Night's Omen

A paralyzed man was conspicuous.  Nero had realized that the moment he had lifted his would-be assassin and started for the door.  Thankfully no one was around to watch him drop the man into the backseat of his car; if anyone noticed on the security cameras, he would deal with them individually.  A story about a drunk who needed a ride home.  There wasn't any blood anywhere or any sign of a struggle in his laboratory to raise suspicion, and Nero had taken the gun from his desk to cover all traces of what had happened.

When he had pulled into his driveway, he gathered the hunter from his car and brought him through the garage and directly into the backyard.  He fumbled with the keys to his shed before he managed to get the door open, then walked he and his lab rat in with a flick of the light switch.  The shed became bright suddenly, illuminating the microscopes and petri dishes and syringes and liquids lining the shelves.  His home lab.  And there, in the back, was what appeared to be a jail cell.

"You're staying here," he explained to the hunter, popping the metal door open and placing him inside.  "I use this for animals - getting samples from them and the like.  Keeps them in, so the theory here is that you, who is clearly no more than an animal himself, will also be held safely in here."  He smiled.  "Which sounds logical enough considering your previous endeavor."  Because killing was inhumane, wasn't it?

Not that this was humane, but Nero never claimed to be kind to his experiments.

He then shut the door to the cage, locked it, and turned to leave.  "You'll be able to move again in about an hour.  I'll be back to check on you around then.  We'll talk then, actually have a two way conversation.  Alright?  Great."  And he left.

That was a half hour ago.

Aimee would be home any minute and Nero was waiting for her in the kitchen.  He was putting dishes away to busy himself, glancing at the clock every now and then.  He needed to speak with her about everything that was happening, to inform her that he had a human hostage test subject.  Aimee needed to be alright with this before he would do anything.  Nero had to live with her, so her opinion mattered.  He only hoped that she would see the potential here and that she would allow him to go through with this.

It had been a long night, and that was even with her having one of the earlier shifts.  The girls that were working later into the night would be there until late, which she didn't envy them.  It had been a hell of a night. 

That was why she was so glad to pull into the driveway, hop out of the car and make her way to the door.  She fumbled with her keys for a moment, unable to grab the right one between those stupid little keychain cards stores like Blockbuster and Best Buy ended up giving you, her car keys and various other necessary and useless items.  She finally found it, pushed the door open, and began stripping in a much less interesting manner than she had been at work, just because of the temperature the house was always at.  She was used to it by now, but that still didn't mean it wasn't warm.  She'd worn a jacket home from work, and fortunately had a skirt on in the relatively warm night.  It meant that once she was without her coat and shoes, she was much more comfortable.

"Nero?  I'm home!" she called out, already headed for the kitchen, which was where she could hear him moving around.  She was actually a little surprised that he was home, given the fact that he'd been planning on working at the lab at the school tonight.  She'd assumed she'd have to call him to tell him she was home, given how he tended to forget things like food and sleep when he was working.  Nope, he was home.

That was fine with her, and she displayed that rather easily by coming up and hugging him from behind.  "How was your night?" she asked, rising to her tiptoes to drop a kiss on his neck.  She was so glad to be home.

Nero heard the front door open and smiled to himself.  Right on time.  He liked the fact that he could rely on Aimee to be home around the time that she said she would be.  He was less likely to be punctual himself, although that wasn't out of disinterest - usually.  Nero could lose track of time a little too easily.

He heard her and then felt her arms around him not a moment later; the kiss she placed on his neck was welcomed.  Instantly he stopped his chore, placing the glass he had in his hand on the counter before he twisted in her grip and returned her embrace.  He leaned his head down and kissed her softly, pulling back to smile the slightest bit.

