Chapter Eleven

“Turnabout”

Claire Bennet did not know Isaac and she resented Simone. She didn’t like Nathan Petrelli much either, who came stumbling into the studio a few seconds after Peter arrived (and, who, of course, blew off his careening with classy denial). But although she was subjective to human favoritism, Claire Bennet was also someone with heart, and she was honestly afraid for all three of them. Even for herself and Matt Parkman, who were safe distances away. For Peter, her once lovely Peter, stepped down to talk to Isaac and Simone, and he could not honestly promise her that he could control his wrath.

Matt got up from his stool and crossed to the other side of the table, Claire’s side, and he gently pulled the girl by the arm. He could sense her tension, and decided that it would be wise to take a few steps back.

“What’s going on?” Peter asked Isaac bluntly. Isaac took a deep breath and looked at Simone significantly before answering his “frenemy.”

“It’s Claire’s dad. He’s been captured by a man named Sylar, the same man who tried to kill Claire.”

“Gabriel,” Peter muttered to himself. “So his real name is Sylar, then?”

Isaac nodded and gestured to the painting of Bennet in an unknown cell. “Yes. That’s the only good drawing I’ve managed to make of Bennet. All the other times I’ve tried to find him have turned up useless.”

Peter frowned. “Useless how?”

“They’re all close ups, or paintings of random objects. Clocks, glasses. Garbage, all of it.” Isaac was pacing back to a stack of canvases in the corner and heaving them to the table by Peter. The other man took the liberty of flipping through Isaac’s rejected paintings and saw that the artist was telling the truth. The only paintings were of a grandfather clock, a close up of someone’s hand over their ear, a splatter of blood on the floor, and a pair of spectacles with several attached magnifying glasses.

“Claire said that you can find him though,” Simone explained to Peter emotionlessly as he examined the canvases more closely. “She said that you have some sort of new ability. You can sense people.”

Peter tapped his thumb on his chin thoughtfully. Was that it, then? Ever since regaining consciousness in his apartment, the extreme sensory that he had developed had calmed down a bit. That must have been why he wasn’t nauseous and writhing on the ground in his present company of four mutants. However, he closed his eyes and reached out a tad, and found that he could still feel Claire, Matt, Nathan, and Isaac if he concentrated. The most interesting part was that they were all different. Though all four had powers and could be seen as warm glow spots on Peter’s radar, some burned brighter and broader then others. Matt’s greenish glow, though dim, seemed to expand all across the room, while Claire’s pink heat was contained to herself and blindingly bright. Nathan was a tiny, dim, speck of navy blue.

Clearly, Claire was more observant and sharp then Peter gave her credit for if she had actually developed this hypothesis. Peter looked over at her from across the room and gave her a small smile, only to get sad, desperate, green eyes in return.

“Yeah, I think I can. I could find Sylar, at least. I can only sense people like us, not…normal humans. And if Sylar’s not close, then I’m out of luck. I can only feel people’s powers, not track them. Then again, Sylar’s extremely powerful.  Someone’s power would have to be strong and spread for me to see them from a long distance. Like, Claire’s is small because she herself is the only one that can use it. It’s limited. But I can sense Parkman’s power from a farther range, because the range of his power is extended. Understand?”

Isaac nodded and Matt relaxed his grip on Claire’s arms, relieved that this discussion was going peacefully. Unfortunately, the wrong words were spoken and for the second time that day, all hell broke loose.

“If you can’t sense small powers from far distances, then how’d you track Claire all the way here?” Isaac inquired to Peter. Peter arched an eyebrow smugly.

“Magic,” Peter replied bitterly.

Simone rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “This is serious, Peter. We’ve got a life at risk here.”

“Serious?” Peter cut his eyes at Simone, his voice rising. “Serious? What about my life? What about the four million other lives that I’m gonna kill when I explode!”

“We’re worried about that too, we’ve just got to cross one bridge before-,”

“Cross one bridge!?” Peter exploded, making Simone flinch. “It’s not that big of a deal! I sense Sylar, I kill him, I bring back Claire’s dad. There shouldn’t even be a thought about it!”

“Peter…” Claire was warning, but Peter totally ignored her.

“Whoa, buddy,” Nathan stepped into the conversation, holding up a palm to announce his entrance. “Rewind a second. You’re not going anywhere alone.”

Peter looked like he had been slapped in the face as he shot glances to Isaac, Simone, and his brother.

“We can’t rely on you anymore,” Simone added firmly. “You’re dangerous.”

On a better day, Peter would have had a good laugh at the irony of the situation. The conniving politician, the junkie, and the LAPD cop were all calling the hospice nurse dodgy.

“We want to trust you,” Matt added fairly from the other side of the room, “because we really can’t do this without you. But we don’t know if we can trust you.”

Peter spotted a gun lying on one of Isaac’s tables, a pistol handed to the artist with orders from Bennet: “Just in case we give you instruction to use it.” Isaac had been lucky enough to not to receive any instructions of the sort from the Company, but now he really regretted not putting the gun away somewhere. With a nod of his head, the gun went flying into Peter’s open palm. Immediately, he pointed the gun at Simone.

