Kryptonian Nature - Part 10

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

The conclusion...

The plan to rescue Ollie and Chloe was a fairly straightforward one. Clark sent Kara to retrieve the rest of the bro’s from the league while he scanned the building below. It was a two-story structure, no underground rooms. Clark was unable to see into certain rooms due to being covered in lead paint, and since neither Ollie nor Chloe were in any of the visible rooms, Clark assumed they were being held where he couldn’t see them.

One thing he could see rather clearly, however, were the walls. They were veined with liquefied Kryptonite, making it foolish for him to even consider going down there to fight. Both he and Kara would be weaker than newborn babies if exposed to the liquefied meteorites, so he decided to stay in the air, where he’d be safe.

Kara flew in, carrying a Hummer that she sat down outside of the building and then flew to a place beside Clark. He couldn’t look at her, and now he understood why she’d been so reluctant to allow him to regain his memories. He wished he hadn’t gotten them back himself, and thought it may be worth getting recaptured by Alpha if it meant losing his memories of the past few weeks.

“Kal-El?”

“What?”

“Do you hate me?”

He looked over at her. “Of course not! Why would you think that?”

“Because…I was smarter, and I let you…”

“You didn’t know, Kara,” Clark said. “I love you. You’re family.”

She nodded, looking only partly convinced, and still hurting. He wanted to hold out a hand, but the idea of touching her was just too much at that moment.

“I don’t hate you. I…”

“A little help?” Victor asked.

Clark saw Victor looking up at him. Focusing his eyes, Clark used his heat vision to demolish a nearby wall, exposing one of the rooms that was impossible to see into.

****

The effort it took to constantly self-heal left Chloe feeling weak. It didn’t surprise her. She hadn’t been given anything for fuel. No food, no water. The cutting of the blade was almost becoming old hat, and the only thing that was comforting to Chloe was knowing that there would be no scars to remind her of this hell.

“Do you think he’ll walk right into a trap to rescue you?” the man named Alpha said.

“What?”

“You called for him,” Alpha clarified. “Do you think he’d walk into a Kryptonite-rigged building to save you?”

There were soldiers lining the walls, as well as the hallway. Five stood beside Chloe, lazily pulling the scalpel across Chloe’s skin, a bored look on her face.

“I didn’t,” Chloe said, horrified. Clark would risk his life for her, especially in this state of reduced mental capacity. He was so innocent. He wouldn’t know how to deal with the situation, and if he got recaptured it’d be all her fault. What was worse, she hadn’t even been aware of calling for him.

“Oh, but you did,” Alpha said smugly. He reached out for her sweat-covered head, and she turned away from his touch.

“Don’t touch me. You disgust me,” Chloe hissed. The constant pain inflicted by Five had been going on for hours, and Chloe was now seriously testy. Her annoyance was tripled when Alpha laughed, leaned over, and ran his tongue up the side of her face.

“Mmmmm,” he moaned in her ear. “If you were my woman, and you soon will be, I would fuck you as hard as Mr. Queen did in the elevator of his apartment.”

He’d been watching them, and that chilled Chloe. Not because of being watched, but because this man was good enough to circumvent Ollie’s considerable security measures without Ollie ever being aware of it.

Alpha’s hand was straggling dangerously close to her breasts when the wall of her torture chamber exploded, sending debris flying past her. Five gave a small cry as a piece of something sliced across her face. Actually, her entire face looked like a bloody mess by the time she hit the floor, eyes closed, unconscious. Green liquefied Kryptonite sprayed from tubes set into the walls, sluicing over Chloe, and sinking into her skin. She felt herself strengthen as she took strength from it. Her newest wounds, mostly created by the exploding wall, sealed closed faster than any wounds she’d sustained since she arrived.

The room was filled with dust and smoke, and the sound of gunfire. Several people cried out in pain as something red flashed past. Bart… One face loomed out of the darkness over her. Looking up, she saw that it was A.C., smiling down at her.

“Hey, Chloe,” he said. “Hang tight, I’ll get you out of here.”

****

Dawn was coming and Chloe, freshly scrubbed from the shower, paced Martha Kent’s warmly lit living room. Clark Kent stood at the windows, arms crossed. It was killing him not to be able to help with the action, but Ollie had garnered more help in the form of Dinah Lance and the Martian Manhunter.

“Clark, try to calm down and not be so upset,” Martha said.

“Not be upset?” Clark asked incredulously. “Mom, they turned me into a low brow, cousin-lovin’ caveman and you’re telling me not to be upset?”

“I’m just saying you need to keep your cool. Clark, you could lose your temper and very easily kill those men.”

“I’m not seeing a problem with that,” he snarled.

“Clark Kent!” Martha said in shock.

“Kal-El” he shouted at her, his nostrils flaring. “They took everything that matters to me away. They took my mind, they took my life, my manhood, and they turned me into a…mom, I fell in love with my own cousin because of them! How would you feel if that happened to you?”

“I can’t begin to imagine, Clark,” Martha said. She cautiously approached her massive son, whose chest was heaving with hurt and anger. “I can’t imagine. I do know that time is a great equalizer, and if you kill these men you’ll never forgive yourself. If you think you feel bad now, imagine how you’ll feel when you’re calm, when you’ve had time to breathe and think? Please, Clark, think before you act. Rule your strength with your mind, not your passions.”

Clark backed away from her, but bumped into Chloe.

“Clark, your mother’s right. I want them to pay, too, but you have to do this the right way.”

