I noticed that there seemed to be some concern about where the direction of the story was going since Elle's appearance in the last chapter. History does seem to be repeating itself, it's true. But I guess you'll just have to trust me when I say that I haven't started showing all my cards just yet in this poker game. I think I've got about four or five chapters left in this story (no Haitian mind wipes included) so if you can stick with me that long you'll start getting a little bang for your buck. It only gets better from here.
April 27, 2006
Gabriel stared at the set of fingers that he held aloft. Giving them a little flick sent a ripple through the gelatinous material of space that comprised the air of the room. He tracked the shockwave as it shuddered outward and the resulting crack of dry wall as another section of the apartment blew apart to spray over the floor. Dust billowed about the area where he stood causing him to cough for a second before it settled in a fine mist at his feet.
He dropped one of the digits, choosing to keep only the index finger pointed at his target. Keeping in mind a singular cruel thought for what he could make the ability do a Primatech agent, Noah Bennet immediately springing into his imagination, he focused on tuning a fine line through the ripple of space. A neighbor banged on the opposing wall for quiet after the crash of board cracked over the floor.
That's better, he mused at the neatly carved section of wall.
Gabriel had been hard at practice all morning. Broken pieces of the lamp that had sat on a table next to the shredded couch were scattered about the bookshelf behind him from a failed levitation experiment. Random items of cutlery were strewn all over the kitchen, one fork continuing to stick in the floor at an odd angle. Pages from books littered the carpet over the front of another line of shelving where he had accidentally blown them apart after stubbing a toe first thing upon waking. And the wall that he remained intent on knocking down was decorated with gouges and irregularly shaped incisions. At first he hadn't quite been able to push his way completely through leaving harsh indentations and pock marks instead. But after trying a few deep breathing exercises to keep his state of calm in check, the lines that he had been drawing steadily improved until they resembled cuts made by precision instruments rather than that of a half-crazed man with a lousy sledgehammer.
Emotional stability it seemed, was pivotal in fine control of the ability. As long as he was able to maintain control over himself, locking down his sense of focus, his telekinesis obeyed like a third hand. However, as he entered the bathroom to splash some cool water on his face, the sight of Claire's bathrobe that he had kept hanging over the shower curtain rod exactly where she had left it captured his attention. Gabriel wandered over to the plush, pastel pink fabric and bunched its fuzzy comfort up in his hands. He could still smell her in it. Could still remember the precise little smile she would wear coming out from a shower wearing it and drying her hair with a towel. He could picture in his mind the way she would stick her tongue out at him mischievously when he chastised her for dripping water everywhere. The memories that simple little robe would carry within its threads… Like the satin smooth texture of her skin as he ran his palms up her thighs. But that would never happen again.
Behind him a sharp clatter sounded where shards from the mirror clinked into the sink. "Damn it," he grumbled to himself as he dropped the pink robe back to its resting place and examined the shattered mirror. Still needs some work. Gabriel sliced a finger on one of the broken pieces that he picked up for disposal. He watched the blood trickle out from the wound to slide down the length of his finger. How appropriate it was in a dark sort of way that thinking about the girl who could heal herself would cause him to bleed. Gabriel startled himself with the burst of hysterical laughter that bubbled out.
How better to control one's emotions than to embrace them…
Somewhere in the shadowy recesses of his mind he knew what he was doing was completely irrational. Nonsensical. Maybe a little crazy. Gabriel used the wounded finger to scrawl over the broken piece of mirror that he had cut himself on, squeezing the tip of his digit to draw more blood from the wound when he ran out. The words 'Forgive Me' shined at his reflection in the glimmering shard of glass.
"For I have sinned," he finished in a whisper several minutes later as he hung the bloodied glass on the wall. During his little stint at remodeling he had discovered a false wall that lead to an area branching out from the living room. The strange little annex of space didn't seem to serve any sort of purpose, which perhaps had been why it was blocked off, but standing beneath the cob webs and layers of dust from years of being hidden from the world an idea started to form. Gabriel had taken the pictures of Claire that he gained for Suresh's files and tacked them to the wall where the glass rested beside them. A macabre alter to the lost angel… created by her fallen one.
"God help me," he laughed in another hysterical fit. "I am a sad, sad man."
Clean up efforts from the morning's rather destructive practice session had taken him far longer than anticipated. Removing the scraps of his couch had proved to be much easier after breaking it down into yet smaller chunks, but hauling the remnants of the wall was tiresome. There were only so many trips one man could make to the dumpster behind the apartment complex at the cost of three flights of stairs both ways. Gabriel was thoroughly exhausted by the time he had finished dusting, vacuuming, and taking out the last of the trash so he was forced to put off repairing the structural damage for the time being. In lieu of building another wall he bolted a long pole across the damaged section and hung heavy curtains from it to mask the mess and provide another boundary line to the bedroom. A hasty shower and some redecorating for the sparse space later he found himself checking his watch in preparation for Elle's arrival.
