Part 7

Trapped

The scotch in his glass was translucent, dark, alluring. He had that smirk on his face. That smirk that had been typical for him for as long as she could remember him.

"I should've know from the first minute," he mused as he looked back at her. "I suppose I just didn't want to believe it."

"You do love deluding yourself," she spoke through her mouth again and she was powerless to stop her. What was she doing perched up on his desk? Crossing her legs and leaning back for? And why on earth was she wearing that?

"Occasionally," he admitted tilting his head ever so slightly. For a moment his icy blue gaze settled on her legs, then he blinked and stared in her eyes. His moment of wondering hadn't escaped her though. She smirked.

"It's an easy bargain, Alexander," she said jumping off the desk. "You want this body. I want the world."

"Fair trade," he muttered under his breath before emptying the glass of scotch.

"I also offer you something you've been wanting for a while," she added with a wicked smile.

"And what's that?" he asked raising his eyebrows.

"The head of Clark Kent," she answered smiling devilishly.

She startled awake and her head felt like it weighed a couple of tones. She fell back onto the pillows. Pillows. She frowned. There weren't that many pillows on the bed in the apartment. Or the couch. She stood up, leaning on her elbows. Dizziness and a sensation of nausea filled her senses. She tried to chase them away and looked around the room she was in. It was huge. Well furnished, modern, rich. What was the last thing she remembered? She was in her apartment with Chloe and the landlord had wanted to check the gas pipes and then…something rolled into the room and then…then…nothing. Her mind was a big blur. She had a massive blank. And now she was…somewhere else. Could Isobel have taken her over again? Or had she been abducted?

She got out of bed and stumbled toward the door. She had feared it would be closed, but surprisingly, it wasn't. She left the room and leaned on the wall in the hallway, feeling like she was about to collapse. She heard a muffled voice in the distance. Taking a deep breath, she headed in the direction it was coming from. She found herself in a spacious living room with Lex pacing a few feet away from her with a scotch glass in one hand and holding a cell in his other. He was talking to someone on the phone:

"This had to be done yesterday! No, I will not accept any kind of excuses from you or any of your men! Do you understand what's at stake here, doctor?" he sighed. "Good. I don't want any more blunders. I'm going to…" he noticed Lana leaning on the wall, with her eyes half-open and rushed to her side before she collapsed on the floor. He helped her to the couch and only then returned to the person he had been talking to. "Yes, I'm still here…Get back to me after you've done your job right," he ended the call and crouched down in front of the couch. "Are you all right?"

"Where…," she looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings. "Where am I?"

"You're in my apartment," he said calmly, touching her cheek lightly.

"What…why…," she pulled away from his touch. Her head felt heavy.

"Don't force yourself," he urged her gently. "The sedatives haven't quite worn off yet."

"Sedatives…," she repeated as her eyes closed, but this time she didn't open them again. She had fallen asleep. He caressed her hair lovingly and then took her in his arms and back into the bedroom. He laid her down onto the bed gently and laid a kiss on her forehead. He watched her for a few moments. Lana Lang. The real Lana Lang. He sighed and rubbed his face tiredly, then hearing his phone ring in the living room where he had left it, he stood up and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Back at Lana's apartment, Chloe had an unpleasant awakening. She was lying on the floor and her jaw felt sore and she had dried blood on her chin. She had probably hit her chin and bit her lip when she had fallen. And as she struggled to scamper to her feet, she realized she was awfully dizzy and had a monster headache.

"Uhh," she let out as she winced in pain and made her way to the bathroom. "Daily Planet New Year's Eve party redux," she muttered to herself as she splashed cold water on her face. She hadn't been in such a bad state since Daily Planet's annual New Year's Eve party when she had had a little bit too much to drink and had woken up the next day feeling like she was dying and not remembering most of the things she had done. Monday at work, she had gotten a standing ovation. She didn't want to know what that had been for.

She returned to the living room and inspected it. Obviously, Lana was gone. The question was who took her. She tried to piece together the puzzle, but her mind was still too Swiss-cheesed to be able to function properly.

"Okay, coffee. Coffee first. Machiavellian machinations later," she told herself and headed for the kitchen.

"He looks good in green," she said leaning closer to the tank to stare at the unconscious person within it.

