7: Crosshead

Lex is in love. It's completely unexpected, but he's never been happier. It feels almost like a dream—or like the intense buzz of peak drunkenness, right before everything crashes into a blackout.

Desirée Atkins, his brand-new fiancé, admires the ring on her finger, with a sparkle in her eyes much like that of the pink diamond. It's a full eight carats, cushion cut and set in white gold.

"How does it feel to wear half a million dollars on your hand?" Lex asks.

Desirée's red-painted lips curve in a smile, and she leans in to steal a kiss. "It's just what I wanted. Now, let's take Smallville by storm."

The biggest miracle of his life was meeting Desirée during a business retreat. She swooped in with all the confidence of an angel come to save him—her words, not his, but he won't contradict them. She is an angel. Heavenly and enchanting. Their two-week affair has been a whirlwind he'll never forget.

And in two days, she'll be his wife.

But now that he's back in Smallville, reality starts to seep in. First and foremost, he realizes he hasn't checked any of his messages or emails in at least a week. So much for a productive business retreat. Not that he regrets what occupied his time, but it isn't like him to lose track of obligations, even when otherwise occupied.

He settles at his desk and starts with catching up on his phone.

His father's angry. Big surprise. Lex skips that voicemail quickly. There was a problem at the plant, no one could get ahold of him. He curses, suddenly feeling a little less enchanted with life. He'll have to take care of that right away.

He has three texts from Chloe.

CHLOE: I realize you're still on that business trip. Hope it's going well! I'm moving into my dorm on the day you get back, and if it isn't too much of a hassle, I could really use a ride to Metropolis. My car's in the shop. Let me know!

CHLOE: Any update on that ride? If you're busy the day you get back, that's totally OK. I just need to make a plan.

CHLOE: I'm going to assume you don't have reception in the mountains, haha. Don't worry about the dorm. I've got it covered. Travel safe! Can't wait to see you again. :)

As he reads each message, his heart twinges a little more. He knows how nervous she felt about moving to Metropolis, and he'd told her to let him know anything he could do to help. She did. And he didn't even bother to check his phone.

He owes her an apology. In person. As well as an update about his life and wedding.

One thing at a time—he has to make sure everything is fixed at the plant. But he can at least send her a message.

LEX: Sorry for the radio silence. I would have loved to help. If you're free this afternoon, I'll swing by campus, and we can catch up.

She responds right away with a yes, so he tries to put out the rest of the fires quickly.

He doesn't expect that to turn literal, but Clark comes by the mansion at one point, openly gawking at Desirée, and somehow, a tapestry in Lex's study catches fire, as if by spontaneous combustion. After two weeks of living a dream, apparently life feels the need to balance the cosmic scales with a string of disasters. Luckily, Lex and Clark get it under control, with only the tapestry lost.

"Well, that was something." Lex tries and fails to rub a streak of soot from his hand. "So is now a good time to ask you to be my best man?"

Clark laughs before his expression transitions to stunned. "Wait, for real? You're getting married in a few months?"

"Try two days," says Desirée in a silky voice, leaning against the pool table and winking at Lex. He returns the wink, feeling that euphoric buzz stir to life once more.

So what if he's managing a few disasters? His life is still better than it's ever been, now that he's got an angel to share it with.

Clark stumbles around words for a bit but eventually offers his congratulations and agreement.

That just leaves one person.

Since Chloe's self-conscious about all the boxes and clutter in her dorm, she suggests they test the coffee shop next to campus, and Lex is happy to buy her an apology latte and tell her the news.

To which, she spills coffee down her front.

He hands her a wad of napkins, trying not to find amusement in her panic. She scrubs the front of her shirt, face practically glowing red from either the heat or the embarrassment or both. Meanwhile, she's stammering about marriages. He waits patiently for her to get everything under control, signaling a waitress to bring a new latte in the meantime.

Finally, she returns to coherency.

"Lex, this is . . ."

"Unexpected?" he offers. "I'm as surprised as you are, believe me. The stars just aligned."

Desirée says things like that. The miracle of their meeting, the stars aligning.

"I just . . . um, are you sure you're not rushing into this?" Chloe looks like she's trying for a smile, but it's a stuttering engine that just won't turn. "I let you out of my sight for one business trip, and you come back engaged. Two weeks ago, you guys were strangers. Shouldn't you . . . wait? You know, to learn more about her. To get to know each other."

