WARNING: This chapter contains violence and attempted sexual assault.


From Chapter Six…

I averted my eyes. My gaze skittered across the room. My only possible ally confined, beaten and unconscious, probably close to death. Threatening me was a man who outweighed me and much stronger than me. His minions were close by, ready to do his bidding. Panic grew in me. It was so much like the time before…..


I saw Kal-El gasping, taking irregular, bubbling breaths. No help there. A curious peace came over me. It wasn't going to happen again. It wasn't.

I deliberately made myself small, deliberately trembled. "No," I whimpered. Hall smiled triumphantly and strode to me, his hand already at his trouser fly. I wanted him to underestimate me. It looked like he was. A cool sense of anticipation spread through me, and I felt the steel core at my center that I thought I'd lost.

As I feigned helplessness, I thought, Thank you, Lois Lane, for all those days of training. After…..afterwards, I'd sworn never to be helpless again. And Lois helped me learn. I'd spent hours practicing, trying to forget… searching for mindless exhaustion. Now I readied myself, making sure to show no sign, no muscle tensing, no eye movements to warn the approaching attacker. I'd have one chance.

Hall got within the distance. I remembered what Lois had said: There's not a man on this planet who can stand up to a good kick in the nuts. Of course, as I remembered bitterly, it didn't hold true for men from Krypton. But, as I exploded into action, I saw that it still applied to Earth males.

Hall went down with gratifying swiftness, gripping his essentials. I kicked him again in the solar plexus and watched him gasp for air. The cool certainty stayed with me and I followed up with more kicks, knocking him out.

I took a deep breath. I'd done it. I'd fought back and won. The reaction hit and I began shaking. I forced myself to take deep breaths. I stood over Hall, watching him closely. He didn't move. I looked up slowly. My heart raced. Had Bergman and Hernandez heard anything? I hoped not. The doors were thick, and presumably they'd be expecting some… noises, anyway.

I headed to Kal-El and closed the lid on the box containing the kryptonite. It glowed with a fierceness I'd never seen before. Some of the metas at Metropolis base could make the mineral fluoresce a little bit. But Kal-El's presence caused glowing far beyond the feeble radiance produced by our metahumans.

Kal-El improved immediately. His ragged breathing smoothed out, and the fresh blood streaming from his nose stopped gushing. Would he regain consciousness? I needed his help to get away. And he needed mine too.

I watched him for what seemed like a long time, but it was probably only about sixty seconds. No change. I dithered for a minute and then brought myself to attention with thoughts of what had to be done. Not bothering to stop by Hall again (although I wanted to give him another kick, just for good luck), I went to the hall door. Fortunately, the window set in the top half of the door was a vertical quarter-pane, and heavily frosted. Hall's henchmen wouldn't be able to see in. I smiled at the sight of a lock on the door and turned it. For good measure, I took an adult-sized chair and propped it under the doorknob.

I went back to Hall – he was well and truly out. I mentally thanked Lois, and all my sparring partners over the last two years, once again. I'd practiced for a long time. When I finally needed the art, I had it. Even with our dicey situation, I felt triumph. Martha Clark wasn't going to give in. Martha Clark fought back.

Kal-El moaned, and I hurried over to him. He was so bloody… I hurried over to Hall and opened his parka. With my Swiss Army knife, I cut Hall's shirt and took several long strips of material over to Kal-El. Moistening it with a little from my water bottle, I began to wipe his face.

"Mom?" he slurred. I stopped wiping for a moment, and then started again.

"Mom? It hurts."

What to say? I kept on wiping.

"Mom."

"You'll be all right, Ka - Clark," I said awkwardly.

He gave a huge sigh that turned into a bubbling cough. His eyes opened and he looked at me without seeing. "Mom," he muttered again.

I said nothing, kept methodically wiping his face. By now I had gone through three of the four strips I'd ripped from Hall's shirt.

I saw the moment when he came back to full awareness. He tried to stretch his arms and could not. His eyes focused on mine, and it was almost with regret that I saw the trust in his face drain away. Funny. I'd thought I was the only one with trust issues.

