The Lesser of Two Evils - NC-17, Chapter 56 (May 27, 2016)

[kitten]

Chapter 29

Chloe made herself stop crying with effort, sorry she had let Lionel's thugs see it from her. They didn't laugh at her – they were professionals – but they were definitely pleased with themselves for scaring her. One came close to stepping on her as he took his seat. She had been ashamed to hear herself yelp in alarm. Her mouth was set in anguish but she wasn't whimpering.

[somethingeasy]

Chapter 29

Chloe made herself stop crying with effort, sorry she had let Lionel's thugs see it from her. They didn't laugh at her – they were professionals – but they were definitely pleased with themselves for scaring her. One came close to stepping on her as he took his seat. She had been ashamed to hear herself yelp in alarm. Her mouth was set in anguish but she wasn't whimpering.

*gasp* I demand another update to this one as well!!! On top of the sheer intimidation quality of this scenes, there's also impending torture. And through it all Chloe is trying to put on a brave face even though you know that she knows exactly what's in store for her.

Ok... maybe she doesn't know the exact details, but you can be sure she has a fairly accurate general idea.

GIMME UPDATE!!

[maja]

Great fic. I hope you will update it someday.

[kitten]

Chapter 29

Chloe made herself stop crying with effort, sorry she had let Lionel's thugs see it from her. They didn't laugh at her – they were professionals – but they were definitely pleased with themselves for scaring her. One came close to stepping on her as he took his seat. She had been ashamed to hear herself yelp in alarm. Her mouth was set in anguish but she wasn't whimpering.

Noises were bleeding together like ink from wet paper. She heard one harsh male voice far away at first, before it was joined by another, both circling her predatorially. She ducked her head low to protect herself as well as she could, but neither of the men was even paying attention to her. They were having two different conversations, from two different ends of the van. She was going crazy.

Panic wore out slowly, letting her sluggish thoughts get somewhere. She wasn't going to able to physically get herself off the floor quickly. Her legs were tingling painfully. Motion sickness was numbing her stomach, made worse by the fear pumping inexorably through her blood. She could sit and think, but she couldn't be calm. Simple logic slogged in her mind, and she cursed the irony of being too quick at all other times.

When I don't show up, Lex will look for me, she told herself. I can survive anything for a few hours. Lionel doesn't want me dead.

She couldn't take on several men, nor was she going to be able to run from them after being jostled around on the van's floor. She had to wait and hope one of her choices had been right.


Lex looked at his watch and did the math again, hoping it was wrong. Chloe hadn't arrived and she'd had more than three hours to get there. He had checked traffic reports, but even a highway pile-up shouldn't have kept her this long. The weather was fine, and there were no significant delays. He had called the front desk to make sure the guard didn't turn her away, and added Chloe to the list of approved guests. He put down his empty glass and refused himself another.

He called the guards he had watching his father. Lionel was still on the premises at LuthorCorp, his meetings continuing like any normal day. No suspect vehicles had been there, no extra activity or hints of the plan going into effect were observed.

I would have known, he thought bitterly. I would have seen the his smugly malicious face and known today he was going to take her. I didn't want to face him until I had the upper hand.

She had been missing for hours, her cellphone ringing endlessly but never being answered. The guards told him there was no sign she had left Smallville's limits, all the while Lex had been indulging in self pity. He should have sent someone to bring her safely to him, or gone himself. Secrecy was a lesser concern than Chloe's safety.

He listened to the excuses and facts his employee kept listing out, tensing into a rage he couldn't vent. It wasn't anybody's fault except his own. Lex cleared his throat and interrupted. "I don't want to know the details unless they mean something useful," he said. "Look for her, everywhere, anywhere, follow any lead you get. I'm going to try her cousin." He hung up and pulled on his coat, rushing out the door.


The van rolled to a smooth stop after going very slowly for a quarter mile. Chloe figured it had to be a driveway of some sort because it was too even to be a secondary road. She pushed her back to the wall as the men got out of their seats. One of them reached for her, and she startled.

