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Thirteen years had gone by since the day the FBI called Lex to inform him both Chloe and Gabe Sullivan were dead. Thirteen years since the explosion of their safe house blew them to pieces, and 4745 days since Lex realised he had failed to keep the one promise he'd made when Chloe stubbornly agreed to testify against his father- to protect her.
This seemed like a very interesting beginning. Although you, kind of, gave away all the ‘surprises’ of this chapter in the summary, it was still a VERY enjoyable read. I liked the beginning, which showed how obsessed Lex still is over the fact that he couldn’t protect this person who placed her life in his hands.
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In all those years there hadn't been a night in which he hadn't woken up in the middle of a nightmare covered in sweat, screaming Chloe's name. Even though he hadn't seen the blowup with his own eyes, he could picture it in his mind, and his subconscious ran it over and over again, torturing him in his sleep.
ouch! Thirteen years should have been enough time to have gotten over a misjudgement like that. Unless Lex felt something more than an obligatory sense of duty and friendship for Chloe?
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“ According to my exam, your eyes were exposed to some kind of acid. “
“ How damaged are they ? “
Oh my GOD! Poor Lex. But I liked the way he reacted to the news. I probably would have been freaking out and shrieking with horror about the news that my EYES had been damaged. But Lex is maintaining tight control over himself.
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Blind. Just when he was on the trail of something big, something that could put his father back where he belonged. Lex had almost tasted the sweet flavour of revenge in his mouth and, once again, God or the Devil- he didn't know which- had made use of his twisted sense of humour. Chloe didn't deserve what had happened to her, to have died to help him put Lionel behind bars, and to be let down by the one person she had decided to put her trust in.
Lex was worn out. He could feel he was drifting back to sleep- sleep and the realm of dreams. At least there was something better than this darkness, a place in which he could see the face of an idealistic girl who did things without expecting anything in return, a land where he could believe there was still innocence and loyal friendship.
I enjoyed this inner monologue. It seems like a precursor to the depression that ‘might’ eventually overtake him. But I really liked how, even in the midst of encroaching despair, he was making wry observations about how this was just the latest catastrophe in a line of catastrophes involving the battle between the Luthors.
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It was ten in the evening, and the sophisticated petite chestnut-haired reporter everybody in the magazine affectionately called ' L ' was putting in some extra hours to meet a deadline before printing time. She had been at it for six hours and didn't have anything decent to publish yet. In fact, she couldn't remember having writer's block since her high school days at ' The Torch '. The girl that Pete, Lana and Clark used to call ' Chlo ' was incapable of getting focused to write a stupid article on a new restaurant just opened in Soho. It wasn't an investigative report that would put the biggest crime lords of New York behind bars for crying out loud !
Nobody. not even her best friend, fashion reporter Janice Sutherland, had noticed anything wrong with her. Her colleagues were used to seeing her make frequent walks to the coffee machine for her refills and blamed the high caffeine intake for her high-strung mood. That morning, ' L ' took really good care to find refuge in the toilet when a seemingly stupid comment led her to tears. and she realised she'd have to use all the acting tools she'd learnt to master in the last thirteen years to pull her through the day.
This was an interesting picture of Chloe in her new life. She seemed to have enough of the same personality traits and habits for me to still see her as ‘Chloe’, despite the change into a brunette.
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By midnight, she had finished the article- it wouldn't be the best in history but it'd do- and was ready to leave the building. She switched off the desk light and the computer, and summoned the lift. Once the doors closed behind her, she had a good look at herself in the mirror, appraising again the fantastic job the government-paid plastic surgeons had done with her face, and broke into tears. She cried for the life she'd lost, the friends she missed and the one person she wanted to hate but couldn't bring herself to.
Like I said, thirteen years SHOULD have been enough time to get over a significant event in the past, even one as traumatic as faking one’s death and relocating to a completely unfamiliar city. But it seems like Chloe has yet to recover from the incident. What could have happened that made it so difficult for her to let go?
And ‘the person she wanted to hate but couldn’t”. Is she talking about Lex? Why would she want to hate Lex? It wasn’t his fault Lionel managed to get to her. He tried to protect her, but underestimated Lionel’s influence and viciousness, which was pretty much the same mistake SHE made when she got involved with Lionel in the first place.
Unless something happened between the two of them that makes it difficult for Chloe (and Lex) to ‘forgive and forget’ the whole thing? I’m intrigued, and I look forward to finding out a little more about the backstory. Please update soon.