"Martha?" he asked slowly. He tried to sit up. Another drop of blood dribbled from his mouth and he groaned.

"We've got to get you out of those cuffs," I said, taking refuge in the here-and-now. Solve the first problem. Do what you have to do. Then you can start thinking again.

"Hall?" Clark asked apprehensively. I knew what he didn't want to ask. Were you raped?

"I kicked him in the balls," I said plainly. My mother would have had a conniption if I'd ever talked like that. Well, my mother was part of the old world that was dead now. Of course, I reminded myself, there was never any excuse for bad manners. I almost laughed out loud, thinking of etiquette at a time like this.

Clark stared at me incredulously for just a minute. Then a wide smile slowly broke over his face. I could almost see him struggling for words, trying to pick the right expression. Finally, with an even wider smile, he settled for, "You're great."

Warmth went through me. It shouldn't have meant so much to me, Clark's approval, but it did. His struggle with the cuffs brought me back to earth in a hurry. We were in trouble and I had to do something about it.

"Maybe Hall has the key in his pockets." I leapt up and headed to the prone figure, still unconscious. I checked his clothing, rolling Hall over with difficulty. I made sure I felt inside every pocket.

"No luck," I said, dejected. Also I was worried. It had been ten minutes already and Hall's henchmen were surely getting nervous. Or eager. "Bergman or Hernandez must have the key."

Clark said nothing, but his serious look as he met my gaze mirrored my own. We had to get out. Clark was helpless as long as he was in the cuffs, or in the presence of kryptonite. I had self-defense skills but was seriously outweighed and outnumbered. I had managed to catch Hall by surprise and I couldn't count on that happening a second time.

I caught sight of the hatchet hanging at Hall's belt and got an idea. I pulled it out of its sheath.

"Let's try this," I suggested.

Clark looked at the hatchet dubiously. I wouldn't allow doubt. I was on a roll.

"Clark, can you stretch your hands behind you?"

The tall man, still lying on the floor, extended his arms. His body bowed and he stifled a slight groan. I checked – not a good angle. But an idea….

"If I help you, can you kneel with your arms behind you?" I didn't want to think of how painful it must be for him. He seemed pale, and all his words to me had been punctuated by shallow, quick breaths. I worried about internal bleeding – heck, he'd already spit up blood. Did he have broken ribs? Probably.

Clark only nodded. I could see he was bracing himself.

I quickly got a small student chair, made for a six-year-old to sit in, with short legs and a low seat. I set it behind Clark, and then squatted next to him. Awkward fumbling came next. He was heavy. Finally, after a lot of pushing and heavy breathing and sweating (on both our parts), Clark knelt, hands behind him and resting on the seat of the student chair. He swayed in position. This would be tricky.

"Hold still, right there," I ordered him. I spread his hands as far apart as they would go, given the limits of the handcuffs. I grabbed the hatchet.

"Don't move," I said, taking his left hand in my own and pressing his to the seat of the chair. His hand felt very warm. I raised the hatchet awkwardly in my right hand and swung it down at the chain connecting the two cuffs.

"Darn!" I said. The chain still held. But I looked at it closely – surely it was dented?

"Try again," Clark said. Without looking, he seemed to know. Of course, I was practically giving a running commentary. I kept hold of his hand as I raised the hatchet and again slammed it down on the chain.

There was a definite improvement, because some links were half-broken.

"One more time," I said resolutely. Once again, the swing. I almost cheered as Clark pulled at the handcuffs and the chain separated. I could feel his hand flex under mine. Again, I noticed that it was surprisingly warm. His long fingers dwarfed my petite ones. As he brought his arms back to his sides, I felt his hand and wrist slip through my palm. It was a curiously poignant moment.

Clark supported himself on the backrest of the student chair, and hauled himself upward. I had had abdominal surgery once and knew just how much one used those torso muscles in everyday life. I could only imagine the pain Clark felt as he forced himself into a standing position.

