Chapter 28: Memories

Elle left soon after that, saying she would get in trouble if she were caught in Edward's cell after hours. He let her go without protest; some time alone might be beneficial - it would allow him to think, which he seemed to have trouble doing with her around. It would also eliminate the possibility of her provoking him into another show of dominance like the one that could so easily have turned deadly for her.

Several hours passed before he saw her again, and her brusque demeanor told him it wasn't a social visit. "I'm supposed to get your DNA for the lab rats to study," she announced, holding out a cotton swab of the type commonly used to collect skin cell samples. "You know the drill, we can do this the easy way or the hard way."

Edward opted for the easy way; while he loathed the idea of being studied like some exotic new animal, Elle's 'hard way' would likely end with one of them getting hurt. Willingly assisting humans in learning about vampires might land him in hot water if the Volturi ever found out, but, he reasoned, these humans already knew his kind existed, so he wasn't technically exposing them. If the vampire rulers disagreed, he could argue that the Company could have forced his cooperation anyway; that they'd been able to trap him was proof enough. "All right, you can have whatever you need - provided I get something in return."

"What do you want?"

"I want you to come back when you have free time and explain how you ended up in this line of work."

"You want my life story?"

"Yes, the real one this time. It goes without saying that I would prefer you not lie to me again."

Well, damn. "Honesty isn't really something I'm good at."

He frowned. "You are capable of telling the truth, aren't you?"

"Maybe. Okay, I'll tell you how I became an agent, just don't blame me if you don't like what you hear."

###

True to her word, Elle returned late that afternoon. "So where do you want me to start?"

"At the beginning, naturally. How did you come to be here?"

"Didn't Carlisle explain that part of human biology to you?"

Edward rolled his eyes. "You know that isn't what I meant."

"Daddy brought me here because I was too dangerous to live around normal people; I'd already set my grandmother's house on fire and I guess he was afraid I might kill someone. I spent my ninth birthday in a glass room with an IV of lithium in my arm, and I've lived here ever since."

"Doing what?"

"I mostly help take other dangerous people off the streets. Sometimes I do a little investigating when we aren't sure what we're dealing with."

The second part of her answer was met with obvious displeasure. "How often? How many others have you 'investigated' before me?"

She moved away a bit just in case his possessive nature got the better of him again; she didn't want to deal with a repeat of last night's reminder of whose mate she was supposed to be, especially since it had involved her nearly suffocating. So much for erotic asphyxiation. "Just one, so shelve the territorial instincts."

He waited for her to elaborate, but she seemed to think she'd said enough on the subject. "Tell me about it?" he prodded.

"Do I have to?"

"No, but I don't understand your reluctance…unless you still have things to hide."

"Of course I'm reluctant to talk about it - it was only the most epic failure of my life!"

"It can't have been that bad." It was a statement calculated to draw out more details - Elle would disagree and then, ideally, would tell her story to prove him wrong - and it worked like a charm.

Elle stiffened, her expression turning cold. Who does he think he is, brushing off the scariest night of my life like it was nothing? Not that bad? The hell it wasn't! She began pacing, spitting her words at him like a hail of bullets. "They sent me to another stupid little town like Forks, except this one was in Georgia, to check out a guy who, according to their intel, could control other people's life force. His name was Jeremy Greer. I made friends with him and found out that his power worked on any living thing, not just humans. He mostly used it to heal any hurt animals that he found, and his house also had the greenest lawn in the neighborhood. My partner on that mission, Noah Bennet, was interested enough that he wanted to bring Jeremy in for testing. I was supposed to lure him out of the house so we could capture him without having to deal with his parents…and that's when it all went wrong.

"Jeremy's parents thought I was a bad influence and didn't want him going off with me; they fought over it and when Jeremy lost his temper with them, a new side of his power came out. Controlling life force works both ways - you can use it to heal, or kill. He touched them and…they died." She paused as the memory played out in her mind's eye. It was the only time she could remember fearing one of her own kind, and what had followed was even worse. "Jeremy freaked out and called 911. I tried to talk him out of it but I was scared too - I'd never seen anyone die before. An ambulance came, but so did the police, and they decided Jeremy must have killed his parents since he had a reputation for being a weird kid. Before I knew what was happening their guns were pointed at him, and when I tried to help one of the cops almost shot me too, so I killed him; I think I've mentioned it before."

Edward remembered that day in the meadow when she had revealed that she too had taken a life, describing the sound and smell of his burnt skin in lurid detail - this must have been the incident she was referring to. "You did."

She nodded and continued her story. "Then Bennet showed up - he thought I was taking too long to get Jeremy to him and came to see what the hold-up was. He got me out…but we couldn't save Jeremy. They murdered him. And I came back here, where everybody knew I let a bunch of small-town cops get the better of me. Daddy was madder than I'd ever seen him; he said training me had been a waste of time."

"I'm very sorry, Elle." Edward's arms encircled her waist, halting her furious pacing.

She stood unresponsively where he had stopped her. "Aren't you going to ask if anything happened between me and Jeremy?"

"That would be insensitive." And unnecessary, since a dead boy couldn't compete with him for her affections. "I'm just happy you were able to escape unharmed."

"Thank you, Edward." She leaned into him and slowly raised her arms to hug him back. "And for the record, nothing did happen with Jeremy. He was a nice guy and I liked him okay, but I never dated him. Only you."

###

Ten minutes till eight? Damn, how am I supposed to make curfew now? Elle's curfew wasn't strictly enforced except by Bob - she was after all an agent, not a prisoner - but it was common knowledge in the facility that she was supposed to be in her room by eight o'clock, with the lights out no later than eight-thirty. There were a few people who would give her grief for breaking the rules, so she tried to be quiet as she made her way up from Level Five.

