Saving Me, Chapter 8

Clark/Chloe
Season 5, post-"Void"
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the WB and DC comics, not to me

Clark:
I know it’s sexist of me, but it’s not easy for a guy to ask a girl to rescue him. It’s even harder for a guy who’s used to being invulnerable, and quite possibly the strongest person on Earth, to rely on a girl he outweighs by seventy-five pounds.

But although Chloe’s small, she’s fierce. If anyone could get me out of this mess, she could. And the honest truth was that I was less worried about myself than about her. I wanted her safe, and I’d happily eat kryptonite if it meant she was out of danger.

I’d been afraid she wouldn’t go, because I knew her well enough to realize she’d never leave me alone just to save her own ass. Asking her to go get help was the only way to get her to agree to leave me in enemy territory.

She disappeared through the doorway at a pretty good clip, for a human, and I cocked my head, listening to her footsteps recede. I kind of expected someone to grab her, since the boss of this operation had said he intended to use her to control me, and when no other footsteps even tried to intercept her I was puzzled.

Strange, I thought. These guys had gone to all this trouble to capture me… and now they were letting Chloe just waltz out of the building and go get help.

What the hell was going on here?

I felt like a tiger in a cage, frustrated half out of my mind by my forced inactivity, unable to do anything but wait and see what would happen. I didn’t have a lot of choice in the matter, though, because there was no way on earth I was going through a kryptonite field again. It had been every bit as excruciating as I’d feared it would be. I was pretty sure I’d rather die than do that again.

But it had been worth it, because Chloe had gotten away.

I stalked back and forth along the hall, between the two glowing fields of kryptonite, trying to find a way out. The walls were painted a uniform, greenish shade, and I knew from experience that I wasn’t getting through them. No windows, no doorways. The floor wasn’t painted, but breaking through it wouldn’t lead me anywhere besides the basement, and I sure as hell didn’t want to go down there again.

I looked up, wondering if there might be any trapdoors I hadn't noticed before. I scanned the white paint of the high ceiling but saw nothing.

Except white paint.

All of a sudden it dawned on me that the ceiling hadn’t been covered with the same paint as the walls. I practically smacked myself in the forehead at my own stupidity. I’d been thinking in a very two-dimensional way, and so had the people who’d captured me. Maybe they didn’t realize how high I could jump and figured twelve-foot ceilings were out of my reach, or maybe they just hadn’t thought about the ceiling as a possible escape route. Either way, it was an oversight I intended to take advantage of.

I flexed my knees, lifted my hands over my head, and jumped.

I soared upward, smashing right through the plaster, lumber, and steel beams as if they were paper. I landed lightly on the second floor, a gaping hole just behind me, and looked around. I was in an empty room with an anonymous gray industrial carpet and plain white walls, but I could hear heartbeats close by. My x-ray vision still didn’t work, thanks to the older layers of paint, but I was pretty sure the two remaining guys were on this floor.

Maybe the smart thing to do would have been to run, but I’ve never been all that smart. I wanted answers, and I was going to get them… kryptonite bullets be damned.

I zipped down the hall to confront my captors.

*****

Chloe:
The hole in the ceiling was a good example of why I really hate to involve the cops in anything Clark-related. It wasn’t like I’d had a lot of choice, though. I’d run for a public phone as fast as I could, panicking as I imagined the heavy thud of footsteps pursuing me. But I’d managed to dial 911 and gotten the cops to come to me before anyone caught up with me.

Which was really weird, all things considered.

Four cops had shown up and accompanied me over to the old building. Two of them were staring at the hole in the ceiling with suspicion, like they wondered exactly how it got there. It was pretty obvious to me how it got there. Looking up at it, I noticed the ceiling was a different color from the walls, which suggested they hadn't used kryptonite in the paint on the ceiling. Obviously Clark had figured that out, too, and being Clark, he’d gone straight through the ceiling. Little things like steel beams don’t concern him much.

If he’d gotten out of the trap, it was logical to assume he’d escaped. But now that I knew he could find me just by my heartbeat, I was certain that if he’d gotten away, he would have caught up with me by now. So even though he’d gotten out of the hall, I was pretty sure he hadn’t managed to escape our captors.

I was scared he’d done something stupid, like get himself shot with a green K bullet. The horrible vision of his body lying dead on the floor filled my mind, and I instinctively headed for the stairs to check on him myself. But the nearest cop, a cute guy with freckles and red hair, restrained me, catching me gently by the arm.

“Wait here, please,” he told me.

Considering the bad guys had tortured me earlier, that was probably good advice. Even so, if the redheaded cop hadn't been there to keep his eye on me, I probably would have bolted right up those stairs. As it was, he walked around the hall and looked the place over while watching me from the corner of his eye, so there wasn't much I could do. I waited, but not with a lot of patience.

Two of the cops went up the rickety staircase, and one walked down to the basement. A few minutes they all returned to the hall and stood quietly conferring with the freckled guy. I stood there and fidgeted, wishing for superhearing. At last the redheaded cop approached me, an expression of sympathy on his face.

“I’m sorry, Miss Sullivan,” he said gently. “But there’s no one in this building.”

Read Chapter 9 here.