Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Lois & Clark Fanfic Wrong Clark (179/???)

Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Author’s Note: WHAM Warning.
Where we left off in Part 178…

“Lex Luthor, you have the right to remain silent. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…”

“Will you shut up?” Lex snapped, pointing his finger at Henderson. “I can afford a thousand attorneys. I’ll have your badge for… I’ll have your head for this!”

“That sounded like he threatened to kill the inspector here,” Jimmy said to Jimbo. “Didn’t it?”

His cousin nodded with a grin.

Lex looked into the crowd of wedding guests and pointed to someone, screaming, “Get the governor on the phone! Get me the president! Get him on the phone!”

Lois looked, but she couldn’t see at which employee he was yelling. The crowd seemed more stunned than even Lex.

A couple of men who looked like plain clothes detectives brought a handcuffed Mrs. Cox into the room.

Lex stilled, his anger dropping. “Et tu, Mrs. Cox?”

His assistant chuckled, and her grin for her former boss full of gleeful revenge. Apparently, she had heard Lois’s tape and knew what Lex had in store for her future.

Lex lifted up Lois’s hand and kissed it. “Lois, I’m sorry. Something’s come up that I need to fix. We’ll take a rain check, darling, I promise you that.”

She stared at the delusional man. “I’m never going to marry you!” She pulled her hand free.

“Come on. Let’s go, pal,” Henderson said, stepping towards Lex.

“Let go of me!” Lex shoved Henderson with all of his might, throwing him across the room.

A couple of policemen rushed to Henderson’s assistance. Lex punched the first one in the jaw, flipped the second one over, and kneed the third in the gut, before running through a door at the side of the room.

“Don’t worry!” Henderson called, running towards the door out of which Lex had exited. “I’ve got the building sealed off!” He and another officer tried but weren’t able to get the door open. He ran off towards the main entrance. “This way! This way!”

Lois turned to Perry. “Treason?”

He held up his hand, letting her know that he would explain in a minute.

She looked around as her heart sank. “Where’s Clark?” she asked, her eyes brimming with tears.

Perry pulled her into his arms. “I don’t know, honey. He never came home last night.”

Lois’s heart exploded as she turned into Perry’s chest to cry.

Part 179

**************
The After Party
**************

Lex ran out the doors he had used to enter the ballroom just a few minutes before. He had been so full of… not hope, but anticipation. What had happened?

He had gotten cocky. That was “what”. He had assumed that he would succeed only because he had never failed at anything before… before Superman came along, that was.

Luckily, he had safeguards in place to shield him from capture. Unfortunately, the ones at the MPD to warn him of such a step had broken down. What was the point of bribing people to inform him of his imminent arrest if they failed to do so?

Lex pushed a side-table in front of the door so that the police couldn't get through.

“We’ve got the building surrounded,” he heard the inspector call from inside the ballroom.

Perhaps that was true, but there were tunnels that would lead him blocks from here to exits not guarded by cops. Lex only needed to access them. His building was a maze of secret rooms, hallways, and staircases that had never made it to the final blueprints. By the time the police made it to this hall, Lex would have simply vanished.

If Lois wasn’t going to stick by him in his darkest hour, then he would make sure that she couldn’t have her happily-ever-after with Superman, either.

At the end of the hall, he shoved the corner of the wall, which gave way under his hand. The wall pivoted just far enough for him to pass through to the emergency stairwell running down to his parking garage. Lex Tower security didn't monitor this stairwell, since they didn’t know it existed, which would keep him off the MPD’s radar.

Upon reaching the bottom level, he cautiously opened the door leading to his personal parking garage, where he could easily leave in one of his cars. No one would be the wiser. He had some unfinished business to take care of within his wine cellar, first.

The garage was empty, empty of people at least. All his cars were still there. He stepped out of the shadows that hid this door and into the back corner of the garage. He double-checked the rear bumper of the car the door had nudged, but didn’t see a scratch. All was as it should be.

Lex had dismissed his guard at the elevator when he had come down earlier for his tête-a-tête with Superman… or to choose a vintage champagne for him and Lois to share later, as he had told the guard.

Therefore, there wouldn’t be anyone to tie him to Superman’s murder. Moreover, even if they could, so be it. Superman would be dead, and Lex the hero who had saved Earth from him. Or, at least, that was the way the history books would remember the event… if it were an event at all.