“What way is that? Should I take them to the police so they can show proof of what Kara and I are? There is no justice outside of what I deal out to them.”

“Fine. Kill them then,” Chloe said, shrugging as though it didn’t matter.

“Chloe,” Martha said uneasily.

“No, really. Go on and kill them. Why stop there? Why not kill everyone who does something wrong? After all, you’re a god among us simple mortals, right? Play judge, jury, and executioner.”

Clark turned away, looking bitter. Chloe touched his shoulder.

“They tortured me, Clark. I want them to pay for that too, but not with death. I’m better than them. So are you, but you can only prove that by behaving better than they are.”

“So what’s your plan?”

“Talk to Ollie, see what he wants to do.”

“And if his plan is to execute them?”

“Then you step in and stop him, and make him come up with something better,” Chloe said.

Clark was silent for a long time, watching the watery, weak light of day half-heartedly illuminate the snow-covered world outside the living room window.

“Fine. I’m going to talk to Ollie.”

“Take me with you.”

“I will, but not right now. Right now I have to talk to Kara.”

“Okay, but come back for me. I can’t wait to fly with you.”

Clark smiled down at her. “I’ll always come back for you.”

Kissing her lightly on the forehead, Clark took a step back. In the blink of an eye he was gone.

****

Kara was floating above the clouds, soaking up the sun, while below her the clouds churned angrily and threatened to spew more snow onto the world below. She jumped when she realized Clark was beside her.

“Ready for that talk?” Clark asked.

“No. I never want to talk about it again.”

“We have to.”

“What is there to say, Kal-El? We crossed a line we never should have crossed.”

“Because we didn’t know who we were.”

“You think its over, don’t you?”

Clark frowned. “What do you mean?”

“You really need to get friendly with the Fortress of Solitude, Clark. It could educate you on Kryptonian physiology. I don’t know about with other species, but when Kryptonians have sex with one another they form a chemical bond. We become mates on a cellular level and once that bonding happens, it can’t be undone. Not on our own.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means we’ll still desire one another. We’ll fight it, we’ll be disgusted by it, but it’ll be a powerful need.”

Clark tasted bile at the back of his throat. “You said it couldn’t be undone on our own. Who could help us?”

“The Manhunter may be able to undo our mistake, with help from Jor-El. That’s a big ‘may,’ Kal-El, and it’ll take time.”

“We have to try. I love you, Kara, but you’re—”

“Ditto,” she said quickly.

Clark fell silent, and found his eyes drinking in the way the sunlight seemed to run like liquid gold down the swell of her breast and into her cleavage—

“We’re finding J’onn now,” he said, and Kara, who’d felt his desires, nodded.

“Right. Let’s go.”

Together, the two of them swooped down through the stormy clouds, heading for Metropolis, where Ollie was interrogating the scientists who’d captured them. He stopped only long enough to keep one promise—to pick up Chloe.

****

Two days later

Chloe stood before the observation window in Ollie’s lab. Ten scientists, the founders of the Shadow Society, milled about, some looking bored, some looking panicked. Five’s face was wrapped in bandages. The woman had had the nerve to ask Chloe to heal her. Chloe had responded by reaching out with a hand adding another ugly tear to the woman’s face.

Ollie had pulled her away, then, looking at her in shocked concern, and now they stood watching Five dab at the blood that poured from the new wound on her face.

“I never dreamed you’d do something like that.”

“That bitch tortured me. She cut on me for hours, Ollie, and then had the audacity to ask me to heal her? Fuck her.”

Ollie reached out to Chloe, pulling her close.

“I wanted to kill her.”

“I’ve felt like that before,” Ollie said. “For all your talk to Clark about being better—”

“It was just a cut—”

“It’s the worst gash she’s got on her face, Chloe. Not even surgery will fix it. Not that she’ll be having surgery any time soon.”

“I won’t heal her.”

“I won’t ask you do, and I don’t blame you for refusing. Just…no more damage, okay?”

Chloe nodded against his shoulder. Chloe enjoyed his scent, and the feel of his body against hers. “We’re all such a mess. You, me, Clark and Kara. Especially Clark and Kara.”

“J’onn will sort them out at the Fortress. They’ll overcome this.”

“And us?” Chloe asked. “What'll we do about them?”

“I haven't figured them out yet,” Ollie said honestly. “I'll think of something, though. As for you, I want you in Star City, with me. Come home with me Chloe. We’re too good together to be apart.”

She squeezed him, and he knew her answer in that moment.

“But you won’t, will you?”

“My place is here, at Isis. I have a lot of work to do with meteor freaks. And besides…I’m going to write my own column, and publish it. Just because the doors of the Daily Planet are closed to me right now, doesn’t mean I have to give up my writing.”

“Who’ll publish you?”

“I was hoping my rich boyfriend would help me there. I could open a small press in the floor above the office.”

“You’ll have to put out for that,” Ollie said.

Chloe laughed. “I’d put out for you anyway.”

“Consider it done. What will your column be called?”

“I was thinking…the Eye of the Storm.”

“You sense a storm coming?”

Chloe kissed him softly. “The storm is here, Ollie. It’ll get worse before it gets better.”

Ollie kissed Chloe slowly and deeply. “It will get better, Chloe, with people like you, Clark, the Justice League, all working together. We’ll make it better.”

Chloe nodded. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Think we can make it, living in two different cities?”

Ollie shrugged. “I don’t know, but we’re damn sure going to try.”

