He leveled his gun at her heart.
She instinctively opened her mouth to scream, and saw Nigel’s eyes light at her impulse.
She clamped it shut.
She wouldn’t call for him.
She wouldn’t.
Even to save herself.
She wouldn’t endanger him.
She wouldn’t lose their bet this week.
But she wouldn’t bring him back to his old life now, either.
And she wouldn’t share his new one.
They’d never work together again.
They’d never visit Milan, never write the Congo story for page 8, never get married, never do any of the other hundred things she’d silently promised herself they would.
They’d never grow old together.
I’m so sorry, Clark, was her last thought as she watched Nigel’s knuckles whiten to squeeze the trigger. I love you.
*****
The bullet exploded from the chamber.
A voice shouted out simultaneously, “MPD!”
The bullet whizzed past her ear, close enough to clip her hair.
She flinched, eyes still on Nigel.
“Drop your weapon!”
Nigel wheeled to meet the voice, and Lois dove down behind the empty ‘fertilixer’ crate.
Chaos broke out.
She heard shots in the darkness.
It was impossible to track who was shooting!
Wood splintered somewhere above her, and she ducked low.
What in the hell was happening?
Had a patrolman seen her penlight in the darkened warehouse? Or found a window open where it shouldn’t be? If this was some young beat cop that had stumbled in, he wasn’t going to be any sort of a match for a corrupt and seasoned special agent.
Another shot rang out.
Then silence.
Fear set in anew, overtaking her confusion. The officer must be down. Casting a glance toward the stairs, she wondered if she could sneak out of the building to bring back help.
“Lois?”
She blinked. That voice didn’t have an English accent. It sounded like gravel.
“Bill?” she squeaked out incredulously.
She peeked out from around the side of the crate.
“Yeah, it’s me.” Her friend came into view. “Did you get hit?”
“No, I’m ok,” she said, standing and belatedly running her hand over the side of her head to be sure. The bullet had cut three inches off a wide lock of her hair. She fingered the newly split ends. “How did you know I was here?”
Henderson was making his way over to the fallen Englishman, police-issue pistol still trained on the prone form.
“You ever see a panicked superhero?” He tossed a tight grin at her.
Clark must have made it back to Jimmy and followed her here. He would have been able to see that Nigel and the kryptonite were both in the building. Unable to help her himself, he’d brought her the next best thing. Detective Bill Henderson. She watched as her favorite Inspector kicked Nigel’s gun out of reach.
He bent to feel for a pulse.
“Is he…?”
Henderson shook his head with appropriate solemnity. Then he looked more closely at the body and whistled, stooping low. “Did you see this?”
“Yes, and we have to get rid of it,” she said, noticing the green glow splash across Henderson’s face and already wondering how she was going to dispose of it.
“What is it?”
“I’d rather not say,” she said, pulling the lid off a random crate to see if there was anything useful inside. More miles of electrical cables. She rolled her eyes. Typical, she groused to herself. Lex stocked plenty of kryptonite but hadn't left her anything useful when she needed it.
“Don’t tell me, then. I’ll just read the report when it comes back from the lab.”
“What?!” she exclaimed, looking back at Bill. “No! You can’t send that to a lab! Are you crazy?!” That was all they needed! More evidence that the stupid stuff existed. “We have to get rid of it before anyone else shows up!”
Henderson stood then, and in a pointed voice said, “That would be tampering with evidence.”
“Not if it was never here in the first place,” she said wryly.
Henderson’s brows creased. “I don’t play that game.”
“It’s no game,” she batted back, hands squarely on her hips. “It’s life and death.”
“Lane, what the hell —” He put a hand to the back of his neck, then looked at her shrewdly. “Is this the reason your usual babysitter isn’t in here with us?” His eyes flicked skyward.
That was too close to a truth that she wasn’t prepared to tell, even to Henderson.
“Bill—” she said coarsely.
“He can’t come in here with this thing, can he?”
“He can...” she replied, hovering over the technicality.
Henderson stared at her for a moment.
“Is it harmful to us?” He finally asked. “Can we touch it?”
“It hasn’t hurt me before,” she said honestly.
Henderson went over to the body and carefully picked up the kryptonite. He studied it for a moment while she held her breath.
Then he walked over to Lois and handed it to her.
She swallowed reflexively, several muscles relaxing in relief as she clutched the ugly green stone in an unyielding fist.
Thank goodness Clark had chosen to bring a friend.
“Thank you, Bill,” she said on an exhale, voice breaking.
“I’ve got to call this in,” he said, tilting his head back to Nigel’s still frame.
“I’ll figure out what to do with this in the meantime.”
A noise came from behind them, the sound of metal clattering to the floor.
Henderson’s gun came up swiftly, but Lois had the overwhelming instinct that the sound had been one of help, not harm. She made her way toward it.
“Lane!” Henderson’s voice was tense again. “Get back here!”
“I don’t think we have to worry,” she said, spying one of the crates’ latches lying on the ground. It hadn’t been there when she’d passed by before.
“Why’s that?”
She made her way toward the now-open crate. “Because if there was another bad guy over here, I think this end of the building would have already been set on fire long before he got anywhere near us,” she said glibly.
