Author's Note: I do not own the characters.
HAUNTED BY A GUNSHOT.
Chapter 1.
"Lo-is!" The pained voice reverberated around her head as she slept. Tossing and turning on the couch for the past two hours had done nothing to silence the voice or stave off the memories of that night which continued to haunt her. How had her life come to the point where she could so readily endanger the lives of others for a front-page scoop that she herself had concocted? Was her career really worth that much to her?
Crashing through the skylight more than 20 feet up and having survived the landing by some miracle, Lois had rushed over to the stricken form of Jimmy Olsen. Having found Jimmy's broken camera in the parking lot outside the Ace of Clubs, she knew he was in trouble. The camera contained the photos he'd taken of Stiletto - the faux super-heroine created by Lois - and Lois had come to the club where Jimmy worked to ask him to get rid of the evidence. The city's crime kingpin Ron Milano owned the joint and if he or his goons had gotten hold of Jimmy's camera, it could spell trouble for Jimmy. Ron would want to know who the leather-clad woman in the photos was, and Lois had foolishly announced her alter ego to the heavy she'd beaten up to save Chloe the previous night. He'd gotten out and would almost certainly have talked about the asskicker who'd blindsided him that night.
Having earlier climbed up the fire escape to the roof, feet aching from being squeezed into ridiculously uncomfortable knee-high boots with 5-inch heels, she'd seen Jimmy through the large skylight lying there unconscious on the floor of the club's back room, and she could also see another figure on the ground being viciously kicked in the stomach before the heavy - Bruno Mannheim - pointed a gun at his head. It was Clark Kent, her best friend and reporting partner! Her phone choosing now to run out of juice, Lois knew she had to act or else Jimmy and Clark would be killed, with Milano covering up the evidence via his network of paid-off lawyers and police officers. She wasn't to know that Mannheim had murdered Milano to become the new kingpin. He was a thug who would control through violence rather than manipulation like Ron Milano. Removing her overcoat and donning her gloves and mask, she knew it was time for Stiletto to save the day for real.
Right now though, the voice was calling her name. "Lo-is!"
She whipped herself round, startled that her name had been called out. It was Clark. He'd been lying on the floor to one side, writhing in agony. Had he broken a rib, or worse? The last time she'd seen him, he'd told her to nix her Stiletto article before it got published while he went off to investigate Ron Milano's involvement. That would explain why he was at the Ace of Clubs. He was also trying to track down Chloe's laptop which contained some sensitive information.
BANG!
Before she knew what had happened, Clark had dived in front of her at the exact moment a shot had been fired. The crackle in the air from the gunshot was unmistakable. Almost in slow motion, she watched him slump to the floor hard, blood gushing and soaking into his shirt as he lay there, not moving. He'd taken the hit.
"Clark!" she cried out, shocked.
She had no time to gather her wits or think about how things had gone so badly wrong, nor to check if she herself had been shot as all of a sudden, a commotion behind her forced her to toss all of those thoughts aside. Jimmy had managed to get back up, pinning Mannheim up against a filing cabinet as he fought to wrestle the gun away from the thug. Jimmy had been left severely weakened from the beating he'd been given and Lois could see he was beginning to lose this battle now. Mannheim had turned his wrist so the gun was facing Jimmy, his finger on the trigger. If he fired, Jimmy was done for as this was point blank range. She simply had to intervene.
Looking around the room, floor strewn with counterfeit money, she spotted the empty whisky bottle on the side table. Grabbing it quickly, and with Mannheim's back to her, she swung the bottle and crashed it down on Mannheim's head in a sweeping arc. The bottle shattered into a thousand tiny pieces and she was glad the pleather gloves on her hands had protected her from the shards. Better, Jimmy was now leaning slumped against the filing cabinet bloodied, battered, bruised and worn out but thankfully still alive. Even better still, Mannheim had collapsed to the floor in a heap, unconscious and bleeding profusely from his head wound. He would not be getting up at all if Lois had any say in the matter, but she would leave that to the police.
