The Love of His Life - Chapter Five

 

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Chapter Five

Chloe found a cheap motel in Chicago and paid for three days. The room couldn't pass as clean considering she found two used condoms near the bedside table that she threw away using a wad of toilet paper.

After washing the sheets and pillowcases at a local laundromat, just to be on the safe side, Chloe returned to her room and stared at the ceiling. She wondered if the Kents were okay. She wanted to call but she didn't want to risk that her uncle would arrive in Smallville, discover she'd stayed at their farm, and begin checking the Kents' phone records.

She didn't want him to track her too quickly, either. She needed to stay a step or two ahead of him. God forbid he should catch up to her as he had in Gotham.

There was a nearby burger joint that served up surprisingly good food. Chloe ventured out and went hunting for some supplies. She also familiarized herself with the area in case she had to run. She found three good places to hide and a building that had been closed down for having lead in the paint that would also provide a good place to hide. 

After stocking each potential hiding place with water, chips, beef and cheese sticks and crackers, she returned with a combo meal from the burger joint and some candy and settled down to watch TV but that was difficult to do with all the noise around her.


In one of the rooms next to her a whore loudly conducted business. In the other she heard a man beating a woman while their children screamed in terror.

Chloe got up, walked to the door, and looked outside. The rundown courtyard and the moldy pool were empty. She wondered if she should try to stop the man next door and then decided against it. The woman chose to stay with him and put up with his abuse. She could stop him for one night, maybe, but he'd resume his practices again.

As she thought of these things the door opened and the woman came stumbling from the room. Her face was stained with tears. Her eye was going to be black and swollen soon, and her lip was busted.

"Come here," Chloe said.

"Fuck you."

Chloe shook her head and motioned for the woman to come over to her.

"I can clean you up."

She sniffled wetly and considered Chloe. In the room behind her the kids still cried. Her man exited the room and looked at her with disgust and anger. His rage was cooling, though.

"What are you looking at?" he asked Chloe. "This is none of your business."

"Kiss my ass, punk," Chloe said, almost casually.

"Lenny, don't!"

"Get in the room!" he shouted in her face.

"Go back in. Lock your door!" the woman warned Chloe.

"You like beating women, do you? Can't take a man in a fight so you pick on someone weaker." Chloe applauded  him sarcastically. "Bravo! What a big, tough man you are."

Actually he was pretty big. He was six feet tall and easily two hundred pounds. He swaggered toward Chloe. She stepped out of her room and onto the sidewalk. She wanted room when she dealt with him.

"You're gonna learn to mind your own fucking business."

"You're big but you're weak. Inside, I mean, where it counts. You don't have what it takes to be a real man. You're nothing. You're pathetic. You're a loser. I don't even have to know you to know that."

Each word she said fueled Lenny's rage. He swallowed several time, making his pronounced Adam's Apple bounce in his throat.

"That's why you bully your woman and kids. Not only do you know how worthless you are but everybody else knows it too. All anyone has to do is take a look at you to see it. That's got to be the worst part about it. Knowing that everyone else is as aware of what a failure you are as a man as you are. It's not even a secret you can keep."

Chloe laughed and that undid him. Lenny screamed in rage and lunged at her. Chloe fell back onto her hands and drove her right foot up and into his groin as hard as she could. He let out an ugly hmph! and staggered back a step.

She brought her left foot around in a kick to his jaw. He fell back and Chloe got to her feet.

Years of anger and frustration suddenly sprang to the surface. It didn't bubble up -- it erupted like a volcano spewing molten rage. Her uncle had murdered her father. She'd been murdered repeatedly, experimented on, suffered from one lab-induced disease after another to see how much she could take. She'd been denied the right to fall in love. She'd been denied freedom. Even though she wasn't in the Facility she was still her uncle's prisoner. Fear was a constant part of life and now she took it all out on the wife beater in front of her.

One kick after another, one blow after another, Chloe let it all out on the man at her feet. She lost track of time. She lost herself in the violence until she collapsed to her knees, exhausted.

Did I kill him?

Chloe reached out and felt the man for a pulse. He had one. He was just unconscious.

Chloe looked up at the woman. The kids were no longer crying but stood inside their room, looking at her in awe and fear.

"What's your name?"

"Beth."