“Have to tie you,” he said blankly. “Hands, now.”

He grabbed for her again, roughly pushing her wrists together. Chloe looked at his unshaven face, and realized he was completely ordinatry looking. He had to be a few years older than Lex, but he was doughy in the middle and had a patch of acne on his cheek. She wouldn't have been afraid of him any other time. He wasn't even very brutal when he looped a plastic strip over her hands and pulled it tight so it locked shut.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely, but he was already standing up and climbing down. The other men stood to either side, as if she could somehow lope away like a deer. She flicked her gaze around as they pulled her to her feet. It was evening, and they weren't in the city. The clear sky was bright like it would snow. She nearly fell as she climbed down, and the same guy who tied her caught her arm.

“Walk,” he directed.

The van doors closed with huge echoes in the empty space. She jumped. There were so many men, so many footsteps trailing behind her purposefully. She wasn't wearing her coat and it had been cold in the van. Chloe's teeth chattered audibly. She was led up a stone porch, into an alcove while the men unlocked the door. The house was not overly large, but it looked fancy. Her legs dragged a little as she was led over the threshold and into the dark interior. There was no heat inside, either.

Automatically, she started looking around for something to help herself. It wasn't very homey. Everything was expensively useless, and pristine. It was obviously not a full-time home, though she could sense a kind of occupancy from the way there was a mat in front of the doorway, and a coat rack off to the side. Lionel owned property all over the state, but she couldn't say where she was. It was debateable if the house even had a land line telephone or internet.

“Up,” her escort urged, his voice devoid of anything as he turned toward the stairs. She hadn't gone far when another man took her opposite arm to tug her to him.

“I'll take her,” he said jovially, and his tone was offensively happy. She turned to the blank man, but he gave her up without a hint of expression to tell her what was going on. The new hand on her tightened until she stepped left, in front of him as they ascended. She nearly had to run up the stairs to stay away from the grinding brushes into her hips.

The dimness made things nightmarishly vague when she desperately needed her observations to make a difference. He trotted her to a door and pushed it in on a creaky hinge. His crowding into her back made Chloe turn around hurriedly. He chuckled with soft cruelty. He wasn't ordinary at all. His face was lined with an expression of masculine bravado, and he had permanently narrowed eyes. His hand came off her to dip into his pocket, and came up with a folding knife. She flinched hard, stumbling into the room he'd opened.

“Just letting your hands free. Hold still. There's no where you can get to, now.”

He pulled her arms out and notched the knife under the binding. His mouth curled into what she assumed was left of his smile. The almost-sad guard might have pity, but this one liked her fear. She froze in place and hoped he was only going to cut what he'd said he would.

“You're going to make a pretty baby,” he said quietly, leering at her as he cut the plastic around her wrists. “Don't worry, we'll loosen you up.”

He barked out a cold laugh as his hand went down to his crotch to adjust the bulge there. Chloe slammed the door in his face, but she quickly realized the luxurious bedroom was no safer. The door locked from the outside, and she hauled a shallow, loud inhale through her nose.

Lionel had a reason for keeping her alive and relatively healthy, but his employees just wanted money and their turns with her. She didn't even know how to be afraid of what was happening.



Lex looked around the lobby of the respectable building, his eyes refusing to focus on the names next to buzzers. He missed the Lane apartment three times before finding it and leaning on the button. A female voice answered in a grunt.

“Hello? My name is Lex and I'm looking for Chloe Sullivan,” he started, but the buzzer drowned him out. He wondered if he was on camera and looking overwrought. He had fixed his clothing and washed his face before getting in the car, but he felt untidy and haggard.

It's not about you, he thought bitterly. None of this is about how you look. Be convincingly terrified and you'll get more from Chloe's cousin. Make her believe you're worried about Chloe, because it's certainly true.

He let himself in and rode the elevator in silence. It was without any bland background music, and the wait was an invitation to brood about what had happened to the the young woman he kept failing to protect. He had told her the worst was over, and his overconfidence made them both vulnerable. His fists jammed into his pockets, trying to channel some anxiety to stretching his jacket.