Everyone in the room jumped into action. Isaac shoved Simone behind him, creating a barrier between his girlfriend and his rival. Nathan crept to Peter’s side, on guard to start a flow of persuasive calmness out of his thin lips. Matt stood in front of Claire, but the blonde girl was too tense to stay behind him for long.

Peter had a bored expression on his face as he explained his motive. “Isaac?”

Isaac stood solid in front of Simone, glaring back at Peter as the raven haired young man continued.

“If I pull this trigger? You’ll be dead in moments.”

Peter lowered the gun and tossed it, sending the weapon sliding across the floor with a screech. It hit Isaac’s rigid leather boots and everyone who had just looked tense, now looked confused.

“Pick it up and shoot me,” Peter concluded. “See what happens.” He paused, and the turned to walk away. “Let’s go get your father back, Claire.”

“No.”

Claire was shocked at herself for letting the syllable escape her lips, and it had the expected consequence. Peter whipped his head around and tried to control his temper for her sake.

“….What?”

“Peter,” Claire breathed, moving out from behind Matt and approaching her roommate. “We can’t do it alone. Remember Homecoming? Sylar killed you, and I ran away. It’s going to take all of us to save my father.”

“She’s right, man,” Matt said. “We can’t do it without you, but you can’t do it single-handedly.”

Peter sneered. “You have no idea what I can do. And the only reason I died at Homecoming was because I was unprepared back then. But I’ve trained with Claude; I’ve gotten control-,”

“No,” Claire said softly, her voice cracking. “You’ve lost control. It’s not that you can do it. It’s if you should.”

She advanced towards Peter slowly, and when she saw that he wasn’t going to move away, she gently put her hands on his arms. It was time for her to go into “kill him with kindness” mode.

“Listen; just…try to find my dad. Then we’ll all go together, and get this over with, so then we can worry about the bomb, okay?”

Peter nodded mutely, accepting her proposal. He could hardly say no to those sparkling green eyes.

“Alright. Let’s go home, then. The apartment is more centralized. I might have better luck from there.”

A loud murmur of four protesting voices reared its head.

“That’s not the best idea, Pete,” Nathan cautioned. “Claire’s not safe with you. She should stay with Parkman.” He would have put in a good word for Isaac, but even Nathan knew that was a bad idea considering Peter’s feelings about the artist. Plus, Isaac was a heroin addict; not the best conditions for a seventeen year old girl.

“What are you talking about?!” Peter suddenly cried and Claire cursed Nathan for starting this madness all over again. “Of course she’s safe with me; I saved her life! It’s me that’s supposed to be protecting her! It doesn’t even matter what I’ve done. I would NEVER harm her!”

Claire knew in her heart that this was a true statement, and Peter had even made a vow to set it in stone. However, convincing the others of that was going to be a problem, and Claire wasn’t too unhappy to stay with Matt. He definitely made her feel safe, with his teddy bear like persona and his fatherly vibe. Plus, he genuinely wanted to save Bennet. Claire had a sneaking suspicion that Peter’s arrogance was fueling his savior-happy fire.

“What do you want, Claire?” Matt asked seriously. Claire’s eyes widened. Was she really being forced to make that choice? Her heart told her to go with Peter, of course. Where she needed to be at that moment was by his side, reeling him in from darkness. However, all logical sense told her to go with Matt. But what would save her father more effectively? If she went with Matt, there was a chance that Peter wouldn’t help them. If she went with Peter, there was a chance that no one else would help the pair. The situation was a total double-edged sword, except this one could tear past Claire’s indestructible skin.

Obviously, looking at it from that point of view was not going to help. When it came down to the bare basics, staying with Matt would simply be safer. She was tired of always arguing with Peter as well. The feelings that had grown so strong for him were starting to flicker and die in the wake of his new, undisciplined self.

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she said softly. “I’m gonna stay with Matt for a while.”

She saw something break behind Peter’s cold brown eyes. Chaos was ignited past those pupils; chaos blended with rage, misunderstanding, and a crumbled heart.

This is it, Claire whispered to herself. He’s going to explode. It’s actually going to happen, and God, it’s my entire fault. It’s all my fault….

The studio began to shake, as though an earthquake had abruptly hit. Peter had stumbled back, supporting his weight on the wooden table behind him. The spite in his eyes was playing hooky now, replaced by emptiness, and his body was trembling.

Paint buckets, chairs, canvases…objects started levitating and circling the room. Peter’s emotions mixed and boiled, thrashed and churned in the pit of his stomach and in the base of his heart. Claire tried to make her way over to him, but fell over from the intense shaking of the floor.

Then Matt saw it first. The gleaming gun that was in the middle of the floorpocolypse. At that moment, it too levitated with the various other art knickknacks spinning through the air. Except the gun did not spin. Rather, it began firing wildly, bullets careening everywhere.