She didn't meet anyone else until she reached the floor where her room was located - most of the staff would have gone home by now, with the exceptions of night security and a couple other agents who lived there like she did - but then her luck ran out. The hallway leading to her room was blocked by Arthur and Angela Petrelli. Elle shrank back behind the door that closed off the staircases; it wouldn't be wise to let the most powerful couple in the Company know that she had walked in on them arguing. No, the smart thing would be to wait for them to move on, and in the meantime try not to eavesdrop, although only a deaf person could've avoided overhearing them. Naturally she was curious about what could have pushed the normally reserved Petrellis into a shouting match in the middle of a Company building, but they were the last people whose business she wanted to get mixed up in.

Please just don't let them catch me, and I'll never stick my nose into things that don't concern me again! Then Angela said something about 'that vampire', and Elle's resolve crumbled. They had to be talking about Edward.

"…Too dangerous to keep him here! You should put him down now."

"How many times do I have to tell you I won't do that until I've finished studying him? We'll never get another opportunity like this, Angela."

"Opportunity? It's a risk, Arthur, one you're foolish to take."

"I'm not risking anything. I have him contained."

Angela scoffed loudly at that. "You think a cell and the power of persuasion can hold a vampire forever? Have you forgotten the destruction they caused at Coyote Sands? They killed my sister!"

"I remember." Arthur sighed. "I'm sorry Angela, I should have realized keeping one here would upset you. I'll get rid of him soon."

"When you do I'd suggest arranging for the girl to be somewhere else; she could make trouble."

"She's too afraid of losing her power to go against me. I'll have her do it since we already know she's capable."

Elle's blood ran cold. Arthur was right about her being scared of him…scared enough to kill her boyfriend? But if he ordered her to do it, how could she refuse him? No one said no to Arthur Petrelli. Angela seemed to think his solution was perfect; she stopped yelling at him and the couple left. The coast was clear now, but Elle had no intention of going to her room. She needed to find a way out of this mess - one that wouldn't get her or Edward killed - and the answer wasn't in there.

Angela was pushing to have Edward 'put down' because of something that had happened at Coyote Sands, wherever that was; understanding those mysterious past events might be the key to getting her to back off. Elle had heard the name before from James, who'd made it sound like a government project aimed at studying evolved humans. The Company should have a record of something like that, but if it's some big secret from the sixties there's probably nothing digital, maybe even nothing in the main archives. If I want to look up Coyote Sands, my best bet is probably the attic.

###

Primatech's attic was a lot like any other attic: dusty and filled with all the old junk nobody wanted lying around anywhere else. Elle just hoped there weren't spiders and rats up there too. I don't even know what I'm looking for, she thought as she played her flashlight's beam over the clutter. This must be the dumbest idea I've ever- Hey, that looks promising.

The light had landed on an ancient, sagging filing cabinet against the far wall. Its faux wood grain-patterned vinyl had lost its shiny veneer, but the cards detailing what files were in which drawer were still in place. They were alphabetized, naturally, so Elle opened the drawer that held the C files and rifled through its contents, quickly finding what she was searching for. "Yes!" She pulled out the thick file on Coyote Sands, opened it, and began reading.

The first page was a cover letter stating that while the Company's founders had decided to keep the events at Coyote Sands a secret from the next generation, all records of the place weren't to be completely expunged because the day might come when someone else needed to know or they themselves needed a reminder of the past. It also named Coyote Sands as the place where Charles Deveaux, Daniel Linderman, Bob Bishop, and Angela Petrelli - then Angela Brandon - had met.

Elle was so stunned she nearly dropped her flashlight. After a moment her shock subsided, replaced by annoyance that this had been kept from her; apparently her father was even more distant than she'd thought. Then again, if James had rampaged through the camp while hunting Alice, the resulting bloodbath was likely so horrific that Bob could never bring himself to talk about it. Guess I should just be glad James didn't get him.

Then she reminded herself that she was there to learn about Angela's past, not her father's. She flipped through a stack of basic medical information forms each 'patient' had filled out upon entering the program, looking for girls with the last name Brandon. There were only two: Angela and her sister, also a precog…whose name was Alice. It was too big a coincidence, but there was no way…

Heart pounding, Elle studied the photo paper-clipped to Alice Brandon's patient information form. "Oh my God…"

###

The sound of Elle's hurried footsteps reached Edward moments before she burst into his cell, breathing hard from having almost run down several flights of stairs so as not to risk meeting anyone in the elevators, eyes wide with excitement, or fear…or something along those lines. Her thoughts were such a chaotic jumble that he wasn't able to read much about what was going on besides the fact that something important had happened since she'd left, something she couldn't wait until morning to tell him. "What is it?" He hoped she hadn't gotten in trouble for spending time with him.

She shoved an old photograph under his nose. "Who does this look like?"

"It looks like Alice," he said slowly, frowning thoughtfully at the picture, "but this girl is human. Where did you get this?"

"When I met James at the Seattle facility, he told me he hunted Alice before she was changed. He tracked her to a place called Coyote Sands, and then tonight I overheard Mr. and Mrs. Petrelli talking about the same place, so I looked it up. It wasn't easy - the only record of it was hidden pretty well - but I found this list of all the people there, including Alice. Her name was Alice Brandon back then, and she wasn't the only Brandon in Coyote Sands."

"She had family there?" This news would mean a lot to Alice, who had always wondered where she came from.

"Yeah… If I'm right, Alice is Mrs. Petrelli's sister."

So who saw that coming? Hopefully no one since it was supposed to be a surprise, but if you did congrats. As for Elle's first mission, it was originally going to be Sylar until I decided to bring him in later instead, so I ended up drawing from other canon events to explain why she was in the doghouse in the story's beginning.

Next up: Elle tries to help Edward get out of Primatech.