It wasn’t easy to rattle Martha Kent, but she was officially worried. Chloe had left the previous evening to try and patch things up with Oliver, but that as now 24 hours ago. Chloe wasn’t answering calls, neither was Oliver, and she had been trying to reach them in earnest now for over three hours. Even if the two of them were taking time to make up, which Martha hped was the case, they wouldn’t willfully ignore repeated calls from her.
Putting the phone back on the hook, Martha resumed the mundane task of cooking dinner, her mind torn between her work, Chloe and Oliver, and the current predicament her son found himself in. She cut vegetables for the pot roast she had planned for dinner and listened to Clark and Victor laughing at the television set in the living room (Clark much louder than Victor). Clark had discovered the joys of cartoons, with Scooby-Doo being his favorite. While Clark laughed at Shaggy and Scooby cowardly running through some supposedly haunted mansion from the latest ghostly threat, Martha turned over what she should do. Should she call Victor in and ask him to make the trip to Metropolis to see why Chloe and Oliver weren’t answering her calls? Was she overreacting?
The kitchen door opened and A.C. came in. He was tall, blond, and handsome, much like Jonathan had been at his age (though Jonathan had never been so bulky). With A.C. coming through the door with his mop of wild blond hair, Clark laughing at cartoons in the living room, and her going about the task of making dinner, Martha felt as though time had transported her back fifteen years, and she missed her husband more than ever.
Martha peeped into the living room. Victor sat beside Clark , making Martha think of Clark and Pete, and that made the feeling of nostalgia all the more powerful.
“You look a million miles away,” A.C. said softly from beside her. Martha smiled at him. “I’m just missing Jonathan…and the man Clark was becoming before this happened.”
“We’ll get Clark back,” A.C. said, resting a beefy, comforting hand on Martha’s shoulder. She patted his hand and went back to work, trying not to read anything into the touch, and feeling ashamed that such a thought would even cross her mind about a man half her age.
“Had any luck getting through to Ollie or Chloe?” Martha asked, taking a seat at the counter where she sat a bowl of freshly washed potatoes that needed peeling and cutting.
“No,” replied A.C. “I’m about to ask Victor if he wants to run to the city and find out what’s up.”
Martha nodded. “I’d feel better if I kenw for certain they were okay.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. Need help with this?”
“I could use a hand peeling potatoes. Jonathan was always so much better at it than I was. I usually cut away half the potato in the process.”
“Lucky for you I’m good with a knife,” A.C. said, smiling a dazzling white smile. Picking up a potato, he peeled the skin off evenly, taking very little potato with it. Victor entered the kitchen and smirked at his friend performing domestic duty.
“Did I hear someone say my name?”
“You mind going to Metropolis and checking on Oliver and Chloe for Mrs. Kent
“You boys don’t have to call me Mrs. Kent. Martha is fine.”
“And miss out on dinner?” Victor asked, smiling playfully. “I’ll call Bart and have him zip over.”
He cocked his head to the side, as though listening to a distant voice. A few seconds later, he looked up again.
“Sent him a text. He’s running over…is it me, or is it really quiet in here?”
Victor, A.C., and Martha looked into the living room after realizing there was a noticeable lack of laughter at the cartoon on TV. Clark was gone.
“Clark ?” Martha called. “Come here!”
Her son didn’t respond, as he usually did, by blurring into the room at once. However, someone did seem to appear out of thin air: Bart Allen. He looked pale and shaken, and a little frosty around the edges from his fast run in the winter air.
“We’ve got big trouble,” he said. “Old Tim, the night watchman at Ollie’s building? Dead. Throat cut wide-open.”
“How come it wasn’t on the news?”
“Nobody knows. His body was up in Ollie’s apartment, which was totally trashed. I think Ollie and Chloe have been kidnapped.”
****
Cold water roused Chloe from a drug-induced sleep. She blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of the everything that was going on in the room with her. The more time that passed the more she realized that there wasn’t much happening, but the bright light above her, as well as the noise of the circulation fans moving air through the room, were overwhelming her already distorted senses. There was a lot of silver in the room, and plenty of shiny surfaces for the overhead light to reflect off of, and Chloe found it all very disorienting. It didn’t help when ammonia was held under her nose to facilitate clearing her head.
