---- Chapter 3: Best of Intentions
Running along the sidewalk, Lois slowed down as she came to a door much less advertised than the one at the front of the building. Pulling out her cell phone, she scrolled through numbers until she found the one she was searching for and made the call. Waiting a moment, she prayed that her contact would still be inside.
"Hello?"
Lois just about jumped for joy when she heard that word. "Randy, it's Lois. I need a big favor from you."
"All right, what can I do?"
"Come down to the ground floor and open the door on the south side of the building where we usually meet. Sooner would be much better than later."
"What's going on?"
Lois exhaled an impatient breath through her teeth. "My cousin may very well be in the middle of something stupid. The sooner I get inside the sooner I stop her, so get down here!"
"See you in two minutes, Lane."
---
Walking at a leisurely pace through the hall, Chloe kept her right hand on the gun, flicking the safety off as she got closer and closer to the guard she could see. Leaving a finger hovering to the side of the trigger, she really hoped that the guard wouldn't turn around while she was walking. Halfway there, it seemed like her luck was actually holding out for once.
As she got closer, she quickened her pace but tried to step even more lightly. Just a few steps away, she pulled the gun out of her coat pocket and ran the final few steps until it was nestled against the obviously inept man's back, and he visibly stiffened. Looking past him, Chloe found the stretch of hall empty and took a quick glance back from the way she'd come before looking back at the guard.
"What's your name?"
"Cade."
"Are you married? Girlfriend?" Why had she asked that? How did that possibly matter? She really wasn't cut out for crime.
"Single."
"And what's your job?"
"Personal security."
Chloe shook her head, taking another quick look around. "Good to know that some things never change, such as Lex keeping useless security. All right, Cade, where's the nearest closet?"
"Sixth door on the left, from the way you came."
"Thank you. You're going to turn around and we're going to walk back slowly towards it, all right?"
He nodded, and she took a step back, the gun still trained on him. He turned, frowning as he saw her. With a motion of her finger, she walked backwards slowly and he walked towards her. Counting doors, she got to the sixth door on the left without much trouble. Testing the knob, she found the door unlocked and swung the door open. She motioned at him with her head. "Inside. Face the back."
He did as told. Looking around, she spotted a thing of duct tape on one of the shelves. Turning on the safety, Chloe flipped the gun around, holding it by its barrel, and swung it like a hammer, bringing it down on the back of his head. Cade crumpled to the ground, and Chloe was glad she'd actually knocked him out the first time around. She checked his pulse and found it going slowly but surely, also happy that she hadn't hit him too hard.
After slipping the gun back into her coat pocket, she rummaged through his pockets, pulling a gun out of a holster under his jacket. She put it into her bag before going back to checking his pockets. She pulled a cell phone from another pocket and turned it off before tossing it into a box she saw up on one of the top shelves.
Grabbing the duct tape, she wrapped some around his mouth a few times before tearing it off. Grabbing his legs, she wound tape around them a few times before tearing it off. Dragging him a bit, she got him settled near a post and started wrapping tape around his legs on the post, effectively keeping him in place. After quickly binding his hands with the tape and dropping the tape in her bag, Chloe surveyed what she'd done and gave it a nod of approval.
With everything she was putting in her bag, it popped into her head that it was starting to become some demented form of Mary Poppins' bag. If she found a bazooka, she was definitely trying to stuff it in there.
With a deep breath, Chloe settled herself for what was to come. Opening the closet door, Chloe looked out into the hallway. Grinning at its emptiness. She walked out and closed the door quietly behind herself. Walking towards Lex's office, Chloe let her right hand once again rest on the gun in her pocket.
Just then, a man wearing a suit identical to Cade's walked out of Lex's office and spotted her. He frowned and took up a defensive stance. "Who are you?"
Plastering on a friendly smile, Chloe walked slowly towards the man, trying to think of who she could be. Suddenly, an idea popped into her head. When in doubt, be the blonde cliché. "I'm Sandy, Cade's girlfriend."
"Cade doesn't have a girlfriend."
Chloe let her shoulders slump. "What? Why would he say that? Well, I guess it is kind of soon, since we've only been exclusive for the past couple days, but still, I wish he would have been trumpeting the info from the rooftops. All my friends know." Wow, she'd never known she could speak that quickly.
The guy seemed to inspect her a moment, his eyes lingering far too long on her chest, before looking her in the eyes again. "Nice as it is that Cade got himself a lady, what are you doing here?"
"Well, he told me he worked here at LexCorp as a security guard, so I decided to surprise him! I thought it would be nice to bring him some dinner but I couldn't get him to answer his cell. Do you know where he is? He told me last night that he'd be here."
"No, I don't know where he is, and that's a problem." The man pulled a phone from his pocket and dialed a number. A minute later he shut the phone, his frown ever deeper. "He isn't answering, like you said. I need to find him."
"Will you tell him I'm here when you do?"
"You're coming with me." He grabbed her by the arm and yanked her along as he took off in the other direction from where she'd left Cade. Sighing, she decided she had no other choice but to go along with the charade until she was further from Lex's office. She doubted this guard would go as quietly as Cade did.
