Author's Note...
This is my longest chapter BY FAR, but I had a lot of stuff to cram in here.
The good news: Lex is mentioned. I can't tell you how happy I was to actually write his name down. Wow, I'm sounding like a deranged fangirl...

Yeah, just read it.

Tatiana's POV

I had always hated history. Who cared about the past when we had a future? Sure, my grandpa had probably had to follow Jim Crow laws or whatever, but we were all equal now, right? It's not like white people would throw us back into slavery. We should just live for today and not look back.

I was too busy thinking about that, on top of all the crap life had decided to throw me that week, to notice that the lunch bell had rung and I was the only student in the classroom anymore.

Mr. Gordon cleared his throat and gave me a look that said, "What are you still doing here?"

I glanced around the now-empty classroom. Where was everyone? "Oops!" I quickly gathered my school stuff and ran out the door, wondering how long I had been sitting there, staring into space.

Brooke was waiting for me in the lunch room. "Took you long enough," she said, grinning.

I groaned. "Next time da bell rings, can yo at least try ta bring me back ta earth?"

"Sure. Were you day-dreaming about Phil?" Brooke laughed.

"Ew! No, dat's jes yo," I replied. "He's not my type. At all."

"So what were you thinking about?"

I sighed as I began to eat the mac-and-cheese from my school lunch. A lot of things had been on my mind lately. Kate, all of her issues, and my retarded step-dad were at the top of the list. But history had been the main thing at the time, so it was the most convenient answer. "Was thinkin' 'bout how worthless history class is."

I had learned the hard way that Brooke did not like it when I mentioned Kate. The first time I had done that, she had completely lost it, ranting about how horrible Kate was. I know that what she had done to the Bell family was wrong, but Brooke didn't have to freak out at me. Seriously.

"Wow, way to listen to me," Brooke said, bringing my mind back to the cafeteria.

"Er…wha?" I asked.

"Dawn broke up with Brett this morning!"

"And…dis matters how?" Seriously, Brooke could confuse me sometimes.

Brooke squealed. "I think he's gonna ask me out on Monday! He couldn't while Dawn was still all over him."

"Oh, sweetness!" Lucky! How'd she get Brett wrapped around her finger so fast? "He is so hot!"

"I know, right? This has to be, like, the perfect week! No Kate, Brett's single…

Once again, I stopped listening. Now she was deliberately trying to start something about Kate. Seriously, couldn't she just let it go?

"Yeah, so—T? Are you ADD today or what? You are totally not listening to anything I say."

"Sorry, Brooke," I said. "Kate's kinda a touchy subject right now. Can you jes, like, not mention her?"

Brooke's face brightened a bit. "I'm glad that you're finally getting away from that bi—"

"Hey!" I interrupted.

"I don't see how you can still be friends with her."

"Just because yo hate, don't mean I gotta follow yo lead."

"Fine," she said sharply.

I ignored her and instead looked past her shoulder to the table Kate sat at. Well, used to sit. Since I had been doing that for the past two months to communicate with my shunned friend, the old habit hadn't died. I kept forgetting that Kate was at Belle Reve, and instead of seeing her slightly bored face, all I saw was the back of Chloe's blonde head.

"Sooo…." Brooke said, sighing. "You goin' to Olivia's party tonight?"

My eyes lit up again. "Of course! You bringin' 'nything?" Finally, there was a subject that made us both happy.

"Nah, I'll leave that to the other kids. They can get in trouble for having the alcohol. You bringing something?"

I shook my head. "Jes me and my awesomeness," I replied, grinning. "I am da party!" I looked past her shoulder again and immediately thought that I really needed to stop doing that. But this time, Chloe was looking at me, mouthing something I couldn't understand. Confused, I shrugged and mouthed, "Later."

She nodded and turned back to her friends. Until lunch ended, I gushed with Brooke about how fun the party would be. I was still euphoric about all the cute guys I could meet that night when I skipped up to Chloe, but the concerned look on her face stole my joy. "Dude, what up?"

"I'm heading for the Torch. Walk with me," she told me. "I was checking out the police reports online for a story I'm working on, and…" Chloe pulled a folded piece of printer paper out of her bag. Handing it to me, she continued, "I found this."

I unfolded it and read the black type. "Simmons? Where do I know dis name from?" I asked, mostly to myself.

Chloe simply raised her eyebrows, saying nothing.

I gasped. "Oh! Ms. Grant told me dat dis was Kate's shrink."

"And you told me. Do you think it's a coincidence?" asked Chloe, pointing at the paper. "Found dead in her office with a slit throat. No leads on a suspect. Could Kate have done this?"