Stooping to pick up the latch, she felt the heat coming off of it and realized it was still molten. She pulled her hand back. Instead, she stood and pushed aside the crate’s lid that was now free. Shining her pen light inside, she saw rows of carefully organized, dull gray pipes. She grinned.
“Give me a hand with this!” she called brightly over her shoulder. Looking up she said quietly, “Thanks, Fly-boy.”
He’d know the gratitude was for more than the lead pipes.
Henderson reached her a moment later, holstering his weapon. He caught the other end of the thick pipe that she was liberating from the crate.
“What are we doing?” he grunted.
“Help me get it over to the door.”
Together they hefted it out the green front door, now disfigured with a melted lock and knob. She led them around the side of the building, and they dropped it out of sight in the empty alleyway.
She looked up.
A welcome red and blue figure hovered in the distance.
“Can you seal one end from there, or do I need to move it closer?” she asked into the sky.
In reply, one end of the pipe began to glow red. Once it had melted shut, she rolled the pipe over, examining it.
“Now what?” Henderson was watching her with interest.
“I’m looking for cracks.” Flipping a saucy look back at Henderson, she said, “Can’t be too careful.”
He rolled his eyes. “You still need me for this part?”
“Nope.”
“You’ve probably only got a couple of minutes,” he tossed over his shoulder as he headed back around the corner and into the warehouse. Out of her peripheral vision, she saw the lights turn on inside, and she heard him on a walkie-talkie as she turned back toward the pipe.
She tossed the kryptonite in, and wiped her hand across her skirt. It hadn’t felt like anything beyond a regular gemstone to her, but she still didn’t like holding something with such a malicious effect.
The pipe in front of her glowed red again, and she stepped back from it.
A second later, she was clasped in a furious embrace that was somehow both gentle and immovable.
“Hi there, big guy,” she said.
The hug got tighter.
She returned it, burying her face in his chest.
Time stood a little stiller for a moment.
“I’m gonna need to breathe here in a second, honey,” she finally choked out.
His grip immediately loosened, but he didn’t let go of her as he pulled back.
“Thank you for bringing Bill,” she said.
“I was so scared.” His words tumbled over each other.
“I know,” she said, remembering her theories about Superman’s greatest fear. “But you saved me. We made it. And we broke open the gun smuggling ring.”
His eyebrows rose.
“You weren’t here for that part?” she asked. “Turns out Chow was bankrolling Nigel’s takeover of Lex’s smuggling operation.”
“I’ve got photos of Chow tonight. Can we prove Nigel’s involvement?” he asked.
In reply, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her microcassette tape recorder, which had been recording since she’d arrived at the building. She switched it off.
“Yep,” she grinned. “We’ll just have to give it a bit of light editing at the end there.”
He beamed at her and she felt her expression grow to match his.
“Henderson’s back-up will be here soon.” She tilted her head at the pipe. “You should go fling that into the sun and we’ll start writing up our notes. It’s going to take us some time to piece it all together.”
“Right,” he said. But he didn’t move.
“What?” she asked, tilting her head curiously.
Panic had seared through him when he’d seen the gun pointed at Lois, and he’d been driven to an even higher fear when he saw it was a kryptonite-wielding Nigel that was holding it. They’d gotten through it, and he’d raced to hold her the second he was able to reach her. But ever since they’d been separated for all those months by Clark’s death, he’d found himself needing more of a reassurance that she was safe after situations like these. He felt himself give in to that need now.
He dipped his head and kissed her.
Lois felt herself falling into the kiss. His mouth was warm and firm against hers. Her adrenaline had been fading since Henderson had shown up. Immediate danger over, she’d pushed herself to uphold the brave facade to contain the kryptonite. But Lex’s memory and Nigel’s threats had shaken her. Superman rarely kissed her in plain view of the world, even as alone as they were now, behind an abandoned warehouse and covered by night, so he must have sensed that they’d both needed the connection.
The kiss was comforting.
And electric.
Her pulse sped up and she leaned into it.
He felt her deepen the kiss and felt his control slip in the same instant. His arms slid fully around her again, drawing her closer to him as proof that she was still sound and alive in his arms. The thought sent a thrill through him, and he slid a hand into her hair, cradling her head with primal possessiveness.
She inhaled on a gasp as he began to trail erratic kisses down the side of her neck, languorously teasing her pulse point. In an automatic response, she rocked her hips against his.
Her movement against his body sent a rush down through his pelvis to his toes. He couldn’t catch his breath and he didn’t care.
His mouth moved down across her neck until it met the line of her shirt collar, and he ran his other hand up her side and over her shoulder to tug it aside. He kissed her skin beneath the fabric, feeling her fingers digging sharply into his back beneath the cape.
A siren pierced the surrounding darkness.
They paused, brought back to a world that held more than just the two of them.
She reluctantly pulled back, as breathless as he was. “I’ll see you back at the apartment ,” she said.
He nodded reluctantly, letting his fingertips trail longingly down her arms as he stepped away. With a last lingering look back at her, he tossed the pipe over his shoulder and headed skyward.
Lois had to ground her bouncing steps as she turned and made her way back into the warehouse.
This was one story she was looking forward to finishing.
