Chapter 45 - Pressure
Lex's blood ran cold.
A lifetime of training allowed him to keep his composure—for the most part. His knees felt weak—he came to sit beside Pamela.
"I'm so sorry, Alexander. I really thought you knew."
"It's not your fault," he said, and he almost didn't hear himself speak the words.
"I don't think your mother remembered what happened. If she had, she never would have allowed you to take the blame."
"Why did she do it?" His voice cracked.
"She wasn't in her right mind, Alexander. Between the pregnancy and living with your father, she wasn't herself any more."
"But—but she loved Julian." He believed that. Had to believe it. He remembered watching her struggle to hold him, and he remembered reading about postpartum depression to try to make her well again, but he was sure she loved her sons.
"She did, but she was afraid of what your father would do to him. I think, in that moment, what was left of her mind really believed she was doing the best thing for him."
"Then why didn't she kill me?"
Pamela's eyes widened, and she put a hand on Lex's arm. "Oh, Alexander . . ."
He pulled his arm away, taking a deep breath. "Did you—" he cleared his throat— "did you see her do it?"
"No, no. But I think you did."
"How could I have forgotten?"
"It was a traumatic moment, and you took quite a few blows to the head in the moments that followed. I think it was easier for you to believe that you were a murderer than that Lillian was."
It had been. There was no doubt about that. Ever since the day Julian died, Lex had believed that he would be battling half of his genes for his entire life. Now he knew it was a lie. He'd be battling all of them.
His mother was a murderer. And she'd let him take the blame for it.
No. He couldn't believe it. It didn't match with anything he knew about her. She'd loved him. She looked after him whenever his father hurt him . . .
. . . of course, she hadn't actually tried to stop his father from hurting him . . . but what was she supposed to have done about it? Lex knew exactly the kind of person his father was.
Lex looked Pamela right in the eyes. "You didn't see her kill Julian."
"No."
"How do you know she did it?"
"Because she spent days before crying to me about how she never should have had a second son, how your father was going to crush his spirit just like he was crushing yours. And she came to me less than a minute after it was done, and she told me."
"She told you she killed Julian?"
"He's safe now. I put him to sleep."
Chills passed over Lex's skin.
"I never forgot those words. She was . . . peaceful. Smiling, but not quite awake. I don't think she could see me or hear anything that was happening. Meanwhile, I could hear your father hitting you, and you screaming, and—"
"Okay." Lex pinched the bridge of his nose. "Okay. I believe you."
Slowly, she took his hand in hers. They sat for a long time, side by side, as Lex tried to digest the information.
He wasn't a murderer.
His mother was. His father probably was. But he wasn't.
Not yet.
Clark didn't hear from Lex for a few days after his father had woken up in the hospital. He texted a few times to make sure Lex was okay, and Lex sent back a short text to tell Clark that he was busy and would call soon. Clark gave him some space after that.
In the meantime, Clark did what he had suggested the last time they'd met. If they had a limited time to work on meteor rock research before Lex's father started trying to sabotage everything Lex did, it was best if they got as much done as they could as quickly as possible.
Clark looked over their growing database of meteor mutants—the summer had been mercifully uneventful when it came to meeting new infected people, but he didn't expect that to last now that he was back in school—and considered who he might be able to contact for tissue samples in order to do better research. The big problem was that most of the people on the list were murderers, and Clark had been the one to stop many of them. They weren't exactly on good terms.
His eyes fell on the name Ryan James. He really hadn't wanted to ask Ryan for anything, even though the two of them still exchanged emails fairly often. Ryan had been pretty unsure about Lex, for one thing, and he didn't know that Clark had told Lex about the mind reading. For another thing, Ryan was pretty young. According to the emails, Ryan had only recently turned twelve.
But now that they were pressed for time . . .
A couple of days after he'd last seen Lex, Clark went to the Torch office at lunchtime to check when he'd received his last message from Ryan. He frowned—it had been a few weeks. He looked back at the history of their emails. Ryan hadn't gone a full week without emailing him since he'd first gone to live with his aunt. Clark was sure it was nothing. He sent an email—Ryan was pretty good about responding in less than a day—and went back to class.
But he didn't hear anything the next day, or the next. He tried calling Ryan's aunt, but she didn't pick up. He left a message, though, and she called back the next day while he was working on homework in his room. She said that Ryan had been struggling with splitting headaches that had kept him home from school for days, and a doctor had offered to take him into a facility that would cover his care at no cost. Clark thanked her, but he began to pace with worry
Clark remembered that Lex had set up some private investigators to ensure Ryan's safety, but he wasn't sure whether they were still working on Ryan's case. He guessed they probably weren't, otherwise they might have alerted Lex that something strange was going on.
When Clark hadn't heard from Lex in a week, and it had been several days since he'd tried to email Ryan and received no response, he called Lex. Despite having been radio silent for days, Lex picked up the phone after two rings. "Hey, Clark."
"Hey, Lex. How are things with your dad?"
"No new memories yet. He's falling back into some of his old patterns, though."
"Criticizing you?"
"Quoting literature and lecturing me about Alexander the Great."
"Yikes."
"Still a lot better than before the accident. How about you, Clark? Everything alright?"
"I just wanted to check in about Ryan. Have you heard from those investigators lately?"
"I had someone driving by every week or so for the first few months. Everything seemed fine."
"Yeah, well, I think that's changed."
"What's going on, Clark?"
"Some doctor took him away from home. He was having headaches, and I guess his aunt was having a hard time affording his medical care."
"Ah," Lex said. "If it were any other kid, I wouldn't be concerned."
"But since it's Ryan . . ."
"I'll send someone to look into it."
"Thanks, Lex."
"Don't mention it. I'll let you know what I find out."
"Thanks. You're sure everything's okay with you?"
Lex groaned. "Just overloaded with work. Starting to transfer some of the LuthorCorp responsibilities over to my father."
"Sounds like that would make less work for you," Clark said.
"You'd think that."
"You sure there's nothing else going on?"
A sigh. "Not that I'm ready to talk about yet."
"Okay. Well, if you want someone to sit with while you get work done, I can always bring some homework."
"Thanks, Clark, but I'm not always in the best place when I'm dealing with things having to do with my father. Wouldn't want to lash out at you, I prefer to keep people out of the crossfire of my fights."
"I wouldn't mind."
A pause, then, "Maybe tomorrow."
Clark grinned. "I'll be there right after school."
"Thanks."
"Don't mention it," Clark said, and he hung up.