Title: New Game
Author: Lucy Mars
Disclaimer: See Prologue.
Rating: Pg-13-ish
Summary: It was a new game now. New rules. New players and new losers.
Chapter #6
Today.
Groaning, Chloe fought against the opaque clouds fogging her vision as she struggled to escape from the viscous grasp of sleep. Her hands untangling themselves from the thin blanket she'd managed to toss aside, Chloe immediately rested her sweaty hands protectively over her stomach.
Noticing her distressed movements, Adam immediately came to her side. "How do you feel?" he asked worriedly as he pushed back sweaty hair that was matted to her forehead.
Straining to see past the haze behind her eyes, Chloe shook her head with confusion. "Adam?"
"Yeah, it's me. How do you feel?"
Confused and disoriented, Chloe pushed Adam's hands off of her. Trying to get her bearings, Chloe didn't see the flash of irritation in Adam's eyes. "What's going on?"
"I promised that I would protect you."
"Where are we?" Chloe asked, finally noticing their sparse and dark surroundings.
"Somewhere where you will always be safe,"
Warily eyeing Adam, Chloe instinctively shuffled away from him. "Where's Lex?"
The placid blue of his eyes becoming a stormy gray, Adam roughly grabbed Chloe's arm and pulled her back to him. "Why can't you just let me protect you?"
Her eyes wide with fear, Chloe tried to break out of Adam's painful grasp. "Oh god," she whimpered in understanding. Her vision clearing as she quickly took in their surroundings, Chloe felt her heart constrict with fear and compression. The cements walls bleed into each other as darkness encased corners and shrouded every conceivable inch with a biting chill. There had been no threat. Adam was the threat.
"I want to show you something," Adam said smiling tightly as he wrenched Chloe up onto unsteady feet and away from Claudia's unconscious body, "This will make you understand."
Stumbling on legs that felt like they were made of lead, Chloe couldn't fight against Adam's strength over her.
"This," Adam breathed stopping before a clothed wall, "This is going to make you see. I'm going to protect you, Chloe. I'll always protect you."
Stiffening when Adam protectively wrapped his arm around her waist, Chloe resisted the urge to throw up when he smiled down reassuringly at her. However, as revolted as she was with Adam's sudden bout of insanity, it was nothing compared to the horror that claimed her when he ripped the cloth from the wall.
Misinterpreting Chloe's silence as a good sign, Adam beamed proudly as two years of hard work finally paid off. "It's beautiful, isn't it?"
Her breathing shallow as her eyes took in what her mind refused to believe, Chloe ripped herself out of Adam's arms and stumbled backwards until she couldn't escape any father. Fingers clutching at the cement pressed against her back in a desperate attempt to ground herself back into reality, Chloe exhaled brokenly. "Oh god,"
In the damp darkness of the miserable room stood a wall that shone beneath a violent spotlight and under the naked bulb hundreds of Chloe's smiled down mockingly at the occupants of the room. Every imaginable inch of the wall was covered with glossy photographs cut from magazines, grainy shots torn from newspapers and wrinkled articles creased with sweat and glue. Chloe gaped at the wall with dismay and a swell of dread. This made her wall of weird look like a half ass effort.
"Fuck,"
Her head snapping down to where Claudia lay looking up at the wall with revulsion etched clearly over her features with a force that jarred all her still muddled senses, Chloe felt herself slowly sinking down to the ground with relief. Whatever the outcome, at lease she wasn't alone.
***
Trying to shake the last traces of the sedative his father had given him from his mind, Lex swallowed hard as the memories that had ambushed him during his forced slumber revisited him in the shadows that cloaked him now. Without Chloe, the penthouse was cold and uninviting. It was her presence that gave life to the barren space. Strangled by the terrifying truth that she was out there unprotected, Lex clenched his trembling hands into tight fists. His hands were clammy as his skin prickled at the memory of the intense morning light vanishing under the brute might of the frost of darkness.
Stalking down the dim light of the hallway, Lex burst into his study to find it converted into command central. Squinting painfully against the light that attacked his weary eyes, Lex mere presence demanded attention despite the fact that he was still staggering to find balance.
The flurry of activity that filled the room just a second before came to a standstill when the Luthor prince came in demanding answers that none of them had.
"Lex," Louis sighed looking up from the papers scattered before him and ordering the people around them back to work, "You're awake,"
Narrowing his eyes dangerously at Louis, Lex clenched his jaw as he closed the distance between them. "How could you let him do that to me?" Lex demanded angrily, "I thought that you were my friend."
Running a tired hand over his haggard face, Louis sighed heavily. "What would you have rather I done? Lex, you had a bloody gun in your hand and you were going to burst out of here like some avenging angel."
"And I could have saved her by now," Lex barked down at Louis.
Standing, Louis grabbed Lex's shoulders and shook him with frustration. "How? The only thing you would have accomplished would be to get yourself killed! And what would I have told Chloe when we got her back? Oh sorry, I should have bloody stopped him?"
Breaking out of Louis's painfully honest grasp, Lex turned to look at the people rushing by them. "Have there been any developments?"
Sighing, Louis ran his hand through his already unruly hair. "Nothing that's panned out,"
Leaning heavily on his desk, Lex blindly ran his hand over the cool glass and stopped abruptly when he knocked over a picture. Gingerly picking Chloe's favorite ornament in the dark and at times forbidding study, Lex gazed down at photo of him and Chloe smiling up at each other, unconcerned with the hundreds of people milling around them. They were too engrossed in each other to notice anything else.