She's pulled a ballpoint pen from her bag, and she's fidgeting with it as she speaks, nervously flipping it between her fingers. To her, a pen might as well be a magic focus, somewhere to channel all her emotions. Lex has always enjoyed the little tic.

Seeing it again stirs a memory he can't quite grasp. Not a memory, exactly, more like an echo of an emotion.

Then it's gone, swept up in thoughts of Desirée. The lightness he feels is almost dizzying, almost unnatural. "I know everything that matters, Chloe. I've never met anyone like Desirée. Once you spend some time with her, you'll see. And I know it's fast, but it's what we both want. Why wait?"

"Well, because . . ." Chloe bites her lip, clicking her pen, then setting it down on the table. "Lex, you're you. You're cautious and logical—and a romantic, too, I know that, but you temper it. You're always aware of the risks. What about the risks now? What if the way you met this woman wasn't the stars aligning but was actually her seeking you out, targeting you? What if she's after something?"

"Right." Lex's voice turns slow and cold. "Because it's not possible she could actually love me. She must be after my money."

Chloe blushes again. "I didn't mean that! Of course it's possible, I just—"

"You're just looking for the drama. The story. You're just being a good reporter."

The tension between them is painful, like prodding at a broken bone. Somehow, Lex thinks he's the one who broke it.

Why should he get so defensive when he knows her points are valid? Desirée isn't targeting him, but there are danger signs, and he should be able to respect that. He should be able to appreciate that Chloe is simply looking out for him. Caring about a friend.

A headache pounds to life in Lex's skull, his mind and heart at war. There's a disconnect between what he's feeling and what he feels like he should be feeling. He's dizzy again, and this time, there's no euphoria in it.

Finally, he says, "Look, I've got to go. The wedding's in two days, and you either come or you don't."

It's much harsher than he intended to be, but he can't think straight. There's a fire in his mind.

As he stands, Chloe stands too, catching his hand.

There's that stirring again. This time, a real memory. Both of them at the journalists' convention, when she took his hand and didn't let go, when he wondered if . . .

It's gone.

"Lex, of course I'll be at your wedding," she says. It seems like there's more she wants to add to that, but she just looks down, releasing him.

He should stay. Whatever's actually wrong, he should work this out.

"Chloe, I—"

His phone buzzes in his pocket, interrupting, and with exasperation, he snaps it open. "What?"

Desirée's honeyed voice answers, spiking guilt though his chest for his abrupt greeting. She asks him to come home. Wedding plans. More fires.

"Are you okay?" Chloe asks as he hangs up.

"Never better." He believed that this morning. What's wrong with him now? "I have to go."

By the time he gets back to the mansion, his staff has dinner waiting. Desirée kisses him before he even sits down, and all the tension melts at her touch. He doesn't know what he was feeling disquieted for.

The rest of the evening, they make wedding plans. He pays rush fees for the best florists, caterers, and decorators.

"Are you sure you wouldn't like to wait and have a custom gown made?" he asks Desirée. "I don't want you to just settle for your wedding dress."

She extends her lip in a pout. "Two days is already too long! I wish I was married to you now. And I don't care about the dress. I only care about you."

He smiles.

Late in the evening, something arrives by courier from his father. Lionel is back in Metropolis—following an invasion of Lex's privacy and several new rounds in their ongoing war—but of course he wouldn't miss the opportunity to comment on Lex's engagement. As Lex opens the package, he's already braced for a passive-aggressive strike, and that's exactly what he receives. A prenuptial agreement. Before this marriage even begins, his father is announcing it won't last.

However, there's a little stir at the back of Lex's mind. He thinks of Chloe's warning about being targeted. He is a billionaire, after all, with a host of assets that need to be handled with care. In the past, whenever he's considered marriage, it's always included the protection of a prenup.

Lex's logic would have caught up to his emotions eventually. It's only irksome that his father beat him to it.

He reads and signs. Then hands it to Desirée.

But her pout returns with more force. She makes a compelling argument about how Lex's father just wants to control his life, how prenups are only a sign of distrust and true love doesn't require them. She professes her love once again and leaves Lex drunk on a kiss.

Like some kind of fairytale, Lex tears the papers in half on the stroke of midnight.

Desirée smiles. "Lex, I'm going to make you happy for the rest of your life. Just wait."

Chloe's about to crash a wedding.

She wouldn't need to be so dramatic if Lex would just answer his phone—she's only made fourteen calls and sent twice that many texts—but either he's blocked her number or his psychotic fiancé has thrown his phone in the trash. Desirée Atkins has Lex wrapped around her finger. Or, more correctly, if Chloe's hunch is correct, she has him wrapped around her superpowered pheromones.