Previous Chapter // Home

Kryptonian Nature - Part 9

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Clark Kent listened to the sounds of the world and enjoyed the vista of stars that littered the night sky like sparkling diamonds on a velvety black cushion. A full moon hung over the ocean, a bright orb that turned the black water into a rising, swelling, living mass that occasionally crested with white waves. Kara floated stretched out on her back, while Clark perched on her mid-section as though she were some sort of recliner, his bare feet dangling in the salty ocean breeze.

“Thanks for bringing me flying,” Clark said, his ears perked up at the sound of whale song beneath the water. It was lovely to listen to.

“You’re welcome, Kal-El,” Kara said, studying him. She casually glided through the air, moving closer to a distant and deserted beach. “We’ve been cooped up on that farm for days.”

“It’s our home,” Clark said.

“Not anymore.”

Clark shut out the ret of the world, the whales below, and looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“We’re no longer the people who used to live there. We’re different now, and they don’t want to see that.”

Clark glanced at the water, using his funny vision to look at what was beneath, seeing the skeletal outlines of many living creatures. The ocean was brimming with life, and Clark wanted to see it all.

“Let’s go swimming,” Clark said. “We can hold our breath for a long time. I did it for two hours once, just sitting in my room. I’ll bet I could go even longer!”

“We can go swimming in a moment, Kal-El, but right now we need to talk about what we’re going to do.”

Kara held onto Clark, to keep him from falling when she zoomed toward solid ground and set him down on the sand. Clark was immediately fascinated by it, picking up a handful and watching it sift through his fingers. Everything was new and exciting to him, and Kara knew they could spend years discovering things, and amazing themselves.

“Kal-El, we need to make a choice. We can stay and let them restore our memories, or we can travel the world, swim the oceans, free and answering to no one. Wouldn’t you like to do that? Instead of doing chores on the farm for strangers, wouldn’t you rather run through the deserts, swim oceans and lakes, maybe even learn to fly?”

“That sounds like fun,” Clark said hesitantly, “but what about Mom, and Chloe and our new friends?”

“They’re not as friendly as you think,” Kara said crossly. Clark’s dark brows knitted together in a frown of confusion.

“What?”

“Kal-El, if they get your memories back you’re going to understand who I am to you. You’ll know what a cousin is, and you’ll understand why it was so bad for us to be lovers. It’ll hurt you so much, and I don’t want you to hurt. Remember how sad I was? You don’t want to be that sad forever, do you?”

Clark gave it serious consideration. “I was smarter, before,” he finally said. “I want to be smart again.”

“You’re smart, Kal-El!” Kara said cheerfully. A little too cheerfully for Clark’s liking, and he knew she was lying for his benefit. It was touching, but it was still a lie.

“No, I’m not, Kara. You’re just saying that to make me feel better, but I’m dumb. I can tell when people look at me that they feel sorry for the way I am now. I don’t like that. I want to be like I was before.”

Angry, Kara backed away from Clark. She’d hoped he’d be more receptive to her wishes, but he wasn’t. “That’s not what I want for us. I know what’s best for you, Kal-El. You should listen to me, and trust me.”

“I do trust you. I just think you’re wrong this time.”

“You trust Chloe more than you do me!”

“No,” Clark said, bewildered and upset. What was wrong with Kara? Why was she acting this way? “Don’t me mad, Kara. I just want to be like I was before. You can stay like you are now, if you want. I’ll still be your friend.”

Kara paced, thinking what to do. She knew what Clark liked most, what he’d been doing without for days since Chloe had found them at the lake in Smallville.

“Don’t you miss mating? I can find someone to be your new mate.”

“Nah,” Clark said. “Chloe won’t do it. She likes Oliver now.”

“It can’t be Chloe. She wants to make us remember. I’ll find someone new. Someone who looks like Chloe. Wouldn’t you like that?”

“No. Let’s go home. Mom is making meat for dinner, and she said I could have my own cake, all to myself.”

“Will you stop thinking about food for once!” Kara yelled. Clark backed away from her, his eyes wide and hurt. Kara felt terrible. She was being mean to someone innocent and sweet…to family. “I’m sorry, Kal-El.”

“You’re getting mean,” he said. “I don’t like you very much anymore.”

“Kal-El! You don’t mean that!”

“Yes I do. If you don’t get your way you yell and say mean things. You make me feel stupid.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt-”

He turned and ran, diving for the ocean, only instead of going into its depths to explore, he sped toward Smallville. Sighing, Kara rose into the air and followed. He swam very fast, and soon he was on land, his arms and legs pumping so fast only her eyes could follow them. In less than a minute, he was back at the farm, covered in ice from the water that had frozen to him when he reached the winter landscape of the place he called home. Inside, his mother grabbed him up in a hug, and Kara watched, through the walls, as he hugged her back.

Flying for the barn, Kara curled up on the couch, weeping bitterly. Kal-El had made his choice, and hit hadn’t been her. She imagined the pain he would feel when he did regain his memories, and he finally understood all the mistakes they had made.

****

Screaming was all Oliver Queen was capable of doing, so he did it very loudly. He hung from his wrists, facing a mirror that showed his reflection on one half, and Chloe in the next room in the other half, suffering terrible tortures, her mouth opened in screams that he couldn’t hear through the sound proof walls.

“Leave her alone!” Oliver shouted, but ice cold water sprayed over him, robbing his body of warmth. A second later a man in a white lab coat approached with a wand that sizzled on the end with an electrical current. He touched it to Oliver’s wet skin, sending painful shocks over his entire body. His scream was cut off when his heart faltered, and then resumed at a rapid pace. He was prepared to die—he just didn’t want to do it so painfully.