"It keeps him unconscious," he said pacing behind her. She looked back at him.

"Don't be so nervous, Alexander," she told him amused. "This is what you wanted after all."

"No, I didn't want this," he gestured toward the tank.

"Then what? You wanted him to tell you? If you're thinking that could've ever happened you're out of your mind," she chuckled. "With the naughty way you've been behaving?" she neared him and dangerously invaded his private space.

"Stop it," he said pulling away.

"Oh, come on, Lex, we're getting married or did that escape your elusive mind?" she asked and added smiling after a moment: "Don't tell me you're getting soft on me. Your conscience eating away at you and yelling: it's wrong, Lex, it's wrong!" she said on a mocking voice. "Too late to be playing boy scout. You got the alien in a tank," she knocked on tank's glass and then added: "And heading straight toward fucking Smallville's princess without her consent. Playing hero with a conscience now is like a bad joke. Met by a dead silence."

"No," he said, but it was obvious her words had been a direct hit. "I'm still trying to get used to the idea. Of actually being allowed to touch you."

"Really?" she asked pulling him closer to her by the tie. "Then we should fix that," she kissed him and at first he was hesitant – like his words… what had happened to him? What Lex Luthor wanted, he took, but he had never taken Lana Lang – and then, letting some of his frustration seep into the kiss, pinned her on the tank's glass wall and ravished her. Over his shoulder, reflecting itself into the glass door, she saw him leaned over her, and behind them, in the tank, the unconscious form of Clark Kent.

"Clark!" she stood up abruptly in the bed, but the movement had been too fast and her headache made itself known to her again. She saw Lex sitting down in an armchair next to the bed with a thick file in his lap. "What did you do to him! Where…what…" but the dream was quickly becoming a blur. The words faded away along with the faces and she had only a vague recollection of it.

"What did I do to whom?" he asked calmly raising his eyebrows. Of course he had heard what she had cried out. But one of the things he had to make sure of now that he was aware of Isobel's intentions was never letting Lana find Clark.

"I saw a tank. There was someone inside it. Someone I knew," she told him breathing heavily. "And I…I was the one that put him there."

"It was just a dream," he tried to brush it off although in truth, she – well, Isobel – was actually responsible for what had happened to Clark. He wondered how long he would be able to keep up the charade. It was obvious Isobel's memories were recurring to her through her dreams. He had heard her muttering their wedding vows in her sleep after she had been brought there. Till death do us apart then, Isobel, he thought to himself bitterly and wondered how long Isobel had planned to keep him alive after the completion of her plans. How could he have been so blind? Because she had played him so well. She had attacked him where he was most vulnerable . Had distracted him with all her affairs and first page scandals. Now, he thought even the Lang Pharmaceuticals trial had been a diversion maneuver. He sighed, but couldn't help admiring Isobel's ingenious plans. Who could've thought she had it in her? And here he had been, thinking she was just some powerless 17th century witch looking for the good life and a little power play. How much he had underestimated her.

"No, it wasn't!" Lana protested. "I've been having nothing but these nightmares since I came back. It's like Isobel's…"

"Still inside your mind?" he asked raising his eyebrows. "That's because she still is. That's the reason I brought you here for. To make sure she can't do anything to harm you again."

"So you can keep an eye on me, you mean," she said suspicious.

"It's for your own safety," he assured her.

"You can't keep me locked up in here," she protested.

"You're not locked up," pointed out with a thin smile. The room wasn't closed, but she'd have trouble getting out of the apartment and the building without his consent.

"I'm free to go then?" she asked him.

"I was thinking how strange all this must be to you," he avoided to answer her question. "Waking up in Metropolis. Not knowing where you are…" he sighed and stood up. "You need your rest. I have to go take care of some things, but I'll see you later."

"Lex…," she called out to him before he left the room. He turned back toward her. "I want you to do something for me."

"Name it," he said with a smile.

"Can you shut down Lang Pharmaceuticals?" she asked nervously and after a moment of hesitation added: "F-for me?"

"I'm sorry, I can't," he said shaking his head.

"But…," she started saying distressed, but he interrupted her:

"It's not that I don't want to, but I don't have any sort of power over it anymore. Isobel's transferred everything on her name. Your name," he explained.