Chloe faced Beth wiped sweat from her brow. "You must like what he does to you."

Beth's mouth fell open. "I don't!"

"You must. Why else do you stay?"

"I got two kids and he takes care of us! I can't make it on my own!"

Chloe was sure Beth was used to getting sympathy and pats on the back and other people making excuses for her. Her face was full of self-righteous anger when Chloe kept talking.

"You can't make it on your own because you don't try. I don't feel sorry for you. A lot of people would but I don't. You could leave. You could get a job -- any job -- stay at a shelter, scrape and save until you can get a place. You could do a lot of things to get away from him but I think you're weak and stupid and selfish. You're teaching your son that women are objects to be used by men. You're teaching him to be angry and that women are punching bags for him to take it out on when he's pissed off. You're teaching your daughter that women are doormats, maids, and slaves to be used rather than appreciated and cherished. I'm sure your mother taught you the same lessons."

Beth's face flushed a deep shade of red. "You don't know nothin' about my mama or my life!"

"Don't use your past as an excuse to be weak, Beth. As far as I'm concerned if you stay with him, or keep getting men like him, then you deserve what you get from them. Your children don't. They deserve better."

"Oh, like you're some saint. Look what you did!"

She pointed at her husband, or boyfriend, whatever he was to her. Chloe nodded. "That's right, Beth. Look what I did to him. Think about that. Look what a woman did to him. I'm not a saint but I'm not weak, either, and believe me my past is a lot darker than yours."

Chloe walked back to her room and shut the door. She slid the lock home and peered out of the window. Beth walked over to Lenny and gave him a kick to the stomach before going into her own room and locking the door.

Lenny lay on the ground for an hour before getting up and going back to the door of his room and knocking weakly.

"Beth? Lemme in. I'm hurtin' real bad."

He waited with no response. He hit the door angrily and Chloe stepped outside.

"Beth! Open the door or I swear when I get in there--"

He saw Chloe and backed away. He stared at her with open fear. His face was bruised and swollen.

"You need help," Chloe said. "You're a pathological dick."

She slammed the door and washed her hands of both Lenny and Beth.

When her three days were up, Chloe left the motel and went in search of another one. There were no more fights from the room next door.

*****

Chloe began robbing stores. She didn't do it for the stuff she stole. She did it to leave a trail.

After escaping she would return to her new motel room, a dive even worse than the one in which she'd left Beth and Lenny. This new place offered complimentary cockroaches on the pillows.

Chloe returned from robbing a pawn shop where she relieved it of a very nice hunting knife complete with a scabbard she tucked into the back of her pants and hid under her shirt. She'd just opened her door when she saw something large lunge toward her.

Her first thought was that her uncle had found her. She rolled with the sucker punch her assailant threw and came up on her feet, her lip bleeding. She pulled the knife she'd just secured and squared off with her attacker.

It wasn't her uncle. It was a total stranger. He was a tall black man with ham-sized fists and lots of muscle under a thick layer of fat.

Lenny emerged from the room behind the man with a smirk on his face.

"Oh, Lenny, hey!" Chloe said cheerfully, as though she was genuinely happy to see him. She spat out a mouthful of blood. "You brought a real man to do your fighting for you, I see."

The smirk faded. Lenny was emboldened now that he had help but there was still some fear and uncertainty in his bruised and battered face.

Chloe looked at the man before her. "Before we fight I have one question. Is it just me or does Lenny have a really weak chin to compliment his pea-sized balls and complete lack of masculine constitution?"

The man grinned and then regarded Lenny with serious thought.

"Yeah, he does."

"Hey, man, I paid you kill her, not insult me."

"She's right, though," the man said.

Kill me.

That left Chloe with two possible courses of action. She could run or she could allow this man to kill her. She'd come back from it if he didn't shoot her in the heart. If she ran they'd get away with all her money. She was sure they'd ransacked her stuff and found it. If she was totally broke she was in deep shit.

If they managed to permanently kill her, though, they'd get away with her money all the same. Either way she was screwed unless she could kill the man who came to kill her.

I don't want to kill anyone, even if they're trying to kill me.

"I want you to beat this bitch to death, just like she did me," Lenny said. 


"Uh...I didn't beat you to death, Lenny. You're still alive," Chloe pointed out. 