He swung his arms back and forth from the shoulders a few times. He gazed at the glowing kryptonite, merged with the metal of the cuffs, in disfavor.

"We've still got to get these off," he said. "When they're on, I don't have my abilities."

"I know that," I snapped. Of course I did. That was the whole point of those handcuffs. Before, the cuffs had kept me safe from the Kryptonian. Now… well, life was full of little ironies.

"Any ideas?" Clark asked, not quite sarcastically. More like desperately. He reached over as if to jiggle the cuff on his other wrist, but as his hand neared the kryptonite, the mineral glowed with greater virulence. Clark snatched his hand away as if it had been burned.

"Let me try," I said, coming over. Clark obligingly held out one wrist. I moved the bracelet up and down.

"Bend your hand so it's thinner," I ordered him. He obeyed silently, pushing his thumb against his palm, tucking his fingers against each other. I pushed harder. No go. His metacarpals and the pad of his thumb were too thick.

Someone knocked at the door. Our eyes met in alarm. Bergman and Hernandez had gotten tired of waiting. Another, louder, knock rang through the room. I looked over at Hall and noted gleefully that he was still unconscious. I grabbed the cuff on Clark's other wrist and started manipulating it. No luck there either. His hands were simply too big to slip through the cuffs.

Voices called. Bergman and Hernandez had discovered that the door was locked. We didn't answer.

"You get out while you can," Clark said quietly. "We're on the first floor." Determinedly, he let go of the seatback and walked to the window. He undid the catch, grunting as he raised his arms. It was a tall window. "You can just step out and drop three feet, then you're away."

I stared at him. "I'm not leaving without you!"

His face fell. "I can't run. I can't walk far with these handcuffs on. I'm a liability."

"And I'm any better on my own out there? Clark, are you crazy?" I hissed. "Besides, we're partners." Clark stared at me, amazed. I was amazed myself. I couldn't believe I'd said that. But I realized it was true. We'd been together only a day, but it had been an intense day. OK, maybe my thoughts were a little biased by our situation. Maybe our partnership was just from being in a foxhole together. And maybe I needed him to get out. But we were together now. And there was one thing I'd stayed true to, both in law and in life: I didn't run out on my partners. Even Kryptonian ones.

Bergman and Hernandez began banging at the door. I looked at it in panic. The lock and the chair under the knob wouldn't hold them back long if they really wanted to get in. And by now, they must know that something was wrong.

Clark got a determined look on his face. "I have an idea."

"What?"

He gestured to the hatchet. "Cut off my last two fingers."

"What?"

"If you cut them off, then I can slide off the cuffs." At my horrified expression, Clark hastened to add, "I'll heal."

My mind spun. I'd never consider this. But my companion wasn't human. If we could get the kryptonite off him, away from him… who better than he would know if he could heal? And what was the alternative… stay here and be captured and raped, watch Clark be tortured to death?

No. This was crazy. I wasn't about to mutilate my partner. I opened my mouth, and the words that came out were, "Are you sure?"

Louder banging came from the door. Any minute now they'd shoot out the lock.

Clark looked me straight in the eye. "I'm sure."

I gulped. Was I really thinking of doing this?

He caught my tiny nod. "Get the chalk."

I went to the blackboard and got a piece of chalk, obeying the command in his voice. He took it from me and drew a line on his left hand. It started at the webbing between the third and fourth fingers, and went laterally down the palm, ending at the outside edge of the wrist.

"Draw the same line on my other hand," Clark said. "And cut on the dotted line." His expression was sardonic. But his voice trembled.

I swallowed hard. I'd wanted revenge on the Kryptonians….now that it was in my grasp, I'd discovered that I really didn't have the stomach for it. Up close and personal like this… it was a different story.

"Come on!" Clark said urgently. "We don't have much time."

I nodded again, and my mind snapped into activity. "OK. You sit here." I got the teacher's chair and set it under him. He lowered himself gingerly into it. "And put your hands here. Flat, spread out. Spread your fingers as much as possible." I nudged a student desk over and he laid his forearms flat, spreading his fingers as I'd said. The kryptonite-and-metal bracelets kept his wrists from contacting the desk surface. His hands were beautiful.