"We're going to find her, Lex."
Swallowing the lump in his throat threatening to choke him, Lex clutched the frame desperately in his quivering hand. "I can't lose her," he whispered brokenly, "I can't lose them."
Grasping his shoulder, Louis offered Lex the strength he needed. "You won't. Our pixie is strong, Lex. Believe in her. Believe in what you two have."
"Has a ransom demand been made yet?" Lex would pay anything. He would give it all if that meant he could have his family back. No amount of money was worth more than Chloe.
"No. No ransom demand had been made yet." Louis sighed, "But when it's made Lex, we'll pay it. No matter what, we'll pay it and we'll get her back."
"Something isn't right, Louis. I can feel it. Something isn't right."
***
"What's wrong?"
Hot tears obscuring her vision, Chloe hastily pushed Adam's hands away. "Don't," she warned, shuffling backwards till she was out of reach, "Don't touch me."
Hurt, Adam withdrew his hands as he watched Chloe shed distressed tears. "Why are you crying? Tell me what's wrong, Chloe. I'll make it better, I promise."
"Why are you doing this?" Chloe questioned, her voice quivering with fear, "Why would you do this?"
"I did this for us," Adam explained, his eyes lighting up with righteous indignation, "I did this so that we could be together."
Moving backwards with every step that Adam took towards her, Chloe stopped when she came to where Adam had bound and discarded Claudia. Her fear momentarily forgotten, Chloe felt her heart lurch with guilt when her eyes fell on the binds that Adam had used on Claudia's wrists. "Oh god," Chloe whimpered as she struggled to undo the tight knots Adam had tied ruthlessly, "Oh Claudia…"
"What do you think you're doing?" Adam demanded, grabbing Chloe roughly and pulling her to her feet.
"Let me go!" Chloe yelled, pushing Adam back forcefully.
Stunned, Adam watched on silently as Chloe quickly fell to her knees and undid the binds that he had so painstakingly tied to make sure Claudia wouldn't be able to undo on her own when he submerged her in an icy coffin of water.
Keeping her eyes on Adam as Chloe struggled with the stubborn knots, Claudia shivered involuntarily at the sick devotion she saw in his eyes.
Pulling the last knot loose, Chloe threw the bloody rope aside as she inspected the angry red lines Claudia now bore around her wrists.
"You said you trusted me."
Both women turned their heads up to look at Adam as he stood over them with a thoughtful look on his face.
"Just let us go, Adam. Let us go and I promise I won't let Lex hurt you." Chloe begged, "Please, just let us go."
Coming down so that he was level with Chloe's puffy eyes, Adam reached out to touch her face but pulled back when Chloe recoiled with fear. "You don't understand, Chloe. He can't hurt me. I have you. Nothing can hurt me when I have you."
At a loss for words, Chloe sat immobile as Adam rose to his feet and disappeared up the rickety stairs that led to the only exit from this hell she'd been dragged too.
The door slammed shut and the locks echoed into place as silence filled the dark space.
"Oh god," Chloe sobbed brokenly, burying her face in her trembling hands, "Oh god. I'm sorry, Claudia. I'm so sorry."
Her own eyes filling with frightened tears, Claudia hesitated momentarily before grabbing Chloe and wrapping her arms securely around the weeping woman. "It's going to be okay," she whispered with more confidence than she truly felt, "We're going to get out of this somehow."
Clutching onto her last lifeline, Chloe couldn't stop the tears from falling as she buried her face in Claudia's shoulder. "It's all my fault. You wouldn't be here if it wasn't for me."
"Technically I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for some psychopathic guy with an unhealthy obsession of all things you." Claudia retorted, pulling back so that she could look at Chloe and her tear stained face. "This isn't your fault, Chloe. You didn't ask for him to knock you out and bring you here. You didn't ask him to fill that wall with pictures of you. And I'm pretty sure that you weren't the one who gave me this raging headache."
Dragging her hand over her face in a vain attempt to brush her tears aside, Chloe regarded Claudia with wonderment. "Why don't you hate me? You wouldn't be locked in here if it wasn't for me."
"To be precise, I wouldn't be here if I hadn't been impulsive and ran out after you. Anyways," Claudia grinned grabbing Chloe's hand and giving it a comforting squeeze, "I figure we're gonna get out of this alive and I'm going to have one hell of a story to print."
Torn between laughter and tears, Chloe settled for both as she threw her arms around Claudia and selfishly thanked god that she wasn't in this alone.
Hissing involuntarily when Chloe touched her wounds, Claudia offered the woman a small smile when she saw the worry swimming in her weary green eyes. "It looks a lot worse than it feels,"
Moving quickly, Chloe tore the left sleeve of her shirt off and ripped the scrap of fabric easily into two.
Gaping openly, Claudia felt a brief moment of vain horror pass through her. "You just ripped the sleeve off of a Marc Jacobs shirt, a shirt that probably cost more than what I make in a week."
Offering Claudia a weak smile as she gently bound her wounds, Chloe shook her head. "I think that's the least of your worries right now, Claudia."
Her mouth forming a serious line, Claudia inquired seriously. "He didn't hurt you…did he?"
"No, he didn't hurt me." Chloe whispered, resting her hands protectively over her stomach.
"Is the baby okay?"
Looking down at her shaking hands, Chloe exhaled uncertainly. "God, I hope so."
***
TBC.