from part 21...
She opened her mouth to answer...
...and the door burst open. There was a sharp whack, wood splintering as it hit the wall.
Clark barely got a glimpse of the man standing in the doorway before the pain exploded, ripping through him. Shooting pains. Knives through his stomach.
He gasped for breath. His head throbbed violently. Oh, God, the pain. He clutched at his sides helplessly. Kryptonite. The floor came up to meet him in a rush, and his head crashed into the hard concrete.
Muffled voices. Far away. Threats.
And an echoing scream. "Clark!"
and now...
~~~Part 22~~~
Lois watched Clark hit the floor. The sickening thud... flesh against concrete... pain. She could almost feel it. A vague sense of throbbing in her head. A ghost of a knife ripping through her stomach.
"Clark!" she cried out.
There were voices. A few of them. Telling her not to move. But Clark was on the floor. Suffering. Hurting.
Dying.
They were killing him.
He was clutching at his stomach... he'd been shot? But... he... he was invulnerable, right? And she hadn't heard a shot. Or... she was pretty sure she hadn't.
Her eyes darted back and forth. Clark. Bad guys. Clark. Guns. Clark. And... an unnatural green glow...
The man holding the glowing box moved closer. She took a step back. Clark cried out, and she felt a wave of nausea course through her.
"Miss Lane."
Lois's head snapped up. The man with the box was speaking to her. Knew her name.
"Or shall I say Miss Lewis?"
Her stomach lurched. She couldn't breathe. They'd found her. The walls started closing in. They'd found her. She couldn't breathe. Everything started swimming. She choked out a breath. They'd found her.
"... isss..."
Lois jumped.
"Lo...isss." A strangled moan from the floor. A rasping cough.
Clark!
They'd found her, and they were killing Clark.
She had to think. She couldn't panic. Not again. No more panicking. She forced herself to think.
Clark. Needed. Her.
Somehow, she managed a deep breath. It didn't help.
The man with the box was watching her. Amused. A sickly smile crept along his face. He set the box on the table and let the hinged lid fall open with a creak. The glow was a rock. Green. Like crystal. And it glowed.
Rocks weren't supposed to glow.
Another cry of pain from Clark.
Her eyes darted back to him. He was clutching his stomach. Curling in on himself. And his eyes were shut so tightly. The rock.
The rock was killing him. The... the... kri... crypt... what had Clark called it...
"Kryptonite, Miss Lane. It's quite entertaining, actually."
Lois swallowed roughly.
"A mere rock, brought in close proximity, leaves the strongest man on the planet in a crumpled, pathetic heap on the floor."
His smile was sickening, and she did her best to hold back the bile rising in her throat.
Clark had stopped writhing. All the fight had bled out of him. He almost looked as if he were sleeping. But he couldn't be. He might be d... she squinted... thank God, he was still breathing.
Her gaze darted back to the table. The man had moved his arm. He was reaching for the lid of the box and... closing it?
The lid fell shut with a harsh clack. She flinched.
The man started speaking again. "Mustn't kill him right away. All in good time, I say."
She didn't... that didn't make sense. But... she almost felt a sigh of relief from Clark.
Closing the box had helped.
But now what was she supposed to do? There were guns. Three of them. All but one trained on her. The other on Clark. Clark was on the floor... possibly unconscious... she couldn't move him. She couldn't fight back without a weapon.
She was stuck. Panicking. No. Trying not to panic. She wasn't going to panic.
Her eyes darted to the box. Then to the man in the suit. Then to Clark.
There had to be something she could do. There had to be. She wasn't going to be helpless again. She wasn't going to let them take her again. Because it *was* them. She knew it was. And they couldn't have her. They couldn't...
"Well, Ms. Lane, as much as I've enjoyed our little conversation, I'm afraid it is time to go." He turned to the towering man on his left. "You, take the body. And, you," he ordered, turning to the man on his right. "Escort Miss Lane to the van. You might want to give her something to drink; she looks a bit parched."
Lois tensed as the man approached her, his gun still trained on her, finger ready at the trigger. His other hand was... She didn't want to know what was in the vial he'd just pulled from his pocket. It couldn't be good. She just hoped it wasn't... poison.
She tried to breathe, reminding herself that they'd need to question her first. Interrogate her. Beat the information out of her.
Shaking. She was shaking. And the man was getting closer. Nothing she could do about it. Kidnapped or be shot. Her eyes burned, tears she hadn't realized were there running hot on her cheeks. She felt the barrel of the gun against her temple. Cold steel. She stopped breathing.
And in a sudden move, the man had somehow seized her and forced her mouth open. Her stomach roiled as she tried not to gag on the warm liquid filling her mouth. She shut her eyes tight, ready to spit the bitter fluid out, but then there was a hot breath in her ear. "You can swallow that, princess, or take a bullet in that pretty little head of yours."
She swallowed.
Lois opened her eyes, and her vision swam. She could barely make out the shape of Clark being dragged through the door before everything went black.
***
In the small bathroom inside a cheap hotel room, Elle tugged her shirt back down over the surveillance wire and mumbled mockingly, "Take off your shirt."