More pounding at the door. They were trying to break it down. I breathed a prayer of thanks to those builders back in the nineteenth century who hadn't skimped on the construction. Thank God for sturdy doors.

I took the chalk and drew the lines, tracing over the line Clark had already made on his left hand. A curious finality filled me. It was like when I'd made a plan, and the Resistance had gone into battle. I'd hoped I'd covered everything – it would be deep consideration, and then explosion into action.

"Once you make the cuts, if I can't….you get the cuffs off as fast as you can and please, Martha, take them as far away as possible." Clark's voice trembled despite his best efforts to keep it steady. I wondered what he thought. What was it like to be at the mercy of those who hated him – not just Bergman and Hernandez, but me too? I'd let him know in no uncertain terms that I distrusted and feared him. And now, his fate was in my hands – literally. Was he afraid that I'd cut off his hands? Or his thumbs? Why else draw the chop line? He was trusting me a lot more than I'd ever trusted him.

"OK." I could do this. It was going to be worse for Clark, anyway. A lot worse. I didn't want to think about that. I grabbed the hatchet and swung it in the air a few times to re-acquaint myself with its heft. We'd dulled the hatchet by cutting through the handcuff chain – what if it wouldn't cut cleanly? What if I hurt Clark for nothing?

I went to stand over by Clark. "On three." A few more air swings. I saw Clark close his eyes and take a deep breath.

"One. Two." I swung the hatchet down viciously. The blade sheared through Clark's left hand, chopping through meat and bone equally. It was still sharp enough. Blood sprayed from a severed artery. Clark screamed. I swallowed hard. "And three," I whispered, as I made the chop to the right hand. He screamed again.

Blood covered the desk surface. I could see the edges of Clark's metacarpals on the cut surfaces of his hands, before the blood began dripping in runnels. I'd chopped the fourth metacarpal bone about halfway down, and I'd disarticulated the fifth metacarpal at the carpal-metacarpal joint. Ligaments looked like tiny pieces of tough spaghetti. Joint fluid leaked out from between the mangled wrist bones. The severed fingers and half-palms on the desk looked like something out of a horror movie. But they were real.

"Martha…." Clark groaned.

I dropped the hatchet and pulled at the kryptonite bracelet on the right hand. Slick with blood, it slid over Clark's mutilated palm and past his index and middle fingers. The blood bubbled and frothed as it touched the glowing green meteor rock set into the metal. Clark screamed again as the cuff touched the raw surface of his butchered palm. I tamped down my nausea and quickly repeated the process on the left hand, not acknowledging Clark's agonized grunting as the bracelets came off.

I rushed to the edge of the room and opened the lead box where the big kryptonite chunk stayed prisoner. I quickly dumped the bloody cuffs into the box and slammed the lid shut.

I headed back to Clark. He'd managed to put his hands next to their severed pieces. As I neared him, a strange glow caught my eye. My jaw dropped as I saw his hands join together at the cut surfaces. A bright light fizzed above the join, making it impossible for me to see his actual hands. After a minute, the glow expanded to cover most of his body.

He was right. He was healing. The glow faded, and I stared at his hands. Only a thin red line on each palm marked where I'd made those vicious hatchet chops.

I saw Clark wiggling his fingers and making a fist. He sighed in relief, and his expression made me realize suddenly that he hadn't been as confident about the healing as he'd sounded.

He stood up, easily. His black eyes and facial contusions had faded. He took a deep breath, gingerly at first, then more naturally as no pain from broken ribs and bruised muscles stopped him.

"That's a pretty good trick," I said quietly. Inwardly I cringed back again at the alien ability, the sheer unnaturalness of what had just happened. No wonder we hadn't been able to defeat Zod until we got our own Kryptonian. I looked at the lead box and just for a minute, thought about opening it up again.