“Oh, God…” he gasped when the wand was pulled back. “Just do it, already. Just kill me!”

In the next room Oliver watched Chloe struggled against her restraints when the woman torturing her pulled a scalpel over her flesh over, and over again, bringing up lines of blood that disappeared under a rosy glow of light. Seeing Chloe suffer was even more torture than what he went through with the electric shocks.

Feeling weary, Oliver sagged against the cuffs that held him up, but doing so put pressure on his lungs that cut off his ability to breathe. It was the same principal behind the old Roman method of crucifixion. The victim didn’t die of the wounds to the hands and feet. They smothered to death when they were too weak to hold themselves up any longer. Oliver considered putting himself out of his misery by suffocating himself. He hung there, his arms outstretched above him in a gruesome imitation of the Christ, and dizziness overcame him. Just before he blacked out, the cuffs released, and he collapsed to the floor, landing hard on his back.

Air filled his lungs, and he gasped greedily, sucking in as much as he could, feeling his half-numb limbs tingle as blood began to circulate properly. A face appeared over him, handsome and with cold eyes offset with blond hair. The man was a perfect example of Hitler’s Arian dream.

“Trying to kill yourself?” the man said. “I think not, Mr. Queen.”

“Who…”

“I am called Alpha, here in the Shadow Society.”

Oliver tried to place any terrorist organization that bore the name Shadow. He could think of several, but he’d never heard of the Shadow Society.

“You’ve never heard of us, and you will never tell anyone of us. Even if, by some miracle, you managed to escape these walls you could shout our name from the highest mountaintop and no one would know who you speak of, and no one would believe you anyway.

“What…do you…want?”

“My desires are simple. I want you to die. I have no reason why, other than you’re tiresome meddling in one of my greatest experiment I’ve ever had the privilege to conduct. The Traveler has escaped me, but I’ll get him back. He will come to me.”

“No…no I won’t allow that.”

Alpha smiled menacingly. “You won’t have anything to do with it.”

His eyes traveled to Chloe, and he snapped his fingers. The soundproofing that blocked her screams was lfited, and Chloe shouted out in agony at yet another deep cut.

“She will bring him to us.”

“Chloe…don’t…”

But it was too late. Chloe had reached her limit. “Clark! Claaaaaark!”

Back in Smallville, Clark Kent was pulling on a fresh pair of pajama’s, Scooby-Doo’s that his mother had bought him, when one sound, one tiny voice among the billions he liked to listen to in the quiet of night, rose above all others. He blocked everything out and focused on that one voice.

“Claaaaaark!”

“Chloe!” he said. Crashing through his bedroom window, Clark ran to the barn, but Kara had gone.

“Claaaaaark!” Chloe screamed again. She was in agony. His heart pounding, desperation clenched Clark’s stomach and he turned. He had to get to her. Focusing on her voice, Clark ran and then leapt, and this time he didn’t fall back down to earth. He had only one goal in mind.

Save Chloe Sullivan.

Chloe was so focused on that one task he didn’t realize at first that he was flying, and when he did, he took very little joy or satisfaction in it. There was only the sound of her voice, and a feeling of blinding rage that someone would hurt her.

His flight was cut short when something slammed into him with the force a hundred atom bombs. Shaking his head, Clark looked up. Kara floated before him.

“Chloe needs me!”

“The bad people have her, Clark. You’re not going back there.”

“You can’t stop me!” Clark said uncertainly. The truth was, he wasn’t sure what Kara could do. Could she break him as easily as she’d broken Chloe that one time? She’d managed to halt him in mid-flight now.

“I’ll try,” Kara said, and lunged for him. They grappled in mid-air among flashes of lightning, the ground below lost to the billowing wet clouds they struggled within. She was strong, and she was winning the battle to push him away from Chloe’s agonized screams.

“Kara!” he shouted, grabbing her arms as she tried to punch him. “Stop it!”

“I won’t lose you again, Kal-El! Not for her. Not for anyone! I have to keep you safe!”

“I have to save Chloe, she needs me!”

“I need you too! You’re all I’ve got left!”

Knowing it was the right thing to do, Clark pulled Kara to him, hugging her close as she cried into the crook of his neck.

“You’ll always have me, Kara. No matter what, but Chloe—”

Clark was cut off as a powerful bolt of lightning struck him and Kara, the current coursing through their veins. It would have fried anything else to a cinder, but to them it was nothing but a fairly nasty shock that knocked them off balance for a moment.

But it wasn’t the lightning that caused Clark’s heart to race, or his heart to grow heavy with grief and self-loathing. It was the memories of his past, of who he was, and what he’d become after being kidnapped by a blond man who called himself Alpha, of the Shadow Society. He’d come to the barn, where Clark was trying to teach Kara to dance, shooting Kryptonite into their veins and weakening them. He’d taken them to a lab, he’d robbed them of their memories, and turned them into…

“I remember,” Clark said heavily. “I remember…everything.”

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Kryptonian Nature - Part 8

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

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!”

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Kryptonian Nature - Part 7

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

In which Chloe and Ollie make up ;D

Warning: Explicit sexual content (Chlollie)

There was something in the slump of Kara’s shoulders that made Chloe truly fear for the girl. She’d gone out to the barn and sat in the loft, taking up the middle of the lumpy old couch, and refused to move. Three days, and Kara had yet to move, or speak. As far as Chloe could tell, Kara had gone catatonic. Martha, Victor, AC, and Clark had all tried to reach her, but she refused to move.