He thought he was clever, didn't he? Charming, even. She scoffed. Hardly. She gathered her hair out from under the collar of her shirt and looked at herself in the mirror, frowning. She smoothed out her hair hastily. She'd spent all day with him, too. Told him everything.
She hadn't left out one sodding detail. And now he wanted her to walk straight into the fire with dynamite strapped to her chest... or a piece of high-tech spy stuff, anyway.
What was she doing? Not just tonight with the undercover madness, but what was she doing with her life? How had it gotten this far? She was just a simple girl from a small town who'd been trying to have a bit of an adventure. Something more exciting than milking Philomena every morning for the past twenty years.
Now she'd been blacklisted by Lex Luthor. And, somehow, she'd been talked into being a double agent. Of sorts. Playing spies. Ooh, how fun! Especially the quite possibly getting killed part.
What the hell had she been thinking?
A sharp rap on the door made her jump, and it was accompanied by a "You about done in there?"
She looked one last time at herself in the mirror and took a deep breath. There was no way she was letting Pete know that she was scared out of her wits. He'd seen enough vulnerability from her already.
Elle yanked open the bathroom door and glared at Pete. Then she stormed right past him, brushing roughly against his side because he hadn't had the good sense to move out of the way. She sat down on the bed with a huff and crossed her arms in what she hoped was a haughty manner. By the time she looked over to where he was standing, he'd turned around to face her. She narrowed her glare. Why wasn’t he shocked or taken aback or *something* by her behavior? This man was infuriating.
He was grinning. "Scared, Ellie?"
"No. And don't call me Ellie." He had a lot of nerve. Elle Daly didn't do scared. Certainly not petrified, either. She did do indignant, however. Belligerent, too. That, he'd be getting plenty of. "So, James Bond, when do we leave for the super secret undercover operation?"
"Right now."
Oh. Now? She held back a whimper and hoped her glare hadn't faltered long enough for him to have noticed. She wasn't sure how far the hotel was from the warehouse...
Getting to her feet once again, she cocked her head, put a hand on her hip, and gave him a pretentious smirk to hide the anxiety. "All right, then. We'd better go."
"I'm kidding. We're not leaving for twenty minutes." He was holding back a laugh, and then he had the gall to look her up and down. "Don't be so uptight. People might think you've got something to hide." Then he winked. Winked!
She fumed. "What are you talking about? What have I possibly got to hide? Especially when I've already told you everything!" Crap. Show no weakness. Cover it up. "In... in a moment of weakness that really makes me think you slipped some truth serum in my coffee."
Hah. That was a good point. For all she knew, he *had* slipped something in her drink while she wasn't looking. She wondered if she could mark that down as a point scored for Daly...
"What have you got to hide?" He raised a smug eyebrow at her. "How about that surveillance wire you're wearing in your bra?"
Oh. She swore under her breath and mumbled, "Damn, score one for Romero."
"Excuse me?" he asked, obviously amused with her.
Damn him and his self-satisfied grin. She raised her voice. "I said you're a pig, Romero."
His grin only got bigger.
Insufferable. That's what this man was. Insufferable.
Elle advanced on him. She'd had enough. "You..." She pointed an angry finger at him. "Pete Romero, have got a hellva lotta nerve kidnappi-"
"I didn't kidn-"
She glared. "*Kidnapping* me in the middle of the night, then interroga-"
"It wasn't an int-"
"*Interrogating* me." She closed in, poking him in the chest for emphasis. "Then," she shouted. "Then you take me back to your hotel room just to antagonize me. And the *entire* time, you've made lewd, suggestive, and downright boorish comments. *You* are nothing but a rude, arrogant basta-"
Before she could blink, Pete grabbed her, and his lips collided with her mouth, slanted against hers and... He... she... he was... kissing her. And... it was actually kind of... No!
She shoved him away, ignoring her increased heart rate. It was anything but nice! "What the hell was that for?"
"You wouldn't shut up!"
Elle let loose a squeak... an indignant heave of breath. How... how could... the nerve of... She shoved him again, grateful that she'd at least managed to unbalance him for a second. She gave him one last glare before she yanked the door open and slammed it shut behind her.
She'd made it halfway down the hall - her breath ragged, heart racing - before she heard him.
"Elle! Wait!"
He must have left his sarcasm in the room. She kept walking.
"Elle, you don't understand... We've been followed. You can't go out there."
She froze mid-stride. Followed. Of course. She should have *known* that, thought about it. Thought about where she was headed, for that matter. Thought about the fact that she didn't even have her gun any longer. She was vulnerable. Exposed. And now one hundred percent certain she had a price on her head.
Elle didn't say a word, though. She just turned on her heel and marched right past him and through the gaping doorway, back into the room.
She tried to ignore the pounding of her heart and the feeling that all her nerves were like bees underneath her skin trying to escape. Finally, after a long two seconds, she heard the door click shut and listened as Pete secured the deadbolt.
Turning around to face him, she found no traces of his earlier sarcasm in his features. He opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off. "Just stick to the plan, Pete." Her voice was quieter now, but she knew the tremor in it had only worsened. "And keep your penguins to yourself."
TBC...