What about Clark? Lois dashed over to his stricken form, tossing her gloves aside and kneeling down to cradle his face in her hands. His face sported the bruises of battle and his lip had been split open, but there was barely any response coming from him. He simply looked stunned and unable to focus. She could see where the bullet had pierced him in his side - had it hit a vital organ? The stain on his shirt was growing by the second as blood seeped through the fabric. It was serious.
"Clark!" she gasped, eyes cascading with tears as her friend lay there dying.
Clark's eyes began to cloud over as he shuddered with shallow, hacking breaths. He tried to focus on the face in front of him, willing himself to tell her what he'd kept to himself for so long and never found the courage to say.
"I, I, I…"His voice was strangled to little more than a desperate whisper.
Nothing else came out. Her face was so close to his but she heard no more sounds, just a soft exhale. If it weren't for the silence in the room, she would have missed it. She waited for him to say whatever it was he needed to say, but the sentence remained incomplete.
"Clark!" she begged, attempting to get Clark to look her in the eye. So many things she wanted to say but all bar uttering his name remained lodged in her throat.
His baby blues, still open, were gazing right at her. No, not right at her, but right through her. Had he seen something going on behind her? Training herself to divert her attention for a split second, she glanced behind her. Mannheim was still down for the count and Jimmy was leaning against the filing cabinet, hands on knees, getting his breath back. It had been a painful ordeal for him, and it was her fault he'd been put in that position.
But what about Clark? Clark was not moving at all, his face still in her hands. Turning back to him, she gazed into his eyes once more, desperately hoping to see signs of life. There was no expression, no emotion, nothing, only dilated pupils. Moving her fingers to find a pulse in his neck, she found none. He was not breathing. This could not be happening.
Clark Kent was dead.
He had given his life to save hers. She never got to hear what he had wanted to say, only felt his last remaining breath. She'd never got to tell him how she truly felt about him, in her own words, with no coercion from a madman with a polygraph and an electric chair, no wedding day romantic haze, and no low blood sugar-induced nightmarish acid trip to some alien planet with rivers of blood and secret portals, where she only felt secure if he was beside her.
Her own vision blurred as a feeling of numbness took hold of her body. Still on her knees, she could barely see through the tears streaming down her face, and barely hear anything around her, she knew what happened next would be etched into her soul until her dying day. She gently lifted Clark's lifeless form to cradle his head against her chest, moving her forehead to meet his, leaning over him. All she could do now was cry over him, her wails piercing the silence in the room.
"No, no, no!" she sobbed continuously, the water from her eyes spilling over Clark's motionless face, running down his cheek with his own eyes still wide open.
She had failed him. She had failed Jimmy. She had failed herself. And all because of some stupid need to get her name back on the front page of a stupid paper.
"Lo-is!"
BANG!
"Lo-is!"
BANG.
"Lo-is!"
BANG.
And like that, Clark Kent was dead. The voice calling her name faded to an echo, and far from sounding like him, it sounded like a woman.
Lois' eyes flew open and she sprang upright on the couch with a loud gasp. Her flannel pajamas clung to her skin as she sat there sweating profusely. Her hair was all messed up and she was hyperventilating like an asthma sufferer desperately reaching for their inhaler. Her face was tear-streaked and it took a moment for her to focus on where she was, and who was beside her.
"Lois!" came the voice, heavy with concern.
It was Chloe. She was kneeling beside the couch having been woken by Lois' panicked scream. The clock on the side showed it had just gone 3:30 in the morning, and the twilight from outside was shining through the curtain in the living room, bathing the space in an eerie purple light.
"Chloe, wh-?" started Lois, thick with cotton mouth, heart still racing.
Chloe had placed a soothing hand on Lois' arm. "Lo, hey, you were having a nightmare."
Lois blinked herself alert, trying to make sense of it all. Yes she'd had a nightmare, and one that had pained her to her very core. It was about the death of somebody very close to her, and it had all been her fault.
"Yeah," Lois sniffled, suddenly realising that she'd been crying for real. She tried to wipe away the tears with the palms of her hands. She could feel the salty tears stinging her eyes.
"You wanna talk about it?"