Of course, Mrs. Cox knew about his guest and where Lex was keeping him. Either she hadn’t wanted to be held as an accessory to Superman’s kidnapping and murder, and had kept her mouth shut, or Inspector Henderson hadn’t brought the right number of police resources to rescue the hero as of yet.

No, he couldn’t believe the justice-loving inspector would be so lax as to let a hostage suffer, even one supposedly invulnerable like Superman. No. If Mrs. Cox had ratted him out about Superman, she would have mentioned Kryptonite’s effect on Superman, and this garage would be swarming with police, and it wasn’t.

The first thing he noticed when he burst through the second wine cellar door was the silence. He didn’t think anything of it, as there wasn’t any music playing in the ballroom either.

“Sorry, Superman. No time to chat,” he said, as he grabbed the ax off the wall and ran down the steps to put Superman out of both of their miseries. “I’ll just take my pound of flesh and…” He rounded the corner of the stairs to the floor of his wine cellar and stopped, his mouth agape.

The cage was empty.

Superman had escaped!

Lex roared with frustration, chopping into the wine barrel next to the cage with his ax.

Nothing, absolutely nothing, was going right for him today!

The door of the cage was open with the key still in the lock. The white cummerbund Lex should have used to strangle the man, lay in a puddle on the floor.

Lex patted himself down. Sure enough, that was his key to the cage. He had no one to blame for this failure other than himself.

With Superman on the case, there would be no running for his life. Who knew how quickly the Man of Steel would recover once he was away from Kryptonite? Was the hero already searching for Lex, even now as his captor stood there staring at the empty cage? Lex doubted that even Superman would be so forgiving of Lex’s transgressions, at least, not initially.

Lex had given the hero too many reasons to want him dead.

He glanced up at the television above the cage and saw that it was blank. The monitor was smoking and crackling in the silence of the room.

Lex’s life as he knew it was essentially over. There would be no escaping from Superman or the law this time.

No. The only escape Lex could have now was in death.

But, first, he had some damning evidence in his office that he didn’t want to have come to light even in his death. The quickest way up was to go down.

He pulled his key card out of his pocket and headed into the back wine cellar.

Behind him, he heard an explosion of breaking glass and hurried his steps.

Mrs. Cox must have ratted him out, after all.

***

In the shadows of the backside of the table beside the Kryptonite cage, Clark leaned against a large wine barrel and tried to catch his breath. He was far enough away from the deadly meteorite to feel its claws let go of him and slowly retreat.

Cat had left just minutes before to search for some non-spandex clothing for him to wear.

Clark wasn’t sure he would be able to walk upright just yet, as he was beginning to feel the extent of his other injuries now that the burning pain of the Kryptonite had ebbed. The dull ache at the back of his head and the throb of his shoulder to start. He certainly didn’t want to face the questions that Superman would surely receive if an injured hero emerged from Lex Tower instead of Clark. He didn’t want anyone to know how close to defeat Superman had come. That knowledge would only embolden other criminals to attempt similar feats on his life.

No. The public always needed to perceive Superman as unstoppable, or he wouldn’t be anyone’s hope.

Clark had promised Lois that Superman wouldn’t leave this dimension until her death, and he would keep his promises, even if she no longer did.

“It wasn’t her,” he reminded himself softly. He had no proof of her innocence other than his belief in her love. “It was a lie.”

He heard Luthor enter the room and, then, exit into the back cellar. Clark was glad that the man hadn’t tried to kill him earlier. Thankfully, Luthor hadn’t searched the room for him now, either. Clark wished he had the energy to capture the man. As he was having difficulty catching his breath, let alone standing, and he realized that it wasn’t only his shoulder that was throbbing in pain, he knew Superman wouldn’t be available to hero anytime soon.

Clark smelled a hint of smoke, heard the sizzle of electricity, and then a crash of breaking glass. The room dropped into an eerie darkness, punctuated by a soft glow of green. He had no idea what Luthor had done in his short time in the wine cellar, other than smash something, but it seemed as if the man had activated a failsafe in case a vulnerable Superman still hung about.

He would have to take his chances and leave this hellhole before either Cat or Luthor returned, before he had time to recover fully. He didn’t want Cat to fall down the stairs in the darkness. She had already risked too much on his behalf.

Clark found the energy to pull himself to his feet and stumble in the general direction of the stairs leading out of the cellar, grimacing at the amount of noise he was making. His legs felt numb and tingly from ill-use and refused to walk as they should.