More pounding from the door. I saw it bowing in its doorframe. It wouldn't hold up much longer.

I pointed out the lead box to Clark. "Can you seal that? I don't want to leave it here for them, and I don't want it popping open at an inconvenient time." Why had I said that? Didn't I want to have a weapon against the Kryptonian? And yet, I had my own small piece in my jeans pocket – that would be enough, certainly, if Clark tried anything. I was so confused.

He made no response, but turned and faced the lead box. I stood at his side, and saw his eyes turn red. The lead of the box softened and ran, and Clark used his healed fingers to smooth the molten lead in the crack of where the lid would open. He inhaled deeply, and blew at the box. I could hear it crackle as it cooled. He reached for it and handed it to me.

"You carry it. And stand back."

I moved back at his gesture, and saw his eyes turn red again. He swept his vision over the room. I noticed that Clark was burning away his blood, incinerating the surfaces of the desks and chairs and floors where he'd bled. I could feel the heat from a yard away.

"Got it all," he muttered. He turned to me. "You've got the kryptonite?"

"Yes."

I tucked the lead box away in my outer coat pocket. I saw the hatchet and picked it up too. No time to take the sheath off Halls' belt. Not a good idea to leave weapons in the hands of our enemies. Was the meteor rock found only near Smallville? If Rojas had brought this to them here in Colorado, maybe so. Hopefully our foes didn't have extra.

Gunshots rang out – Bergman and Hernandez must have decided to stop fooling around. I glanced at Clark, and we both rushed to the window. We took a crucial moment to close up our undercoats, zip up our parkas, put on our hats and mittens. Clark opened the window, and as ever, I cringed a bit at the cold air.

"Here." He gestured and I automatically stepped into his arms. He gently swung me down the four feet to the ground. As Clark jumped out the window, behind us, in the room, the door burst open. Bergman and Hernandez stormed in. Bergman stopped, knelt down, presumably to look at Hall. I hoped that Hall was still unconscious and would delay them. Heck, I hoped that Hall would have a headache for days.

Hernandez focused on us. He came rushing to the open window, brandishing his handgun.

"Martha!" Clark called. "Here!" I jumped into his arms for the front carry at his beckoning gesture. Strange how that position had come to seem so natural. As Clark began to run away, I saw Hernandez take aim and fire at us. I tucked my head back into Clark's chest. I felt the impact as the bullet hit him in the back, as his stride wavered. We weren't going as fast as usual – the world wasn't a blur and a whoosh. I could see scenery passing like I was in a car – faster than a human could run, yes, but not up to Kryptonian standards.

"Are you all right?" I asked Clark anxiously. The running stopped.

He set me down at the trees near the entrance gates. "I think my batteries are low," Clark said with an awkward smile. "I need some time in the sun."

"Good luck with that," I said sarcastically. The skies had been permanently gray since Zod and his robot (Brainiac, Clark had called it once) did something to them with their alien Fortress and Kryptonian technology. I focused on Clark. His parka was so bloodstained it was difficult to tell, but I thought there was a fresh stain on his back. "Did you get shot?"

He sighed. "Yes, but it only went in a little way."

"We need to treat the wound – "

"Martha. I'll heal. I just need some time and sun, OK?" His face was tired. "Now, we've got to get our stuff and get out of here. OK?"

I'd just seen him heal from worse injuries. "OK."

We walked quickly amidst the grove of trees. "Here we are," I said, pointing upwards at our backpacks, stowed high on a branch.

Clark looked up at the packs, then up at the sky, where the setting sun was visible as a faint shimmer of light behind the thick gray clouds. "I can do this," I heard him mutter. That didn't fill me with confidence.

He flexed his knees. I expected the titanic jump I'd seen last time. He jumped, and it was high, but not high enough. He ended grasping the branch, legs dangling. I sucked in a breath. Would he let go, fall down, and try again? No, it seemed as if he didn't want to. He slowly pulled himself upwards and worked his way onto the branch. I inhaled again. I'd never had the upper body strength to do chin-ups or pull-ups. And for Clark to do it so soon after being viciously beaten….of course, he had healed. I'd seen it myself.

