From Part 9
"Lois, what happened in Kayes?"
He'd have sworn he heard her heart stop for the barest of seconds, and he knew in that instant, he'd screwed up. He'd been too abrupt. His mouth hadn't consulted the common sense part of his brain. He tried to say something else, to take it back, start the conversation again and not be a total jerk about it... but his vocal chords had suddenly gone on strike.
An inarticulate gasp made his head snap up again. Her jaw was slack and she was staring at him incredulously. "I never made it to Kayes."
And now Part 10...
How had he known? Only the gun runners had known that was where she'd been headed. As Louise Lewis. Not as Lois Lane. *How* had he *known*?
She'd never made it to Kayes. That was where the trail had led to. Kayes.
Kayes. Kayes. Kayes. The name stuck in her head, spinning around and around, making her sick.
She closed her eyes against the nausea. It was okay. She was fine. She was safe. Not in Congo. Metropolis. Home. Safe. With Clark.
"Lois?"
She flinched. Lois. Not Louise. Lois.
She waited several moments before she allowed her eyes to open. Clark. It was Clark. Asking. Wondering. His brow furrowed. Posture tense. Worried. Not the bad guy. But he'd known...
"Lois, are you okay?"
Fine. She was fine. Home. Safe. Metropolis.
At the back of her throat, she could taste the bile threatening to burble up onto her tongue.
"Can I get you some water? Something? Anything?" Anxious. He sounded anxious.
She opened her eyes again. When had she closed them? The room swam a bit before it came back into focus. Clark's face was lined with worry. He was sitting next to her. The table had moved. When had that happened?
His voice was soft. Soothing. Filled with worry. "Lois, please say something."
He was one of the good guys. He'd known... He'd looked for her? Because of Perry?
"S-sorry. I... I..."
"It's okay, Lois. I'm right here." His arms came around her. Strong. Comforting, somehow. "You're safe."
Safe. She was safe. In his arms. Alive.
She let him hold her for an eternity. Whispering to her. Stroking her hair. Reassuring her. Calming her. He'd looked for her. He'd... cared.
There was a strong, gentle hand on her back. Up and down. Up and down. She worked on matching her breathing to the rhythm, lulling her back to comfort.
Slow. Calm. Inhale... exhale...
Finally, her heart stopped racing and the tears subsided. She felt Clark pull back slowly and bring his hand to her chin so she was looking at him squarely. His eyes... still haunted like before, but... they were caring, sensitive, asking her to let him help.
"What happened over there, Lois?"
So much had happened. Too much. Things she wanted to forget. Maybe she could get lost in his eyes instead. She could forget if she just did that. He didn't have to know...
He waited patiently for a response. The refrigerator seemed to hum louder in the silence.
She had to tell him, didn't she? She'd asked him for help. How was he supposed to help her if she didn't say anything? She was calmer now. Safe. She could do this.
Lois tore her gaze from his eyes and stared down at her hands in her lap. They were trembling.
"I-I told you that they'd c-captured me..."
"Take your time, Lois. We've got all the time in the world."
Did they? Really? Weren't they still after her? Wasn't it only a matter of time before they found her? Especially if she was keeping company with one of the most popular men on the planet...
One thing at a time, Lane. One thing at a time. This can be done. They could catch the gunrunners. Details. Clark needed details.
***
She'd landed in Pointe Noire four months ago. It was taking *forever* to track down any clues, any *hint* of where the gunrunners were operating, what exactly they were up to - certainly more than just smuggling guns, and just who was running the whole operation?
She hadn't exactly fit in there, so poking around for clues proved far more difficult. She'd learned quickly to just go along with the locals' assumption that she was French. It was easier that way. There was a number of French people, not to mention that was the official language here. She was grateful that her college explorations had sent her to Paris during her junior year. And she thanked God for her stubborn memory because she could still speak the language, though she was a tad rusty at it.
Even given that, she still had to be extremely cautious. The country was on the verge of a civil war. Another one. Every one was suspect. Not so much the Europeans, but someone who stuck her nose in where it didn't belong would certainly garner unwanted attention. And not having any contacts here had made the investigative process far more difficult than she'd expected.
Her source had been the one to land her in the port city of Point Noire, and thankfully, he'd been right on that account. Unfortunately, with the city's edge on the South Atlantic Ocean, there were hundreds of ports and boat docks. It'd taken her weeks. Hell, it'd been months, for her to methodically stake out all the boat yards and docking points.