“Kara,” Chloe said, setting a hot bowl of soup in front of Kara. She wasn’t worried that Kara would starve or become dehydrated like she would worry over anyone else, but eventually even a Kryptonian would need food and water.

Ignoring her, Kara stared straight through Chloe, as though she didn’t exist. A thin sheen of dust had developed over Kara’s eyes, where she hadn’t blinked them in days. Finding that extremely creepy, and feeling a sense of panic, Chloe pushed the bowl of soup aside and sat down in front of Kara.

“You stole my boyfriend once. Jimmy Olsen. I could hate you, but I don’t.”

Nothing.

“You saved my life once, so I guess that makes up for it. Try to remember the time that gunman shoved me over the edge of the Daily Planet building in Metropolis. You came swooping in when I was half-way down, and set me on my feet at Ollie’s place so no one would see you land on the street.

Nothing.

Looking around, Chloe searched for something sturdy. She saw an old baseball bat in the corner that was already split and unusable. Grabbing it, she came back and swung at Kara, hitting her hard enough to splinter the bat.

Nothing.

Sitting down before Kara again, Chloe sighed. “Answer me!”

Nothing.

“I know how to kill you. It’s a rock called Kryptonite. You remember those green stones we used to capture you and Clark? Wake up or I’ll put a chunk of it on Clark and watch him die.”

Kara blinked rapidly, clearing the dust off her eyes, and grabbed Chloe by the throat, lifting her off the floor.

“Hurt him and I’ll do a lot more than break your neck,” Kara said coolly. Chloe nodded, and Kara dropped her, moving over to the big loft window and looking out at the snow covered fields. It was 2:30 in the afternoon, but it looked like the sun had just risen. Heavy gray clouds spilled snow in small, fast flakes that piled upon one another, turning Smallville into a white wonderland. If it kept up, the entire town would become one massive, shapeless drift from anyone viewing it above.

Everything was quiet in a way that could only happen in a winter snow. There were many muted sounds that one could only hear when listening. With normal human hearing, Chloe could pick out the distant scream of delighted children playing in the yard at Nell Potter’s old house, their little voices carrying well on the cold air. On the road a truck with chains on its tires drove slowly and cautiously by. A cow mooed forlornly in its stall, and one of the horses pawed restlessly, undoubtedly longing to go outside for some fresh air.

“I would never hurt Clark,” Chloe said. “I just said that to get you to answer me.”

“What is there for me to say?” Kara said. She wore nothing but a thin cotton tee-shirt best suited for summer, and a pair of jeans. No socks, no shoes. Chloe was cold just looking at her, since there was no artificial heat in the loft.

Kara looked away from the icy beauty of winter to Chloe.

“What will people think of Clark and me when they learn what we did?”

“Who will ever know?” Chloe asked. “This isn’t something I plan to write about, and Ollie would never utter a word. Nor would Martha, AC, or Victor. It’s our secret.”

“How would you feel if you were me?”

Chloe frowned. “I can’t answer that, though I imagine I’d be devastated. Have you gotten your memories back?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been sitting here trying to force myself to remember the past, but all I get are jumbled images that don’t mean anything. I see a world with a red sun. I know a man who looks a lot like Clark, his name is Jor-El, and a woman with long blond hair, named Lara.”

“Clark’s parents.”

“They have a baby, Kal-El, that’s Clark. I remember holding him, loving him like he was my little brother. That’s all I remember…well…almost…”

“What do you mean?”

“Something’s wrong with me. I think it’s something chemical. I remember a conversation I once had with Lara about finding the perfect mate. She told me to be careful who I gave myself to, or I’d never be able to leave them behind. Not completely. They’d become a part of me once I fell in love with them.”

Chloe touched Kara’s arm, and found herself nearly lifted from the floor when Kara grabbed her in a hug. Nothing too tight, but it was unexpected.

“I fell in love with Kal-El, and now I think I’m bonded to him,” Kara said, crying. Chloe stroked her back, trying to comfort her but not knowing what to say. What could she say to a woman who’d unwittingly committed incest?

“I’m so sorry, Kara.”

“I don’t want to remember more,” Kara said, releasing Chloe minutes later. “I don’t want this to get worse. And what about Kal-El? It would tear him to pieces if he remembered his past and understood what it means for him to have been with me as a mate…to feel bonded to me.”

“Kara, we have to give Clark that choice. We can’t rob him of who he is. He’s a strong man. He could overcome this. So will you.”

But Kara didn’t look convinced. She wiped her eyes and floated to the window.

“Where are you going?”

“I need to get out. I’ll be careful, and I promise I’ll come back soon.”

“Kara—”

Kara was gone in the blink of an eye, a blue and white streak that disappeared into the pregnant clouds that had stationed themselves over Smallville with the intentions of birthing every ounce of moisture they carried. Giving one last look at the gray horizon, Chloe turned and went back into the house.

****

Kara broke through the clouds, drenched with water, and emerged to the glorious late afternoon yellow sun. Bathing in its light, Kara felt as though she’d feasted on a sumptuous meal. It rejuvenated her like nothing else could, and some of the weight of her depression lifted enough for her to sigh a small sigh of relief. Perhaps, with time, she could put her terrible mistakes behind her. Perhaps…

She thought of Kal-El, as she gazed directly at the sun. She thought of the pain he would suffer if Chloe and Ollie managed to find a way to restore their memories. While she was prepared to suffer, she wasn’t prepared to allow Kal-El to carry the burden of their transgressions. Chloe was right. Kal-El was strong, but knowing he’d been in love with, and made love to, his own cousin would be enough to destroy him. He’d never be the same again. He’d never forgive himself.