As he disassembled the board of ability and Company related information that had taken up pride of place in his modest kitchen area he internally cursed himself. Both for having exerted so much energy that he had failed to properly prepare for the meet with Elle. And for being sloppy enough to leave something like that lying around until the last minute. It was true enough that Gabriel had intended to tell her everything anyhow, but there was something rather abrasive about the thought of battering someone with a 'Hello. Thank you for coming. Have I told you that I'm on a personal crusade to hunt down the people responsible for kidnapping and possibly murdering my last girlfriend yet?' the moment they walked in the door. And then the knock came.
Gabriel couldn't exactly just leave the girl standing out there so he checked to make sure that it was indeed his expected visitor and began planning a way to gently explain the complications of his life to her. A very enthusiastic Elle greeted him with a wide, somewhat nervous grin. "Hi! Do you like pie?" He broke his train of thought to take in the dish she balanced in one hand, covered by a tea towel, and smiled with some amusement when she seemed briefly embarrassed about the introduction. "That rhymed didn't it."
"Come on in." Elle stepped inside and looked about for a minute making him slightly self conscious about the dust he may have missed from his previous activities. "I'm really glad you came, Elle. I wasn't sure you would."
"I have been thinking about you, and wondering how you've been since..."
"Better. Great actually. Um, thanks to you." For reminding me of her. For putting me back on my path. For giving me another chance to get it right. "I just decided to clean up this place and all this clutter," he quickly explained away the potential mess that she was about to find. "Filling my head with bad thoughts." Like hunting people down. While he had initially started to collect the profiles with pure intentions of observing the people for Primatech activity, he couldn't deny that there had been a certain amount of temptation in holding so much personal information related to people with abilities. Especially when he remembered the feeling he had experienced obtaining Davis's power. That primal sensation of elation that could elevate like a drug. Terrifying in nature. And absolutely addictive.
"What's this?" she asked, spying one of his lists of names that had been placed on the table.
"Oh, that's just, um…" Gabriel pulled off his glasses to examine the lenses for imaginary smudges in anxious habit. Tell her the truth. You were going to be honest from the start. "It's a, uh, list of people like me."
"Nice, single guys like you?" Elle casually flirted with a light laugh. "Maybe I should take this list."
"No," he stammered, grabbing the paper from her hands and crumpling it into a ball. Gabriel tossed the ball of paper into the trash bin and turned back to see a look of disappointed confusion mixed with apprehension at his reaction on Elle's delicate features. "Um…" Tell her the truth! "Sorry, Elle. There's, um, there's actually something that you need to know about me. I have a kind of a power. Um, an ability… that's out of the ordinary."
"I don't understand." Her blank look stumped him for a moment. Unsure of how to proceed explaining, Gabriel decided it was best to just show her what he could do and hope that it didn't end with her trying to throw herself off a roof. Extending his fingers as he had in practice he gave the dish rack on the counter the most gentle nudge that he could manage with his level of control. It slid across the surface a few inches and a tiny flick of his wrist brought a fork flipping out of it and into the sink.
"Oh my God."
"The other people on the list can do things too."
"Wait, there are others?" Gabriel didn't have a name for what he felt when she asked that question. Maybe it was something in her eyes, her body language, or tone of voice. Maybe it was just a flash of intuition on some level. But whatever it was that he had stumbled on he knew that there was something out of place with her. Almost like there had been with Claire when they had first met. Elle barely even seemed surprised with his revelation.
He felt odd about continuing their conversation as it were so he grasped at the first available straw to change subject matter. "What kind of pie did you bring?"
"Peach," she answered with a flawless smile that he couldn't help but to return.
"That's my favorite kind." Elle turned her back to him coyly and the smile instantly dropped from his face. What are those odds of another angel exactly? Aside from his extrasensory perception that told him she had an ability, it was also screaming that she was a little too perfect. Sirens were blaring inside his head that something was wrong with the situation. He couldn't trust her.
"Do you mind if I use your restroom?"
"No, go ahead," he gestured. Do all women really have to pee that much or is there something else they're doing in there? Using the bathroom had also been one of the first things that Claire had done. Either there was a secret about the toilet that he didn't know, or females were even more confounding than originally thought. "It's the second door on the right." Gabriel watched Elle disappear into the bathroom and waited for the click of the door closing. He used every second of her time away to finish clearing the board of ability information before she could get another look and shoved all of it into a box that was placed in the annex room.
