Kara flew into her room in a panicked frenzy, her eyes quickly scanning the area and finding her sister, who was pacing back and forth nervously. Kara seemed to miss this as she immediately blurted out the first thing on her mind, which just so happened to be simultaneous with what Alex was saying.

"Alex—"

"Kara—"

"There's something I need to tell you!"

"You first," Alex said quickly, before Kara could say the same thing. "You look like you're about to shit yourself."

"The Coopers think it was a Kryptonian that killed Gemma's mother."

"Oh, shit," Alex said, her eyes widening in surprise. "Gemma must know that you're Kryptonian then, and that's why she went after you specifically. It's not just that you're an alien… fuck. Now my thing sounds unimportant," the last part came out a bit mumbled as she ran a hand through her hair and averted her gaze, clearly stressed by what Kara had told her, but Kara could tell that it was deeper than that.

"No way," Kara said, shaking her head, "we can deal with my thing in a second. You tell me what's bothering you first. I can tell it's more than just what I said."

"I'm, uh," Alex said, her eyes flicking around the room, looking everywhere to avoid meeting Kara's gaze. "Well, I think that maybe I'm… I'm gay? And I might… sort of have a… girlfriend? Potentially?"

"What's her name?"

Alex's eyes snapped to Kara's to see that the girl was beaming at her with an eager glimmer in her eyes. For a moment, she stared at the blonde, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide, not quite sure how to respond. She'd been prepared for a lot of scenarios, but she hadn't thought this would be one. It wasn't like she had been expecting Kara to be rude about it, but she hadn't been expecting her to be quite so… thrilled, either. Kara seemed to pick up on her surprise and laughed a little.

"Oh, come on, Alex, this doesn't change the way I see you. Besides, we didn't think about sexuality the same way on Krypton. We considered it more of a fluid thing, you were free to love who you chose to love and that was that. There isn't anything wrong with you, love is beautiful no matter who you love. So, who is she?"

A smile broke out across Alex's face, and Kara watched as her entire expression lit up like a Christmas tree. "Her name's Maggie. She's in a lot of my classes, and we started passing notes because we were bored at the beginning of the year. She gave me her number on Friday and, well… I think we might be going on a date next weekend?" Her voice sounded hesitant, but Kara could tell from the way her eyes shone and she couldn't keep the grin off of her face that Alex was absolutely ecstatic.

Kara pulled her sister in for a nearly bone-crushing hug before freeing her and giving her a huge smile. "I am so happy for you, Alex," she said, and her sister let out a little, relieved laugh, before punching Kara in the shoulder.

"Don't break my ribs next time you hug me, little freak," she said, though she was still grinning at Kara and she said the nickname in a soft, endeared tone of voice. Kara just let out a laugh before her face fell into a serious expression again.

Alex noticed the shift in energy and said in a serious tone, "But we need to deal with this Gemma thing now."

"That's not the only thing I found out," Kara confided, glad that Alex understood how dire the situation was. She sounded hesitant when she spoke again, "It was Lena who found that information. She doesn't know that the person who was accused of killing Gemma's mother was a Kryptonian, but the woman has an obviously Kryptonian name. Alex, she promised me she wasn't going to go digging into Gemma's past. She could find out I'm not human."

"And?" Alex asked gently.

"What do you mean?" Kara asked incredulously. Wasn't it obvious? She had to keep her identity hidden; Jeremiah had warned her extensively and she knew that if Lena knew the truth, it would put her at risk. It was the same reason she hadn't told Winn until it was absolutely necessary; the same reason she still hadn't told Nia.

"Well," Alex said thoughtfully, shrugging, "Would it be all that bad if she found out? I mean, at this point, you two are really close. She's already at risk, but she doesn't know how severe it is because she doesn't know what you are. Winn and I both know, and if I had to guess, I think Nia's had a premonition or dream about it, because she seems to catch on to your alien attributes a lot more easily now. Lena's brilliant, independent, and capable. It could, you know, be good for both of you if you told her."

Kara stared at her for a moment as if she had grown another head, or maybe a pair of bat wings. She couldn't believe that the same Alex who had scolded her for wanting to fly at night was now suggesting that she tell someone her true identity. Deep down, Kara knew the real reason she still hadn't told Lena was because she was terrified of telling her the truth. She was afraid that at this point, she was so far into the lie that Lena would never forgive her for it. She would've betrayed Lena like so many others in her life. She remembered Lena's words from earlier, it's not like you lied to me about who you are or what you've experienced. That was exactly what she had done, and that was Lena's worst case scenario.