Desirée Atkins, originally Allison Sanders of Smallville, was exposed to the meteor shower all those years ago. Desirée the meteor freak, the black widow, the menace who's already seduced and killed one rich husband and now has her sights set on Chloe's best friend.

Well, she'll have to go through Chloe first.

Gripping the steering wheel tighter, Chloe presses the gas pedal almost to the floor, afraid to look at the needle on the dash, afraid of what she's doing to her poor VW fresh out of the shop. Even more afraid of what Desirée's doing to Lex.

He's going to hate her. Chloe realizes that. He's going to call her a reporter again, accuse her of digging for a story. He's going to feel hurt and betrayed that she investigated his fiancé. She can already picture his face, picture him adding her name to the list of reporters who've ruined his life, and the thought of hurting him slices right to her core, leaving behind an ache that flares with every heartbeat.

This might be the end for their friendship. If it is, she'll have to find a way to live with that. Because she can't live with the alternative—she can't let Desirée kill Lex.

Even though Chloe hits the breaks, she enters the gravel drive still going too fast, almost sliding into the sheriff's car. Well, good, the sheriff's here. She's going to need him. She leaps from her car, clutching her bag and running into the garden area, where a wedding is in progress.

Either Lex or Desirée has warned the security team, and they rush forward to stop her. So she shouts for Clark. He has to be here. There are so many people packed under the white canopies that she can't find him in the press. No one's sitting. She can see the priest, speaking casually to someone. Has it not started yet or is she already too late?

"Chloe!"

Clark rushes out of the crowd to meet her, dressed in a black suit with a boutonniere. Lex's best man—she should have known. Chloe grins to see him.

"Hey, back off," he tells the security. "This is Chloe."

It would be laughable watching a sophomore order around a security team, except Clark is taller than any of them and just as broad-shouldered. He looks like he could pick up a security guard and throw him like a hay bale.

The head guard talks about orders from Lex, and Clark shoots back, "Get Lex, then. I want to hear it from him."

Chloe sags in relief. No matter what, Clark always comes through when she really needs him.

"Are they married yet?" she demands.

"No, uh, the bride's still getting ready. She's supposed to be here any minute. Chloe, what's going on?"

"This." Chloe starts digging papers from her bag. All the evidence she could find against Desirée Atkins—original birth certificate, name change documentation, parents' obituaries, marriage documentation, husband's obituary.

"You're not welcome here," says Lex's voice.

Chloe tenses, registering the cold tone of it. But she knew she was coming here for a fight, so she steels herself and looks up, meeting his eyes.

He's never looked at her like this before. With anger.

Poor Clark is so confused, blinking like a barn owl. "Lex, it's Chloe."

Lex ignores him. "Desirée told me you'd be jealous. That you'd try to ruin this for me."

"I'll bet she did," Chloe mutters. She expects to feel awful, the way she felt at the coffee shop when he accused her of just looking for a story. But that's passed. Instead, she's angry too—and not at him. At Desirée. Boiling, raging angry. Angry enough she's struggling to breathe because the heat inside is evaporating the air from her lungs. It's like she can still hear the roaring of her car engine, racing forward to stop this, but now it's the racing of her heart.

Desirée arrives in a white-lace wedding gown, preening for the crowd. Chloe feels a very dark impulse to strangle the bride with her own veil.

All his life, Lex has been manipulated and used by his father. Now Desirée has made him her very own puppet, pulling the strings with a meteor power he literally can't resist. Despicable doesn't begin to cover it.

Chloe brought every shred of evidence she could find, because she's going to make sure this woman rots behind bars.

"Desirée is not who she says she is." Chloe meets Lex's eyes again. "Her real name is Allison, and she's from Smallville."

"She'd never been to Smallville until I brought her here," Lex says.

"I'm sure she told you that. I have her birth certificate, Lex. She was caught in the meteor shower, and she has a power from it. She's planning to kill you, after you're married and she has claim to everything you own. It's what she did to her first husband."

"Wow," Lex deadpans. "What a story. How long did it take to come up with? If you wanted to stop my wedding, pinning the bride to your Wall of Weird has to be the lowest-effort option."

