Chapter Two

Chloe found Lex in his study on Friday evening, big surprise. "Hey," she greeted him, juggling a large silver tray in her hands and closing the door with her foot. Lex looked up at her in surprise.

He noted the tray in her hands and frowned. "What time is it?" he asked her, checking his watch.

"Almost seven," she told him and set the tray down on the coffee table in the small sitting area. "You missed dinner." She slumped down into one of the chairs in front of his desk. "Have you been working this whole time?"

He sighed and dropped his gold pen down on the contracts that he'd been working on. "Unfortunately," he leaned back in his chair and shot her a lazy smirk. "The plant manager that my father hired isn't the most adept manager I've ever had."

"What's wrong with him?" she asked.

Lex smiled thoughtfully for a moment. "He's no Gabe Sullivan," he told her honestly. "Not even close." She nodded quickly and averted her eyes, and Lex immediately felt like an ass for even bringing him up.

"Well," she forced a grin. "No one is. Sullivan's are all one of a kind." He smiled warmly at her, agreeing completely.

"So, do you have plans tonight?" he asked her, noting that she was carrying a purse over her shoulder.

"Yeah, Clark's coming to pick me up at seven," she grinned. "We're going to meet Pete in Metropolis for a midnight movie. He's there with his Mom for the weekend."

"Sounds fun," he said unconvincingly; that didn't really sound like his idea of a wild Friday night out.

"Liar," she smirked, not believing him for a second. He smirked back and opened a drawer in the desk.

"I was going to give you these later, but since you're going to Metropolis tonight," he handed her a new cell phone and a set of keys.

She held the keys up on her index finger. "What are these for?" she asked him.

"The penthouse in Metropolis," your room should be ready if you want to stay there tonight."

"Oh," she looked surprised. "Um, thanks! I guess we might as well stay the night. It's a long drive home."

Lex's lips quirked at the word but he managed to just nod politely, not wanting to call her on it. There was a knock on the door and the butler entered. "Mr. Kent is here for Miss Chloe," he informed them.

Chloe grinned at the butler. "Thanks Walden, I'll be right there," she told him easily. Once Walden had left, she turned back to Lex. "I guess I'm going."

Lex nodded. "Have fun," he picked up his pen again. Chloe stood and picked the tray up again, this time setting it on his desk.

"Eat something," she told him sternly before making her way out of his study. "And don't work too hard!" she called back.

Lex rolled his eyes but set the pen down and pulled the tray closer, removing the silver cover.

"So," Pete clapped his hands together and peered up at the list of show times. "Which movie? I think that new Halle Berry flick. She's hot."

Chloe rolled her eyes but Clark nodded in agreement. They'd just arrived at the Metropolis Megaplex and were trying to choose from the twenty or so different movies that were playing. "What about the Village?" Clark suggested.

"Haven't you had enough of creepy small towns for one night?" Pete teased. "Come on guys, she wears this leather outfit..."

"What about Fahrenheit 9/11?" Chloe pointed out its spot on the board. "It 's...oh it's already started."

"That's because we've been out here forever," Pete whined. "Let's just pick one."

"Well as smoking hot as Halle Berry is," Chloe deadpanned. "I wouldn't mind seeing the Village."

Clark grinned and Pete groaned. "Oh come on Pete," Clark nudged him. "It looks scary."

"Fine," Pete sighed dramatically and they went to buy their tickets. "Hey Chloe? Where's the suit?"

Chloe grinned evilly. "He's behind us. The guy in the Hawaiian shirt," she snickered. "I told him that people would notice the suit and think that it was strange."

"I still can't believe that you got him into that outfit," Clark shook his head and they all turned around to look at the bodyguard. Chloe had dressed him in khaki shorts and a matching bucket hat to go with the colorful shirt.

"I think he looks cute," she shrugged and they waited for him to catch up to them. When he reached them Chloe handed over the ticket that she'd bought for him. "Don't pout."

"I look like an idiot," Quinn told her gravely. Chloe shot her friends glares when they snickered.

"No you don't," she rolled her eyes. "Besides you were the one that didn't want to wear one of Clark's shirts. I had to improvise."

"It was flannel," he frowned pointedly.

"What's wrong with flannel?" Clark asked them innocently. No one answered. "Hey!"