Shaking off the tingles, Clark did alright until he neared the cage. Its faint green glow lit his way, but drained his energy at the same time. He wished he didn’t have to pass so close to it. At the stairs, Clark collapsed again, pulling his cape around him in a futile attempt to block out the Kryptonite’s hold on him.

Lois loves me, he told himself. The video was fake.

He needed to believe this, to have the strength to leave. He set his elbows on the step above him and pushed with his feet, moving him up several more stairs before his knees collapsed under him.

Lois loves me. Luthor lied to me, Clark repeated in his head as he continued to crawl up the stairs. I’ll prove that it wasn’t Lois. I don’t know how, but I’ll prove it. I trust that Lois loves me as I love her.

His energy improved with these thoughts and he soon found himself more than halfway up the stairs. He gazed down at the mess below him, the green Kryptonite cage and the broken television monitor, whose shattered picture tube had rained glass over the floor of the now empty cage. Without electricity to power the gas canisters, the Kryptonite cage no longer shone so brightly green, but its fading light still cast an eerie glow throughout the room.

Clark pushed himself up another stair.

He took another precious moment to close his eyes and recall the last time Lois kissed him. How she had whispered how much she loved him. How her breath had felt on his cheek. How her eyes had dilated into full black pools upon seeing him and her lips had broadened into a smile. How her heart rate had quickened after they joined lips. How reluctant she had been to leave him. “Soon,” she had murmured. “Soon this will be all over, and we can finally come out of the shadows.”

Using the strength she gave him, he propelled himself the last of the steps to the landing. With one last glance towards the rear cellar room, and one fleeting thought towards capturing Luthor, Clark knew he had to let Luthor go. He had neither the emotional nor the physical strength to deal with Luthor as he ought.

Clark stumbled through the big wooden doors and pulled them closed behind him in the vain attempt and hope that it would keep Luthor from escaping.

He now stood in a short hallway, barely discernible in the darkness. Keeping one hand on the wall to help him remain on his feet, Clark made it to the door, found the knob, and opened it.

Standing on the other side was Cat. She had a man’s suit, shirt, and tie draped over one arm and a pair of black loafers in her other hand. He nudged her out of his way and shut the door behind him.

“Thanks,” he said, taking her arm and moving away from the door. With each step, he felt stronger. “We should go.”

“Did something happen?” Cat asked. “I thought you were going to wait for me to come back.”

“Luthor returned to kill me,” Clark explained quickly. “He was in the rear room of the wine cellar when the lights went out. I left as quickly as I could, but he could be right behind me… us.”

“I found a stairwell hidden on the other side of the elevator. You can change in there,” she suggested, quickening her step. “I doubt Luthor will exit the way he came in, though. I saw an elevator in back of that room, when I was looking for tools to break you out of the cage. It probably leads to his penthouse. The police are already looking for him.” Wrapping an arm around his back, Cat helped him through the parking garage.

He nodded, both relieved and fearful that Luthor might escape. It made sense that the elevator went up to his penthouse, since that was the way the billionaire had gone after Clark first awoke in the cage.

“Were they able to stop the wedding?” Clark asked, not particularly anxious to hear Cat’s response. He knew that Lois loved him. Of that, he had no doubts, but after that video… He pushed that thought out of his mind, where it wanted to take hold like a cancer and grow. He changed his question to what really mattered. “Did you see Lois?”

She shook her head. “The MPD had cordoned off the whole ballroom to interview guests.”

Lois probably had lots to debrief the police on. He hoped that Perry was there to give her support and lend credence to her claims that she was undercover and not Luthor’s accomplice. Perhaps it would give Clark time to go home and clean up, before he had to meet her. Lois would understand and might even be too busy to give his absence more than a passing thought.

“Do you still want to see her?” Cat asked softly. “What she did…”

“I’ll trust in Lois’s love over Luthor’s lies, any day,” he replied. “That wasn’t Lois.”

He could feel Cat’s skeptical expression bearing down on him without looking at her face. “Are you sure? It sure looked…”

“This isn’t up for debate,” he said, closing the subject. They walked on in silence. He felt bad speaking so sharply to someone who had risked her neck for him. “I’m sorry, Cat, but I can’t… I just can’t…”

“Of course,” she said, her voice more tender and sympathetic. “We’ll discuss it later.”

He had closed the subject. He needed it kept closed. “Are there cameras in the stairwell?” Clark asked as they stopped in front of a non-descript door.

“None that I noticed,” Cat replied, opening it and leading him inside. In the semi-darkness of the stairwell, she handed Clark the suit she had purloined for him. “I hope it fits. I couldn’t get you any underwear, so…”

He raised a brow and gazed at her with curiosity.

