"I think we lucked out, didn't we?" Scar chuckles, closing the distance between the gamers and himself. "I was hoping to catch you alone." He fingers Kayley's hair, and she jerks away sharply. His gaze slides over to Hiro, lips curling into a small snarl. "But one witness changes nothing. Besides, you're hardly a threat."
Circling back the way he came, he drags a dagger from his belt, waving it around sporadically. "It's been exactly a year since our last meeting," he drawls, casually pacing the length of the room. "Did you know that? One year ago tonight, we had our little adventure in that game. It amazing how time flies."
Kayley stiffens, feeling her muscles coiling in her back. With the breakup still fresh on her mind, she hadn't been giving the game much thought lately. "Why are you here?" She asks, thankful to hear no tremors in her tone.
Shaded in darkness, it's difficult to read Scar's expression. He pauses mid-step, tilting his head from side to side. "I'm here for you." He confesses after a long moment, chilling Kayley to the bone. "I'm here to take you back with me, so we can finish what we started. Because it would be very rude of us to leave Herman's game unfinished. He worked so hard on it. Even killed a man in a fire to bring himself to the top."
She sucks in a sharp breath, his words echoing in his mind. If he's trying to unhinge Hiro again, it's not working. He's speechless behind her, but he makes no move to attack.
Besides, it's not Hiro's anger she's afraid of.
It's what Scar had just mentioned.
He wants to bring her back into the game.
Giggles and amused laughter drifts between his henchmen, but she barely hears them. Blood pounds in her ears, drowning out anything but her own fear. "Why?" She demands, mind scrambling for an idea, any sort of escape plan.
"It's a funny story," Twirling his knife, Scar waltzes right back up to her. "Ever since our first meeting, I've had this feeling... That I'm not entirely alone. Up here." He taps his temple with the hilt of his knife. "I know, it makes me sound crazy." At this, his lips stretch into an uneven grin. "But I couldn't let go of the feeling that someone else was always in my mind. Reading my thoughts.... Sifting through my memories.... It's very unpleasant, really. Like nothing I'd ever felt before, and I began wondering, who? Who was in my mind? That's when I started seeing the thoughts and memories of someone else." His tone lowers, almost dropping to a whisper. "I was looking through the eyes of a girl who loved a blind man, who recently had her heart broken, who spent every day interacting with two people I had the pleasure of meeting a year ago." His points his dagger at Hiro. "Him, and the boy with anger issues."
Despite the chilly atmosphere outside, a bead of sweat trails down Kayley's forehead. Her hands are visibly shaking at her sides, and no amount of control can stop it. She never saw any more of Scar's memories after that night, but her nightmares always showed her his Hyenas, his weapon collection, his gruesome face glaring back through a mirror. With a frightening realization, she pieces it together. They weren't just nightmares. She was actually peering through his eyes again.
"That still doesn't explain why you're here." Hiro retaliates, never once loosening his grip on her.
Scar regards him with a cold fury, as if annoyed this kid choose to speak in his presence. "Isn't it obvious? You are a genius, aren't you?" He drawls, with a roll of his eyes. He passes his knife over to the man behind Hiro, who latches onto him and draws him back.
At first, Hiro instinctively struggles, but the man raises the knife dangerously close to his throat, and all fighting instantly stops.
Kayley begins to protest, but Scar lifts a hand, gesturing for her to stay silent. "My first instinct was to kill you." He carries on, as if the interruption hadn't fazed him. "I have no problem ridding the world of one less annoying teenager. But then I realized.... You could see my oldest memories." He chuckles dryly, receiving blank looks from Kayley and Hiro both. "The mind is a strange thing. The older you are, the more you forget. The brain can only hold so much, and it tends to let go of memories after a while. Which is where you come in."
