Flame Red, Chapter 9

Kal/Chloe
Season 2, "Rush"
Rating: Adult. If you're under eighteen, please go elsewhere now.
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Read the previous chapter here.
Read the story from the beginning here.

Water cascades over Clark. Sputtering, he opens his eyes to find he's lying on a sidewalk on Main Street. Lana is staring down at him, a baleful gleam in her green eyes.

She's clearly angry, clearly jealous. Yesterday that would have made him ecstatically happy. But that was yesterday, and today he can't get the image of kissing Chloe out of his head. His mind is all filled up with the memory of how she felt against him, her body soft and warm and totally sexy, her mouth sweet and hot, her hands all over him...

The truth is, there just isn't much room in his brain for Lana right now.

"Lana," he says, sitting up and shaking his wet head like a dog shaking water off its coat. "Where'd Chloe and Pete go?"

"I don't know." She sounds angry. "And to be honest, I don't really care."

She turns around and stalks off. He knows this is where he's supposed to go after her and humbly apologize for hurting her, to express contrition and beg forgiveness.

But frankly, he just doesn't care all that much that she's mad. He was embarrassed to find himself practically naked in the middle of her coffeehouse, yeah... but he doesn't belong to her, and she really doesn't have any right to be pissed off.

Anyway, Lana is safe and sound, despite being in a snit. Whereas Chloe and Pete are both high on adrenaline and running loose in a car somewhere in town. That makes them his top priority. He needs to stop them before they kill someone... or even themselves.

He doesn't allow himself to think about anything else they might decide to do. But whatever they're doing, he definitely needs to stop them, or someone might get hurt.

He doesn't let himself acknowledge that the someone might be him.

He turns away from Lana. With a whoosh, he's gone.

*****

Chloe is laughing wildly as Pete's old car speeds down the road. He isn't going as fast as Clark was, just because Pete's old car can't go that fast, but it's still awesome to feel the wind whipping her hair, and to hear the sound of the tires screeching against asphalt.

The speed feeds the physical craving for excitement that gnaws hungrily inside her. She went with Pete with the idea of getting it on with him-- but hey, this works for her, too.

Not that she objects to getting it on with him a little later. But first...

Pete hits the brakes just before Saunders Gorge, and the car skids to a halt.

"Look at that drop," he says, staring at the gorge and grinning.

She imagines the car soaring over the edge, sailing from one side of the gorge to the other just like an old Dukes of Hazzard episode, and she grins just as widely.

"It'll be like flying," she agrees.

"Who needs Clark, anyway?"

"Yeah." She makes a face of disgust meant to convey her total disinterest in Clark Kent. "Screw Clark."

Pete slams the car into reverse, then hits the accelerator hard, sending the car whizzing backward. And then he hits the brakes, and the car fishtails to a stop.

"We've got ignition!" he says, his face alight with excitement.

Chloe bounces on the seat like a kid on Christmas morning. "What are you waiting for? Blast off!"

The car zooms forward and shoots over the edge of the cliff, and Chloe squeals with excitement as it begins to plummet toward the rocks far below.

*****

The car is falling through the air as Clark arrives at the gorge. Terror for his two best friends fills him. In superspeed, he follows a rocky path down to the bottom, getting there faster than the car can fall, and catches the car just before it strikes the rocks.

He holds it suspended in the air for a moment, his knees shaking at the knowledge of how terribly close they both came to death. He's been looking for them everywhere, and just barely got here in time. In another second or two, he would have been too late.

Inside the car, Chloe and Pete are still yelling with happy excitement, totally oblivious to the fact that they came within seconds of being killed. They aren't even wearing seat belts, damn it.

"Awesome!" Pete yells. "That was awesome!"

"Totally awesome!" Chloe sings out. "Do it again, Clark! Oh, my God!"

Still shaking, he lowers the car to the ground and glares at them both sternly.

"The joyride's over," he growls.

Read Chapter 10 here.