Lying back, allowing herself to rotate slowly in the air so that the sun struck every possible angle of her body, Kara considered what she would do to keep anyone from restoring Clark’s
memories.

****

Oliver Queen looked out over Metropolis. It was lovely, as beautiful as Star City, especially with the winter snow dusting every window, as well as the streets. It made him think of icing on gingerbread houses for some reason.

And thinking of gingerbread houses made him think of Chloe Sullivan. Why, he didn’t know, since Chloe wasn’t the gingerbread house kind of woman. At least he hadn’t imagined her to be. He saw her as a townhouse woman, a modern, sophisticate who shunned all things small-town and normal.

He knew enough about Martha Kent to know that she’d once been that kind of woman, but she’d found fulfillment with a small-town boy, and became the gingerbread, white picket fence type and had loved it. Seeing Chloe in Clark’s arms, kissing him in a way he doubted she’d ever want kiss him, made him realize that townhouse women could move into gingerbread houses and be just fine with it.

He’d been so sure that Chloe was over Clark. Now he knew he’d been deluding himself.

Turning away from the window, since the last of the watery light of day had faded and the city glittered with artificial lights, thereby losing its seasonal appeal and becoming just another city, Oliver went back to the computer, seeing a message alert bleeping on the screen. He opened it and found five simple words. I’ve found them. Downstairs. Now. There were other messages, four of them from Chloe asking him to call her at the farm, but he ignored those in favor of grabbing his jacket and striding toward the elevator. It opened before he could get to it, and Chloe Sullivan stood inside.

“Was that message about finding them from you?” he asked, feeling hot anger pool in his gut—hot anger and an unexpected wave of sexual desire for the petite little blond glaring at him from the inside of the elevator.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I came to see you since you’re determined to ignore my messages.”

“You’re the last person I want to see right now.”

Chloe glanced down, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. “I say you’re lying about that.”

“I have business to tend to,” he said, reaching for the button to the lobby. He’d have to close his jacket and hope for the best, but Chloe pushed his hand away from the controls. It was like being touched by fingers of flame for all the effect it had on him.

“I don’t love Clark. I’m over him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“The kiss meant nothing.”

“I haven’t seen that sort of face eating since the last time I watched Silence of the Lambs.”

He reached for the elevator controls, but Chloe insinuated herself between him and the buttons, and pulled open his jacket. Her lips sought his, but he was a lot taller than her and easily avoided her.

“No,” he growled, but he was now as hard as steel, and what was worse, Chloe knew it. Her small hand came to rest on the shaft of his dick, which strained at his jeans, and began stroking. He wanted to push her hand away, but he couldn’t manage anything more than to fall against the wall of the elevator, allow his head to loll back, and moan.

“What was that?”

He was trying to talk. “I said stop.”

She did.

He glared.

“What…”

“You told me to stop,” Chloe said. “I’m not a rapist. No means no. Stop means stop. I respect your right to say no.”

“Shut the fuck up, cocktease,” he growled, and grabbed Chloe, pulling him against the aching length of his cock, where she laughed infuriatingly. That is, until he smothered her lips with his and assaulted her mouth with his tongue. She put up a damn good defense, one that was better than what he’d seen her giving Clark three nights before.

He heard a zipper, felt some relief as his dick sprang eagerly free from the restraint of his jeans, and then felt a soft, warm hand take hold of him.

“I’m sorry,” Chloe said, “but I needed some closure with Clark. That’s what you saw. The end of me pining away for Clark.”

“Uh-huh,” Oliver said, but he would have agreed even if she’d been telling him she liked to dunk live nuns in hot wax for laughs if it meant she just wouldn’t stop touching him.

Chloe took her hand off him, but Oliver wasn’t ready to stop just yet. He turned her to face the elevator wall, unzipped her jeans and then shoved a hand into her jeans, seeking the soft, wet flesh there and hot, tight little nub of her clit, which he expertly massaged. She was reduced to a whimpering mess on wobbly knees in no time.

"Coming to see me with no panties on, you dirty girl," Ollie whispered in her ear.

“I’m sorry, Ollie,” she managed weakly. “I’m really s-s-sorry, oh God…”

“I forgive you,” he said, whispering in her hear and breathing in the scent of the soap she’d bathed in that morning. He sought her out with the head of his cock and slipped easily into her.

A/N: Oliver's line about the Silence of the Lambs is
an homage to Sophia, played by the late Estelle Getty,
from the season seven episode of the Golden Girls
A Midsummer Night's Dream (part 2).

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter

Kryptonian Nature - Part 5

Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10

Life in the woods was dull but safe. Clark didn’t mind it too much, since Kara liked mating and let him mate with her every night, sometimes in the morning too, as long as they were outside where they couldn’t break the new bed Kara had fashioned from a tree she’d torn down. The bed wasn’t padded like the first one. It was just a wooden slab, but neither of them minded it. It was big, and roomy enough for them to roll around on.

Every day Clark listened to the water at the nearby lake, but people had stopped coming. He knew it was because most people found the weather too cold, though Clark wasn’t bothered by any of the temperature changes. Hot or cold, it didn’t matter to him, and it didn’t matter to Kara either.