---
"What the hell took you so long, Randy? Since when is two minutes equal to ten?"
Lois walked into the building as Randy held the door open for her and he frowned at her. "I got stopped in the hallway by one of the higher ups! What was I supposed to do, blow her off and lose my job so you no longer had a contact in the building?"
Lois nearly growled. "Fine, whatever, thanks." Running into the building, Lois turned the corner and ran into somebody. Mumbling an apology, she kept going without helping whoever it was up and didn't stop until she got to the elevator. Pushing the button, she waited impatiently for it to get there. When it finally dinged, she let people exit before getting in and pushing the button for the top floor. She watched the doors close, and did her best to compose herself for what she hoped wasn't coming.
---
Standing over the unconscious form of the security guard she'd never gotten a name from, Chloe did a quicker tape job on him than she'd done on Cade. Dropping the tape in her bag again, Chloe walked back out into the hallway and quickly walked back towards Lex's office. There was nobody there, and after waiting a second, nobody walked out of his office. Grinning, she opened the doors and walked in, hand once again sitting on top of the gun.
Spotting his bald head, Chloe grinned a little wider when he looked up and was surprised to see her. She stopped a few paces from his desk, not revealing anything yet. "Hello, Lex."
He eyed her a moment before standing up. "Chloe. This is a surprise, and not one I'm especially fond of. It's been a pleasure as always, but please, go ahead and show yourself out before you bother saying anything."
Pulling out the gun, Chloe pointed it at Lex, whose sole response was a quirk of his eyebrow. "I think I'll be here a little longer than that, Lex."
---
Jesus, how many stops was the damn elevator going to make? So far it seemed like every third floor the elevator was stopping to pick somebody up. She had a person to each side of her now, but the elevator stopped and they both exited. Checking the floor they were on, it was only two until the top. Letting out an exasperated sigh, she smiled as the doors closed, it skipped the next floor and it finally got to the top floor, the doors opening far too slowly.
Jogging down the empty hallway, Lois got to Lex's office and took a second to take a couple breaths before pulling the door open and walking in. She was greeted with a sight that she had really hoped she wouldn't see.
---
"Chloe?"
Chloe's head spun backwards and her eyes widened. How had she not heard the door open? That was all kinds of not good, not to mention who it was that said her name being a recipe for disaster for her plans. Her best laid plans apparently meant squat. Turning back to Lex, she eyed him while speaking to her cousin. "Lois, what the hell are you doing here?"
"You have a gun pulled on Lex, Chlo. What I'm doing here doesn't matter."
"So this isn't a joint venture between you two? I thought that where one of you went, the other was never far behind. Though, once you got fired from the paper, Chloe, I'm not surprised you drifted apart."
Gritting her teeth, Chloe didn't spare her cousin another glance. She motioned for Lex to sit down. He smiled at her. "I'm fine right where I am, thank you."
"Lex, sit down, dammit!"
This time Chloe did spare her cousin a glance, wondering why she was the one yelling at him. Looking back at her target, Chloe frowned as he kept on smiling while moving over to his chair and sitting down. Running a hand back through her hair, she tried to figure out what the hell she was going to do. "How did you find me, Lois?"
"A lot of stress and a little luck. What are you doing?"
"Making the world a much, much better place than it has been for the last forty years or so. I'm doing what has to be done to keep this man from plaguing the world when your son gets older."
When Lois spoke, she sounded closed than she had been before. "Chloe, this isn't the way to do that."
"This is the best way to do it, Lois. He ruined my life, not to mention the lives of countless others over the years, and if he doesn't die it will never stop. I can't just stand by and watch him keep trying to lord over the city while screwing with the people so much that they can't even see how evil he is."
"Perhaps what the other people see is what actually is true, Chloe," Lex said. "Plus, how am I responsible for ruining your life? We are each responsible for our own lives, and any misery you feel is a direct result of your own actions."
"My own actions? You were kidnapping the children of meteor infected people and experimenting on them! All I did was expose your operation for the direct violation of human rights and decencies it was and somehow I end up getting screwed over. Those would be youractions, Lex."
"Chloe, we have the proof of it."
"Proof of what, Lo?"
"Proof that Lex's lab did exist. We have time stamped video that we got from one of the scientists that worked there. One that Lex recently tried to kill. He did kill the two other main scientists that worked on the project, Aaron Davis and Marianne Stone."
Chloe looked down at the ground for a second before looking back up at Lex. "Aaron is dead?"
"He was killed outside his cabin in Oregon. Executed. Two bullets to the chest and one to the head."
"Oregon?" Chloe tried to think of when she'd last heard Lois say something about Oregon. "Wait, was he the source in Oregon you had to ditch me for months ago?"
"Yes. He was willing to come forward, and pointed us in the direction of Hewlett, who pointed us to Stone." Lois was standing beside her now. "Stone is the one who made the recording, and Hewlett recovered it from the charred remains of her house. They think that it's arson that killed her, Chloe. Pair that with what happened to Davis and the attempt against Hewlett, it all points back to Lex, and now we have evidence. We can put him away, Chlo."