Would she? This had to be the freakiest thing ever. The Kate I knew wouldn't do anything like that, but she was psycho now. "I dunno. Her progress was bein' sent ta her parents, so I bet it's online. Maybe there's somethin' 'bout her havin' violent behavior or somethin'."

By the time I realized that we were in the Torch office, Chloe was already typing rapidly. "Do you think the Grants will mind if we do a bit of digging?"

I shrugged. "They won't have ta know. Whatcha doin'?"

The computer beeped happily. "Hacking onto the Belle Reve site… I'm going to search the database for Kate." Chloe waited a moment, and the computer beeped again. "Stats, diagnosis, schedule—oh, here it is! Notes." She give a final click. "The most recent one was posted at 9:58 by Simmons and edited at 10:43 by Administrator. Check this out, T."

I examined the screen, reading that day's notes aloud. "'Met today from 9:15 to 9:45. Patient finally opening up about pregnancy. Tran--' Chloe, why is that in red?"

"That's what was added by Administrator." Her eyes widened. "Transferring to Summerholt for testing?"

What the heck?! "When did they decide dis? And why didn't Ms. Grant tell me?" This bothered me. How can they do this? "Do it say when?"

Chloe clicked on "Schedule." It showed the whole week, Sunday through Saturday. Each day had something listed underneath it except for Saturday. The text was in two colors: everything that had already occurred was in black, and only one thing remained in green. It was for Friday at three: "TRANSFER TO SUMMERHOLT FOR TESTING." Now I was ticked. Since they didn't let people visit test subjects, when would I see Kate again?

Chloe had already pulled up another window and was hacking into the Summerholt database. "Testing for what?" she asked herself, speaking my exact thoughts. A quick search of Kate's name showed that their newest patient was going to be tested with a drug that had lots of p's and y's.

"What is that?" I asked.

Chloe retyped the drug's name into the database search. The page that pulled up had a bunch of technical crap I didn't understand. I regretted all the times I hadn't paid attention in science.

"Wha do it say?"

Chloe bit her lip before explaining. "It's a new drug created by Luthorcorp, supposed to reverse the side-effects of meteor rocks. The active ingredient is…"

Why was she pausing? "What?"

Chloe turned in her chair to face me, her eyes wide. "The active ingredient is lead. It's administered by a needle injected into the brain."

I was still lost.

"T, that much lead will kill her."

Oh. Crap.

--

Kaitlyn's POV

Life at Belle Reve wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be. I didn't have to do schoolwork or chores but could wander the halls and watch TV whenever I wanted. I also saw a lot of Hailey, who was the nicest person I had met during my stay.

When I talked to her, I felt normal again, like I wasn't going back to a padded cell in an hour. I liked visiting her, except for when she asked questions I didn't feel comfortable answering. I had kept the secret for so long, it felt kind of weird to let go oft, not to mention just how embarrassing it was. Yet all of my excuses were wearing thin, and I didn't know how much longer I could hold out, or even if I wanted to. She had promised that everything I said would be held in confidence.

Besides, if I was in here, how could Luthor, who was out there, touch me or even know if I said anything? I was slowly convincing myself that I was safe at Belle Reve.

Friday was just like any normal day at the loony bin. Morning sickness, breakfast, and Shelly walking me down to Hailey's room. I was nervous that day because I had made up my mind. That day would be the day when my secrets came spilling out. I took a deep breath and willed my heart to slow down. It was high time that I got the help I so desperately needed, and only my own idiocy had been holding me back.

Hailey greeted my with her usual smile and Southern accent. If she noticed that I was jumpy, she didn't say anything. We started out with the normal conversation: how our days went, if I was liking Belle Reve, and so on The subject changed as it always did: to the topic I dreaded. Well, this time, I was determined to speak.

"How do you feel about being pregnant?"

Usually, this would be the moment that I buried my face in the couch and refused to say anything. I instead took a steadying breath and stared at the floor. "It sucks."

I heard her shift her weight, probably leaning forward. "Why do you say that?"

Choking on my own words, I answered, "I never wanted to be pregnant. Especially not…with his kid.

"Whose?"

This time, I couldn't bring myself to answer her question. Blinking back tears, I continued on about why being pregnant sucked. "I'm so scared of what people will think of me once I get back to school. I…I already had a pretty bad reputation, but this will just…" I looked up at Hailey, unable to finish my sentence.

She nodded in understanding. "You believe that they will talk about you behind your back."

My eyes fell back to my white shoes as I nodded sadly.

"What do your parents think about this? Are they mad or disappointed?"

