Clark almost automatically scanned the house to see if his parents were home, but stopped, instead looking for the truck. He felt like he'd never want to use his abilities again. Not that that'd stop Lionel from making him. God, to have to show him, like a sick cross between a performing dog and a stripper.

It didn't look like they were home, and more slowly than he ever had before, he climbed the steps to the loft, trying to think what he could tell his parents. "Nope, there weren't any pictures of me in the cave, Chloe was just handing me over to Lionel Luthor. Oh, yeah, and he said that he'd take me away and lock me up for the rest of my life or I could write a letter saying that Dad was molesting me, so I wrote the letter, hope that's okay. If you got the baling wire, I can go ahead and finish up the north end."

Okay, fine, he'd been pretty absorbed in finally getting to date Lana, he shouldn't have treated Chloe like that, he should have told her, but she didn't have any right to do that to him! For somebody who just a while ago thought that she was in love with him, and who had been one of his best friends since eighth grade, she sure was quick to package him up with a nice bow around his neck for Lionel.

He heard a car pull up outside and held his breath, like that would really keep anybody from finding him. "Clark?" God, he hadn't even thought about Pete, well, giving in and accusing your dad of sexual abuse to save your own skin can kind of distract you. "Clark?" Pete sounded worried. Fighting the lack of will that made his bones feel like they were too heavy to move, he got up.

"Up here, Pete." His voice sounded weird even to him.

Pete came tearing up the stairs. "Clark, your mom said what happened, she and your dad are at the caves looking for you." He must have gotten another look at Clark. "Hey, what happened?"

"Lionel Luthor knows."

"What?" Clark wished Pete hadn't looked like the sky had fallen.

"Yeah. I don't know how much he guessed and how much *Chloe* told him."

"Wait, back up. Chloe told him?"

He could tell that he was shouting, but it sounded like he was halfway across the field or something. "Yeah, Chloe called me to come to the caves, said that she'd found a new one, and that my face was all over the walls. When I came over, she and Lionel were waiting for me. Can you believe it, she just walked out. No, wait, she said, 'Have a good life,' so that makes it all better, it's not like she was handing me over to some kind of power-mad sicko."

"Chloe did that?" Pete shook his head. "I just can't believe it."

"I was there, Pete, the one it happened to!"

"Then what?"

"Nothing much, he made me tell him about everything, if there was something I didn't know, he'd use some more Kryptonite on me, then he said that he'd put me in a lab somewhere and I'd never see anybody I cared about again, or I could write him a letter saying that my dad had been sexually abusing me for the past eight years and asking for his help and he'd use it if I ever agreed not to play lab rat for him. Now I have to do whatever he wants for an hour every day."

"Shit, Clark."

"First, I said I wasn't going to, but then they started dragging me out, and they put me in a car with all this Kryptonite, and..." He pounded his fist on the railing, shattering it. "I was so scared, Pete, and he said he wouldn't use the letter unless he had to, and he stopped the car right here, so I could see the farm, and he told me...I hate myself..." He didn't want even Pete to hear how much his voice was shaking and turned away, closing his eyes.

There was a long pause and he was sure that Pete was as disgusted with him as he was. "Doing the intelligent thing, giving yourself some maneuvering room, yeah, you're a real scumbag, Clark." He felt Pete grab his upper arm. "Come on, Clark, don't tell me that your parents wouldn't have wanted you to do that."

"Yeah, every parent's dream, raising a kid who'll accuse them of *that*."

"Or how about every parent's nightmare, their kid just disappearing? And knowing something terrible has happened, but no idea what or whether they'll ever see them again?" Clark turned a bit, and Pete grabbed him by both arms. "Stop it with the guilt, already!"

"That's easy for you to say, you're not the one who..." He couldn't finish the sentence. "Please, Pete, promise not to tell my parents, I know I have to sometime, but not now."

"Tell us what?" He hadn't even heard his dad come up the steps.