Chloe looked at Lois, who smiled at her. "You don't need to do this, Chloe. You don't need to become something just as bad as Lex to beat him. We're better than that. Clark and I did this investigation to help you get your life back, so that you can live again."
Smiling, Chloe looked back to Lex, who had stood up again. Frowning, she thought about what Lois had said. "What about the people after me, Lois? The others that get in the way won't have you as a cousin to help them? He can tie up any resulting court case for years with his army of lawyers and just go on ruining lives."
A glint of light shined off of something in Lex's right hand that was almost totally behind his leg. Not letting on that she'd seen, she spoke to Lois. "It' too risky, Lo. He shouldn't be allowed to keep living."
"You're not judge, jury and executioner, Chloe. Whether he lives or dies isn't your decision."
"Nor should it be." Chloe took a step toward Lex as he spoke. "While I appreciate this special familial nonsense, and I'm touched you don't think I should die, Lois, but if you could do this elsewhere it would be preferable."
"Shut the hell up, Lex!"
"Please, Chloe, this has gone on long enough. You don't have it in you to shoot somebody. You're you. I very much doubt that you would even use that gun."
Taking aim, Chloe pulled the trigger. A second later a cry of pain came from Lex and he stumbled backwards. There was a thump as something dropped to the ground, and looking down, Chloe saw that it was a gun. Walking over, she picked it up. After a quick inspection of the weapon, she backed up to where she'd been and held his gun in her left hand. He looked at her, his eyes full of venom as he clutched a hand to his arm.
"Chloe!"
Looking back at Lois, Chloe held out her own gun for her cousin to take. When she didn't, Chloe just stuffed it into her bag and switched Lex's gun to her right hand. "Killing Lex with his own gun. I like it."
"Chloe, I know you're angry, and I know that you blame Lex for everything that's happened to you, but this has to stop! You shot him! As much as we loathe him, he's still a human being, with all the rights to NOT get shot by somebody!"
"I DON'T CARE!" Taking a second, Chloe calmed herself down a little bit. "Do you think I'm at a point where I want to bother with his rights? This world is better off without him!"
"And what about you? You're going to go to jail! If you kill him, you'll be arrested and very likely get sentenced to die!"
"So? What the hell do I have to live for? I'm so far gone that I'm here, pointing a gun at a bleeding Lex after having already shot him once. I thought that there was a good chance I could die tonight, Lois, and yet I still came. My life isn't worth living."
"Bullshit!"
"Bullshit? You've had a front row seat for the pitifulness of my life. I have nobody to go home to after this. I don't have a job, and with Lex alive I'll never have one for long before I get fired. I'm a penniless, virtually unemployable and loveless lump. I'll be living in your basement forever."
"You live in her basement? How unpleasant that must be."
Chloe looked over at Lex, who was leaning against the window. "Please keep talking, Lex, and hasten your death."
He glared at her but shut his mouth, and she looked back to Lois. "I have nothing, Lo. All I feel is anger. That's it. Death is a gift at this point."
"What about me, Chloe?" Lois sounded like she was crying, which was something Chloe didn't think she wanted to see. "What about Clark? And Jacob? My son needs you in his life. You're his aunt Chloe! He wouldn't even exist if it weren't for you!"
"And I'm sure that one day I'll be his crazy aunt Chloe because of this, Lois."
"Do you want him to think that?"
"I don't care, Lois. Everybody has family issues, and I'll just have to be his."
---
Landing in the parking garage, Clark spotted the cars, unmoved from where they'd been when he'd left. Looking around, he pulled out his cell to see if Lois had left him a message. Seeing that he had a text message, he opened it up. It said LexCorp. Confusion colored his face. LexCorp? Was that where'd she gone? But why... would Chloe have gone after Lex?
Jogging out of the garage, he was greeted with LexCorp dominating the skyline. Rolling his eyes, he wend back into the garage, switched into his costume and took off.
---
"You don't have to do this, Chloe. Just give me your bag and Lex's gun."
Chloe smiled back at Lois for a second before looking at Lex again. "I love you, Lois, and Clark. I love your son, too. You guys don't deserved to be burdened with me anymore, so I'm just doing one last thing before I unburden you." Swallowing, Chloe felt a tear trail down her cheek. "Don't let Jacob find out about all this too young, all right? And tell him that I love him, forever."
Before her cousin could answer, Chloe aimed at Lex's chest and fired twice.
---
Hearing the gunshots come from where he knew Lex's office was, Clark picked up his speed, ramming through the glass. He spotted the bullets flying at Lex through the shattering glass, and stopped in front of his one time friend, hoping to spare him from an unjust death as much as spare Chloe the act of murder.
Reaching for the bullets, he all of a sudden started to feel sick.
---
As soon as she fired, Clark appeared before her, standing between her and Lex. Where she expected a look of concern on his face, though, she got a pale, ashen face. She looked down at his body and noticed blood seeping out of his chest from two holes.
Her eyes widening with panic, Chloe looked up at Clark's face and for a second, he stared back at her. She could see the pain radiating from his eyes. He coughed, a little blood bubbling out of his mouth.
Then he collapsed.