"Just fucking kill her!" Lenny shouted.

"You're the boss," the big man said.

He took a swing at Chloe. She brought the knife up out of instinct and impaled his hand. He screamed in pain and pulled back, taking the knife with him. Pissed off, now, he forgot his deal with Lenny to beat Chloe to death and drew a gun. He aimed it right at Chloe's chest and pulled the trigger.

It was like the world slowed down for Chloe. This was it. This was a heart wound. She wouldn't survive. Damn. To have come so far only to be brought down by a gun wielding thug hired by a woman-beating punk...

Something slammed into her, knocking her onto her back. She thought it was the bullet putting an end to her life. Her vision swam out of focus and darkness claimed her.

This time it would be permanent.

*****

"I want to convert Jonathan's den into a bedroom for Chloe," Martha said, putting dinner on the table. Chloe had been gone a week and Martha missed her terribly.

I've adopted her.

"Sounds like a good idea," Clark said.

Martha smiled and put a piece of fried fish on her plate. "You know what? We haven't had one fight since Chloe came to the farm."

Clark's brows raised. "I noticed."

"She's been good for us."

Clark nodded but he remained quiet.

"She could even be good for you," Martha prompted.

Clark chewed his food carefully. He'd thought the same thing but he didn't know how Chloe felt. He also didn't want to be rejected by a girl who was worth falling in love with.What if Chloe didn't see him as boyfriend material? What if she just liked him as a friend?

"I'm sorry. I'm pushing my will on you again," Martha said.

"You're not. I like Chloe. I just don't know if she likes me."

"Has she caught on that you're looking out for her?" Martha asked.

Clark shook his head. "No, she has no idea I've been there every night."

"We've caught up on work. Let's take tomorrow to clear out the den and make it into a bedroom. We'll go into town and pick out a bed and some furniture from the second-hand store."

Clark agreed. He and his mother finished dinner in companionable silence.

The next day he and Martha went into town with the truck. They bought a bed, a dresser with a mirror, and a small writing desk with a chair. Martha wanted to decorate the room so she dragged Clark with her to shop for curtains.

He was looking over a set of burgundy curtains when his mother tapped his arm. He glanced over, expecting to see some horrendous flower print that his mother was prone to buying for her bedroom, but saw her pointing at a girl who'd entered the store.

"She's kinda cute," he said.

Martha closed her eyes and prayed for patience. "I'm not talking about her beauty, Son, I'm talking about her. I've never seen her around. Have you?"

"She's new."

"Can you hear what she's saying?"

She was showing something to Howard Mason, the cashier.

"She's asking if he's seen her cousin," Clark said, listening in on the hushed conversation. "Howard said he saw her around a couple of months ago but she left town."

The girl was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen. She was tall with long black hair. She was also dressed in black clothes that had a military look to them. She had shades pulled up and tucked into her hair, keeping her fringe out of her eyes. She stared around the store, spotted Clark and Martha, and smiled at them as she approached. There was something missing in her eyes. There was no warmth despite how hard she tried to imitate it.

Martha smiled back even though the girl made her uneasy.

"Hi, I hope you can help me. I'm looking for my cousin. Her name is Chloe Sullivan. Here's a photo of her."

The girl handed Martha and Clark a picture of Chloe. They looked it over and Martha nodded.

"I've not only seen her, I took her in for awhile."

Lucy's eyes widened with excitement. She took out what looked like an iPad and tapped the screen. "Where do you live?"

"She's not here now," Martha said coolly. "Come on, Clark."

Clark knew this wasn't what Chloe had planned but he went along with his mother.

"Excuse me. I'm not finished with you yet," the girl said in a suddenly hard voice.

"I'm finished with you," Martha replied with equal ice in her voice.

They stepped into the humid heat outside the store. "Thank God," Martha said. "Sheriff Adams!"

Adams was fairly new to Smallville. She was a no-nonsense kind of woman but she was fair. She crossed the street just as a black H3 pulled up and an older man emerged with a strikingly beautiful young woman. The new woman bore a familial resemblance to both the man and the girl who'd followed them from the store.The man was dressed in full uniform.

Lois and Sam Lane.

"Something wrong, Mrs. Kent?" Sheriff Adams asked. She took in the newcomers with interest.