He was delaying up there, I could tell. Maybe he wasn't as healed as I thought. I saw him carefully stand up and work his way to the tree trunk. He fiddled with something, presumably the lashings, and I saw him pick up my pack. He looked down and I wondered for a moment if he was going to drop my pack. I hoped not – some of the things inside, like the tiny camp stove, were breakable. Nevertheless, I stood aside.

Clark came plummeting down, ending up in the frozen soil up to his ankles. He held my pack.

"You couldn't get both packs?" I asked. Then I immediately felt chagrin. Talk about looking a gift horse in the mouth.

Clark cast me an annoyed look. He obviously felt the same way.

"Sorry," I muttered.

"No," he said shortly. "It was too heavy – I couldn't - I need to rest a bit, charge up some more before I can get my pack down."

Shame flooded through me as I realized what a bad day Clark had had. Getting tortured….not fun for anyone. "Um….you do that," I said awkwardly. He was pale and sweating. I wondered how much blood he'd lost, what with the internal bleeding and my insane chopping too.

I looked away from him, trying to hide my embarrassment. I shoved my hands in my parka pockets and felt the lead box and the hatchet. I pulled them out, and fumbled with the pack, stashing the box in an outside pocket and tying the hatchet to a strap.

Clark's face lifted and he looked off in the distance. "You hear that?" he asked.

"No, what?"

"We have to get going now," Clark said. "I can hear the Jeep. They're coming to cut us off at the gate."

The gate. The only way out of the school grounds, at least that we knew of. And Clark hadn't said it, but I guessed he was vulnerable now.

"Let's get going," I said shortly. I picked up my pack and settled it on my back. I started to walk to the gate, setting a fast pace. The lead box made a difference. I was going to have to readjust the weight sometime soon. Maybe sometime later when we weren't running for our lives would be a good time. Right.

"Martha…." Clark's voice asked. Was he thinking he should carry the pack? Why not? He had, all this trip, already.

""Let's go," I said. "You need a little more time to charge up, right?" His pale face, the sweating, the inability to make his leaps… all combined to give me a bad feeling. If he were human, I'd be calling for a medic. I'd never seen a Kryptonian so weak before. And yet I'd never seen a Kryptonian – or anyone - suffer as much as Clark had today.

"Um…right."

"Then let's walk, and I'll carry the pack for now. You just get better. When we need to run, hopefully you'll be ready."

"Good plan." He already strode next to me, his long strides easily matching my quick-paced shorter ones. "I wish we had better sun…."

"Yeah. I do too," I said bitterly. Clark looked nonplussed, as if he hadn't meant for me to hear that last. I had a momentary flash of weakness. Yeah, I wish we had better sun, and that your race had never come to Earth, and that I was still a well-fed, warm, and impeccably groomed lawyer sitting in a heated courtroom right now.

I shook my head. We were coming up on the gate. Even I could hear the Jeep now. Fortunately the road had a lot of curves – I thought we could get past the gate before the men would be able to see us.

I shot a look at Clark as we paced along steadily, just short of running. It was amazing how fast he recovered – already he didn't look so pale, and his ragged breathing had slowed.

"Give me the pack," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"I'm better now, at least enough to carry the pack," he said impatiently. "And when we get out, I want to be able to scoop you up – "

"I get it." I shimmied out of the straps and buckles, awkwardly, as we continued to head for the gate. We were jogging now. That was one thing different from the old world. The old Martha was never this fit. Being a guerrilla fighter for the past two years had done wonders for my endurance.

Clark fell behind a little bit and took the pack off my shoulders as I unbuckled and slipped off the straps. He sped up so he was next to me, and I saw him casually sling the pack on one shoulder. He'd done that before, of course. As ever, I cringed at the unbalanced way he carried the pack.

We made it out the gate and started down the road. The increased noise behind me alerted me that the men in the Jeep had seen us. I didn't look back. Whoever was driving accelerated. A gunshot rang out.