She held up a hand briefly to stop him from asking. “Trust me. You don’t want to know,” she said. Then, she pulled him into her arms.

The unexpected hug felt good after being alone in the cage… after seeing that video… to have human contact. He was lucky to have such a good friend. “I don’t know what I… Thank you, Cat.”

“I’m so sorry, Clark,” she said, tightening her embrace. “You deserve to be treated so much better than… You do so much… Luthor should be shot.”

“Violence cannot beget more violence or it will never end.”

Her hands slipped under his cape and started to unzip his blue suit.

Suddenly, her embrace felt completely different. Clark took a step backwards, mumbling, “I think I can manage.”

“Oh, really? The same man who could hardly walk the twenty yards to this stairwell by himself?” she retorted, crossing her arms. “And where, pray tell, are you planning on stashing that cape?”

He looked at her blankly, not having a clue.

“You didn’t really expect to leave it here, did you?” She looked around the dark little corner of the stairwell. “If found, it would only lead to more questions. I can fold it and place it under my shirt,” she said, pulling out her baggy maternity blouse. “Room to grow.”

“I…” He didn’t have an answer to that, embarrassed that he had thought so badly of her. “Thanks.”

Clark was glad she was there to help pull down his blue top of his uniform, as his aching muscles made the maneuver more tricky. Taking hold of the top of his cape, she was able to slide the harness down his arms to remove it. He was happy to be rid of the awkward thing. With invulnerability, it didn’t bother him; without it, the harness for the cape was darn uncomfortable. He did a couple of arm loops and rolls to stretch out his stiff shoulder muscles. They did little to help.

At the sight of his naked chest, Cat swallowed and set her hand down between his pecs. Then, she muttered something that sounded like ‘such a waste’ and the word ‘stupid’ before she shoved the rest of the black business suit against his gut. “I’ll wait for you upstairs on the next landing unless you think you might need…” There was a slight hopeful glint to her gaze as she paused long enough for it to move from his chest to his eyes and back again, and down lower. Her tongue slowly licked her lips before she exhaled, “— assistance.”

“Thank you, Cat. I’ll just put this on over my blue suit. That will be the quickest and easiest way.”

“Yes, I suppose it would be.” She let out a deep regretful sigh.

“Phil’s a lucky man,” he said, as a gentle reminder.

“I may be married, sugar boots, but I’m not dead,” she replied, sauntering up the stairs. “There’s no harm in looking.”

He doubted Phil would see that statement in quite the same light.

***

Lois walked out of Lex Tower with Perry and the Jimmys. “Cat Grant? Really?”

“Really, darlin’. I’m not joshing. Her analysis of Luthor’s dating habits over the last five years tied him to women in major companies LexCorp subsequently took over,” Perry explained. “And, thus, insider trading charges.”

“And Rat… I’m still not used to calling him ‘Jack’. I don’t know if I’ll ever be. He witnessed Mrs. Cox switching out the bomb... Jimmy’s lunchbox? All this time… who knew?” Lois said, shaking her head.

“I knew it was important,” Jimbo volunteered.

“I thought so, too, when you mentioned it to me,” Jimmy said.

They both shot Lois gloating grins. She rolled her eyes, but was happy to have both of them together again. The only person missing was…

“So, what’s his treason charge for?” she asked, trying to keep her mind off Clark. “Did you guys unearth a plot to kill President Garner or something? That sounds more like something Carpenter would do.”

“Luthor was behind Nightfall Major,” Perry said.

Lois pointed up to the blue Metropolis sky. “He put a big rock into the sky?”

“He created… well, according to the evidence Inspector Henderson uncovered, was the money behind the man who created the Nightfall Virus,” Jimbo jumped in. “Apparently, the programmer who wrote the code, he didn’t know how Luthor planned to use the application, when he wrote it.”

She grabbed Jimbo’s hands. “You mean we did it? We saved…” Her voice faded. Superman.

“Yep… We saved Superman’s bacon,” Jimbo said, his face aglow with pride. “S.T.A.R. Labs and Henderson are taking full credit, of course, since we’re without a home base, but they wouldn’t have gotten anywhere without us.”

“Henderson doesn’t think that the treason charge will stick and will probably be reduced to inciting panic,” Perry said. “But D.A. Clemmons wanted something big and flashy, which would deny Luthor bail and freeze his assets, while they continued to investigate him. It’s why this place is crawling with Feds, along with Metropolis’s finest.”

