Hope you all had a great holiday and are enjoying 2013. I have a cold and feel like a walking disease right now.
Chapter 33: Discoveries
Elle lay perfectly still, eyes closed, mentally debating whether to rouse herself fully or go back to sleep. It was Monday morning; her routine dictated that she should get up, but she was supposed to be on vacation, and the bed Edward had provided her with was so much more comfortable than what she was used to that she almost hated to leave it.
Just as she decided the world wouldn't end if she stayed in bed for just five more minutes, the choice was taken out of her hands; Edward kissed her forehead, and his touch was like cold water thrown in her face. Instantly wide awake, Elle raised her hand to caress his cheek…then emitted a low-level electric pulse through her palm. He pulled back but continued leaning over her, refusing to be put off completely. She stared up at him in surprise - he usually moved farther away after she shocked him.
He smiled at the confusion and slight frustration - she wasn't used to people withstanding her power so easily - written on her face. "I don't think you fully appreciate how hard it was for me to be away from you; it's going to take more than a few volts to make me leave your side now." He leaned down again, intent on kissing her lips this time, but was stopped by a loud growl from her stomach. "Ah. You need breakfast."
"It can wait," she protested, but Edward had already removed himself from her personal space and didn't look like he was in the mood for making out anymore. Elle grudgingly got up and opened her suitcase.
"You can hang your clothes in the closet, you know. It would be easier than digging through that thing every morning."
"Then I'd have to repack when I go back to New York." She chose a pair of gray jeans, a matching t-shirt decorated with an abstract but edgy graphic, and a long-sleeved white undershirt, then started unbuttoning her pajama top.
Edward jumped up as if he'd been burned. "I should see if Esme needs help making your breakfast."
Elle's hands froze on the third button from the top. "She doesn't have to do that; I can make my own breakfast."
"She knows she doesn't have to, but she wants to. In fact, she's delighted to finally have an excuse to use the kitchen for its intended purpose. I'll see you downstairs."
"Hey, what happened to never leaving my side again?"
He left without answering, shutting the door firmly behind him; apparently he found nudity more off-putting than electrocution.
###
Esme and Elle, it turned out, had very different ideas on what constituted a good breakfast. Elle's idea of breakfast was cereal, instant oatmeal, a bagel, or anything else requiring five minutes' prep time or less. Esme's idea of breakfast was omelets, French toast, and turkey bacon. "I hope it tastes all right," she said anxiously as she slid a heaping plate in front of the human girl. "I followed the recipes exactly and everything looks like it's supposed to, but we vampires aren't really equipped to judge the smell or taste of human food…"
"It's good," Elle declared after cutting off and sampling a corner of the French toast. Her fork then hovered indecisively over the plate as she tried to decide what to bite into next.
"Well, eat up," Esme encouraged her. "Edward told me your meals usually consist of the most appallingly inadequate things."
"He did?" Elle glared at her boyfriend, who had been put to work washing the frying pan, and he flinched as if he could feel her gaze boring into the back of his head. "Maybe I just don't like to cook." She stabbed her fork into the center of an omelet. "My mom did, though. She made stuff like this all the time."
"That's the first I've ever heard about your mother," Edward remarked.
Elle shrugged. "She died." Esme and Edward responded predictably with expressions of sympathy, and the former apologized for 'bringing up painful memories'. "Don't worry about it. I don't really remember much from back then."
Just then Alice swept into the kitchen like a spiky-haired whirlwind of energy to tell them that Carlisle would soon be back from visiting Bella in the Port Angeles hospital. "I'll leave the medical report to him, but I can tell you she made it through the night." She refused to speculate on Bella's chances of recovery, though.
When Carlisle arrived ten minutes later, he was able to describe her condition in greater detail. "She lost a lot of blood during the assault and suffered severe…internal lacerations, as well as other internal injuries from the beating she received. Three of her ribs were broken, as well as her right arm and leg…in two places. She also had a mild concussion." He paused. "Her face looked like mincemeat; she'll need plastic surgery if she survives. And that was just the physical damage. She regained consciousness for a short time this morning and became so hysterical that she had to be sedated. However, she said some peculiar things while she was awake."
"Like what?" Elle asked.
