CHAPTER TWO
The room where Lana was escorted had white walls, all glass and metal furnishing. It overall felt bare and aseptic.
The severe ticking of a clock was the only sound. It unnerved her : lately, it felt like if everything she did was waiting and waiting. Not to escape the inevitable, but meet it half-way.
Yet, it wasn't long before he came to her.
" It's been long time, Lana but you look like if it was just yesterday. "
His voice sounded velvety smooth and heady, like fine liquor and dark chocolate blending together, but she still sensed wonder in it.
Her throat felt so tight than it actually hurt, like if an invisible hand was squeezing it and if she wanted to scream with every fibre of her being. It could not be normal to feel this way by just seeing him and having him to see her .
The full sight of face was somewhat haunting : the strong chin, the finely designed mouth, the self-possessed stance sparked recognition trough her body and she could imagine him vividly like a younger, handsome man.
Well, it's the first time I've ever danced in my extremely pretentious fountain. And it'she first time I've ever felt this...satisfied.
I was half expecting the word "happy" to come out of your mouth.
Ahh, Happiness is just a feeling of euphoria. It's your brain chemistry going in overdrive. That's why so many relationships fail when the honeymoon ends and reality sets in.
Wow, have you always been such a romantic?
Ok, if you were any other woman, I'd be saying everything you expect to hear right now, but you're not, okay? You not like anyone else.
The scene flashed in her mind and vanished, leaving a tide of nostalgia in its wake.
Lost and adrift , Lana was almost sure numbness was preferable to the distress she was currently experiencing.
Something got pulled out of her when they had restored her on this planet which had went on for years without her, and now she wanted it desperately back.
His gaze was cold as He took her subtly in from the top of her head to her toes, studying her more like an alien object than a person . But his eyes, she knew , weren't always been so distant.
"Lex "
Lana tasted his name on her lips: its pronouncement wasn't foreign like she had feared.
His hand touched tentatively her cheek and she wasn't no longer impassive: blood rushed to her head, oxygen filled painfully her lungs. Her skin tingled anywhere their bodies touched. Her heartbeat sang his name: LEX, LEX, LEX, LEX….
Lex Luthor was part of a far away place where she wasn't been in long time, a place where she belonged in .
"There are you, a creature made in equal measure of my nightmares and of my dreams …and you feel so cool "
The sound of his voice startled both, and she realized he had not meant to speak out loud. It had to have him irritated, because he shifted, putting space between them emotionally and physically.
Knowing she was able to read him, when she was barely aware of herself, made a grounding discovery.
"They brought me back for you"
She tried to explain, but all the words at her disposal were inadequate tools.
"Has Clark told you that? "
The was an inarticulate hostility in Lex made Lana to suspect that she had accidentally stumbled in what was been a war zone for years.
"Yes. Is it true?"
Not trusting Clark wasn't been an option before, but Lex was pleased she was considering it now, if the thin, ironic smile on his lips meant something at all.
"It's true, but I assure you I had no hand in this"
He stated it so casually than Lana wondered if this was something he could have orchestrated if only he had known about it before any enemy was out for his blood.
Perhaps he was wondering the very same thing.
So she told everything about the blankness of her memory, about the absence of life in her apparently healthy and firm body.
" Tell me the truth- there's something wrong in me ?"
She pleaded at last, because she could tell nobody was never been as honest with her as Lex Luthor, even if the darkness in him was palpable.
Clark had painted him like a ruthless, potentially evil man but at this moment was difficult caring about these details, when under his clinical scrutiny she was plagued with a bittersweet, sorrowful ache.
His hesitance to touch her mirrored her epiphany : they were both dead inside, but Lex didn't knew how standing beside her without becoming a part of her. He was no longer used to that vulnerability and seemingly didn't miss it: feeling alive was a distressing sensation. Probably if the choice was been his, he would retreat behind the same glum haze of apathy Lana had found refuge in after her resurrection.
But this wasn't an option anymore, for neither of them. The charade was been over the moment BBC had whispered his name in the Lana's ear.
"Your body is going in ruin. The only to keep you alive and breathing is administering you a serum on regular basis. Every miracle has a price and yours… isn't a price I can afford to pay"
He wished to have the strength or the disposition to act in any other way, but he would pay because he had no choice, however terrible the conditions were .
It occurred her that this was probably why Clark had kept her hidden- he knew what was ahead her. The journalist looked like an hero type- possibly he was interested to prevent any disaster Lex was to embrace. But whoever Lana Lang really was been, she was no heroine.
The only certainty was that - Until the Lex's darkness could permeate the bleak mist of her soul, Lana would be standing beside him.
"Clark will be worried. – Lex said so smoothly-you should be calling him. "
He put a cell phone in her hands , his eyes flashing with a something she could not definite.
"What do I say him ?"
"The truth"
This time his smile was not pleasant, it was almost …predatory.
"Tell him you came to me"
His tone was so suggestive and musical than it seemed to imply so much more, and when Lana shook his hands off and asked for the number, accepting his directions so easily, triumph became vividly apparent in his expression for just few seconds before his face was wiped clean of any emotion.
Clark was right- the man before her was dangerous .
If letting herself to become his pawn was even more dangerous, literally putting her life in his hands was pure hazard.
Nonetheless, it was the only option: before finding Lex nothing had made sense; only after she had seen him, touched him Lana had realized she was truly alive.
Although she could be a stranger to this world, he was less a stranger to her than her right hand.
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