"Martha….it's time," Clark gasped. Had he been hit again? I wondered. "Stop just a minute."

I stopped, my chest heaving. He reached for me, scooped me up in the position that had become so familiar. The scenery started passing by faster.

"OK, put on the speed," I practically ordered him. We weren't going into the whoosh-and-blur.

"I'm trying!" Clark said. My heart sank. We were going fast, no doubt about that, but not fast enough to outrun our assailants. If we were in a car I'd say we were going forty or fifty mph – much faster than a human could run, yes, but not enough to escape our captors. In fact, I could hear the Jeep getting closer. I peeked over Clark's shoulder and then ducked my head down again at the sight. Another gunshot rang out – I didn't feel anything, and Clark didn't flinch, so hopefully it was a miss. Of course, we were a moving target aimed at from a moving platform, and still a fair distance away.

I glanced at the sky – was it darkening? I saw the muted flame-ball of the sun, clouds obscuring it as usual, and it seemed low on the horizon. Not good for us. Clark needed sunshine.

On the other hand, we were going downhill – that always helped. Whichever obscenely rich plutocrat had built the mansion which later became the school had picked a nice estate on a high elevation. And another thing in our favor were the road curves – the slope demanded frequent switchbacks, which tended to lower the Jeep's speed and worsened their aim. Foolishly, I looked at the narrow two lane road and wondered what you'd do here if you had a breakdown – no shoulder to pull off on, just a guardrail right at the edge. Of course, the view was amazing. Maybe that made up for the inconvenience.

The Jeep got louder. I peeked up again and wished I hadn't. They were almost on us. Bergman was driving, and Hernandez aimed his handgun. I ducked my head down again just in time. Another gunshot rang out and I felt Clark lose the smooth rhythm of his gait. He'd been hit this time. Another shot followed, and another; the second one hit Clark. I wondered how invulnerable he was. I had a bad feeling he might be wounded.

"Clark?" I said questioningly.

"I'm going as fast as I can," he choked out.

Uh-oh.

Another shot and another stumble. Clark was tiring, I could feel it. They'd be on us soon. I didn't want to think of what would happen if they caught us again.

Clark must have felt the same way. As Hernandez fired once again, he turned his head and spoke to me. "Martha! Hold on tight!"

What? I tightened my grip around his neck.

He turned sideways. Instead of running down the road, he was running across it. Right at the guardrail. Right at a sheer drop. Actually, right at a cliff.

"What are you going?" I screamed.

"Hold tight!" Clark jumped the rail. Then – are you insane, Clark? - he jumped off the cliff. As we began to fall, I saw Bergman stomp on the brakes, bringing the Jeep to a sliding stop. He and Hernandez sat there, aghast at the sight of us committing suicide.

Oh, God. We were falling. Wind whistled past us. I held on tight, all right. I grabbed Clark like a drowning swimmer grabbing a life ring. How high up was this cliff? When were we going to go splat? It couldn't be long now.

With a shock I realized we weren't falling as fast as we should be. Somehow we were defying Newton's laws. It burst on me: "We're flying!" Then I hastily corrected myself. "You're flying!"

Clark actually laughed, albeit grimly. "It's not flying. It's falling….with style." I could hear the strain in his voice. He seemed to be aiming us for another patch of woods. I clutched him more tightly as we spiraled downward.

I remembered the sarcastic old saying: "It's not the fall that kills you – it's the sudden stop." Were we decelerating enough? Would our stop be too sudden? We still seemed to be descending way too fast.

Clark seemed as worried as I. "I can't control it!" he shouted. We were almost at treetop level now. "Martha! Let go!"

"Are you crazy?" I actually asked him. He didn't answer, just broke my grip on his neck. Before I knew what he was doing, he'd detached me and threw me up in the air.

For just a moment, I saw him falling, hitting the trees as I shot upward, thanks to his tremendous throw. Then darkness fell.


Author's note: Of course, "It's not flying - it's falling, with style" is from the movie "Toy Story".