"She admitted to killing all four of her assailants when the leader produced a knife and attempted to slit her throat." Carlisle's eyebrows rose as if he could barely believe his next words. "According to her, she somehow crushed them to death with her mind."
"Ha! I told you she wasn't harmless." Elle shot a triumphant look at Edward.
"If you can put any stock in her version of events. I don't want to argue with you, but I'd be remiss not to point out that she wouldn't have been thinking clearly last night. Perhaps she saw the men die before she passed out and only thought she was responsible."
"How else do you explain the crime scene? You thought you couldn't smell the killer because you were looking for someone other than the four dead guys and Bella Swan, but there just wasn't another scent to find. This is good - we're not looking for some untraceable killer after all. I should call Bennet."
"That won't be necessary," Carlisle told her as she reached for her phone. "I saw your colleague skulking around the hospital before I left."
"Skulking? That's not a very nice word."
"My apologies; I didn't mean-"
Elle grinned as she punched in her sometime partner's number. "Just messing with you - Bennet does skulk. Now I need to find out what he's up to." She put the phone up to her ear. "Hey, Bennet. Miss me?"
"Can't say that I did. What do you need, Elle?"
"To know why Carlisle saw you skulking around the hospital in Port Angeles. Of course I told him you would never skulk anywhere-" She ignored the looks her fib got from the Cullens "-but he thinks you're up to something, and I have to agree since I know you don't clean your glasses without an ulterior motive. Are you gonna bag and tag Bella Swan?"
"I was going to anyway; the fact that she confessed to killing four people, even if her victims were no loss to society, just made it a more urgent matter."
"You could at least wait till she can walk on her own."
"If you've spoken to Dr. Cullen then you should know she might not make it that long, and I have no intention of letting her die before we get a chance to study her. I'm bringing her in tonight."
"So I'll help."
Noah chuckled. "I know you can be persuasive, but I don't think force is the way to go here. She's the police chief's daughter, and you don't have a great track record with small-town cops, so I'm going to use a telepath, or Eden if I can get her down here, to convince her father and doctors to release her into my care. Enjoy your time off, Elle."
"Enjoy kidnapping a battered rape victim, Bennet." She hung up and returned the phone to the case clipped to the pocket of her jeans. "I guess you were all listening?"
They were, and Esme found what she'd overheard very upsetting. "Elle Bishop, after all that girl's already been through, are you really going to let that man abduct her and treat her like some sort of…of guinea pig?"
"I can't exactly stop him unless I want to be the one locked up, and I don't. Besides, there are people at the Company who can fix her up better than they could at the hospital. Bennet's a bastard, but he's not totally heartless - he'll make sure someone takes care of her, and they'll erase her memories before they take her home. She won't remember any of it," Elle lied. She didn't know if anyone would be able to get into Bella's mind to alter her memories or if she would be set free once Primatech's scientists finished experimenting on her - after all, she had killed four people; no matter how justified their deaths were, the Company might decide she was too dangerous to be released back into a clueless population that couldn't protect themselves from her - but the lie placated Esme, and no more was said about it.
###
Elle didn't hear from Noah again until the following day; this time he called her. "What is it?" she asked tersely, skipping the greeting and small talk.
Noah also got straight to the point. "I need you to come to the Seattle facility."
"Why?"
"Bella Swan is proving to be more trouble than expected."
"Yesterday you said you didn't need me-"
"And today I'm saying I do."
"I think you just like jerking me around, Bennet."
"I'm not surprised you think that - weren't you diagnosed with paranoid delusions as a child?"
Elle sighed; the only thing worse than Noah being hard on her was when he tried to be funny. "All right, I'll come. Beats another game of Monopoly with Edward's brothers and Alice." That particular attempt to socialize with Edward's family had ended in disaster when Elle got fed up with the slow pace of the game and zapped the board. Half the money was reduced to ash and a few of the houses and hotels were melted. She hung up her phone and turned to Edward, who was currently sharing his piano bench with her; he had been playing for her when he was rudely interrupted by the jarring notes of her ringtone. "Wanna give me a ride to Seattle?"
He agreed, and two hours later Noah Bennet was ushering them into the Seattle facility's isolation ward. "We have to keep her isolated," he explained, "because she panics if anyone gets near her, especially if it's a man."