But she'd found it.
Dock number seventy-eight. Smaller than one would expect for such a sizeable operation. In fact, it was the size of the ship contained within, not the docking site, that had caused her to stake this place out in the first. She only wished it hadn't taken her four months to find it.
Tonight was her third night watching the place. Nothing of any consequence had happened the first two nights, but tonight was the night. She could feel it.
She had an excellent vantage point of the warehouse entrance, which led straight to the docks. Nothing had happened yet by two in the morning, and probably wouldn’t for at least another half hour, assuming the results from her previous snooping proved accurate.
They were smuggling guns *in* to the Republic of the Congo to supply the rebel factions with arms against the government, that much she knew. That's why she'd come out here. What she didn't know was what they were trading in return. It wasn't money, she'd learned. Too easy to trace, she suspected, not to mention the exchange rate was almost a crime in and of itself.
She decided that she needed to get a look inside the warehouse again. There hadn't been much of anything there last night when she'd looked, but since tonight was the night things were going to happen, it was a sure bet they'd have the trade goods housed inside.
Lois glanced around stealthily before making a running dash to the warehouse, her backpack thumping against her back far too loudly for her liking.
She was inside. The blood was pounding in her ears and her breath was a little short. No one had seen her. Good.
Now, to have a look around. She praised her good fortune that it was September and the weather was clear. The salty scent of the Atlantic carried in on a faint breeze, and she could hear a small chorus of crickets chirping from hidden corners.
It'd been the rainy season when she'd arrived. Which made it hopeless for night vision and miserable for staking out in the drenching rain. But there was no rain now; the area was well into the dry season, leaving the moonlight free from the obstruction of the clouds. She couldn't risk the use of a flashlight.
So with the aid of the moonlight casting the moon's glow through the open warehouse doors, she surveyed the room. Weathered wooden rafters. Cobwebs shimmering eerily where the silver light shone through a few holes in the ceiling. And far more boxes and crates than there had been the night before.
Jackpot.
Lois dug into her pocket for her trusty Swiss Army knife as she headed for the nearest crate. She flipped open the blade and used it to pry the lid off the wooden crate. A few deft attempts and she was in, closing and re-pocketing the knife so she could push aside the brittle hay inside.
There were maybe a dozen black bags. The sort that closed with a drawstring. With a trembling hand, she lifted one out of the crate. It felt like a poorly filled bean bag even though it felt like it carried the same weight of one that was full. She held her breath, and tucked the sides of the bag down to get a look at what was inside.
She gasped. The moonlight seemed do dance off hundreds of tiny facets...
Diamonds.
Hundreds of uncut diamonds.
This was big. Huge. Pulitzer material.
Much more so than just gun smuggling alone. They were trading diamonds for guns to encourage civil war.
Lois quickly drew the bag shut and quickly tucked it away in her backpack. Evidence. But she needed more. Concrete evidence that told who the person responsible was.
There was an old desk in the corner. With papers on it.
Lois hurried over to the desk and surveyed the scattered papers. Nothing that looked incriminating. Just scraps of notes scrawled in French. She checked the drawers, hoping to find something a little more damning. They were all locked.
Quickly, Lois dug in the front pouch of her backpack for the bobby pin she knew she had in there. A few tries at picking the lock, and she was in. Dozens of file folders. She thumbed through them in haste. Shipping invoices. What luck!
She pulled one out of the folder nearest to her and read. St. John Enterprises. Based out of Metropolis.
Not surprising considering Metropolis was a Mecca for large business and crime alike. That, and she assumed the origin of the business was how she'd gotten wind of her lead in the first place.
Lois leafed through the other invoices - all St. John Enterprises. All Metropolis bound. Clearly a multi-million dollar operation.
And the exclusive was all hers.
She reached for one of the file folders to hide away in her backpack with the diamonds.
"Si j'etais toi, je ne ferais pas ca."
She froze.
Crap.
Crap, crap, crap.
*Why* hadn't she stopped to think that her good fortune had really just been bad timing?
Before she could think of a way to escape, there was an arm around her neck and a hand over her mouth.
It would be futile to scream now, though that didn't mean she couldn't fight. But before she could even raise her leg to kick him, he spoke again.