“Good, you’re coming around nicely,” said a female voice above and behind her. The ammonia was removed, but the sterile scent of an operating room remained. The air was filled with the noisome aroma’s of more ammonia, rubbing alcohol, and bleach, which made Chloe’s delicate stomach churn.
There was a chair beside her, as well as a tray laden with surgical instruments, their razor sharp edges gleaming wickedly. The owner of the voice, who sounded as though she regularly treated her vocal cords to washes of whiskey and dried with cigarettes, came to sit in the chair beside Chloe, who determinedly tried to commit each and every line (and they were considerable) of the woman’s face to memory. She wore a white lab coat and had short gray-black hair.
“Good to see you awake, Miss Sullivan,” said the woman, sounding as though she really needed to clear her throat.
“You have me at a disadvantage. I don’t know you.”
“I’m number five,” the woman replied.
“What are you, a Borg drone?”
Five smiled. “Hardly. I’m the fifth founding member of the Shadow Society.”
“I’ve never heard of a group calling themselves the Shadow Society.”
“Of course you haven’t. Very few people outside these walls ever will.”
Chloe felt as though she’d swallowed a huge chunk of ice that was going to take quite some time to melt.
“The fact that you’ve told me means you don’t intend to allow me to leave here alive.”
The woman nodded, slowly and seriously. “That’s right, but your death is quite a ways off. I can’t say the same for your friend.”
“You’ve killed Oliver?” Chloe said, the proverbial ice cube in her belly turning into a ball of acid that clawed at her chest and throat.
“Not yet, but we will.”
The strong fingers of anxiety did a superb job of twisting Chloe’s guts into knots. She ahd faith that the guys in the League would find her and Ollie, but would they do so before thee psycho’s murdered him?
Even if they kill him, I can save him, Chloe tried to reassure herself. I hope.
“So, you figured out how to control Clark and Kara and wiped their memories. They obviously got away from you. Mr. Queen and I will do the same.”
The woman laughed. “‘Mr. Queen.’ No need to be so formal, Miss Sullivan. We know you two have recently become lovers, and unless you’re Kryptonian as well, I very seriously doubt you’ll escape us.”
“How do you know about Krypton?” Chloe demanded.
“Question and answer time is over,” Five replied. “Or should I say, it’s just beginning? I have many questions about you that I’m just dying to discover the answers to.”
“I’m not telling you a thing.”
Five picked up a scalpel and admired its gleaming edge in the bright light of the room. “Oh, but you will, Miss Sullivan, and you won’t ever have to utter a word. As a matter of fact, I’d be very much surprised if you’re able to do anything more than scream in agony.”
She laid the scalpel’s cold edge against the soft flesh of Chloe’s inner forearm and then flicked it with a quick, precise movement. The blade was so sharp, the cut so expertly shallow, that there was very little pain, and the blood took a moment to well up as though her body hadn’t been aware it had been damaged. Five picked up a very dirty looking cotton ball that looked as though it had been used to wipe down a filthy toilet bowl.
“I wonder if your body fights off infection as well as wounds. Do you self-heal always, or only when taking on someone else’s wounds?”
“Go to hell,” Chloe spat.
Five looked very serious when she said, “I will, some day, but not today.”
The cold steel of the blade came to rest on Chloe’s wrist, and she knew that this time the pain would be much worse. If she could command her body not to heal, then perhaps the woman wouldn’t inflict too much damage to test how far Chloe could go and still come back. She didn’t relish the idea of repeatedly dying and returning for the amusement of this psychopath.
Once more the blade cut her flesh, but this time the pain was immediate and terrible. The blade had but deep, severing a major artery that caused blood to spray out in a powerful arc and fan across the ceiling panels above, hitting the light as well and turning its glow crimson. Chloe’s mouth hung open unflatteringly as she stared at the wound, which gushed blood with every beat of her heart.
Dizziness hit Chloe fast, and hard, and as the darkness at the corners of her vision began to close in, she had just enough time to see a man burst into the room, a look of horror on his face.
“Jesus, Five!” the man exclaimed. “What’s wrong with you? You weren’t supposed to kill her!”
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