"My night?" he asked, almost as though he was wondering if she really wanted to know.  "Oh, it's been eventful."  He turned back to the dishwasher to put the last of the dishes into the cabinets.  "Some deranged human tried to shoot me."  Closing the cabinet door, he faced Aimee again.  "Don't ask me why; I have no idea.  I can't remember doing anything that'd piss off someone enough to hire a hit man, so either I was drunk or this was a fairly random attack.  I haven't had a chance to find out yet, though."  The drunk comment was quite obviously a joke.

He looked thoughtfully at the space over Aimee's right shoulder before he pulled a handgun from the back of his pants, placing it on the counter.  "I didn't kill him, I just shut him down.  It was pretty tempting to bite him though, I have to admit.  It would have been easy, too."

Bracing himself for a reaction, he went on to explain further.  "I hit him with some of that diluted neurotoxin I made.  Turns out that stuff works as well as expected."  He glanced at the clock.  "In fact, it should only just be wearing off."  Clearly he found that very thrilling.  "I'll have to check on him shortly.  I've got him in my lab," the shed, "if you'd like to come with me."

If she had any questions, Nero trusted Aimee to ask.  She would, too.  She didn't hold back.

When he said 'eventful', she was thinking that he'd found something interesting at work, maybe got pulled over on the way home.  Something mundane or normal.  He didn't present it to her as though it were anything extreme either, which didn't help prepare her for the shock she had coming.

...tried to shoot him.

"What?!  Are you alright?  Oh, my God, Nero, he didn't hurt you, did he?" she asked quickly, rushing him again to look for anything he might have patched up or any spots where he might have been injured.  She didn't find anything, which was a good sign, and allowed her to press on.  Only when she was certain that he was safe.

Drunk, right.  Especially with shifter tolerance, she'd pay to see Nero drunk.  It might even be a highly entertaining event. 

Oh.  She hesitated before speaking, her eyes following the movement of the gun from where Nero had it hidden on his person to the counter, and she was actually rather upset with herself that she hadn't realized there was anything wrong with the situation when she'd hugged him from behind.  She'd felt something hard back there, but how was she to know it was a GUN?  "God, Nero, in the lab?  Why didn't you just call the police?  They couldn't blame you for sedating him, and I'm sure they wouldn't have asked after he tried to kill you!  What are you going to do with him?"

No, she didn't hold back.

Did he hurt him?  Nero smiled just the slightest bit.  "No, he didn't hurt me.  He nailed me in the side with his elbow, but that's the extent of the damage."  And Nero was proud of himself; he had managed to get out without a mark on him.  The bullet missed him, the human didn't have enough strength to actually do too much physical damage, and Nero had been as evasive as possible to sneak up on his attacker.  It could have been so, so much worse.

Aimee didn't disappoint.  She was shooting questions off left and right, and Nero listened, letting her show just how upset she was by all of this.  At least she cared enough to bother being concerned.  That was always nice to know.

"Why would I want to get the police involved?" he asked, giving her a strange look.  "Do you have any idea how amazing this is?  I've been given the perfect opportunity to test out experiments that I've never been able to before.  The human came to me.  He tried to kill me.  I couldn't care less about his well being, so why don't you tell me why I should have called the cops and lost this chance?  Morals aren't a factor either, Aimee."

They never really were though, were they?

"I can accomplish so much with this lunatic and no one would mourn over him.  I could have just killed him earlier anyway, so this is hardly any different."  His eyes were focused on Aimee, nearly pleading with her.  Let me do this.

He had every right to be proud of himself for not getting hurt, but that didn't negate the fact that he was suggesting experimenting on a human being.  Even with the scientist part of her perking its ears up and getting interested in the prospects that he was considering, she knew it was wrong.  He could say it wasn't about morals, but it was. 

He was right, though.  He could have easily just killed him earlier.  That surely would have been kinder than experimenting on him, potentially killing him in the process, though.  God, this was such a mess!

"Nero, you really think it's a good thing to experiment on this human being?  I know how good for your research it would be, but he's still a person!  Morals are a factor," she told him, trying to plead her case just as much, but the fact of the matter was that she'd cave if it was what he really wanted.  "I won't stop you, but please take all that into consideration."

