Clark's voice rang throughout the confines of the Talon. Clark stood behind
the counter, his eyes
opened wide with fear. He knew there was no way he could get to Lana with
or without his
powers.
Lana's brows crinkled before she looked up. Arms wrapped themselves around Lana's waist and tugged her back. The speaker hit the ground in a cloud of sparks accompanied by a small boom sound.
"Are you ok?" Pete asked, his arms still wrapped around Lana's waist.
Lana struggled to speak, her mouth half ajar before she finally pulled her look away from the broken stereo.
"Yeah..I'm..fine.." She said a bit breathlessly.
Pete nodded, and was unaware that his arms were still lightly wrapped around Lana's waist. Clark looked on and a sigh of relief swept over him. His brows couldn't help but raise as he noticed how close Pete was to Lana. Pete gave a look around the Talon before he finally caught Clark's gaze. He let his hands off of Lana's waist and cleared his throat.
"Look there's someone up there!" Chloe murmured while she half pointed upwards.
A figure sprinted from the upper level and was approaching the back. Clark had instinctively followed en route. He swiftly climbed the stairs that snaked against the wall. The figure had easily maneuvered towards an open window.
"Hey!" Clark yelled after him. He would've used his powers, but he couldn't risk anyone from below seeing him.
The figure slipped out of the window in one fluid motion. Clark had reached the windowsill and stuck his head out into the night sky. Dim lighting from the streetlights near the alley lightly illuminated his face. A face that had a bewildered expression. There was no one on the fire escape below, or on the street.
"Clark who was that?" Pete's voice interrupted. He had been behind Clark and finally caught up to him.
"I don't know.." Clark said in a distraught manner.
"Whoever it was, they left this behind." Pete said hastily and pulled a silver plated watch into Clark's view. The LuthorCorp logo had been embedded into the back of the watch's face.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"It's a nice watch, my dad has one just like it." Chloe held the watch in close examination in front of her eyes.
Pete, Clark, and Chloe had been sitting in the Torch offices trying to make sense of what happened the night before. Clark sat perched on a desk near Chloe while Pete was standing over her shoulder. He too examined the watch carefully.
"What a surprise, whoever it was is involved with the Luthors." Pete said rather distastefully.. "Man, I knew they were bad news."
"Pete, we don't know for sure." Clark said quickly. He tried to come to the Luthors' aid, or more importantly Lex's.
Pete sighed a little and figured now wasn't the time to voice his opinions on the Luthors.
"Have you talked to Lex about what happened?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah, he's just as confused as we are." Clark replied.
Chloe put down the watch and typed in a few things on the keyboard that was before her. She tried searching into LuthorCorp's database for anything that might have told them anything about the watch, or more importantly who would own one. However her luck was short considering as many as 100 employees on the staff had them.
"What are we gonna do now?" Clark asked. He dragged a look towards Pete.
"Hey, we're still going on with my movie. Deadline's in less then 3 weeks and we've already got a good amount of it shot already. There's no way I'm backin' out now." Pete said.
"Yeah..all pending on if Lana wants to still go through with it." Chloe added in, her eyes still glued to the monitor before her.
"Go through with what..?" Lana suddenly joined the conversation. She strolled inside the Torch a little warily and let her look sweep towards the three.
"Going on with the movie considering your latest brush with death." Chloe said, a bit unaware of how sarcastic it may have come out. She was researching and sometimes she really didn't pay attention to how high her glib-o-meter could go.
Lana took in a small breath and let her look drift to the side for a moment before she answered.
"..Yeah, why not..?" Lana made an attempt to sound casual. "It's really important to you Pete and I promised I'd help out."
"Cool, thanks." Pete said.
"..So um, have you guys found out what happened last night?" Lana asked before she gave a quick look to Chloe's monitor.
"No..we're trying though." Clark tried to sound optimistic. He wanted to find whoever had tried to hurt Lana, badly.
"Speaking of it, are we still on for shooting in your loft today after school Clark?" Pete turned his head to ask him.
"Yeah, my parents said they're free." Clark nodded.