Thankfully, if she had seen Claire's bathrobe she chose not to say anything about it. Gabriel could only guess at the some assumptions that could go through her upon spying a pink terrycloth garment in an adult, single male's shower. "I see you're not really into furniture," Elle remarked with what was becoming her trade mark smile in his mind.
"No, uh, I guess not." He gave a slight chuckle to match hers and mask some of the anxiety that swelling inside of him. The lack of couch did end up leaving the living room a little more vacant than he had thought it would. She wandered about the room for a few minutes taking in his vast collection of books and running her fingers over their spines as she read the names. "What's in here?" Elle lifted the edge of the curtain to peek into his bedroom and Gabriel nearly had a heart attack.
"Don't," he commanded a little more roughly than intended, reaching out to grab her hand and stop her. He hadn't had the heart to pack away Claire's things yet so all of her clothes and shoes, and one little white teddy bear holding a pink rose that he had found for her after discovering her love of stuffed animals, remained as they had been the last time she touched them. It may have been his apartment, but the bedroom had become hers. It was Claire's room, her space, her things, and he couldn't imagine letting another woman in there. Perhaps he was being irrational again, but allowing Elle entrance seemed traitorous in some way. He had promised himself that he wouldn't let Claire's efforts with him be in vain, but he had never promised anything about forgetting her or contaminating her memory.
"Okay?" Elle released the curtain, her wrist twitching in a motion for him to let go. Gabriel held onto her for a second more before dropping his grip as well.
She didn't mean anything by it. He blinked twice, losing his focus. There had been the smallest flash of fear behind her crystal blue eyes that had sparked the predator within. An emptiness inside of himself was stirring, boiling to be filled, but he choked it back. She couldn't have known. Don't be crazy. "I'm sorry. I, um, I'll go get dinner." Gabriel turned to the kitchen with more haste than necessary, rolling the Sylar watch over his wrist as he went. "I made a chicken alfredo. It's my mother's recipe. You'll love it."
Their dinner had been shared on the floor of the living room since his recent bout of furniture loss had left them with little else in the way of alternatives. Surprisingly, Elle hadn't seemed to mind at all. She sat with her legs crossed at his side quite contentedly as if used to similar experiences. Afterwards they hadn't wasted much time before devouring the majority of the pie that she had brought. Elle watched him consume what must have been four slices of the sugary treat by himself with a happy little smile on her lips. And the confection was delicious, though he secretly suspected that she had bought it from a store rather than made it on her own. Conversation had been light in spite of her multiple attempts to bring up abilities. Gabriel subtly side stepped most of her questions still unsure of what to think of her. Elle was a quirky individual for sure, and mostly likable, certainly cute, but that nagging sensation continued to urge him to be careful around her as if some unseen danger lay in wait.
"I can't believe that you just lift your fingers and move things. That must feel amazing."
"It does. But it can be overwhelming too. Like a drug that you can't get enough of."
"How many others are there like you?"
"With abilities? I don't know." She's prying again… Don't over analyze this. You asked Claire the same things. And look how that turned out for us, he fired back at himself internally. Be honest. "To be honest I don't want to know." Liar. "I have a kind of problem. I guess you could say I'm like an addict. I this overwhelming hunger to…" Rip out the abilities of others. "I covet the powers of others." Elle looked on as he attempted to explain himself with false rapt attention. Gabriel felt his turmoil slip away just a touch more. She knew something. A lot more than she was letting on. Everything was falling into place far too easily to be from natural causes. He remembered the day that he had gone to see the chameleon girl and how he had managed to slide himself next to her in order to do the same kind of prying that Elle was. If all else fails - turn on the charm. Worse case scenario - she keeps liking you.
Gabriel lit her up with a timid smile that brought another tinge of pink to her pale cheeks. "But somehow since the other day, since… Since meeting you, I feel like maybe I don't have to be so special. Maybe I can just be Gabriel again."
"But you are special, Gabriel. You're special just the way you are." Her hand came to rest on top of his, curling her fingers around to hold it. A shiver ran up the inside of his arm, sending the hairs to stand on end like he had gotten a little too close to a hot electrical wire.
Elle looked down at the way their hands were still joined and slowly back up at him. He quirked his head to the side, reading her, taking in the dilation of her pupils and a sudden jump in her pulse. Her body temperature rose a tenth of a degree and her tongue flicked out to moisten her pink lips. She was leaning in towards him a fraction at a time and he was so busy studying his new book that while he had been seeing it happen, it hadn't entirely registered in his brain that she meant to kiss him until her top lip barely grazed his. The unexpected contact sent him jumping backwards from her reach where his free hand made contact with the carpet and picked up a stinging static shock.