"This is her," Lucy said. "She's got Chloe."

"Ma'am, Sheriff. I'm Sam Lane. I've been looking for my niece, a girl named Chloe Sullivan. My daughter Lucy tells me you have Chloe?"

"I had her," Martha said. She was very aggressive and hostile toward Sam. Lois studied her with a frown.

"What do you mean you had her?" Sheriff Adams asked.

"I mean she stayed with me. She's a runaway."

"Is she underage?" asked Sheriff Adams.

"She is, Sheriff. She's seventeen," Sam said. "I took her in after her parents died. I have custody of her."

"Mrs. Kent, if you have this man's niece--"

"I don't have her now. I paid her for work on the farm. She got a bus out of town last week. I hope you never find her, Sam Lane."

Sam's face hardened. "Is that right?"

"She told me all about you, mister. The things you've done to her."

Lois and Lucy both tensed and looked at Sam, ready to do God only knew what.

"Did she now?"

"Yes. You molested her after her father died. You two girls helped him cover it up."

Lucy and Lois looked at one another in surprise. Lucy giggled.

"Shut up, Lucy," Sam said.

"You're a sick, sick man," Martha said. Clark tried not to smile himself. His mother was really hamming it up.

"Mrs. Kent, you're throwing out some very serious allegations," Sheriff Adams said.

"I'm an officer in the United States Army--"Sam started.

"Oh, yes, she told me all about you. How you shuttle her from one base to the next, making her pretend to be your wife, making your daughters call her 'Mom.' It's disgusting!"

Lucy didn't giggle this time. She outright laughed.

"You find this funny, Miss?" Sheriff Adams asked. "I want to see some identification from all of you."

"Show the Sheriff your identification, girls. Lucy, I want you to wait in the car."

"Chloe's lying," Lucy said, still smiling, as she held up her ID.

"She said you'd say that," Clark said.

"Of course she did," Sam said. "She lied to you to gain your trust and sympathy. I'm not the sick one, Chloe is. She was never the same after her father died."

"What young girl would be the same after seeing her father die in a car crash?" Martha said, adding another layer to the story. "And then to have the one man she should have been able to trust use her the way you--"

"Mrs. Kent, why don't we cool it with the allegations of sexual abuse until we know more about what's going on," Sheriff Adams said. "We don't know that any of that really happened."

"I believe her."

"So do I," Clark said. "There was something wrong with the girl, Sheriff. She'd clearly been through a lot."

"Why didn't you bring her to the police when she made such claims?" asked the Sheriff.

"I tried to talk her into it but she refused to go. I figured after a lifetime of having people force themselves on her she didn't need the same from me."

"Where did she go?" Lois asked.

"I'm not telling with you standing here."

"Mrs. Kent, I'm an officer of the law and I'm ordering you to tell me where this girl went," Sheriff Adams said.

"She told me she was heading to New York."

"I drove her to the bus station but she got a ticket to Chicago," Clark said.

"Did anyone else see the girl get on a bus?" asked Sam.

"My girlfriend, well, ex-girlfriend now, did."

"Her name?" Sheriff Adams said.

"Lana Lang."

"If you'll excuse me, Sheriff," Sam said. He turned to leave.

"Hang on there, sir. You're here in a personal capacity, I take it?"

"Yes, Sheriff, I am."

"You'll come with me to the station. All of you."

*****

Sam Lane didn’t look happy with the turn of events since coming to Smallville. Clark watched him closely, and he didn't have to fake his disgust for the man who had murdered Chloe's father and tortured her for years.

"What I don't understand is why you haven't alerted authorities to your niece's disappearance," Sheriff Adams said.

"I have a lot of resources at my disposal, Sheriff Adams. I figured I could handle this myself."

"He didn't want the cops to know why he really wants Chloe back," Martha said, earning another amused smirk from Lucy.

"Does the Army know of Chloe's disappearance?"

"No, Sheriff, they do not. This is a personal matter that has nothing to do with the government."

"A minor has gone missing. It has everything to do with it."

"She's not missing, she's a runaway," Lois said. "There's a difference."

"I've still posted an AMBER alert. It'll go out nationwide. If she's found the police will hold her and you will be notified, General Lane."

"Thank you, Sheriff."