Randy tried not to gulp too audibly when he saw the large steel door open. His knees felt uncomfortably weak while his employer, Lionel Luthor, made his way over to the lone chair in the middle of the room. Luthor was older, sick, had his hands and legs chained together, and was kept at a distance by a wire grate. Randy was still terrified of him. Just because Luthor looked weak, didn't mean that he actually was. Randy knew damn well what that "sick" old man was capable of.

So he remained silent and still while Luthor sat down and the guards left. Luthor looked at him and cocked his head to the side slightly, his dark eyes staring into Randy's appraisingly. "Mr. Miller, I must say that I am immensely disappointed with your work recently," his voice had a snake-like hiss to it, Randy had always noticed. "When I assign a task to one of my employees I expect it to be filled out within a reasonable period of time. You've had over six weeks."

"I know Sir," Rand nodded stoically. "I'm sorry, I know that I've disappointed you."

Lionel laughed, cruelly and coolly. "I was disappointed five weeks ago Mr. Miller," his eyes narrowed. "Now I'm just angry."

"Yes Sir," Randy nodded hurriedly. "You have every right to be—"

Be quiet!" Luthor snapped. "I want you to listen closely Mr. Miller. As upset as I am with your recent performance, I am also quite aware that you are one of the best men in Metropolis for this particular type of task. You have until Monday morning to finish the job. I don't care how you do it, but you'd sure as hell better get it done! Is that clear?"

"Yes Sir," Randy nodded gratefully. He'd seen Luthor angry with employees before, like the Sullivan girl, and knew that he was getting off easy. It was a rough business, but the money was good, and you damn well tried to not piss of the Luthor's.

Randy thanked him and then left immediately. "Mr. Miller," Luthor called him back.

"Yes Sir?"

"If you fail me again," he said conversationally, as if he were inquiring about the weather. "The missing paycheck will be the least of your problems."

Randy nodded. "Yes Sir."

"I told you the movie would be scary," Clark looked pointedly at Pete as they walked along the High Street Boulevard, Quinn following fifty feet behind them.

"It was not," Pete scoffed, but both Chloe and Clark saw his eyes shift nervously to the shadowed corners.

"Didn't you like it?" Clark asked him. "Come on...I know you did." Chloe rolled her eyes and let them discuss the movie. She occupied herself by looking at the buildings that they passed, taking not of which ones were still open at two in the morning.

Spotting a well lit, but rather grungy looking shop, she grinned and elbowed Clark in the ribs gently. "Hey Clark," she pointed out the sign to them. "What would your parents say if you went home with one of those?"

Clark and Pete both read the sign and began to laugh. "If you went home with one of those anywhere on your body I'm pretty sure that Mr. Kent would have to give you the longest lecture in the history of the entire world," Pete joked. "Books would be written about it."

Clark grinned again and they resumed their discussion of the movie. The guys started walking again but Chloe didn't follow. Clark paused and looked back at her. "Chloe?" he asked her warily.

She didn't answer, just kept staring up at the sign with a thoughtful expression on her face. They followed her gaze again and she heard them both groan in realization. Chloe smiled up at the sign. "Metro's Finest Tattoos and Piercing. Open 24 Hours."

Randy drove the streets of Metropolis nervously. His contact in Smallville had told him that the Sullivan girl had gone into Metropolis for the night. Just her, a friend, and one body guard.

He was headed towards the Luthor penthouse. By his watch, he had fifty-four hours until he had to meet Luthor and report. That was plenty of time to take out the girl, but Randy was hoping to do it at the penthouse, where security would be at a minimum.

Clark looked around at the various pictures on the walls, different tattoos that the employees had done, and felt incredibly out of place. Kal may have fit in here, but Clark didn't. "I can't believe we're in a tattoo parlor," Pete hissed to him, eyeing the pictures as well.

"I can't believe that we let her go in there," Clark hissed pack, pointing to a closed grungy white door. Chloe and Quinn had gone in a minute before with the straggly looking guy that worked there.

"Like we could stop her," Pete grinned. "Besides, it's not like she's getting a tattoo. It's just a piercing."

"I wonder what she's getting pierced?" Clark muttered. He stared hard at the door, using his X-Ray vision to look through it. Chloe was just talking to the guy.

"Well?" Pete asked him eagerly and Clark shrugged.