“They’ll have to catch Lex first. He’s not going to go down without a fight,” Lois reminded them. She stepped into the sunshine and looked around the crowded square of Lex Tower Plaza. Still no sign of Clark. Where was he? She knew in her gut that he was supposed to be there. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “Where’s Clark?” she asked again.

The guys merely shrugged their shoulders. She spun around expecting to see Clark standing behind her with a sheepish smile on his face, but that image faded when he wasn’t there.

“He’s supposed to be here,” she said. She turned back to the guys. “And the last time any of you saw him was…?”

“After dinner, night before last,” Jimbo said. “He left for his job on the docks like always...”

“And he didn’t come home? At all?” she probed.

“Cat said his bed had been slept in,” Jimbo offered hopefully.

“Well, she would know,” Lois said wryly.

Perry touched Lois’s arm. “When Superman rescued Denny from the Luthor House fire, yesterday morn, he told the boys to come talk to Kent. Perhaps Superman has seen him around somewhere.”

So Clark had been seen at the site of the Luthor House for Homeless Children fire… Well, Superman. She knew that. At least, the Metropolis Star had gotten that fact right. “Has anyone seen Superman since then?” Lois asked.

The Jimmys shook their heads. Perry glared at Lois. Geez. It wasn’t as if she were implying that Clark pranced around in tights.

“Rumor has it that Luthor set the fire, expecting Superman to come,” Perry said softly.

“Why didn’t any of you tell me this last night?” she demanded. Oh, God! “So, has anyone checked the site for Kryptonite? Superman could be out there, somewhere, sick or dying…” Lois pressed her lips together, the blood draining out of her face.

“You mean Kryptonite’s real?” Jimmy sputtered in disbelief. “Not just some cuckoo idea of Trask’s?”

“Superman told me, off the record, that it was,” she admitted. “That’s where Clark must be. Helping Superman.” She turned around, looking around the plaza once more. “Where’s Henderson?” If Superman was exposed to Kryptonite at the Luthor House fire…”

“Still looking for Luthor, is my guess,” Perry said.

The crackle of a nearby policeman’s radio confirmed Perry’s suspicions.

***

“He’s upstairs. He’s been spotted in the penthouse!” someone announced over Bill Henderson’s radio.

How in the hell did he get up here without anyone spotting him? Bill wondered, as he moved down from the mezzanine above Luthor’s living room.

He saw several uniformed men head towards the main entrance to Luthor’s office with their guns drawn. Henderson decided to take the side entrance to be quicker.

Upon entering, he saw that there was a secret panel open in the wall to the right of Luthor’s desk. Well, that explained how the billionaire had bypassed security.

Luthor stood at his desk, hen pecking with his fingers something onto his computer keyboard, ignoring the police with their weapons pointed at him. Then, Luthor closed his agenda and dropped it to the floor. He had removed his bow tie and boutonnière from the wedding. His shirt front was open at the neck and his jacket unbuttoned. He appeared frazzled and not at all like himself as he pressed another button on his desk.

The windows rose upwards behind him to allow the suspect access to the balcony. He ran outside and looked over the railing.

“It’s over, Luthor. Give up,” Bill said, joining him outside and knowing the man had nowhere else he could flee to unless a helicopter descended from the sky.

Luthor climbed up on the railing and turned around to face them. “Lex Luthor will not live in a cage,” he exclaimed as he waved his arms to keep his balance.

Lex Luthor has lost his marbles, Bill thought. And is oddly referring to himself in the third person. He pointed at the man. “Luthor, no!”

Luthor looked down at the plaza below him. “Do you know that this is the tallest building in Metropolis?” he asked, facing Henderson again. He wobbled a bit on the railing and Bill wondered if he might be drunk. “Did ya?”

Yep. All of his marbles.

Luthor sneered at him, seemingly offended that Bill hadn’t responded. “Top of the world to ya!” he said, turning and diving off the railing.

Bill ran to railing and glanced down.

What in the…?

***

Lois looked around the plaza once more, this time seeing someone who looked like Clark hanging off Cat’s arm. He was walking in the shadows between Cat and the building. The only thing that gave Lois doubts on his identity was that he was wearing huge Jackie O sunglasses that she bet were Cat’s.

Clark didn’t see her, though, as he wasn’t looking her way. He seemed to be concentrating on the ground as if he didn’t want anyone to notice him. On the other hand, Cat saw her and glared at Lois as if she had pledged her life to Lex Luthor just because she was still wearing her wedding dress.