The bell suddenly rang to signal that 5th period was now over. Clark rose from his seat ontop of the desk and joined Pete and Lana at the door.
"You guys go ahead, I have a free next anyway." Chloe typed in a few more things on the keyboard.
"Let me know what you find out later?" Clark asked.
"Would we have it any other way?" Chloe finally took her gaze off of the monitor and towards Clark. A small smile had settled itself on the lower half of her face.
Clark returned the smile and headed out of the door after Pete and Lana.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"Man, I told you Clark, this acting stuff is easy." Pete said as he walked down the hallway with Clark..
Last period had just ended and Pete and Clark had headed towards the Torch to find out if Chloe had made any headway into the investigation. Clark looked around at various teenagers making their way about the hallway, most eager to leave.
"I guess..but it's not like I have to be out on stage in front of everyone, so it's ok." Clark tried to reason.
"Damnit." Joe said angrily.
Joe had been searching for his father's watch all morning. It had seemed to be missing. His eyes roamed the contents of his locker ravenously. Papers flew everywhere as his hands delved into the mess madly.
"You ok?" Clark asked him, coming to a halt with Pete at Joe and his open locker.
"I'm fine." Joe said distractedly as he rummaged through the contents of his bag now. "So um..how's your movie coming along?" Pete asked a bit uncomfortably.
"If by my movie you mean my masterpiece... it's going great." Joe replied with a smug grin. His small wired glasses had been adjusted with his hand, as he looked condescendingly towards Pete and Clark. "Sorry gents, but I have to be tending to that now." Joe said and slammed his locker shut. He figured getting in a few more shots on his film wouldn't hurt before the sun went down. Joe brushed past the two as they gave him odd looks.
"At least it hasn't gone to his head..." Clark said sarcastically while he and Pete approached the Torch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"Cut." Pete waved his hand as he signaled the scene to come to an end. "That was great Mr. And Mrs. Kent." He encouraged them.
"You really think so?" Martha asked as she got up off of the floor.
The scene consisted of Chloe's character Serena's parents murdered on the floor, murdered of course by Lana's character.
"As lively as a dead body could be..you were great." Pete laughed a little while Martha and Johnathan had begun to leave the upper portion of the loft.
"Is that it?" Clark asked. He folded his hands gently hoping that it was all that they had to do for today.
"Yup, that's it." Pete said while he packed his camera into it's case. "I should be going anyway, I have to shoot a couple of scenes over at Lana's house.
"See ya." Chloe said, shooting him a small wave before he too had exited the loft.
Clark had slowly made his way towards the couch that was near the window that exposed the vast night sky. He rubbed his hands against the material of his denim jeans and looked towards Chloe.
"I hope Pete and Lana are safe from our flash homicidal attempted- murderer." Chloe said. She walked towards the space on the couch next to Clark and set herself next to him.
"They should be fine." Clark nodded. "Lana said Nell had Sheriff Ethan over there just in case anything like last night happens again."
Chloe nodded. There was a little bit of an awkward silence the befell the two teenagers. Clark had an uncomfortable look on his face. Chloe sensed this and arched a thin brow curiously. The makings of a smile were visible on her face. She always found it sort of cute when Clark was a little shy about something..that is other then towards Lana.
"Clark what is it?" Chloe maintained a casual disposition and leaned back to make herself more comfortable on the couch.
"It..? There's no it." Clark looked away and partly down. He tried to not seem like such a spaz around Chloe. Now that he'd known her feelings, and his own were starting to blossom for her, he almost felt the way he once had around Lana.
"Ok, Clark. Speaking as one of your best friends for two years now, I can tell when there's an it with you.." Chloe shot him a subtle look.
"I was just wondering if you..wanted to do something this weekend?" Clark swallowed hard and finally turned to face her.
Chloe smiled a little, almost flattered. She kept her look on his handsome features and couldn't help but feel a little tingly. They'd already gone to the journalist convention in Metropolis a week ago, and that was sort of like a date. She assumed he was asking her out on one now, which of course she couldn't refuse.
