it a demand instead of a request. I had been giggling so hard that I couldn't answer, and poor Gabriel had become more and more nervous, which just made me laugh harder at seeing this incredibly overpowered, invincible man practically wringing his hands with nerves. Finally, I had just nodded and pulled his head down for a kiss, still laughing.
Peter had personally taken charge of the federal investigation. Every day, he would visit and give me updates; Dr. Goswami was in a high security prison awaiting trial, but it didn't look likely that he would ever be released, even on parole. My disappearance had become something of a media circus because the Specials Project was so high profile after the original bombing that had killed Amanda, and within hours of my kidnapping, America knew that I was pregnant, which only added to the frenzy. Steven told me that there had been a candlelight vigil every night outside the lab, and my mother – after smothering me with kisses and hugs and "don't you ever scare me like that again"'s – had confirmed the same events at our church. Thankfully, Peter had kindly taken charge of press releases and the like since I was in no position to do so.
Finally, Emma flipped the chart closed and we looked at her expectantly. "You are officially discharged. Now get out of my hospital," she said with a wink.