Lois scoffed. What was up with Cat? Had Clark broken his glasses? Was that why he hadn’t shown up? Didn’t he have backups? She took a step towards them. It was a worse excuse than Kryptonite poisoning, but out of the two…

“Lois?” a woman’s voice called out from behind her.

Lois glanced over her shoulder to see her mother standing there. “Mom?” she gasped. In all of the excitement of Luthor’s imminent arrest and Clark’s disappearance, she had forgotten completely about her missing mother. She took a few steps towards her mom and embraced her. “Oh, Mom, I was so worried.”

“Worried?” Ellen Lane repeated. “Why should you be worried, dear? I’m here now. What’s with all the police? Has something happened, or is it just security for your wedding?”

“Oh, Mom,” Lois groaned. Just like her mom to be totally clueless about what was really going on. “Why didn’t you tell me you were going to Europe? I was worried sick.”

“I wrote you a letter,” her mom replied, brushing aside the issue with a flick of her hand. “But, then, I forgot to send it before I left. I sent it from Switzerland. Didn’t you get it?”

Knowing her mother, she probably hadn’t sent it airmail.

“No, Mother, I didn’t,” Lois said. “Look. We’ll talk more later, but first I’ve got to…” She turned back to where she last saw Cat and Clark but they were no longer there. She scanned the rest of the plaza and still didn’t see either of them.

“Yes, Lois. Where’s that fiancée of yours? Aren’t you supposed to be getting married?”

“Oh, no!” Perry shouted, pointing up.

Lois shaded her eyes against the sun and saw that a dot of a figure was teetering on the brink of Lex’s penthouse balcony.

“That couldn’t be…” she murmured, stepping further into the plaza to better see so high up.

“Couldn’t be who, dear?” her mother asked, also gazing upwards.

The figure jumped off the balcony.

“Oh, no!” Lois gasped.

“Who is it?” her mother asked. “Do you know that man, Lois?”

“It’s Lex.” Lois pulled her eyes away from his descent to scan the plaza once more for Clark. He had to… had to… “Where’s Superman?” she mumbled.

Clark couldn’t let their investigation go up in smoke like this, not after all they had put into it. If he died, Lex could only be tried in the press and not in a real court. No matter how many articles they wrote, evidence they gathered, or even if the Daily Planet discussed it every day for a year, there would still be people who would think Lex innocent of his crimes because he hadn’t been alive to face his accusers or tried in a court of law.

She knew that Clark had ended up on the short end of the stick the last time he saved Lex’s life, but this was different. Their investigation was over. They could be together now and bring him down as a team. No pun intended.

Lois saw someone standing at the opposite corner of Lex Tower Plaza. He wore a dark suit and had dark hair, but he was faced away from her. “Clark?” she whispered.

Was that him?

Was it really him?

He opened the door to a cab.

She lifted up the skirt of her dress. “Wait!” she yelled, waving towards him.

What was he doing? Why wasn’t he changing into his Super suit? Why was he just standing there? Didn’t he know what was going on?

“Clark!”

Was that really him? On the other hand, was she just projecting her desires onto some stranger?

“Lois, wait!” Perry called to her at the same moment.

She felt someone grab hold of her arm and jerk her backwards. She turned to see her mother. “Oh, honey, no! You can’t save him now.”

“Mom, I’ve got to…”

SPPLLAATT!!

Spray from Lex’s impact with the ground directly in front of them, splattered Lois and her mother. Lois’s white dress, face, and hair were dotted in red, but her mother had gotten the brunt of the debris.

Ellen Lane screamed as only someone drenched in someone else’s bodily fluids could scream.

Lois was silent. She stood there in shock, her hands extended as she gazed at the blood dripping off her. She felt like Carrie at the prom, but her mom looked the part.

She looked over at Clark. The man had moved away from the cab, towards her a few steps, his mouth hanging open in disbelief before his gaze turned to the sky. Had he not known about Luthor? She blinked Luthor’s blood out of her eyes, and realized the man wasn’t Clark at all.

Where in the hell had Clark Kent gone?

***End of Part 179***

Part 180

If you hated all the blood and guts (or loved it), please let me know on the Comments thread.

“Carrie” is a novel by Stephen King, which was immortalized in the 1976 film of the same name. During the prom, Carrie’s classmates drench her in pig’s blood as a practical joke, instantly regretting it.