Instinct

Erik tries to keep the room in focus. It keeps dipping up and down but his head isn’t moving. It is too much. A harsh tugging to the left. He feels unbalanced but nothing is holding him down. His own breath is ragged and loud, overwhelming the rush of blood in his ears. The thrum of Shaw’s heartbeat is steady and unhurried in the throat beneath his hand.

Everything feels wrong. He leans even more heavily on Shaw, stomach recoiling in disgust at the contact but limbs rebelling, heavy and trembling against any adrenaline he has left.

Control. He has to take control. Alex is standing next to the man’s body. His dead body.

He turns to Emma. Her eyes are hard. It could be sadness. It could be satisfaction. She has just killed a man. But he has leverage. He pushes harder on the screw, Shaw coughs out a laugh.

“Alex. He leaves. Now.” Erik squeezes his eyes shut against the dizziness and when he opens them Emma's face is carefully blank.

Shaw speaks now. Giddy and unafraid. “You think I could let this go? Erik, I just created something incredible. We did.”

The humming is back, in the back of his head, spreading with a gentle heat.

The claws of the dead man’s body lift in a horrifying facsimile of a wave. Alex stumbles back in alarm, Shaw’s pulse spikes and Erik knows, he knows. This is him. He is moving a dead man’s hand. He is moving metal.

“Feel it Erik.” Shaw croons. “Don’t you want this for him too?”

He shuts out the humming and the clawed hand hits the ground like a shattering glass in the silence.

“Don’t look at him!” Erik spits, twisting their bodies away. “Alex.” He throws a quick glance over his shoulder and makes eye contact with his son. "Go." It is not much. Barely a plan but if it is just the people in this room...If it is only them that know then there is a chance. There is nowhere he can offer as a safe place. Nobody he can offer that he can trust. But anywhere is safer for his son, anywhere but here.

He is fading quickly and it hurts to look right at Alex, at the fear and love strong in his eyes.

“You can’t go to…Don’t go to Raven.” He has trusted her with his life but he does not know. He cannot know and it is Alex and he has to know. “Not Darwin either. You can’t…”

“Darwin’s at our house.” Alex mumbles numbly. “He tried to stop him.” He gestures at the body on the ground before him. Alex is staring at the dead man and Erik wants to shake him because he shouldn’t be seeing that, he shouldn’t be here and he needs Alex to move.

Emma lifts her gun. He sees it rise in his periphery, feels it hum under his skin now that he knows it is there.

“He stays.” she states firmly.

Emma keeps her grip loose but steady. She turns her aim towards Alex, there is no one blocking her shot now, He is exposed.

“No!” Erik rasps. He is swaying in place and she knows he is fading. He jabs the screw angrily against Shaw’s neck. “Alex leaves or I kill him.”

“As easily as I can kill Alex.” She reminds him.

Erik’s glare fixes intently on her gun and his body shakes with tension. In front of him, Shaw laughs at the realisation of what he is trying to do.

“Don’t hurt yourself Erik.” He mocks.

Erik breaks eye contact with her gun and growls in frustration. Emma watches his shoulders slump. He is not strong enough. Not yet. Shaw has changed Erik but she can elevate him. Improve him. Like she has done with Shaw.

Shaw meets her eyes. His euphoria undimmed by his position. All the reckless experiments, the broken toys, the broken men. He has finally succeeded. He has created his masterpiece. This is his handiwork.

It does not matter.

He is just one artist and Emma, well, she is a collector.

She smiles. “Ok.”

A gunshot rings out. A bullet tears across the room.

She feels a quick tug at her gun. Not enough to tear it from her grasp. Just enough to be a desperate father trying too late to stop her from firing.

Except it is not her gun that is down a bullet.

Moira stands in a firing stance beside her. Her gun is raised and the air is rippling around the barrel in the aftermath of her shot.

Shaw slumps forward in Erik’s grasp. An ugly bullet hole in his temple.

She nods at Moira without turning away from her target. Her gun remains pointed at Alex and she slides her gaze over to Erik.

“Now, let’s find out what you can really do.”