Part 10

Plan B

She was in a warehouse somewhere. It was full of crates and boxes that looked like they hadn't been touched in years. She walked among them with confidence, looking carefully right and left. What was she looking for again? Not her, but the one inside her body. Lana was still there, deep down, locked in her golden cage. A princess waiting to be rescued by her prince.

"Clark…," she heard her calling out. "Clark…I know you're here…" She stopped for a moment to listen. A faint noise like someone trying to run - to escape – was heard. Then the muffled sound of a fall. She smiled and made her way to the origin of the noise. "Come on, Clark, you can't hide forever. Your family's worried sick about you. Your mom…You dad…Chloe…Lex…me."

Nothing. No reply. He didn't want to be found. Unfortunately, Lana felt he didn't have a choice. She would find him and then something bad was going to happen. She turned a corner and there, leaned against the wall, looking like he was having trouble breathing, was Clark Kent.

"There you are," she said with a smile.

"Get away from me," he muttered trying to stand up, but fell back down as soon as he managed to get himself to stand. He was breathing heavily, like he was choking. Smashed crates were lying around him. What exactly had happened there? The woman inside her knew and was already gloating about it. Couldn't she do something to help him? Anything? She wanted to yell out to him, to warn him, to tell him to run away as fast as he could because she meant to hurt him.

"Now, now, is that any way to talk to the love of your life?" she asked with a fake pout, kneeling down next to him. She reached out to him, but he pushed her hand away. "You left before I had a chance to say my last I love you."

"Leave Lana alone!" he found the strength to cry out.

"I'm afraid that's quite impossible now, Clark," she smirked. "Best thing you can do is to give in and leave the world up to me. Go to sleep," she muttered leaning forward until her mouth was an inch away from his. "Dream of Lana Lang. That's the only place you'll ever have her in."

"NO!" he backed up into the wall and turned his head away. She sighed.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way," she said and standing up walked up to the wall. Leaning down toward him, she put a hand around his neck and told him, through clenched teeth: "Now kiss me," she forced her mouth down onto his. He tried to push her away and Lana, inside the body, was rooting for him to succeed. But he was weak for some reason and she, like always, was too strong. He gave in to the kiss, opened his mouth. The green light appeared from between her lips again and dragged itself into him like a parasite. She smiled.

No, Clark, Lana, inside her, cried out and Clark's eyes opened wide. Had he heard her? Shoving her onto her back, he crawled onto her and continued to kiss her fiercely. What was he doing? There was something destructive in that kiss. The green light wouldn't stop leaving her body. What was he doing? Then slowly, his body went limp and he fell unconscious on top of her. Throwing him off of her, she got up, brushed herself off. Looking down at him with a grimace, she pointed toward him, whispering something in an old forgotten language, but nothing happened. She tried again. Nothing. Again. Nothing. Again. Again. Again. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

Anger seeped into her and she kicked the unconscious body, yelling as loud as she could:

"What did you do! What did you do!"

Lana was woken up by the sound of a phone ringing. She had to blink several times to realize she was awake. She looked around herself. Where was she this time? Metropolis. Lex's bedroom. Had something happened between them? Yeah, they had gotten married and…and…she held her head for a moment, then realized that the phone was continuing to ring somewhere. Standing up from the bed she looked around the room, but the sound wasn't coming from there. When she opened the door, the ringing got louder. It was coming from the living room that was separated from the bedroom only through a short corridor. She rushed to the living room and finding the phone responsible for all the noise, she answered it, still a little sleepily:

"Hello?"

"Did you tell him about Lang Pharmaceuticals?" an urgent sounding female voice asked her on the other end of the line.

"Chloe?" she asked frowning.

"Yeah," she answered and after a beat added: "Well, did you?"

"How did you get this number?" she asked confused.

"I have my ways," she said hurriedly. "Look, Lana…"

"What if Lex had answered?" she went on.

"He's at work at this hour," she replied. "Lana, listen to me, did you tell him about Lang Pharmaceuticals? That you wanted to go there today?"

"Yes," she recalled the previous night. "Why?"