"That sounds like classic Rape Trauma Syndrome," Edward commented.
Elle stopped and grabbed Noah's sleeve. "Why does she still remember being raped? You didn't bother to erase that? What have you been doing since you brought her here?"
"Her physical injuries were healed, but no one's been able to get inside her head; it's like she has a wall around her mind. I'm afraid we won't even be able to make her forget this place if we decide to let her go…but that's not likely to happen any time soon because we still have no clue what she did to her attackers or whether there's a danger of her doing it to anyone else. That's why you're here - you're a girl her age, so she shouldn't feel threatened by you. I'm hoping you can calm her down."
"Calming people isn't really one of my major talents."
"I know that, but I think you can pull it off as long as you don't use your power on her, don't hurt or scare her, and show a little compassion… Just don't be yourself."
"Fine. I can not be myself for a little while."
Noah unlocked Bella's cell door for Elle, then held Edward back from following her. "I think she'll have better luck getting through to Bella on her own."
"If male company sends her into a panic, I'm sure you're right. Do you have a minute? I have to admit I came here hoping to speak with you privately."
"About what?"
"The night Elle and I accompanied you to the scene of Bella's assault, you thought something about Elle being mentally damaged as a result of some childhood trauma - trauma that someone apparently inflicted on her. I would like to know what you meant by that."
"It's nothing that concerns you."
"Wrong. Everything to do with Elle concerns me, and if someone hurt her, you are going to tell me who they are and where I can find them."
"Knowing won't do you any good. It's all in the past; she's forgotten it."
"Yes, she mentioned that she doesn't recall much of her childhood. The question is, did her memories fade naturally as she grew up, or did someone make her forget?" He moved just close enough to make Noah nervous. "You can tell me - there's no one around to overhear." The words carried a veiled threat: there was no one around to hear if Noah called for help. The two of them were entirely alone.
An image of Thompson's body flashed through Noah's mind. He had looked peaceful at his funeral, but even the mortician's best efforts couldn't hide what James had done to him before he died. Noah had no doubt Edward was capable of doing the same to him. He'd never approved of what was done to Elle anyway; was it really worth taking a beating from an angry vampire to cover up somebody else's dirty laundry? "All right, you win. Elle was brought in as a child when her ability became too much for her mother to cope with - her parents were divorced. She grew up in that place where you found her when you followed her to New York, and she was subjected to the same experiments as any other evolved human who passes through our facilities. The limits of her electrical output were tested… Other tests were conducted to determine if she had any weaknesses. That's how her adverse reaction to water was discovered. She was electrocuted more than a few times."
"Good Lord in heaven," Edward whispered, "and you people call me a monster?"
"The human brain isn't built to handle that much electricity," Noah continued as if he hadn't said anything. "We made her forget the experiments afterward because remembering would only have traumatized her more, but erasing memories leaves its own mark - doing it too often will cause physical damage to the brain. I believe that combined with the electrical overload is what made her the way she is."
Edward was silent a moment; then he asked, "Who did that to her?"
"I don't-"
"Who was it?" he snarled. "Arthur Petrelli? Her father? Thompson? You?"
"Thompson never had the juice to order that level of testing on a kid, and neither do I. I'm not going to say who did because I can't see what good it would do - she doesn't remember any of it, and if you make a crusade out of this I'm afraid you'll just end up reopening old wounds. You really love her?"
"She means more to me than my own life," Edward said at once.
"Then do what's best for her; right now the best thing for her is if her past stays buried. I just thought you should know it isn't entirely her fault she's…not the easiest person to live with."
"Are you sure you don't want me to know who ordered the experiments? I could take care of them without her ever finding out; I don't think you'd have a problem with that. I may not be able to sense emotions like my brother Jasper, but I can tell you're conflicted about what was done to her."
"I wasn't conflicted enough to try to stop it. Maybe I could have helped her, but I never did," Noah confessed in an oddly raspy voice. "I made my bed a long time ago, and now there's nothing left for me to do but lie in it."
Next chapter: Bella's ability is fully explained, though those of you who read my previous Twilight/Heroes series should already know how she managed to kill four people with her mind. Her ability will be slightly different in this story but mostly the same because I love giving her extra badass power.