"Chloe's allegations of sexual abuse will be thoroughly investigated. I can't charge you myself because I haven't spoken to Chloe and she hasn't told me of any alleged abuse. If you have been hurting that child then officer in the Army or not, sir, you will be prosecuted."

Since Sam couldn't be charged Sheriff Adams had to let him go. After the report was taken she also allowed Martha and Clark to leave.

"The cops know Sam is after her now," Martha said. "She's on the radar. He can't just take her without drawing attention to himself."

Lois approached Clark and Martha, her face half-hidden by sunglasses.

"You did the right thing," Lois said.

"What?"

She smiled and shook Martha's hand before returning to the truck with her father and sister. Martha waited until their truck was gone before looking in the palm of her hand. It was a keychain of the Daily Planet logo.

"Maybe it's a tracking device," Clark said. "She hopes we'll give it to Chloe if she returns and they can come get her."

"Look at it," Martha said, handing it to him.

Clark peeled away layer after layer of the keychain but saw no devices hidden inside.

"It's just a keychain."

*****

The darkness wasn't permanent after all.

Chloe awoke with a mild headache and looked around. She was in her room. It was still dark outside. There was no sign of Lenny or his hired killer.

"You okay?"

Clark Kent sat in the chair by the window, hidden in shadow. She flicked on the lamp and looked over at him.

"How the hell did you find me?" she said. If Clark had managed to find her this fast then her uncle could burst through the door at any minute.

"I followed you."

Chloe laid back and covered her face, her body limp from sheer relief. "You've been here the whole time?"

"Only at night. I spend the day working the farm."

Chloe sat up and looked at Clark. "How can you work the farm in the day and spend nights watching out for me? You can't travel from Chicago to Smallville that quickly, Clark."

He smiled and winked at her.

"How can you do that?"

Clark shrugged. "That's one of my secrets."

Chloe grinned and examined her shirt. There was no bullet hole. "I didn't get shot?"

"No."

"And how did you manage to stop a bullet?"

He didn't answer. Chloe didn't press the issue. "How have things been?"

"They've been very interesting. Your uncle and cousins came to Smallville yesterday."

He told her about the encounter, about the AMBER alert, and she laughed. "Martha said all that? Oh, my God, I wish I could have seen Sam's face!"

"You're not just some unknown girl anymore, Chloe. You're name is out there. If you disappear Sam Lane will be the first one they suspect."

"That isn't enough to stop him, you know," Chloe said, but she still felt lighter than she had in years.

"No, but it'll make things more difficult."

"I take it they're watching the farm?"

"Oh, yeah," Clark said, nodding.

"You shouldn't have left Martha alone. If Lucy gets hold of her there's no telling what she'll do."

"Sam isn't going to attack Mom or allow Lucy to lay a finger on her. If he does he'll be suspect number one. He doesn't want that kind of attention from the police because it'll inevitably get out to the media. Chloe, you need to tell the police what he's really doing to you."

"Sam will only move the Facility. There will be no evidence of what he's up to."

"You don't need it. You just need people to suspect. They'll have to go deep underground to hide what they're doing and there's no way they'd target you--"

Chloe shook her head. "No. Sam would kill you and Martha the second he finds out you know the truth about me. You're better off if he thinks I fed you and Martha some line about being sexually abused to win your sympathy and a place to stay on the farm while I'm on the run. Right now he won't risk getting investigated by the Army or the police to kill a farmer and his mother for taking in a runaway. If he knows you know the truth about me he'll risk anything to kill you out of spite. Trust me, I know him. It's better this way."

Clark sighed and nodded. "Okay."

"I can't come back to Smallville. The farm is under surveillance."

Clark remembered the keychain Lois had given Martha. He took it out and held it up.

"Lois gave us this to give to you."

Chloe looked it over and shook her head. "Why?"

Clark shrugged. "I was hoping you could tell me."

"It's a tracking device. Has to be."

"I already examined it. There's nothing there."

"They can hide things inside it, Clark."

"No, I mean I've looked inside it."

"You can look through things? You can travel very fast. You're impervious to temperature changes. You have many skills, Clark Kent."

"It's safe," Clark said, grinning.

"I don't trust anything from Lois no matter how innocuous it may seem," Chloe said, and dropped the keychain into the small wastebasket next to the bed.


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