"I don't know. By the time they found out, I was already being locked up in here. We didn't exactly have time to discuss it."

She smiled sympathetically, and we sat in silence for a while. "Is there anything else you want to talk about?"

I nodded slowly. "The reason I landed in here… it was because I didn't want that thing…or the memories it brought." Now for the hard part. "I was--" my voice caught "--raped." There. It was said. As tears welled up in my eyes and were furiously blinked back, I felt a weight lift off of my shoulders as if I were a hundred pounds lighter.

"I'm so sorry, Katie," she said quietly. "That must have been an awful experience for you.'

That was an understatement. "Yeah. See, I'm not psycho. I've got my reasons for trying to cut that thing out of me! I knew I'd survive anyways, so why not take the risk?" If only it hadn't survived, too.

"Of course," Hailey said. Maybe she still thought I was crazy, but you never could tell with therapists. They were trained to keep a straight face.

"But…that's not all," I forced myself to say. I had told most of the story, but not all. And the part that I had left out was the part that everyone wanted to know. Somehow, all the words that I was going to say became scrambled up in my brain, and all I could manage was, "Luthor," before breaking down into sobs again. The more I tried to pull myself together, the harder I cried.

Hailey was a pretty good guesser. "Luthor molested you?"

I nodded. The devil himself. I wiped my eyes and try to steady my breath, pretty sure that Hailey was wondering how I had gotten myself into such a mess with the richest man in Metropolis.

"When was this?" was all she asked.

"Mid-October…and it's just…the stupidest thing…ever." I allowed myself to bury my face in the pillow this time. It was impossible to look her in the eye. "I...I caught him with my friend's mom. He told me not to tell anyone, or I'd regret it. I didn't listen to him and told the Inquisitor. They gave me a few thousand bucks for the story…but it wasn't worth anything that followed." Then I was back to crying. There was no way I would be able to talk anymore.

"It's hard; I understand. How about you calm down a bit and come talk to me after lunch?" Hailey asked.

I nodded, thinking it sounded like a good plan.

"We're going to help you, Katie," she reassured me. I had no idea that those would be her last words to me.

Shelly took me back to my room, where I turned into an emo child until lunch by crying in a corner. I imagine that if anyone had seen my through the one-way mirror, they would have laughed at how pathetic I looked.

My lunch was brought to me because, out of embarrassment, I refused to leave--the weird guy who always carried a fake sword and pretended to be a ninja would ask me why my eyes were red. Soon after I finished eating, I was asking Shelly when I could go talk to Hailey again.

"She's not here right now. I'm sorry." Though her voice was calm and steady, something about the way she avoided my gaze told me that something was wrong.

About an hour passed before she came back and told me, "You should get ready to leave."

"Where? To see Hailey?"

"No, I'm sorry. You're being transferred to Summerholt for treatment."

"What? I don't want to go there! I have to stay; Hailey promised to help me!"

Shelly smiled sweetly at me. "The doctors at Summerholt are going to help you. They believe they can cure you."

I paused. Cure me? "Of what?"

"Your special abilities."

Okay, cool. I was pacified enough to sit down quietly in my corner again. Summerholt. Just great.

--

Tatiana's POV

I skipped the next period—who cared about study hall anyhow?—and spent my hour in the Torch, ranting to Chloe. "The more I think about it, the madder I get! Why would the Grants do this and not tell me? Especially when Kate could die?!"

"Why don't you just ask them?" Chloe asked, glancing up from the article she was working on.

I paused for a second to think about that. "Ya know, dat's a real good idea. Wha would I do without yo, Chlo'?" Chloe just shrugged as I began my search for a phonebook. Finding the number, I dialed Mrs. Grant's work number on my cell phone, which was supposed to be in my locker. But hey, who followed the school rules, anyhow?

The moment she picked up the phone, I exploded. "What were yo thinkin'? Why would yo let Kate be used as a freakin' lab rat?"

"Excuse me? Tatiana, what are you talking about?" Mrs. Grant asked.

"I'm talkin' 'bout yo allowin' Kate ta be tested at Summerholt. With a drug made out of lead," I snapped.

There was a moment of silence on the other end. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

What? "So you…didn't know sat Kate's goin' ta Summerholt?" I asked, feeling my anger leave and embarrassment take its place.

"No. Where did you hear this from?"

"Uh…um…" Crap. What was I supposed to say? "Chloe told me!" Well, kind of. Even if it was a white lie, it was an easy out.

"And where did Chloe hear this?" she asked skeptically.

Once again, I was cornered. "She…she's got a friend who works there. Yeah. Dis friend knows Kate."