"Turn on your TV. On a news channel," she told her and Lana picked up the TV's remote from the table and turned the massive wide screen TV on. She flipped through the channels until she reached one that had a news report on. A reporter was just announcing:

"…Lang Pharmaceuticals last night. Initial investigations suggest that a short-circuit caused one of the massive machines to explode and trigger a chain reaction that wound up destroying the entire factory. Luckily, there were no human casualties. Authorities haven't crossed out the possibility of the explosion being a result of a hostile action against Lang Pharmaceuticals as the controversial company is currently on trial for distribution of untested drugs. Lana Luthor, CEO and owner of Lang Pharmaceuticals, was unavailable for comments…" In the background, the remains of what had once been one of the Lang Pharmaceuticals factories was shown as the firemen were putting the last flames out.

"Oh my god," she let out incredulous.

"Kinda of a big coincidence that this happened right before you were supposed to go there, don't you think?" she replied.

"No, Lex wouldn't…," she didn't want to believe it.

"Newsflash, yes he would," she scoffed. "This is the same Lex Luthor that offed his entire executive board when he found out someone was leaking information to the press we're talking about. You gotta get rid of these feelings Isobel's put in your mind…"

"Yeah, but…you said it yourself a lot of people hated Isobel and Lang Pharmaceuticals has hurt a lot of people, maybe one of them was mad enough to…," she tried to find a different explanation.

"No one attacks the Luthors unless they want to be hunted down and killed along with everyone they ever knew or loved," she interrupted her.

"Well, nothing happened to you after you published those stories about Lang Pharmaceuticals," she reminded her.

"Yeah, but only because when they'd win the trial it would be a bigger victory to prove I was lying and destroy my credibility through it," she pointed out. "Worst thing that could happen to a journalist."

"I still don't think he'd blow up a building just because I wanted to go there," she said and decided she would have to hear the truth from Lex himself. If she went to Luthorcorp and asked him straight out…he wouldn't lie to her, would he?

Later, across town, at the Luthorcorp offices, Lex was in the middle of a meeting. Lawyers and insurance agents were trying to come to a compromise regarding the destruction of the Lang Pharmaceuticals factory. The insurance companies were trying to escape payment of the damages through a bureaucratic loop. Luthorcorp lawyers were using every trick in the book to make the explosion legit in insurance terms. And Lex was presiding over the chaos. As soon as news of the factory's destruction had hit the media, the phones at Lang Pharmaceuticals had been ringing off the hook and since Lana was in no condition to handle the mess, he had taken it upon himself to fill in for her. So far however all he had gotten out of it had been a headache. Lawyers and insurance agents in the same room meant only one thing: unending arguments and a nightmarish bureaucratic war that would eventually be won by who had been conniving enough when developing contracts. And since he had hired only the most ruthless lawyers, Lex assumed the end result would be in his favor, but that didn't mean they could simply skip over the arguments.

A knock on the door reduced the room to silence and the people finally seemed to re-acknowledge Lex's presence there as all eyes darted toward him.

"Yes?" he asked on a calm voice although the meeting had been getting on his last nerve. His secretary entered the conference room and told him:

"Mr. Luthor, your wife's here. She wants to talk to you." Same low voice she had been using since he had hired her. It was one of the things he liked about her. A high-pitched voice would have probably irritated him, but the even soft voice provided for a soothing sensation.

"Mrs. Luthor?" one of the insurance agents looked at Lex. "She should join the meeting. She, as owner of Lang Pharmaceuticals, could maybe…"

"No, she couldn't," Lex told him firmly standing up. "The gentlemen here are her representatives and anything you need to deal with her, you can safely go through them. I'll return shortly."

Without another word, he left the conference room and took a deep breath as soon as he was out of the room. Behind him, he could hear the arguments being reprised as if he had never left the room. He made his way to the office and entering it, found Lana pacing nervously in front of his empty desk.

"Lana," he greeted her drawing her attention toward him as he closed the door behind him. She stared back at him and the look in her eyes – doubt and just a bit of anger – made the reason of her visit obvious. He had hoped he wouldn't have to go through that, but that had been wishful thinking.

"I assume you've heard about the factory?" she said on an impatient tone as he made his way to his chair.

"Hard not to. It was all over the news this morning," he pointed out. He paused for a moment before sitting down, staring into her eyes. Then when he was seated comfortably, he told her with a smirk: "Aren't you going to ask what you came here to ask?"

"Did you have anything to do with it?" she asked taking a deep breath. And the way she had said it, the look of hope in her eyes, the way she was hanging on to it…it just pleaded with him to lie:

"No, I had nothing to do with it."

She sighed relieved without knowing it. Lex knew he would have told Isobel the truth. She would have never believed anything else. Even if he had really been innocent, she would have still blamed him for it.