"Pas tres malin quand on a un couteau contre la gorge."
Knife. Knife. All her knowledge of the French language fled her brain. All but for knife. Couteau. The thing that was now pressed tightly against her neck.
Oh God, how was she going to get out of this?
***
Clark stared in horror.
"Wh-what did he do to you?" He heard the panic creep into his voice, but he didn't care.
She was still trembling. He realized she hadn't shared this with anyone. No one knew, no one had known the horrors she'd been put through. For three years. He still didn't know, and he waited with bated breath for the answer he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to hear.
"H-he didn't hurt me. Not right away. I remember being gagged and blindfolded. Thrown in a vehicle. And they drove. For hours. Or... at least it seemed like hours. I really have no idea."
He watched her, still horrified at what he was hearing, as she stared at her hands. She hadn't looked him in the eye since she'd begun her tale.
"Then... there was this room. Just like all the dark, dank interrogation rooms you see in the movies. But worse. Th-they questioned me. H-hit me when I wouldn't tell them what I was doing so far from home. They s-searched my backpack. Found my passport. Who I was..."
Clark opened his mouth to offer... something. Some sort of consolation. But she suddenly looked up at him, all the fear of months ago written plainly on her face.
"I-I don't know why they didn't kill me, Clark, but two years. *Two* whole years, they left me locked up in a room only a bit smaller than this one."
Clark tried not to feel the walls closing in on him. Tried to smother the feeling of being trapped in a tiny room at the mercy of ruthless criminals. Tried not to feel the remembered terror coming off her in waves. Tried to shake the horrible feeling that he'd somehow missed something.
"D-did h-he..." Rape you? he added wordlessly. Oh, God. Had they raped her?
She hung her head and a tight fear clenched at him.
"No, Clark." She sniffled. "I wasn't raped. At least." She paused again, swallowing. "Th-they did... b-beat me... at first. When they were looking for information."
A sudden rage flooded through him instead of the relief he'd expected at finding out she hadn't been raped.
They'd hurt her. They'd. Hurt. Her.
He was furious and protective all at once, not sure what to do with himself for fear of doing the wrong thing. And there was nothing he *could* do. He didn't know where *they* were.
And she was crying again.
Her soft sobs did more to tear at him than the thoughts of killing himself ever had.
Lois.
Lois was what was important here.
He gathered her into his arms once more and held her.
"They're still... still out th-there, Clark." Her voice was quiet, muffled by his shirt, and shaky as she spoke between gasping sobs. "I'm sure... sure of it. It's just... just a mat-matter of time... before - before they realise I'm... that I'm here."
"Shh." He did nothing to curb the conviction in his voice. "I won't let them hurt you again, Lois."
She felt so fragile. Nothing at all like the Lois Lane he'd read about. Nothing like the one he'd met before her. He hated that she'd been reduced to the shaky, vulnerable woman in his arms.
They'd done this to her. Broken her.
He rebelled at the thought instantly. The woman who'd stolen into his apartment last night was anything but vulnerable. *She'd* held *him* while he'd cried only hours ago. It may not have seemed like it at this very moment, but he knew somewhere inside Lois Lane there was a whole lot of fight left.
Maybe it was the same buried determination that had gotten her out of her prison and back to Metropolis? But why had it taken her two years to escape?
"Lois?"
She raised her head up slowly from its position on his chest and looked at him.
"How did you finally escape? After two years? Why..."
"Did it take so long?" she finished for him defeatedly.
He nodded. He hadn't wanted to ask that. It sounded... insensitive, as if she'd sat indolent for all that time, unwilling to change the status of her incarceration.
She seemed to know what he was thinking. "It's okay, Clark."
Lois was much calmer as she told him what had happened.
***
Lois flinched and sat bolt upright at the sound of the heavy steel bar on her prison door as it hit its hilt.
Someone was coming in.
No one ever came in.
If it hadn't been for the meager plate of food and pot of water being slid through the bottom of her door every night, she'd have thought they'd completely forgotten about her.
The scraping of the metal hinges was a horrific sound, like the rasping screech of a car as it tears against a guardrail. Her heart began to pound faster.
They hadn't come in since that night. Three days after they'd caught her. After they'd spent hours, days trying to beat information out of her.
It'd been... Damn it! What day was it? What year was it? And *why*, after all this time...
A man entered, and Lois shuddered as the sound of the thick metal door closing echoed off the concrete walls.