"Tell me, very clearly, what is going on, Tatiana," Mrs. Grant instructed.

"Yo daughter is goin' to Summerholt dis afternoon," I said as clearly as possible. "She's gonna be used ta test a new drug. That drug can kill--"

"Will," Chloe corrected.

"Will kill her," I finished, my voice rising in urgency.

For a moment, I thought that the line had gone dead. But then Mrs. Grant swore, something I never thought I would hear. Dang, she must be upset…but then again, she believed me. "I am going to call Belle Reve right now to get this all straightened out. Thank you, Tatiana."

"Um, yeah. Can yo call me on my cell when everything's back ta normal?"

"I will. Goodbye," she said quickly before hanging up.

Wow, she didn't even ask why I had my cell phone in school. This was a side of Mrs. Grant I hadn't seen before.

--

Kelly's POV

Normally, I wasn't inclined to believe teenagers, especially not Tatiana. But these circumstances were unusual. First of all, my daughter's friend had called me at work; that is not normal. Second, the way she was yelling convinced me that she believed what she was saying. Third, why would she lie about something that serious? Logic told me to believe Tatiana—something it didn't usually do.

Now I was mad. Who had decided that they were going to use my daughter as their little experiment? Why wasn't I contacted? Yes, Belle Reve was going to receive a very angry call.

Despite my urgency, I was put on hold for two minutes to talk to someone who could "handle my complaint."

Even then, after all my explaining and demanding that my daughter stay at the asylum, the man on the other end of the phone said, "I'm sorry, ma'am. You're talking to the wrong people. Your complaint is with Summerholt; I'd recommend calling them."

That I did. I ranted for a while before demanding that they not use Kaitlyn for testing.

"Ma'am, is there some confusion? You and your husband just signed the contract this morning."

"What contract?! I did not sign any contract!"

"Mrs. Grant, I have it right in front of me. Your signature is on here. The contract clearly states that you allow Kaitlyn M. Grant to be tested with Phycopsuedoplyne and will not back out."

"But I never signed it!"

"I'm sorry, ma'am, but your signature is right here. There's nothing we can do."

When I was ten years old, I used a profanity. My mother made me wash out my mouth with soap and go to confession. After that horrible experience, I told myself that I would never use such words again. But now was an exception, and I swore profusely, making up for all those lost years. The line went dead, and I knew it was hopeless.

I had nothing left to do but call Tatiana and tell her the bad news before going home "sick." I needed some time to process what was happening. My daughter. Summerholt. A drug made with lead.

What was going on?

--

Tatiana's POV

I had spent the past twenty minutes spinning in a swivel chair in the Torch office. I explained to Chloe the parts of my conversation with Mrs. Grant that she had missed, and she nodded with detached interest. Eventually, I realized that she had actual work to do and shut my mouth.

When my cell phone began playing its cheesy ringtone, I snatched it off of the desk. "Yo!" It had to be Mrs. Grant, calling to say that everything was okay.

"Hello, Tatiana. This is Mrs. Grant." She didn't sound happy…just kinda defeated. "I couldn't keep Kaitlyn at Belle Reve. The useless personnel told me that I'd have to call the people at Summerholt. They told me that it was too late, and I had signed some contract that didn't allow me to back out."

"Oh." There was nothing else for me to say. My best friend was going from pregnant to psycho to lab rat to dead all within a week. "I…have to go. I'm sorry, Ms. Grant." I hung up and looked hopelessly at Chloe.

"What?" she asked.

"Kate's going to Summerholt, and we can't stop it."

"Her mom talked to them and everything?"

"Yep. It's impossible."

Chloe sighed and went back to typing her article. A minute later, she looked back at me, her whole face much brighter. "It's not impossible!"

"How?"

She looked at the clock. "I have connections. It's time to call in a favor from one Lex Luthor. With his money, we can stop this."

Lex Luthor? Why would he care about some teenager? And how did Chloe, of all people, know him? I voiced these questions.

"Clark saved him last year, and they've been close since. Any friend of Clark is a friend of Lex. He'll be more than willing to help." She smiled, picked up her bag, and walked to the door. "I'll go talk to him after school. However, we have classes to get to."

As she said that, the bell rang. Soon, the halls were filled with noisy students, but I was still standing in a daze inside the Torch. Clark Kent, farmer boy of the year, knew Lex Luthor?! That was something I'd never have imagined.

Well, our town's nickname wasn't "Weirdville" for nothing.

So, what do you think? I think that it was really weird to write from Kate's mom's perspective.

Reviews, please.