Really, she didn't expect him not to do it just because her morals were getting in the way, and she couldn't deny that she didn't want to see what they could discover with the human, but she knew better.  It was wrong.  He had tried to kill Nero, though.  That was wrong, too.  Two wrongs didn't make a right, but they had to kill him if Nero didn't keep him.  Letting him go wouldn't work, because he'd just try again, and at this point, the police would want to know why Nero had brought him there. 

"Please, Nero, don't torture him."

Nero had to stop himself from immediately saying yes, I think it's a great idea to experiment on a human being.  He didn't say anything at all, instead looking torn between smiling and rolling his eyes.  He understood her concerns, although he would never worry about them in quite the same way that she did, but he didn't think they were that much a problem.

"Alright," he agreed finally.  "And with all of that in consideration, I still think it's an amazing opportunity and I'm not going to let open the door and let it escape."

"Please, Nero, don't torture him."

He raised his eyebrows, eyes wandering away from Aimee to shift uncomfortably left and right.  In actuality, Nero hadn't been planning on torturing the man - if something happened to turn into torture, well, that was another story.  The simple implications of her request bothered him though, and it did make him rethink what he was about to embark on.  There were consequences for taking part in any sort of torture, especially of the physical variety, and he really doubted his ability to evade the police.

But the idea of being kind to the man that tried to kill him, to respect him in anyway, didn't sit well either.

He told her, "I won't," and made eye contact with her, smiling gently.

It was only the half-truth, though.  He wouldn't torture the man consciously while Aimee was within the general vicinity.  If she was worried about Nero's moral well being then he would put on a show for her.  He wanted to hurt this man.  He was going to regardless of what Aimee wanted, but she didn't have to know that.

"But I do have to go out there.  You're more than welcomed to come along though, Aimee."  And with that said, he closed the dishwasher, offered her another smile and started towards the back door, plucking the keys to the shed off of the wall.

Maybe she was stupid, or naive, but she nodded and returned his smile when he agreed with her and said he wouldn't torture him.  That was all she was concerned with, really.  She didn't want Nero to take this personally at all, considering the man had tried to kill him, and she didn't want him to forget that it was a human he was talking about.  She hadn't been lying when she said she wasn't going to stop him, though.  It was true that the man had tried to kill Nero, and she didn't blame him for wanting to use that to his advantage.  She wasn't so stupid as to not understand that Nero was an opportunist.  When he was offered something he could use, he used it.  It didn't get much more simple than that.

She also knew that people would question the serum he'd used to take the human down, and those weren't questions that any of them needed.  Nero didn't need to lose his lab space and job over an investigation like that, especially one prompted by someone trying to kill him.

She would just do everything she could to take care of the man Nero had captive, even if he'd tried to indirectly ruin her life.  "I'd like to," she agreed with a nod, following after him.  She wanted to see this guy.

His movement were slow, leisurely as he made his way out of the backdoor and headed into the yard.  He glanced over his shoulder towards Aimee, just making sure that she was indeed follow - she was - and walked towards the shed.  Before he placed the key into the lock, he told her, "I'm not sure what this man is going to be like.  He's been out of order since I hit him."  It was a vague warning; the man could easily be hostile.

Nero was sure that he was.

Of course, there was nothing that the human could do.  He was trapped behind a metal gate, incapable of doing anything more than speaking and making gestures.  Nero had taken away his weapons, there were several on his person when he had went down, so this man truly wasn't a threat.  Nero's words, though, stemmed from his uncertainty.  Aimee was a strong woman, that wasn't the problem; he didn't want this man treating her unkindly.  If he did, there would be consequences.

Flicking the lock opened, he beckoned Aimee in and immediately shut the door behind them.  The light was already on and there was his would-be killed, imprisoned like an animal.

"Feeling better?" he asked the human, smiling in obvious amusement.