"I can tell she means a lot to you," Alex went on, breaking Kara's thoughts when the blonde continued to stare at her with a dumbfounded look on her face. "I know it's scary, but don't you think she'd rather hear the truth from you than find out you've been lying to her because she dug it up herself? You're afraid of her finding that information because it's possible for her to find it. And if she's going to be in your life for a while, it's going to be exhausting to keep hiding it and only make her feel more betrayed if she finds out."

"You're right," Kara finally caved, letting out a sigh. "I'm… I'm scared, though, Alex. What if she doesn't forgive me? She's my best friend… I don't want to lose her, and I never wanted to betray her trust."

"She'll forgive you," Alex said adamantly, grabbing Kara's hand and squeezing it reassuringly. As she looked at Alex, Kara had a flash of recognition; Alex reminded her of her aunt and her mother, in a way. In that moment, Kara was grateful for where she'd ended up on Earth. Alex's confidence was inspirational, and her certainty eased Kara's fears in a matter of seconds.

Alex went on, "She cares about you too, or she wouldn't be doing all that digging. Now, it's late and there's class tomorrow, so why don't we call it a night and you can tell Lena tomorrow? Then, maybe we can all work together to crack this Gemma problem."

Kara smiled nervously, but gave Alex a nod, finally allowing herself to believe that she had the strength to tell Lena without destroying their friendship. "Alright. Tomorrow, then."

…

When Lena awoke, she didn't recognize her surroundings at all and had no concept of time. She was in something that resembled a relatively nice prison cell; there was a twin bed in the corner of the room with an empty little nightstand next to it, both of which looked like antiques. There was a door at the back of the room which she eagerly opened in the hopes it would lead to her escape, only to find that it was just a dinky little bathroom, complete with a flickering yellow light. The floor was hardwood, and on the blank wall before her, Lena saw a thin rectangular line, which she could only assume was a door that could only be opened from the other side.

Fuck.

It was a good thing she was ahead in all of her classes and only really needed school for socialization, at least. She wouldn't be missing any assignments that would majorly impact her. But, fuck. She'd been kidnapped by the second most ruthless family in the world, second only to her own, which was currently off trying to figure out how to take down Superman and not focused on the whereabouts of Lena.

Well, she thought, feeling a glimmer of hope, I did tell Lex I would call him today. Perhaps he'll notice when I'm unable to do that.

Kara would definitely notice.

Double fuck.

Kara, who was hiding something from her, and who was currently angry with her for lying. She was suddenly upset that she hadn't tried harder to get Kara to stay, forced her to have that conversation in the moment that she had anxiously slipped out of Lena's room. Maybe then, she could've eased the truth out of her blonde friend, and even if this kidnapping had still taken place, she would at least know what Kara's connection to all of it was, and her friend would surely be looking for her—maybe they wouldn't be on as bad of terms now.

Don't be foolish, a voice in the back of her head said. Kara will look for you no matter how upset she is.

And that was exactly the problem. Gemma was certainly going to anticipate that. That's why it was Lena in the cell and not Kara. For some reason, Gemma needed Kara's compliance, and because Kara was so determined to protect Lena, the Luthor now had no idea what that reason was.

It's not Kara's fault, she told herself gently, though she still felt a bit angry. She could've helped. Why didn't her friend trust her? What the hell does Gemma have on you?

Lena finally stopped pacing the room and sat down on the bed, hearing the springs of the old mattress groan under her weight. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but she supposed she ought to be grateful there was a bed at all. She dropped her head into her hands and tried to think about the things that could possibly point to Kara's connection to all of this. She would need to be connected in some way to Myza Nok-Ur, an alien… she was a refugee… her entire family, gone…

I never understood the gravity of her situation until…

I'm an idiot, Lena thought, surprise racing through her as the theory began to form in her head and things began to click into place. Just then, the door swung open, and in walked Andrea, holding a little remote control in one hand. Lena's eyes glanced up and down Andrea and quickly spotted what resembled a door handle, but that Lena assumed had magnets of some kind on it. Bingo.

Innovative, Lena thought, realizing almost instantly that that was how they were able to get out of the cell from the inside. She assumed it locked from the outside, which meant that if she were going to escape, she would need to somehow take the handle from Andrea and exit before she was able to close her in and lock it.

"I'm sure you're wondering where you are," Andrea said, sounding mostly bored but a tinge amused, "what day it is, what time it is. I told Gemma it might be nice for you to have a window, you know, maybe a sun roof of some kind, to see the time of day, but we both decided giving a Luthor access to the outside was too dangerous. You'd probably track the stars or something ridiculous to pinpoint your location. I'm sure you've seen the bathroom, it's decent plumbing, you know, considering the fact that you're not paying rent—"

"Cut to the chase, Andrea," Lena interrupted in an annoyed voice, meeting her eyes with a cold, sinister glare that would've terrified any normal person. "Why am I here? What the hell is going on? What does Gemma want with Kara?"