"I told you I was going to go there last night and today it's gone. Doesn't that sound slightly incriminating?" she insisted on it although something inside her felt he was being honest. Maybe if you want something to be true, you convince yourself of it even if you're lying to yourself.

"You're right, it does," he admitted. He stood up and walked over to her. "Lana, you have to believe me, I would never do anything to hurt you, just to protect you," he couldn't help himself from gently tracing her cheek with his hand.

"I…," she looked up at him and his mouth was so close to hers… An urgent knock on the door made her pull away. His secretary entered the office without being asked in and after glancing shortly at them both, addressed Lex:

"Mr. Luthor, your presence is urgently requested in the conference room. It seems one of the insurance people tried to strangle Mr. Addison," she named one of the lawyers.

"Tell them I'll be right there," he told her. They had probably already reached the blackmailing stage. He shook his head. If no one was there to watch over them, those people really got out of control. They needed someone they all feared in the room with them for the negotiations to be even mildly civilized. The secretary nodded and left. When she was gone, Lex turned back toward Lana: "I'm sorry. I have to go. But if you want to visit any of the other factories or see the remains of the one that burnt down…"

"No," she shook her head. It didn't matter anymore. She felt it. It had been that factory that had meant something. And with that thought the seed of doubt was replanted in her mind. Could he have known it was that important to her? "I'll try the questions again. Maybe this time I'll remember something else," she shrugged and headed for the door.

"If it's of any comfort to you, one of the Lang Pharmaceuticals employees was responsible for the explosion. He was on the list of the Lang Pharmaceuticals complainants without our knowledge," he explained. Lana would probably read about that verdict in the papers the next day. It had been the official version the lawyers had decided on as it would greatly benefit Lang Pharmaceuticals if some of the complainants were proven to have had criminal intentions against the company.

"Thank you," she said before heading out.

She wanted to believe what he had told her had been true, she really did, but something inside her seemed unconvinced by his confession. A tremor crossed her body at the thought that that certain something was actually Isobel stirring inside her. She made her way to the elevator. Once inside, she pushed the ground floor button. Five floors down, the doors opened again and a strange little man got on. He stared at her intently as if waiting for her to recognize him.

"I'm sorry, do I know you?" she asked frowning.

"My name is John Sutton, I'm an employee of Lang Pharmaceuticals…of the factory that blew up last night," he chuckled nervously as he fiddled around with a wide brown envelope.

"Really?" she forced herself to smile and unconsciously took a step away from him wondering if that was the same employee Lex had been talking about. No, he was probably already captured. Locked away somewhere.

"You really don't remember me?" he asked sighing. She shook her head and looked at him apologetically. "You said that might happen."

"When did we talk?" she asked curiously.

"A while ago," he said and then extending the brown envelope toward her added: "You said that if anything were to happen to the factory, I should give you this envelope. That you would know what to do with it."

"Thank you," she said accepting it.

At the next floor, he got off. Lana was left alone in the elevator staring at the envelope. It was obviously some sort of message from Isobel. Whatever had been destroyed in the factory and she was supposed to see was there. She looked at it hesitantly. On one side, she was curious to see what it was - happy that she hadn't lost something she felt was essential. But on the other side, it had occurred to her how wrong Isobel wanting her to find out something was. For a moment she felt like a puppet dancing to someone's tune. She turned the envelope on all sides. There was nothing written on it. No clue as to what it held inside.

She waited until she got back to the apartment and only then dared to open it. She thought she might find another strange piece of glass containing some sort of secret message. Instead she found a drawing. An S in a diamond shape. She looked at it surprised. Turned the piece of paper over. There was nothing on the back. She looked into the envelope to see if there wasn't anything else inside it. It was empty. She looked at the drawing again. She tilted her head as she stared at it, then like a flash she had a vision of herself drawing it.

"What…," was all she could mutter before she was flooded by a torrent of images. Luthorcorp. A basement. A tank. Lex leaning in to get a closer look. And in the tank, floating in a green liquid, Clark. And she, standing just a few feet away, smirking. She blinked and she was back in the apartment, clutching the now ripped apart drawing in her hands.

It couldn't be true…could it? Could Lex have done such a thing? What if it was just Isobel poisoning her mind? Still, those images felt so real… And it felt like she had seen them before. Somewhere. She picked up the phone and quickly dialed a number. When Chloe picked up at the other end of the line, she said, in a shaking voice:

"I know where Clark is."

End Part 10