"Sure." Chloe finally said, while she smiled from ear to ear. "How could I resist that Kent Charm?"
Clark grinned, clearly relieved that she had accepted. He slowly put his hand on Chloe's knee, giving it a light squeeze. He brought up his gaze towards Chloe who he had now noticed was a little closer to him-he didn't mind. Chloe put her hand ontop of Clark's hand and let her smile remain.
Clark took in a small, silent breath. Should he? Shouldn't he? It's not like they haven't before. Clark fluttered his eyes a little as he slowly leaned forwards, Chloe doing the same. The quiet chirping of the crickets outside seemed to make the mood romantic.
Chloe's lids gradually closed as did Clark's. The soft touch of Clark's lips against her own made her spine shiver. She'd thought about this for so long...and she'd nearly forgotten how it felt kissing Clark, what with their 8th grade encounter and all. Clark let his hand lift to settle on Chloe's cheek, Chloe's hand rested at Clark's side. The moment was perfect.
A sudden intense heat had been felt on her skin. Was kissing Clark always this hot? The sound of disintegrating wood caught Chloe's hearing. She slowly opened her eyes while still kissing Clark gently, and jumped back surprisedly at the blaze that had started to eat away at a bookshelf.
"Clark!" Chloe gasped.
Clark turned around with a curious look on his face and now witnessed the intense flames. He immediately sprang up from the couch, as did Chloe. His arms instinctively found their way to Chloe's smaller frame. Could he put out the fire? How? He'd have to get Chloe out of here first, that was his main concern.
"We have to get out." Clark said quickly and kept his hold on Chloe lightly.
Clark kept his hand wrapped in Chloe's as the two had made their way down the staircase leading to the lower level of the barn. Chloe's hand covered her mouth as the smoke had already begun to fill the spacious interior of the barn.
Once the two had reached the lower level, they quickly dashed towards the doors.
A quick flame shot up around the doors, avariciously consuming the wood.
Chloe had started to cough a bit now, and looked around frantically for another exit. Clark followed her example and realized that their way had been cut off towards the opposite end of the barn where the other entrance was.
They were trapped.
Lana's brows crinkled before she looked up. Arms wrapped themselves around Lana's waist and tugged her back. The speaker hit the ground in a cloud of sparks accompanied by a small boom sound.
"Are you ok?" Pete asked, his arms still wrapped around Lana's waist.
Lana struggled to speak, her mouth half ajar before she finally pulled her look away from the broken stereo.
"Yeah..I'm..fine.." She said a bit breathlessly.
Pete nodded, and was unaware that his arms were still lightly wrapped around Lana's waist. Clark looked on and a sigh of relief swept over him. His brows couldn't help but raise as he noticed how close Pete was to Lana. Pete gave a look around the Talon before he finally caught Clark's gaze. He let his hands off of Lana's waist and cleared his throat.
"Look there's someone up there!" Chloe murmured while she half pointed upwards.
A figure sprinted from the upper level and was approaching the back. Clark had instinctively followed en route. He swiftly climbed the stairs that snaked against the wall. The figure had easily maneuvered towards an open window.
"Hey!" Clark yelled after him. He would've used his powers, but he couldn't risk anyone from below seeing him.
The figure slipped out of the window in one fluid motion. Clark had reached the windowsill and stuck his head out into the night sky. Dim lighting from the streetlights near the alley lightly illuminated his face. A face that had a bewildered expression. There was no one on the fire escape below, or on the street.
"Clark who was that?" Pete's voice interrupted. He had been behind Clark and finally caught up to him.
"I don't know.." Clark said in a distraught manner.
"Whoever it was, they left this behind." Pete said hastily and pulled a silver plated watch into Clark's view. The LuthorCorp logo had been embedded into the back of the watch's face.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"It's a nice watch, my dad has one just like it." Chloe held the watch in close examination in front of her eyes.
Pete, Clark, and Chloe had been sitting in the Torch offices trying to make sense of what happened the night before. Clark sat perched on a desk near Chloe while Pete was standing over her shoulder. He too examined the watch carefully.