At that moment she was gone, having put on her clothes and flown away. He’d watched her rise into the sky and felt a spark of jealousy. He was good at mating. Why couldn’t he be good at flying too? How come she could do it, and he couldn’t? He could jump really high. High enough to see the entire town, rising into the clouds, only to fall back down to earth no matter how hard he tried to stay up. Kara had caught him at it and scolded him, saying he may have been spotted by the bad people. When he’d pointed out that she could be spotted too, she’d reminded him that he could only go up and down, jumping, while she could move around through the air faster than anything the bad people could fly in to catch her.

Though he’d promised to stay inside during the day, Clark had been drawn outdoors. The air was really cold, which felt kind of good on his bare skin, but white things were falling from the sky, and they had accumulated on the ground. Kara had called it snow, and he decided he liked it. It was pretty, and he could ball it up in his hands into little balls that he could throw at the trees.

But the lake is what really called to him. He’d wanted to see it for a long time, but Kara was never interested in going, saying it was too easy for someone to come along and spot them. Now that she was gone, he decided he could go see the lake for himself. If she didn’t like it, then she could yell about it later. He took off running, loving the feel of the wind as it moved over his skin, and enjoying the feel of his muscles working. The only exercise he got was mating with Kara, but that couldn’t begin to compare to running through the forest, darting through the trees at super speed.

A second later, perhaps less, he arrived at the edge of the trees lining the lake. It was perfectly deserted of human life, though he did spot some animals and fish with what he called his funny-vision. Approaching the end of the dock, which went out a considerable distance into the water, Clark used his funny vision to peer into the depths. The water was deep, and dark, but there seemed to be an entire new world beneath the surface of the water.

Clark dove in, and the temperature of the water felt even better than the air. He knew instinctively to hold his breath, but he was sinking. Part of him began to panic when he realized that even being different from normal humans, he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath forever. He pulled his hands through the water, struggling to get back to the surface, and ended up shooting high into the air, hundreds of feet above the surface of the lake. He laughed as he turned face down and started for the water again.

Using less effort behind the pull, Clark started to clumsily swim, pulling his hands and instinctively kicking his feet. Soon he was gliding through the water, watching vistas of moving grass, valleys, and populations of fish move below him. He traveled fast at first, wishing to see how big the lake was, and it was considerably large, and then began to slow down, taking his time to enjoy the view. It was like flying, only under water and not quite as much a feeling of freedom. It wasn’t as exhilarating as when Kara swooped and dove through the air, holding him tight, but it was wonderful in its own way. He wondered if Kara would enjoy it as much as he did.

He was on his third round when he heard it. A voice calling his name. It sounded strange and indistinct under water. Still, he almost regretted his disobedience to Kara’s wishes. She would yell for sure, and be angry, and possibly refuse to mate tonight. He swam fast to the dock where the voice came from, and poked his head out of the water to look.

It wasn’t Kara.

A woman with blond hair stood on the finger dock looking at him in shock and relief. He knew her. He’d briefly remembered her face in the bad place, but he didn’t recall her name.

“Clark!”

“Hi,” he said cautiously. Kara had told him to trust no one, that they didn’t know who would or would not be from the bad place. She’d told him to be especially mistrustful of people who knew their names, because only the bad people knew their names. This woman, however, didn’t seem bad to him.

“Why are you crying?” Clark asked.

“Clark, where have you been? I’ve been looking all over for you! We all have.”

Uh-oh, Clark thought. She had to be from the bad place, since people from the bad place would be searching for them.

“You’re from the bad place, aren’t you?” Clark said.

“Bad place?” the woman said. “Clark its, me, Chloe. Don’t you know me?”

“No,” he said. “I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

“What happened?” Chloe asked, and she had such a look of concern on her face for him that he felt he could trust her. “Clark, what happened to you? Where is this bad place?”

Clark came up out of the water and landed on the dock before her. She was so small, and he doubted she was as powerful as either he or Kara. He could overcome her, or run from her, if she tried anything bad. She looked embarrassed and turned her head.

“I forgot,” he said. “I’m supposed to wear clothes around other people. Wait here.”

He ran back to the cabin, hurriedly put some clothes on, and came back. The woman didn’t look at all surprised that he had been able to run home, change, and return to her in under five seconds. She reached for him, and he backed away, but the look in her eyes told him to trust her. She reached for him again, and then hugged him.

“Are you trying to mate with me?” he asked.

“What?”

“I don’t think I’m supposed to mate with anyone besides Kara. She might get angry.”

The woman looked up at him, her eyes wide with shock. “Clark, have you been…mating…with Kara?”

Before Clark could answer the woman was ripped from his arms and thrown violently through the air where she landed on her neck at a bad angle hundreds of feet away. Kara stood glaring at her fallen, crumpled form.

“Chloe!” Clark shouted. He ran to her side, but her eyes were wide and unseeing, her heart had stopped beating. Clark straightened out her body and looked up at Kara in a mixture of anger and fear. “You broke her!”

“She’s from the bad place, Clark!”

“No she wasn’t! She was different.”

“You can’t believe her lies. You can only believe me.”

“She was good. I remember her from before!”

Kara hesitated at that. “You do?”

“Not very well, but I remember her face. Her name was Chloe.”

“I know, I’ve met her before.”

“Then why did you kill her?”

“I don’t trust her. You can’t trust her either. It’s better this way.”

Kara held out a hand. Clark looked at it and hesitated. Could Kara break him too?

