Trust
"Boys trust their fathers, but sometimes they grow out of it."
Boys trust their fathers. It's one of the laws of nature--birds fly, fish swim, boys trust their dads entirely. There are no monsters under your bed. Keep your eye on the ball. Always meet your date at the door. Kill the cute blonde girl you've taken to kissing in dark corners.
"Trust me," Arthur said. "Everything will work out."
Boys trust their fathers, so Sylar killed Elle. He dragged her down to the lower levels into a cell with no windows. She kicked and screamed--begging for someone, anyone, to help her. The halls were deserted, echoing with the sound of her screams and crackling blue lightning.
She tripped and gashed her leg--the blood trickled freely down her thigh. He pushed her into a cell, shoved her up against the wall, and held her still. Elle struggled and cried, screaming as blue sparks danced across the floor. He tried to cut open her head--expose her brain--but it was too hard.
"Please," she whispered, balling her tiny hands into fists and beating them against the wall. "Please, don't." That gave him pause. Elle--sadistic, confident Elle--was pleading for her life. Sylar almost let her go. He almost took his hand away and let her stumble away from him, gasping. He wanted to watch her run, wanted her to leave and never look back. Sylar could lose her, he thought, if it meant that she was still alive.
But boys trust their fathers above all else, so Sylar held her still and snapped her neck. He let her fall to the ground like an abandoned rag doll. Sylar heaved up his lunch in a corner of the cell, hoping Arthur wasn't watching on one of his hidden cameras.
He picked her up as though she weighed nothing and tried not to remember how soft her hair was, how her tiny hands felt, dwarfed in his own. Sylar laid her on the shore with more care than he had taken with his other victims. He doused her with lighter fluid. Sylar thought he should say something, but nothing seemed right. He settled for "goodbye," and set her on fire with a spark of her own blue electricity. Boys trust their fathers, so Sylar watched Elle's body burn. Arthur patted his son on the shoulder. "Good job," he said. Sylar had to resist murdering his father and laying him out alongside his girl.
He waited until Arthur was gone before he pulled Elle's flaming body into the sea--dousing the fire with salt water. He wrapped her blackened body in cloth, cradling the bundle lovingly (if he's even capable of love). Sylar took her back to Pinehearst and hid her in a room with a window--not a cell, never a cell.
He did the blood transfusion himself: hooked up the needles and tubes, tied rubber around his bicep to make the veins pop. Sylar watched the thing on the bed, heart pounding. He wasn't sure his blood would work until he saw her charred skin fade and the half-completed gash across her forehead heal.
Elle's eyes fluttered open like she was waking up from a terrible dream. She sat up carefully, trying not to disturb the needle in her arm. "You bastard," she said, but she was grinning her strange, crooked grin. Sylar grinned back.
Boys trust their fathers, but sometimes they grow out of it.