"What a surprise, whoever it was is involved with the Luthors." Pete said rather distastefully.. "Man, I knew they were bad news."
"Pete, we don't know for sure." Clark said quickly. He tried to come to the Luthors' aid, or more importantly Lex's.
Pete sighed a little and figured now wasn't the time to voice his opinions on the Luthors.
"Have you talked to Lex about what happened?" Chloe asked.
"Yeah, he's just as confused as we are." Clark replied.
Chloe put down the watch and typed in a few things on the keyboard that was before her. She tried searching into LuthorCorp's database for anything that might have told them anything about the watch, or more importantly who would own one. However her luck was short considering as many as 100 employees on the staff had them.
"What are we gonna do now?" Clark asked. He dragged a look towards Pete.
"Hey, we're still going on with my movie. Deadline's in less then 3 weeks and we've already got a good amount of it shot already. There's no way I'm backin' out now." Pete said.
"Yeah..all pending on if Lana wants to still go through with it." Chloe added in, her eyes still glued to the monitor before her.
"Go through with what..?" Lana suddenly joined the conversation. She strolled inside the Torch a little warily and let her look sweep towards the three.
"Going on with the movie considering your latest brush with death." Chloe said, a bit unaware of how sarcastic it may have come out. She was researching and sometimes she really didn't pay attention to how high her glib-o-meter could go.
Lana took in a small breath and let her look drift to the side for a moment before she answered.
"..Yeah, why not..?" Lana made an attempt to sound casual. "It's really important to you Pete and I promised I'd help out."
"Cool, thanks." Pete said.
"..So um, have you guys found out what happened last night?" Lana asked before she gave a quick look to Chloe's monitor.
"No..we're trying though." Clark tried to sound optimistic. He wanted to find whoever had tried to hurt Lana, badly.
"Speaking of it, are we still on for shooting in your loft today after school Clark?" Pete turned his head to ask him.
"Yeah, my parents said they're free." Clark nodded.
The bell suddenly rang to signal that 5th period was now over. Clark rose from his seat ontop of the desk and joined Pete and Lana at the door.
"You guys go ahead, I have a free next anyway." Chloe typed in a few more things on the keyboard.
"Let me know what you find out later?" Clark asked.
"Would we have it any other way?" Chloe finally took her gaze off of the monitor and towards Clark. A small smile had settled itself on the lower half of her face.
Clark returned the smile and headed out of the door after Pete and Lana.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"Man, I told you Clark, this acting stuff is easy." Pete said as he walked down the hallway with Clark..
Last period had just ended and Pete and Clark had headed towards the Torch to find out if Chloe had made any headway into the investigation. Clark looked around at various teenagers making their way about the hallway, most eager to leave.
"I guess..but it's not like I have to be out on stage in front of everyone, so it's ok." Clark tried to reason.
"Damnit." Joe said angrily.
Joe had been searching for his father's watch all morning. It had seemed to be missing. His eyes roamed the contents of his locker ravenously. Papers flew everywhere as his hands delved into the mess madly.
"You ok?" Clark asked him, coming to a halt with Pete at Joe and his open locker.
"I'm fine." Joe said distractedly as he rummaged through the contents of his bag now. "So um..how's your movie coming along?" Pete asked a bit uncomfortably.
"If by my movie you mean my masterpiece... it's going great." Joe replied with a smug grin. His small wired glasses had been adjusted with his hand, as he looked condescendingly towards Pete and Clark. "Sorry gents, but I have to be tending to that now." Joe said and slammed his locker shut. He figured getting in a few more shots on his film wouldn't hurt before the sun went down. Joe brushed past the two as they gave him odd looks.
"At least it hasn't gone to his head..." Clark said sarcastically while he and Pete approached the Torch. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------
"Cut." Pete waved his hand as he signaled the scene to come to an end. "That was great Mr. And Mrs. Kent." He encouraged them.
"You really think so?" Martha asked as she got up off of the floor.
The scene consisted of Chloe's character Serena's parents murdered on the floor, murdered of course by Lana's character.