"Does that mean I can shut it down? Will you let me go just to do…whatever it is I have to do to shut it down?" she asked.

"You can't do it either," he told him matter-of-factly.

"But…you just said it's all on my name," she reminded him.

"Yes," he nodded. "But Isobel's gone to great lengths to make sure no one but she can terminate Lang Pharmaceuticals. We're talking passwords and complicated procedures. The only way you could shut it down would be if you had all her memories. Which you don't."

"Then turn the trial's outcome around. Make Lang Pharmaceuticals lose and let the courts forcefully shut it down," she suggested.

"I can't," Lex said sighing. Isobel had done one banged up job at tying his hands behind his back. "If Lang Pharmaceuticals falls it will take Luthorcorp down with it. And I can't allow that. It would mean inviting disaster into my company."

"And there's nothing we…you can do about it?" she asked frustrated.

"No, I'm sorry," he shook his head. "Lang Pharmaceuticals will start mass-producing its drugs globally as early as next month."

"Oh, god," she covered her mouth with her hand.

"I'm going to try to attack the drugs through the American Health Committee and organize a publicity campaign against its products funded through a shadow corporation. In time, without Isobel, the company will die," Lex assured her. "Now get some rest," he suggested and left the room.

Alone, Lana couldn't help but feel uneasy. Global mass production. How many people were going to die because of those drugs? The drugs Isobel had launched on the market. That she had launched on the market. No, she'd have to put an end to it. Somehow. For some reason she found herself wondering where Clark was.

"Hmm, green always looked good on him," she muttered and frowned. Where had she heard that before? And why had she felt the urge to say it?

Across Metropolis, freshened up by a gigantic cup of coffee, Chloe was reanalyzing the facts. She had concluded that what had come out from the sphere thrown inside the apartment had been knock-out gas. A brief analysis of her current condition. The headache. The speed at which the gas had worked. She chuckled to herself, if you were a good enough journalist, you were bound to run into every nauseous gas on the planet from tear gas to knock-out gas to the more deadly poisonous types if someone wanted something kept secret really badly.

As far as the person behind Lana's abduction was concerned, she was having doubts. So many people wanted Lana Luthor dead, tortured or evaporated. It could have been a number of people from competing pharmaceutical companies Mrs. Luthor hadn't exactly treated fairly to the 100.000 complainants involved in the Lang Pharmaceutical trial. But knock-out gas? She sighed as she fiddled around with the cup in front of her. She then recalled the landlord having talked to her through the door. Lana had recognized him as the real deal and that meant he had seen whoever had taken Lana away. Smiling, she got out of the apartment and headed for the landlord's apartment.

She knocked insistently a couple of times.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm coming!" a voice yelled after a few moments and then the door cracked open. When he saw who it was he wanted to shut the door in her face, but Chloe had been quicker and shoved the door open and entered his apartment. "Get out or…or I'll call the police!"

"Calm down, chubby, I just want to know who took my friend," Chloe told him. "And don't try anything cause I know jujitsu."

"Yeah, sure…," he said skeptical.

"You'd be amazed how many self-protection classes journalists are sent to," Chloe said with a smirk. "Now, who took my friend?"

"I don't know," he shrugged. "They said they were from some special police unit, that your friend had problems with the law…I didn't want any trouble here so I did what they asked me to do."

"Special police unit," she shook her head. If she had a nickel for every time she had heard that phrase in Metropolis, she would've been filthy rich by then. But whose 'special police unit' had it been this time? "What kind of uniforms did they have?"

"Black. All black. Big guns," the landlord hurried to say.

"Machine guns or hand guns?" she asked.

"I don't know, lady, I don't know much about guns," he told her.

"Okay…did you see any of their faces?" she went on. The man shook his head.

"There was one thing that was peculiar about them," he recalled just now. "They had these funny communication devices. Like they were made of glass or somethin'."

"LWM," she muttered. "Thank you," she told him and left his apartment in a hurry. So it had been Luthorcorp's special black ops team. At least that meant Lana hadn't been harmed. She was pretty sure Lex wouldn't allow anything to happen to her. He was probably trying to make her see his side of the story. "Good luck with that," she said to herself as she made it to the street.

End Part 7