"Ouch," he hissed in surprise, yanking his hand free of hers to shake the other around as though it would help.
"Sorry," she whispered under her breath out of pure habit.
"Elle, I, um. Please, don't be offended. I'm flattered, really. I, uh, I just got out of this relationship that was pretty serious though and I don't know if I'm ready for that… yet."
"It's okay," she smiled, slightly embarrassed again. "I just got out of this really messy relationship too." Gabriel smiled to encourage her to keep going. "Adam. He was my first big crush. I was after him for years and then one day I guess he decided he wanted me too." Her bottom lip puckered into a pout at the memory. "And then of course, after we went there, he got really mean. He would call me names and say horrible things to me trying to push me away."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. It's all in the past. And he's kind of in jail so it's not like he can hurt me anymore if I don't want him to." Gabriel's eyebrows shot up at the mention of her ex being in jail, but he was reasonably quelled when she asked him what his girlfriend had been like.
"Claire. She was… beautiful. And smart. And funny. And a little crazy," he laughed. "But she was…" Gabriel drifted off, his eyes roaming to space where she had danced around to the music on his record player, and where she had accidentally stuck a pancake to the ceiling while trying to flip it like she had seen on television, the spot where they had watched the sun rise after spending all night talking about everything that never mattered, and where he had decided to not let her win at wrestling when she had stolen his favorite shirt and tried to run away with it. Every inch of the apartment felt smothered in Claire. From the kitchen where they had argued over whether smooth or crunchy peanut butter was better to the bathroom where they had made a semi-regular habit of lazy bubble baths and steaming showers, and the bedroom where he had spent some of the best nights of his life simply being comfortable with her head on his shoulder and one of her thighs slung over his hip. "Saturating."
"Special just the way the you are," Noah mocked as Elle approached the Primatech van that he was leaning against. "I was afraid you were about to burst into song."
"I was just trying to win his trust."
"Well, we're stalling out here. We need to kick it into high gear."
"I don't think he's going to kill again. I really think we should look into someone else on this list," she said as she pulled out the wadded up ball of paper that she had fetched from Gabriel's trash.
"No. We're sticking with the plan," Bennet fervently insisted. "Mr. Gray is a killer. We know that. The only question is will we witness the act or will he do it in a dark alley somewhere?"
"What if you're wrong? What if his suicide attempt was a wake up call?"
Noah paused in the act of opening the van door for her. A sly smile crossed his features as he latched onto something he had heard in the tone of her voice. "Ah, you like this guy." When Elle turned her back to him in humiliation he was only egged further on. When he wanted something, Noah was never afraid to yank the puppet strings, or burn them off with a blow torch. Whichever seemed more appropriate at the time.
"Oh, isn't that adorable…" Bennet rounded on Elle, invading her personal space to make his attack that much more unsettling. "You think he's sweet. Is that it?" He took the list from her hand and skimmed over it for a second. "How about this one, Trevor Zeitlan?"
Bishop looked up at him in abstract horror when she connected what he wanted her to do. "I'm not going to do it."
"We need to see him kill."
"I am not going to do it!"
"Alright. If that's how you feel," he tossed all too nonchalantly over his shoulder on the way to the back of the van. Noah grabbed her personal belongings and tossed them at her. "Here. Go ahead. Go on. New York City! You could, I don't know, become a waitress?" He was openly mocking her again. Elle had never been on her own before. She hadn't even stepped foot outside of the Company for sixteen years of her life, and he knew that. Without their support she would never survive.
"You have orders, Elle. If you don't follow orders you're not an agent. If you're not an agent you're on your own." It was the only threat that he knew could terrify the girl to the core, and he was a merciless puppet master indeed. Bishop was already putty in his hands. She just didn't know it yet. "Your father has been training you for this since you were four years old. Come on, let's introduce Mr. Zeitlan to Mr. Gray."
Seems that I was right after all. Gabriel hadn't been able to keep from following his instincts about Elle when he had entered the kitchen again to throw away the paper plates they used for her pie and noticed the list he had thrown curiously missing. After she had said goodbye and left the apartment he had carefully counted out a twenty second lead for her before trailing along behind and out of sight. As he lurked around the corner from where the Primatech van was pulling away a vicious sneer marred his mouth. You're getting a little sloppy, Bennet.
And then a plan started to form.
To be continued...