Hi! No I'm not dead thanks for asking, but apparently this story is. No reviews? Kinda pitiful isn't it? Ah well. I'm much more excited about my new fic which is nearly finished! YAY!

Mindgames
Part 6

"Chloe?" Clark entered the Torch cautiously, expecting his editor to jump him with nothing less than a metal pipe or baseball bat for being late.

"Over here, Clark."

Chloe was rooting through the filing cabinet i the corner, a small scowl of concentration on her face.

"Chloe, I'm sorry I-" Clark began but Chloe held up a hand.

"Ok, it's alright. Don't worry about it." She said quickly and Clark felt the lead in his stomach lift slightly. "I'm sure you had better things to do anyway." She then added under her breath as she turned away.

Clark's small smile disappeared and he walked over to her. "Chloe, it's not like that…"

Chloe straightened up and turned around, folder in hand. "What's not like what Clark?" She asked sharply, and he remembered he wasn't supposed to have heard what she'd said.

Giving himself a huge mental kick Clark shuffled nervously, opening and closing his mouth like a fish out of water. Chloe couldn't help it. She smiled reluctantly at his deer-caught-in-the-headlights act.

Grudgingly deciding to let him off the hook this time, Chloe walked past him and to her computer, clicking back onto what she was researching. "Nevermind. Look what I found out." She beckoned him over.

"The bars of Aaron's cell were switched just before he escaped… several of the guards claimed the old bars were weakening… Chloe how did you find this out?" Clark exclaimed after skimming the page.

She grinned up at him. "Grasped at a few straws and found this on the end of one of them, I guess. And get this: The old bars were made of lead whereas the new ones were the regular stainless steel that all the other patients had."

"Lead..." He muttered. "There must be a reason for that, it's connected somehow, I know it…"

"The puzzle just keeps on growing, doesn't it?" Chloe commented and clicked off the screen. Clark smiled wryly at the very words he'd said to Lex earlier.

"Hey, perhaps Lex could help some more with this." He suggested optimistically.

"It's worth a shot." Chloe answered, glancing upat him.

"Yeah, I think I'll go ask him…" Clark said, then saw the look on Chloe's face. "…Right after I've finished up the article on the loudspeakers, which is infinitely more important." He grinned at her lopsidedly and she whacked him lightly with a nearby ruler.

"Get to it then Kent. Deadline in a half an hour, got it?" She ordered, starting to arrange the front page.

"Got it." Clark said back and pulled up a chair, taking the dreaded article out of his bag.

They worked in companionable silence for the next twenty minutes, occasionally one asking the other about the spelling of a certain word or if this particular sentence would fit in after that one.

"Clark." Chloe said thoughtfully a while later, having just finished printing off the first page. He glanced up at her for her to continue. "I've been thinking… you know the guy who followed me?"

"Yeah…" Clark said, his full attention now on his friend.

"Well, what if he was Aaron?" She said then quickly explained her theory ina rush before Clark could say anything. "I mean, I seem to have quite a track record with meteor freaks, and Aaron managed to escape somehow, leaving some interesting side-effects on the guards might I add. And I had some really whacked out dreams when I was unconscious - I think there's a connection."

"You could be right." Clark said pensively. "Some kind of hallucinatory powers, though?" He seemed a little doubtful at that. "What exactly were your dreams about, anyway?"

"Oh come on, Clark, we both know hallucinatory powers are not the weirdest thing to have happened here." Chloe effortlessly relieved the pressure on herself and gave it a 180° onto Clark. She stared at him pointedly and he stood up uneasily.

"I guess… here's the article, I better get over to Lex's, see you tomorrow!" He garbled out before slinging his bag over his shoulder and rather hastily making a beeline for the door.

Chloe looked at the article in her hands then up at Clark's disappearing back. She sighed and put it down, arranging it next to the front page. "Oh Clark," she muttered. "When are you going to let me in?"

Aaron didn't waste any time. After checking Lex was securely tied, her went back into the hallway and dragged all 6 unconscious security personnel into the room, piling them on top of each other by the wall like some sort of hideous modern sculpture.

Lex watched in dawning comprehension as he then snatched a mobile phone from his desk and headed purposefully back to him. Lex couldn't help it. He trembled at the desperate, deranged look in the man's eyes. He didn't want to go through any of that mental torture again. He couldn't go through any of that torture again.

Aaron seemed to notice Lex's discomfort as he approached him. "Don't worry, Lex. I need you sane for this." He knelt down beside him and waved the phone in his face. "Where's Daddy?"

"How the hell should I know." Lex spat out.

"Where is he!" Aaron shook Lex roughly, his emotions at breaking point. "I will find my sister and you're gonna help me! Now what's his private number?"

Lex hesitated and in that moment of hesitation, Aaron delved into his mind again. Lex cried out, eyes rolling madly in his head as in his mind's eye he saw Julian lying motionless in his cradle, his mother smiling at Lex as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Lex touched Julian's face, silent tears streaming down his own. His brother's chest ceased to rise and fall and Lex wanted to strike out, to hit Julian for dying on him, he was supposed to live, he had no right to die!

"YOU HAD NO RIGHT!" Lex let out a deafening yell, his eyes snapped back open and there was Aaron, a glint of madness rising to the surface of his eyes.

"It's alright, Lex." Aaron spoke softly. "You can stop the pain. You can end it." His voice lowered to a much more threatening note.

"Just give me the number."

Lex trembled again from the aftershocks of the vision and choked out "377214."

"Good boy." Aaron stood up and walked away from him, punching in the numbers rapidly.

Aaron started speaking but Lex heard none of it. All he could see was his brother's flour-white face staring accusingly up into his own, his normally vivid hazel eyes closed in death. Lex didn't feel the hot tears slide down his face and drip onto his expensive silk shirt.

A raised voice eventually broke through his trance and he gazed up to see Aaron pacing, gesturing wildly to an invisible companion.

"Look, I won't harm Chloe! I can't. So just give up this little game and tell me where Katie is or your son is dead to the world."

Aaron paused and listened intently, then appeared to wish to throw the phone across the room with force as his face contorted with rage.

"What do you mean that's not possible! You've seen what I can do! I have Lex right here-" Aaron strode angrily over to him, putting a hand on the back of his chair. He thrust the phone to Lex's mouth. "Talk." He ordered.

"Dad? I'm at the-" Lex started to say, but Aaron roughly backhanded him across the face and yanked the phone back.

"Proof enough!" Lex heard as he tasted blood and is head swam woozily.

"I don't care what you think, can't you understand! Your son will die if you do not co-operate!"

Lex couldn't hear his father's reply, but from Aaron's reaction, he could guess he wasn't co-operating.

Clark slowed his speed to a slow jog about 300 metres from the front gates, however, he sped up again to something just above a normal human's maximum speed when he saw with his perfect vision the gates wide open and swinging in the wind, and the guard slumped over in the mud.

He bent down and shook the man, but he was nowhere near the land of the living, as Chloe would call it. Swallowing heavily, he looked up at the mansion. It was in complete blackness, all the curtains were drawn and the huge oak door was creaking eerily in the strong breeze. Clark swallowed and stood up, then dashed into the house, dread lurking at the back of his mind of what he would find.

End of Part 6

I'm very happy already, (only 4 weeks till I go to Turkey, only 3 more weeks of school, only 2 weeks till the new Harry Potter book!), but I'd be much more happy if some would reveiew. (How big a hint do you need:P )