"They're just talking," he turned off the X-Ray.

"Oh," Pete shrugged. "So...are you going to tell me what happened this summer?"

Clark sighed. "I don't remember," he said quietly. "Honestly, I went into the cave and activated the symbols and the next thing I know I'm lying naked on the ground—six weeks later."

"That's messed up man," Pete laughed sardonically. "That's it? Do you have any new abilities or anything?"

"I don't think so," Clark shrugged. "I do feel different though. A part of me feels like I blinked and six weeks of my life jumped by, but I still have the strangest feeling that something important happened and I just can't remember it."

"Maybe you're not supposed to," Pete suggested. "We don't know what happened to you, and if they made you forget then maybe they don't want you to remember."

"Maybe," Clark sighed. "I guess we'll see."

"Anyways," Pete continued. "It's good that you're back. I hated the fact that Chloe was alone in Smallville, with just Lex Luthor there to watch out for her."

"As mad as I am at Lex right now," Clark admitted reluctantly. "I really do think that he wants what's best for Chloe. He feels guilty, and at the very least he wants to keep her safe."

"I know that," Pete assured him. "And I'm glad that he is. But Chloe needs a lot more than protection right now, and I don't think that Luthor is really the one to give it to her. She needs her friends around, people that she trusts."

"I'll be there for her," Clark assured him. "But you should see her and Lex together...something's changed between them. It's obvious, and it makes you feel like you're...walking in on something."

Pete frowned and they slipped into silence. Clark had no doubt that Pete was thinking about the same possibility that Clark himself kept denying.

"Do you think he's interested in Chloe?" Pete asked suddenly, looking panicked.

"No," Clark shook his head, but really wasn't entirely sure. "I think he's interested in Lana." He bitterly remembered the scene at the airport.

"Clark not every male on this planet is interested in Lana Lang," Pete rolled his eyes. "Some of us would prefer Chloe over the town princess. Luthor may have a thing for brunettes, but he also likes his women to have a backbone."

"Lana has a backbone," Clark said defensively.

"Yeah, but she's no Helen Bryce, or Victoria Hardwick is she?" Pete grinned at the mere memory of Lex's exes.

"No, I suppose not," Clark admitted. "But Chloe? Do you really think that she's his type?"

"Dye the hair and add a pair of heels and she's exactly his type," Pete insisted. "That worries me."

Clark thought about that for a minute, beginning to see it the way that Pete did. "Me too," he admitted.

"I just wish that she would move on, you know?" Pete sighed. "I mean, there are plenty of guys out there that would jump at the chance to go out with Chloe, but she's just completely oblivious to any of them."

Clark shifted uncomfortably, knowing that Pete was in love with her and that she'd never felt the same way about him. "Be careful what you wish for Pete," Clark warned him sagely. "It's not going to hurt any less to see Chloe with other guys."

"At least when she wanted you it was a decent choice," Pete elbowed him. "Who better than Clark Kent?"

"Pete Ross?" Clark suggested with a grin. Pete laughed and they let the subject drop.

Five minutes later the white door opened and Chloe walked out, Quinn and the tattoo guy following behind her. She paid the guy and then walked over to join her friends. "Okay," she grinned. "I'm done."

Pete and Clark both leaned forward, one eager and the other wary, and scanned her quickly for any telltale signs. There was nothing on her face, which meant...

"Well?" Pete asked eagerly, unable to wait any longer. "You've only got two earrings, nothing through your nose, eyebrows or lips...let me see your tongue!"

"There's nothing in my tongue," she stuck it out to show them.

"Then where?" Clark asked her.

"Where do you think?" she laughed and their eyes immediately moved down slightly, resting on the low cut neckline of her shirt.

"I think that you need to show us," Pete told her, trying to keep his leer in check. Clark nodded eagerly too, something that he wasn't entirely proud of, but hey...who was he to pass up a free look at—

"Okay," she shrugged and pulled up the hem of her shirt. They blinked quickly when she stopped the shirt halfway up her torso. A metal bar went through her bellybutton, the small jewel on the end twinkling in the light.

Clark was sure that he heard Pete groan in disappointment. Chloe frowned at them. "What?" she looked down at the piercing. "Does it look bad or something?"

"N-no," Clark cleared his throat and smiled reassuringly at her. "It looks fine...we just thought..."