"Look! Proof!" Chloe shoves her documents into Clark's hands, since Lex can't be trusted under whatever spell Desirée has cast. "Barely a year after the meteor shower, Allison's parents were murdered by her boyfriend, who claimed he did it for love. Allison inherited the entire estate. After she changed her name, she seduced and married a shipping magnate, who was then killed by one of Desirée's students. He claimed he did it for love! Tell me you see the pattern here!"

Clark is certainly wide-eyed, as are the nearby guards. The crowd has taken notice of the commotion, including Desirée, who seethes in Chloe's direction.

"Don't believe a word, Lex," the bridezilla says, somehow managing a sickly sweet tone while her eyes are plotting murder. "I told you she was jealous."

There's a pinch at that, because maybe Chloe is a little jealous. She can admit that, in her heart of hearts. It was part of the bias she examined while investigating. But if it was just jealousy, she would stand back and let him marry someone else, as long as he was happy. Even if it made her regret every chance she didn't take, she would let him be happy.

But this isn't happiness.

Chloe catches a view of the sheriff, standing with Mr. Kent, and she waves him over with a frantic gesture. She nudges Clark, who hands the sheriff all of Chloe's research and notes, her documented conclusions.

"I must say this is . . . concerning," the sheriff admits, looking up at Desirée, who freezes in place. "I'll have to verify these documents, conduct a proper investigation, but . . ."

Something finally cracks in Lex's composure. His brows draw together in furrows. His eyes grow dazed, like he's trying to shake off a hangover.

Chloe knows an opening when she sees one. She seizes his hands, forcing him to look at her.

"When she married her last husband, they'd known each other two weeks. Just like you. I wouldn't lie about this, I swear. I would never wreck your wedding out of jealousy or spite or anything else except fear for my friend. And you know me. You know I never invent my stories. At the convention, you told me I was what a journalist should be."

Her voice cracks. She's babbling and begging, but she doesn't know how powerful Desirée's ability is, doesn't know how deep the poison has reached. She can only hope it can be reversed.

"Lex, please," she whispers. "Please believe me."

"Lex!" Desirée shouts from behind, stomping toward them, stumbling in her heels.

"Please," Chloe repeats.

Lex closes his eyes, grimacing like he's battling a headache. But he doesn't pull away. His grip on Chloe's hands tightens. She dares a smile.

One of Lex's security guards steps between him and Desirée, blocking her path, saying something about maintaining distance until this situation can be resolved.

"I'll resolve it," Lex says, opening his eyes. They flash with anger, and for a moment, Chloe thinks it's still directed at her, until he says, "The wedding's off."

There's a collective gasp from the crowd, and all that's missing is the click of a shutter, but Chloe is positive Lex didn't allow any reporters at his wedding. Not even her. There's some irony in that. Good reason or not, she did crash the event.

Clearly Desirée is thinking along the same lines. She glares at Chloe with open hatred, a furious, spurned bride.

One with a very dangerous power.

Desirée turns back to the guard who stopped her. She oozes a smile.

Chloe's instincts sound the warning bell.

The bride grabs the guard by his jacket lapels, yanking him forward, smashing her lips into his. He stiffens only a moment before melting, and probably not out of any secret crush.

"Protect me," Desirée begs. She points toward Chloe. "If you care for me, you have to shoot her. Shoot her now!"

It's shocking to hear, though not nearly as shocking as when the security guard obeys. He turns with glassy eyes, pulling his pistol from its holster, training it on Chloe.

It's her first time looking down the barrel of a gun. She can't move, can't speak. She's frozen.

Lex isn't.

He tugs her into his arms, angling himself so he's between her and the bullet. She's cradled in his warmth, her mind still failing to make sense of the moment.

But she knows what the sharp crack means. It leaves her ears ringing.

"Lex!" She pushes against his chest, searching for blood, fearing what she'll see.

But he doesn't buckle in pain. He looks down at her, his own eyes confused. The guard . . . missed? At such close range?

The sheriff is shouting. Desirée flees after giving her order to the guard, but she doesn't get far in the crowd, and a smart deputy handcuffs her before she can kiss anyone else. One of Lex's other security guards tackles the mind-controlled one, confiscating his gun. The rest of them crowd around Lex to ensure he's alright. He waves them off.

"You okay?" says a quiet, worried voice.

Chloe turns to find Clark next to her. He's blinking rapidly, like something's bothering his eyes, and his face is pale.

"I'm . . . fine." She still can't believe it. Hesitantly, she gives Lex a smile. "Thank you."

He shakes his head. "If we're handing out gratitude," he says, "please, allow me. I think you just stopped the biggest mistake of my life."