"As lively as a dead body could be..you were great." Pete laughed a little while Martha and Johnathan had begun to leave the upper portion of the loft.
"Is that it?" Clark asked. He folded his hands gently hoping that it was all that they had to do for today.
"Yup, that's it." Pete said while he packed his camera into it's case. "I should be going anyway, I have to shoot a couple of scenes over at Lana's house.
"See ya." Chloe said, shooting him a small wave before he too had exited the loft.
Clark had slowly made his way towards the couch that was near the window that exposed the vast night sky. He rubbed his hands against the material of his denim jeans and looked towards Chloe.
"I hope Pete and Lana are safe from our flash homicidal attempted- murderer." Chloe said. She walked towards the space on the couch next to Clark and set herself next to him.
"They should be fine." Clark nodded. "Lana said Nell had Sheriff Ethan over there just in case anything like last night happens again."
Chloe nodded. There was a little bit of an awkward silence the befell the two teenagers. Clark had an uncomfortable look on his face. Chloe sensed this and arched a thin brow curiously. The makings of a smile were visible on her face. She always found it sort of cute when Clark was a little shy about something..that is other then towards Lana.
"Clark what is it?" Chloe maintained a casual disposition and leaned back to make herself more comfortable on the couch.
"It..? There's no it." Clark looked away and partly down. He tried to not seem like such a spaz around Chloe. Now that he'd known her feelings, and his own were starting to blossom for her, he almost felt the way he once had around Lana.
"Ok, Clark. Speaking as one of your best friends for two years now, I can tell when there's an it with you.." Chloe shot him a subtle look.
"I was just wondering if you..wanted to do something this weekend?" Clark swallowed hard and finally turned to face her.
Chloe smiled a little, almost flattered. She kept her look on his handsome features and couldn't help but feel a little tingly. They'd already gone to the journalist convention in Metropolis a week ago, and that was sort of like a date. She assumed he was asking her out on one now, which of course she couldn't refuse.
"Sure." Chloe finally said, while she smiled from ear to ear. "How could I resist that Kent Charm?"
Clark grinned, clearly relieved that she had accepted. He slowly put his hand on Chloe's knee, giving it a light squeeze. He brought up his gaze towards Chloe who he had now noticed was a little closer to him-he didn't mind. Chloe put her hand ontop of Clark's hand and let her smile remain.
Clark took in a small, silent breath. Should he? Shouldn't he? It's not like they haven't before. Clark fluttered his eyes a little as he slowly leaned forwards, Chloe doing the same. The quiet chirping of the crickets outside seemed to make the mood romantic.
Chloe's lids gradually closed as did Clark's. The soft touch of Clark's lips against her own made her spine shiver. She'd thought about this for so long...and she'd nearly forgotten how it felt kissing Clark, what with their 8th grade encounter and all. Clark let his hand lift to settle on Chloe's cheek, Chloe's hand rested at Clark's side. The moment was perfect.
A sudden intense heat had been felt on her skin. Was kissing Clark always this hot? The sound of disintegrating wood caught Chloe's hearing. She slowly opened her eyes while still kissing Clark gently, and jumped back surprisedly at the blaze that had started to eat away at a bookshelf.
"Clark!" Chloe gasped.
Clark turned around with a curious look on his face and now witnessed the intense flames. He immediately sprang up from the couch, as did Chloe. His arms instinctively found their way to Chloe's smaller frame. Could he put out the fire? How? He'd have to get Chloe out of here first, that was his main concern.
"We have to get out." Clark said quickly and kept his hold on Chloe lightly.
Clark kept his hand wrapped in Chloe's as the two had made their way down the staircase leading to the lower level of the barn. Chloe's hand covered her mouth as the smoke had already begun to fill the spacious interior of the barn.
Once the two had reached the lower level, they quickly dashed towards the doors.
A quick flame shot up around the doors, avariciously consuming the wood.
Chloe had started to cough a bit now, and looked around frantically for another exit. Clark followed her example and realized that their way had been cut off towards the opposite end of the barn where the other entrance was.
They were trapped.