"What? What did you think...oh! Hey!" she dropped her shirt in disgust. Clark blushed but Pete reached out and pushed the shirt back up, just enough to see the piercing.

"Actually it's kind of hot," he grinned and brushed the tip of a finger quickly over the stud. "Damn Chloe!"

She grinned and rolled her eyes again. "Okay, okay," she swatted his hand away. "Let's get out of here."

"So how do they do that?" Clark asked her, holding the door for everyone.

"They use a needle," Chloe explained. Clark shot Pete a paranoid look. "A new needle Clark," she sighed. "And the disinfect the site with alcohol."

"Did it hurt?" Pete asked, looking at her stomach as if he were trying to see the ring through her shirt.

She reached down and rubbed absentmindedly at her bellybutton. "I've felt worse," she muttered. They walked the rest of the way to the car in silence.

Les was lying comfortably in his bed, the silk sheets pooling coolly around his body, and just starting to drift into sleep. Predictably, his phone chose that moment to ring. Normally he would just ignore the ringing, since it was almost four in the morning, but the ring was coming from his cell phone and only a few select people had that number. All of them were people that Lex would accept a four o'clock call from.

"Luthor," he answered after the second ring, using one hand to wipe the sleep from his eyes.

"Mr. Luthor its Jay O'Riley," them man answered over the phone. Jay was the security guard at the penthouse in Metropolis. "Sir, Miss Sullivan and three others arrived just five minutes ago."

"Good," Lex tried not to yawn into the phone and stifled the urge to yet at Jay. He had, after all, left instructions for the guard to call as soon as Chloe arrived. "Who was with her?"

"Clark Kent, Miss Sullivan's personal guard, and another teenage male," Jay listed. "I'm not sure of the last one's identity, Sir."

"Pete Ross," Lex let himself lie back on his bed, the soft pillows cradling his head. "He's fine. If anyone else arrives I want you to phone me immediately."

"Yes Sir," Jay agreed readily. "Goodnight." Lex hung up the phone and dropped it back on his bedside table.

Sleep didn't come as easily now, because even though he had faith in Quinn's ability to protect Chloe (and Clark and Pete as well), he was still smart enough to realize that all of the bodyguards in Metropolis won't be able to keep her as safe as he'd like. Not if Lionel Luthor wanted her dead.

Lex hated his father for what he'd done to Clark, to Gabe, to Chloe, to his sons, to his wife...Chloe had been wrong earlier when she said that Lionel had already taken everything from her; Lex knew that she could loose more. He wasn't going to let that happen. Never again.

Randy watched from the shadows of the parking garage when the Sullivan girl and her entourage arrived at the apartment building. They parked the two cars in the penthouse parking stalls and took the elevator up. Randy checked his watch. 3:42 am.

Lionel Luthor's man on the inside was a security guard, paid an exorbitant fee to work for Lex Luthor, and an even higher one to report all to Lionel Luthor and his men. Randy was expecting a call from him.

Sure enough, ten minutes later, Randy's cell phone vibrated, alerting him of an incoming call. "Hunter," Randy answered, using the code names that Luthor had assigned.

"She's in the penthouse," Jay O'Riley—AKA Trojan—said over the line. "There's a shift change at four. Cameras are offline from 3:58 to 4:03 while the tapes are changed."

"Got it," Randy hung up the phone and checked his watch again, 3:55. He fiddled with the watch controls, and once the display read 3:58, he activated the stopwatch. The watch face began counting down five minutes and Randy climbed quickly out of the car. He walked up to the exterior elevator entrance and checked that the record light was off on the cameras. Seeing that it was, he took out the access key that Luthor guy Dominic had provided and turned it in the elevator keyhole, summoning the lift to the underground lot.

The cables behind the closed doors made a steady whirring sound while they pushed the car downwards. Randy checked the stopwatch, just as it ticked past the two-minute mark; he had a full three minutes to get up to the top floor. The doors opened and he rushed in, punching the P button quickly.

He rode up the fifty floors to the penthouse and exited the elevator into a small vestibule area. The locked door in front of him posed no problem, because he had a key for that too. He was already pulling the key out when the timer entered the last minute. Plenty of time.

TBC...

A/N: I'm done this episode, just trying to find the time to type it up. Episode seven is coming alone nicely too...