"Well," Andrea snapped, ignoring Lena's flow of questions. "It's Tuesday. About midday; free period for me."

"So, we're near campus," Lena said bluntly. "Not your best move."

"Or could it be exactly our best move?" Andrea said with a smirk, tilting her head to one side. "Anyhow, you've been in and out of it for the last, oh, twenty-four hours or so. That Kara Danvers is beside herself, truly entertaining to witness the spiral, I almost wish you could be there to see it. Gemma hasn't even met with her yet to negotiate; that'll be the real entertainment. Oh, did I call her Kara Danvers? Or was it Kara Zor-El?"

Lena's shoulders tensed and she felt the gears in her head churn. So, her theory was right. Nok-Ur, Zor-El. They had the same structure.

"What do you want with her?" Lena said, her voice cold, straightforward. She could deal with Kara lying after she found out just how much danger the two of them were in.

"Well, I suppose there's no harm in telling you, since Gemma calculated and the possibility of anyone finding you here is about .0002%. I trust her calculations, they've never been wrong before. You see, I'm going to find the Medallion of Acrata. There's a fortress somewhere on Earth, and buried in it is a database of all kinds of information and technology that most humans can hardly dream of. Do you know what the key is to getting into that fortress, Lena?"

Lena glared at her, saying nothing and waiting for her to answer her own question.

"A Kryptonian."

Lena froze. Impossible. No… if Kara was a Kryptonian… that meant…

There wasn't a scratch on you. You're like a cat, you basically have nine lives.

How the hell did you get down then?

You didn't learn about which countries were involved in the world wars?

It all made so much sense. Lena wanted to spit on Andrea and tell her that she was full of shit. But Lena wasn't a fool. Andrea was telling the truth; for the first time in the entire time Lena had known her, Andrea was actually telling the truth. She remembered what Lex had said on the phone about Kryptonians having enhanced abilities under a yellow sun. Heat vision. A Kryptonian had destroyed her father's work and killed him. Lena wondered if Superman and Kara were related. She felt sick to her stomach.

"Oh, Lena, you don't look so good," Andrea said with mock sympathy on her face. "I can bring you a glass of water, if you'd like?"

"…yeah…" Lena forced out, trying to drag herself out of her spiraling thoughts "…a glass of water sounds great."

As Andrea turned for the door, Lena saw her only opportunity and she lunged forward. Her hand wrapped around the magnetic door handle right before Andrea reached for it, and she yanked it back, feeling a surge of relief and excitement for a moment, only to find her own wrist locked in Andrea's hand almost as soon as she'd latched on. Andrea looked at her with a pitying smile and shook her head sadly.

"You shouldn't have done that," Andrea murmured in a sympathetic tone, using her free hand to press a button on the remote control she was holding. Lena suddenly felt a burst of pain like electricity surge through her temples, and her hand instantly released the handle. She let out a cry of pain as her hands flew to her head, and as she crumpled to the floor, Andrea left the room, locking it behind her.

Lena took deep breaths for a moment, feeling as though her brain were on fire, before the pain gradually started to ebb away. She felt her temples and realized she had what felt like tape with wires connected to them, but the wires were embedded just far enough into her skin that she feared the consequences if she tried to pull them off. It must've been some invention of the Coopers that mimicked electroshock.

When the pain wore off, tears were already pouring down Lena's cheeks, and she hated how pathetic she felt. Kara had lied about everything. And she had lied continuously. If her entire kind were gone, that meant that she and Superman were likely the only ones left, and Superman had killed her father. And still, Kara lied to her. Lena let out an enraged scream as she grabbed the bedside table forcefully with both hands and hurled it across the room, where it hit the wall with a loud thud and fell to the ground with a couple of the legs breaking off.

As she buried her face in the pillow, which smelled old, as if it hadn't been used in ages, Lena found herself angrily sobbing, and the last thought she had before drifting into a fitful sleep was, To hell with it. Let them use me as bait. As long as I don't get hurt, I'll play the game and Kara will get what's coming to her. I don't have to help any more than I already have.

…

Lena awoke once more into what she thought was a dream at first. Everything had been dreams lately; she had seen Gemma in some of them, Andrea in some of them, coming in and out and never allowing her freedom. All of them took place in the cell. In most of them, she had spoken with them to find out that she would be forced to live with the consequences of being used as bait for Kara, which at worst seemed to be that Andrea got to the medallion before her and snatched it out from under her nose. Lena had a feeling that minimal stakes dreams were actually her conscience trying to make her feel better about being so okay with her friend being blackmailed.