One such bullet was headed directly for Simone, and Matt later swore that he saw Isaac leap in front of it in slow motion. Yet Mendez had not been quick enough. The small nugget of metal just grazed Isaac’s shoulder and plunged right into Simone’s heart.

“Oh my God,” Matt exhaled, feeling suddenly dizzy. Claire didn’t see it happen (too busy trying to stop Peter), yet she did hear Isaac’s scream and the thud of Simone’s body onto the concrete floor.

“NO!!! SIMONE!!!”

The shaking stopped as quickly as it had begun and everything that had been zooming through the air suddenly fell unceremoniously from the sky. Nathan barely dodged a ten pound can of paint from falling directly onto his head.

Peter had snapped out of it after hearing Isaac’s tortured call. He blinked and looked across the room. The sight which met his eyes made his breath hitch in his throat, the taste of bile staining his mouth.

Claire’s hand was over her mouth in horror as she followed Peter’s eye line. Isaac was kneeled right on top of his floor mural, with a bloody, lifeless Simone cradled in his arms. Isaac’s own shoulder had a rapidly bleeding wound on it, but the shock of what had just happened numbed all of his pain better then a shot of heroin. Even Nathan was speechless.

“Simone…” Peter choked, rushing over to the dead art dealer, his former love. They’d been in a spat, sure, but he had never wanted, never even imagined….

All of their memories flashed before his eyes. Their kiss in the rain, the long night of lovemaking after his heartfelt confession to her. The day her father died, how she had to see him and feel his arms around her. Just because Peter was no longer in love with her, did not mean that these recollections were worthless to him. And now she was gone, never, ever to speak another word, or look upon him with those eyes.

Simone was totally innocent. Her death had no meaning, no significance and it strangled Peter to the core.

What had he done? This was not a threat, or a fight. Simone was dead. And…

Peter Petrelli was the murderer.

It was too much to think about. Peter stood up on shaking legs, taking a look at the horrified people around him. Isaac, whose sobs were unchecked; Nathan, who was faced the other direction with his head clutched in his hands (the feetle position was probably not far off); Matt’s brown eyes stalked Peter, every pigment in his irises filled with pity and grief. Lastly, Claire just stood shell-shocked, aghast, and devastated.

There was no turning back. A woman was dead, at the hands of Peter. The Earth was spinning too fast right now, and Claire was trying not to fall off. Not only had Peter finally tripped the edge, but she also felt so much blame upon her own shoulders. Claire’s words were the catalysts that had driven Peter into a rageful tizzy, and it was she that had not tried hard enough, not pushed enough care out of herself to save him. Save Peter. Save everyone.

Peter met Claire’s eyes, though, and they reassured her and tore her apart at the same time. Only Peter could do such a thing to her mind. For the eyes that looked at her, looked through her, were not the portals to the wicked soul that he had become. They were the same eyes that she had looked into so deeply on the rooftop. The eyes that she had first seen when she woke up on the street, right after Peter pulled her out of the way of a truck. The eyes that promised her so much were her Peter’s, but were now full of shock and disorder, and honest to God fear. What have I done, Claire? Help me, please…..

And like any panicking man, he ran away as fast as he could, turning invisible in the process.

“Peter!” Nathan shouted, weakly running up the stairs to chase his sibling, but it was a lost cause.

The whole room was silent for several heavy seconds, save for the sound of Isaac’s choked cries.

“I’m calling 911,” Nathan growled, taking out his cell phone.

“Are you nuts?” exclaimed Matt. “There’s no way you’re gonna be able to explain this, and then they’ll take Simone’s body to the coroner, and we can’t have this place swarming with forensics people.”

“Then how are we going to explain a woman dropping off the face of the earth? Simone had friends, family, people that knew her and cared about her!”

“We’ll tell them when the time is right,” Matt consented tiredly, rubbing his forehead. Nathan sighed and put his phone back in his pocket.

“You and Claire need to be off. I’ll…handle Isaac, I guess,” Nathan spoke through gritted teeth, but forced himself to stay with the artist. It really would be the most logical ordering of things. Claire and Matt needed to get out of there, and Nathan had enough of a conscience to feel guilty about leaving Isaac to grieve alone.

“Good idea,” Matt concurred, looking around to hail Claire to his side. However, the girl had disappeared from sight. Both men saw and heard the front door swing shut.

“She’s going after him!” Nathan groaned. Both he and Parkman clambered up the stairs, through the front door, and down the hall, calling for the blonde that was rushing towards the elevator.

The cop and the lawyer were faster then Claire’s way out though, and Matt gripped her by the shoulders with the force of a Spartan.

“Claire? What were you thinking?!” he asked frantically, panting from the run. I really need to do more cardio.

“I’m not going after Peter, I swear,” Claire explained impatiently. “I need to talk to my bio-dad.”

“Lewis Rushton?” sputtered Nathan, scratching his head. “What? Why?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” Claire bit back harshly, and she stepped into the elevator that had just opened with a ding.

Before the doors closed, Claire left them with one last message.

“Don’t follow me.”