“Kal-El, come with me,” she said.

“Kal-El?”

“I meant Clark,” she corrected. “Come home. I have food, all your favorites. And we’ll mate. It’ll be fine.”

“I don’t want to mate anymore. You killed a weak human. She couldn’t have hurt either one of us!”

“Clark—”

“And I’m not hungry!” Leaving Chloe’s body on the ground, Clark ran from Kara as fast as he could, heading into the forest and hoping Kara would just leave him alone.

****

Chloe awoke with pain in her neck like she’d never known, and Oliver Queen standing over her, back-lit by the headlights of his car. She was still at the lake, her body cold and stiff and covered under three inches of snow. Twisting her head, she felt several things pop painfully back into place.

“What happened to you?” Oliver said. “You wouldn’t answer your phone, and the GPS said your car was parked here for the past ten hours.”

“Kara happened to me,” said Chloe. “I found Clark swimming in the lake.”

“What made you come up here?”

“I was driving down the road when I saw someone in the air.”

“Flying?”

“No, jumping, I think. Even from a distance I knew it was him, so I sped up here and called for him. He came to me almost at once, but he had no idea who I am. We were talking when Kara came along and threw me. I landed on my neck.”

“Kara killed you? That’s so hard to believe.”

“Believe it,” Chloe said. Oliver pulled her to her feet and maneuvered her to the Hummer he was driving. Inside the heat was warm and the snow that had clung to her hair and clothes melted. She shivered.

“What did Clark say?”

“That’s the scary part,” said Chloe. “He didn’t know me, Ollie. And worse, he was so…so…child like. He’s completely lost his memory.”

“That would explain Kara stealing clothes and food. She's lost her memory too.”

Nodding, Chloe thought about something else Clark had said. She told Oliver how Clark had mistaken her hug for an advance, and how he shouldn’t mate with anyone other than Kara. Oliver looked worried.

“You don’t think they’re…”

“Yeah, they are.”

“We’ve got to find them, now, before she ends up pregnant or something,” Oliver said. “I’m calling in the guys.”

“I could holler for them—”

“Why, so Kara can come back and kill us both? No thanks. We need special equipment to deal with her, and you know it.”

“Yeah, I know it,” Chloe said, but she didn’t like it. The idea of using Kryptonite on Clark galled her, but it would have to be done. They had to be reasoned with. A way had to be found to bring back their memories.

She just pitied the both of them when they finally did regain their memories. How would Clark and Kara feel when they learned they’re family, knowing they’d spent the past couple of months in a sexual relationship? Would they ever be able to look one another in the eye again?

****

Eventually Clark’s anger cooled, and he returned to the cabin. Kara sat at the kitchen table, her head on her hands, and he wondered if maybe she was ill. He heard her sniffling, and realized she was crying.

“Kara?”

“Kal-El!”

She all but flew into his arms, slightly unbalancing him.

“Please forgive me!”

He stroked her hair as she sobbed into his shoulder. He couldn’t really stay mad at her, though he saw her in a different light now. He had no idea she could be so violent, and he wondered if he was capable of the same.

“I do,” he said. “But why do you call me Kal-El?”

“I don’t know,” she said wetly. “It seems right. Let me call you Kal-El instead of Clark.”

“Okay,” he said. “Just don’t cry.”

He held her for a long time, until she calmed down. When she did, he took a seat with her at the table.

“There’s some things I haven’t told you,” Kara said, and handed Clark a red can of something to drink. “When we were in the bad place, the woman told me that we were there because we’d hurt people. She said they took our memories because we were bad, and as long as we didn’t have our memories we wouldn’t be bad. But that’s not true. I don’t have my memory, Kal-El, and I still hurt someone. I was still bad.”

Fresh tears spilled down Kara’s face.

“Why did you hurt Chloe?”

Kara shrugged. “I thought maybe she was from the bad place and would take us back. She scared me. But then…I saw her hugging you and I wondered if maybe she wanted to become your new mate.”

The desire to kill off the competition was something Clark understood, but it was something else entirely when the competition really wasn’t competition at all.

Or was she?

Clark remembered how beautiful Chloe was, and the look of love and concern she held for him in her eyes. Thinking about it made his chest feel like it wanted to expand and explode. It also made him want to mate with Chloe, though he’d never tell Kara that.

Now Chloe was gone forever because Kara had killed her, and a seed of dislike and distrust for Kara had taken root in his heart. He just hoped it remained a tiny seed, and didn’t blossom into something worse.

“I’ve got food—”

“Hush,” said Clark, his ears perking up. “Do you hear that?”

There was something in the sky above the cabin, something loud and artificial. A few seconds later something hit the ground outside. First one thump, and then another, and another, landing all around the cabin. A terrible feeling flooded both Kara and Clark. A feeling of weakness and nausea. Outside, familiar green light glowed.

“The bad people have found us!” Kara said fearfully.

The door to the cabin opened, and Chloe Sullivan stepped inside. Kara’s eyes widened at the sight of her. Chloe was soon followed by the man Kara knew to be named Ollie.

“I’m alive,” Chloe said. “Don’t be afraid, okay? I’m your friend. So is Oliver. We’re taking you home. We’re going to help you remember who you are.”

Two other people, a black man and another blond man, entered the cabin, smiling at Clark and Kara as though they were old friends. They had cuffs glowing with green with them, and they put them around Clark and Kara’s wrists.

Once again they were caught, captive, and at the mercy of strangers.

Previous Chapter // Next Chapter