Lois sat up straighter on her bed and held her chin high, fixing him with an aggressive stare, praying that he couldn't tell she was terrified on the inside. She wouldn't let them take her. They could take her freedom and keep her locked up in this tiny room. They could take her dignity that was lying somewhere at the bottom of the hole in the ground that was her toilet. But they'd never get her spirit. Never. That's why she'd spent everyday pacing the room, doing push-ups, crunches, making sure that if the moment ever came, she'd be ready.
She tensed as he moved closer. Dammit. This could be it and she was scared, frozen.
"I know who you are, Ms. Lane."
So what? They'd known the whole time. He was trying to fool her with that calm and smooth tone of his, trying to take her by surprise. Trying to soften her by using her name. She hadn't heard it in...
Lois shook herself mentally. Focus. He spoke in accented English, she noted. He was local. He had the dark skin of a man who spent his days in the sun, and rough layer of stubble covering his face. The man was tall and bulky, too. At least twice her size. She'd never be able to take him.
"Ha. And this is supposed to be news to me? You knowing who I am?" she challenged, praying her uncertainty didn't leak through in her voice.
"I found your bag."
She noticed, for the first time, the backpack dangling from his right hand. *Her* backpack. Why had he brought it? What was he playing at? She held back a gasp. No surprises. She wouldn't be caught off-guard. Not even if the sight of the blue backpack she hadn't seen in ages had stirred up irrational feelings of comfort within her. Her gaze flitted to the unlocked door behind him.
Lois steeled her jaw. "Congratulations," she said sarcastically.
The young man took a step closer and she resisted the urge to scramble to the corner of the bed against the wall. Damn her for being so gutless.
"You're Lois Lane of the Daily Planet." His voice was still calm, if maybe a bit... awed? His cryptic remarks were starting to make her more anxious. She wouldn't let him get the better of her.
"Look, did you want a medal for figuring all this out?"
Her belligerence did nothing to anger him. And that worried her. Just what was he up to? What was he going to do to her?
"I've come to help you escape."
"What?"
She couldn't have heard him right. Or... maybe this was a trick. Some psychological game to get her to reveal something, anything.
"I'm getting you out of here, Ms. Lane. I found your bag at the back of an old broom closet two nights ago. Took me a night longer to figure out where they were keeping you. I... I'd heard rumors that they'd had someone locked up down here. But those were flying around over two years ago. I never thought they'd just leave someone down here..."
She didn't much hear the rest of what he was saying. Two years.
*Over* two years.
Oh, God, she'd been down in this dungeon-like cell for two years. She'd known it'd been weeks upon weeks, but... to have someone put an exact count on the time she'd been down here...
Her bravado faltered. She couldn't help it. But she didn't cry. Even if this man was who he seemed to be, she wouldn't let him see her cry.
"It's okay, I promise I'm here to help you."
She held fast to her skepticism, not daring to hope after all this time. "But why? Why would you want to help me?"
He sighed, and moved to set her backpack down on the bed next to her before stepping away again. He seemed to know she wanted her space.
"Because I've grown uncomfortable with the operation. Things are happening that I hadn't thought about..." His look was distant for a moment before he continued, "I'm escaping myself, but I couldn’t leave knowing you were still trapped here."
This man was nothing but enigmatic, but it did seem he was truly going to help her. She didn't ask for more.
"Let's get a move on. It'll be hours before anyone wakes up, but I'd rather not take the chance of getting caught."
Lois grabbed her backpack and jerked her arms through the straps, letting it settle squarely on her back. It was heavier than she remembered, but then again, it'd been two years.
She followed closely behind the man as he led her through dark corridors and up concrete stairs and finally to a large metal door, not unlike the one she'd been locked behind for two years.
The man turned to her and whispered, "I've packed a few provisions for you. Should last you a few days. Good luck, Ms. Lane. And good luck putting these people behind bars. I only suggest you stay clear of Kayes, especially if you have a mind to go digging for more clues. You'll only find danger there."
Without another word, he grabbed hold of the handle, pulling slowly to the side. The heavy scrape of metal against metal seemed frighteningly loud, and she was certain it'd wake someone.
What seemed an eternity later, the door was open and the man was shooing her on her way. She didn't even pause to appreciate the assault of humid freedom against her face. She ran.
TBC...