Because, yes, she thought, against her better judgment, Kara was still her friend. Kara would always be her friend, and honestly, that was one of the things that hurt Lena the most about the entire situation. Kara, the horrible liar, had somehow pulled one over on Lena for the entirety of their friendship thus far, and yet, she was the best friend Lena had ever had. Even given everything that she knew now, Lena didn't want to lose her.

Lena heard muffled voices from directly outside the door then. So, it isn't completely soundproof.

As swiftly and as quietly as possible, she inched her way over to the door, pressing her ear against the small crack and finding that she could just barely make out the conversation on the other side. She could tell that it was Gemma and Andrea, and though they were speaking in hushed tones, she found that she could make out what they were saying because it was so quiet otherwise. It certainly helped that she and Lex spent countless hours doing the same thing when their parents would have hushed conversations behind closed doors as kids, which was a common occurrence in the Luthor household.

"You should stay here and keep an eye on Lena. She should still be out for another couple of hours, but once everything is in place, we won't have to knock her out as much," Gemma was saying to Andrea. "The Kryptonian has been… putting up more of a fight than I anticipated. She's clearly losing it at this point, but she thinks she can find Lena without going through with our deal. I think she's about to crack, though, and when she does, it's going to happen fast. I'll need you here to hold down the fort. My remote has a one-time use, so I'll only be able to open the portal to return from the fortress once.

"I'll bring a backpack with me for the information and for the Kryptonite, of course. Once I have the Kryptonite, it shouldn't be too hard to rid ourselves of the rat and then I just press this button and I'll be back here."

"And you're sure… it'll definitely…" Andrea said, sounding uncertain. Lena recognized that tone; it was the same one she had spoken in when she first told her about the medallion, before she realized that it was real and that it was worth looking for. Andrea never could take someone at their word; perhaps she was so used to lying that she just assumed everyone else was lying as well.

"The bullets that killed Myza and Qonn-Ur were coated with a miniscule amount of this stuff, Andrea. If I leave a whole pile right at her feet? She'll be lucky if she can breathe, let alone get away. A weapon would obviously be much more ideal, but until I have my hands on it from the fortress, I don't have the supplies to produce it synthetically so there's no way for me to make any weapons with it. Once I can, though, I'm sure Lex would appreciate the help in his fight with Superman…"

Lena felt the world swirl around her. This definitely wasn't a dream; she was sure of that now. This was new information, and there was no way her brain could've made that up. They're going to kill Kara. Well, that changed things. That really changed things. Lena had to get out; she couldn't let Kara fall into their trap. Panic seized her and she began looking all over the room once more for any possible way to escape. Her eyes caught something then that she hadn't seen the first time. Now that the bedside table was broken on the opposite side of the room, she could see clearly behind it: there was a vent.

It was too small for Lena to get into, but it offered potential. A vent led somewhere; probably outside. If she could figure out some way to give her friends a clue to her whereabouts, she could yell for them, and they could find her. The only problem was, she was trapped in a box, and she wasn't sure how she could indicate to them where she was to get them close enough to hear her.

Lena's stomach let out a vicious growl, and she realized that she hadn't eaten in days thanks to how much she had been unconscious. Almost as soon as she thought it, the door opened, and Andrea sat a tray down just inside before closing and locking it quickly. Lena walked over to it to see that it was a bowl of rice, a roll, and a cup of water.

I bet they're getting a kick out of treating me like a hostage while they can, she thought bitterly, and although she tried to keep a relatively lighthearted mindset, she had a bad feeling she was in more physical danger than she'd originally thought. Andrea and Gemma didn't care how well she was doing, and it didn't make sense for someone like Gemma to let her live when she didn't consider Lena trustworthy.

Lena took a few bites of the rice and the roll, which were decent quality, but she no longer felt that she had much of an appetite. She wondered if her teachers would report her absence to her family, but she figured they most likely informed Lillian, and Lillian wouldn't have told Lex for selfish reasons. Lillian would probably rejoice if Lena were to disappear for good; it would mean that her beloved son would be CEO, and they could take Luthor Corp down the horrific path she always dreamed of.

Her only hope was that Kara would be able to find her without giving into Gemma's offer, or that she would be able to somehow escape before Kara took the offer. Leaving about half of the food uneaten by the door, Lena slowly made her way back to the bed, laying on top of it and staring at the ceiling as she allowed herself to be consumed by the darkness of her own thoughts.

Please, Kara. Don't fall for it.

A/N Shit do be unraveling, folks. I know things have been Lena-centric for a bit but it'll be much more Kara-centric next chapter!

Thank you all for your continued support, and welcome to anyone who just started reading this. I hope you're enjoying it so far!

Gonna give y'all a short a/n today because I plan to be posting chapter 10 in the near future, but in the meantime, stay safe & healthy!

Until next time,

Nana :)