The day began identically to the first eighty-two. She woke up, quickly took a semi-warm shower, and plodded through the narrow cobblestone streets to the closest café, where she would gulp down a scorching cup of coffee and scrutinize the online editions of major Kansas newspapers. The waitress would glance over her disapprovingly; her hair was in desperate need of a trim and her fingernails were usually half-broken, the skin underneath raw and blistered. She would hurry back to her hotel room, always scanning the faces on the sidewalk, always sure she had caught a glimpse of his mesmerizing and calculating face.
Her own face had changed. Guilt etched across her forehead. She could read it there as clearly as a map of her hometown. Terror seeped from her pores and covered her in a film that could not be cleansed with soap or water, leaving her feeling dirty no matter how fiercely she scrubbed at her skin.
Her new passport read "Hannah Taylor." Who was this Hannah, she wondered. It certainly wasn't the hollow-eyed young woman who greeted her in the mirror each morning. Hannah seemed like a cheerful and honest girl, who loved to sing and wanted to work with animals one day. She certainly wasn't her, this carefree Hannah—but was she Lana Lang? She couldn't remember who that girl was; she wouldn't recognize her if she passed her in the street. And she certainly would not—could not—call herself Lana Luthor. So who was she? She roamed the streets of Seville, nameless.
It would be easier if he found me now, Lana thought. No more running, no more hiding, no more regrets. She paused at the entrance to the coffee shop, pretending to read the menu posted on the window. She did this often to ensure that she wasn't being followed.
Too many of these thoughts in one day would leave her wondering whether she was cracking up. For someone who was often surprised when she touched an object and the surface pushed back resolutely—she was frequently startled to realize that she was corporeal, she moved about so much like a ghost—this was not so surprising.
Lana closed her eyes. She attempted to sound out the menu in her head, long since memorized, interchangeable with the menus of the cafés in all the other cities she had found reprieve within—beautiful places such as Glasgow and Brussels that she had, of course, not been able to enjoy. Cappuccino, Croissant, Orange juice, she struggled to say in her mind. Other words appeared instead, each one a ragged heartbeat: murder, frame, fugitive.
Her eyes suddenly flew open.
Slowly she turned away from the café and began to walk purposefully. Each resolute step of her narrow boot hammered the sidewalk.
When the telephone booth on the corner of Castelar and San Luis came into her field of vision, she broke into a trot.
Then she ran.
As she swung around the pole anchoring the phone to the asphalt, Lana was already sliding the international phone card from her back pocket. She strained to keep her fingers steady enough to punch in the two dozen numbers required to make an international phone call. She succeeded on the third try, and quickly dialed a number long ago committed to memory.
A voice on the other side of the line answered, thankfully, in her first real bit of luck on this godforsaken continent that she had, until recently, regarded with awe.
"Hey. It's me," she gasped. "It's—Lana. He's here, I'm sure of it."
The voice on the other line squawked an unintelligible reply. Lana surprised herself with the calm, sure voice that resounded in her ears. "Lex. He's watching me. Lex is here now."
She paused, glanced quickly behind her.
"And he's not alone."