A tall brunette was standing outside when the elevator stopped. He looked her over with shock. There was no trait familiar to him – nothing that marked her as a relative to her younger cousin. Lex put his hand out.

“It's nice to meet you. I've heard-”

“Chloe doesn't talk about me to strangers,” Lois snapped. “Come on. We're talking about this in private.”

She shut the door behind them and stood with crossed arms, waiting for him to explain himself. Lex tried to meet her eyes and could only fake it. She sighed impatiently. “Chloe's not here, but she's an awesome person, so if she dumped you I'm not going to change her mind,” the young woman told him rudely.

Lois Lane was too much, and she dressed like it. Her shirt was too tight, too low and too red. Her jeans skimmed her legs like tights. Even her hair hung overgrown down her back. Her bold makeup made her look too young for it and simultaneously worn. She might possess a good mind and tact, but she only used the desperate toughness he now recognized as the inspiration for Chloe's hooker alter-ego.

“I don't want to bother her. She's missing. She was leaving Smallville to come see me, and I know exactly when she left. She should be here by now, and there's no sign of her,” he said carefully. “I'm worried.”

Eyes narrowed, Lois uncrossed her arms and shifed on her feet. “You're not traffic accident worried, or she-stood-me-up worried. What do you think happened to her?”

The truth was ripping through his veins in waves of thwarted adrenaline, but he couldn't use it with Lois. The story was too strange and complicated. It required proof and time to unravel. Lois was already suspicious. Revealing the situation to her family wouldn't save Chloe; it would only humilate her to the very people she needed to feel comfortable at all. It had to be a lie, but a close enough lie that whatever Lois might know would still be helpful.

“My father is a controlling man,” Lex said. “He would not approve of my dating Chloe and if he found out he might . . . borrow her for a meeting to either threaten her or bribe her out of my life. Now, I'm not saying Chloe and I will be together forever, but I don't want her to be terrorized. People should be afraid of my father. I-” he chuckled humourlessly, “-am afraid of my father.”

“So your scary dad took my cousin and you're not at the police station because?!”

“If the authorities are involved he'll cover everything up. That's usually not good for the people in the middle of things he's done. My father does this rather habitually. I can work against him subtly but if I declare war over this . . . I think Chloe is smart enough to play along, so she'll be angry but okay. He has no reason to hurt her.”

The brunette pulled a cellphone from her pocket and held it up. Her mouth twisted angrily. “Tell me again why I shouldn't call the police,” she jeered.

Lois Lane had more than one road rage incident in her file, and a few bar brawls. For someone barely out of high school it was almost impressive. She wasn't the type of woman to worry about her manicure if she thought he needed to be punched. Lex was proficient with a gun, but he didn't fight women. He backed down from Chloe's cousin, and she smiled a little in victory.

“If you call the police they'll put Gabe Sullivan on the news asking for his daughter back,” he said reasonably. “They'll start looking at Chloe's friends and family, then her boyfriends. They will spend hours and hours questioning me, because there's a direct connection. But they would never think of my father and he would have plenty of time to react badly. I know you love Chloe, but give me a day to fix this quietly.”

He gave her the unflinching stare that he learned in boardrooms. Her phone lowered as he watched her wilt. Lois blinked rapidly.

“I didn't know she was coming into the city,” she said. “I barely knew she was dating you. I don't think I can help, but I won't call yet.”

Lex nodded silently, and she glared at his sympathy.

“In twenty-four hours I want to be hugging Chloe! You're not the only one with a scary dad.”

General Sam Lane wasn't the most laid-back man, and he had a barracks full of new recruits to command. Lex hoped he didn't have to face Chloe's uncle with his hasty lies. He felt nervous just dealing with Lois. He tried not to let on how disappointed he was to have wasted precious time. He knew as much as anyone and it felt like nothing.


Chloe paced for a while, but she eventually had to admit that she needed to use the bathroom. The door had been taken down, as had the closet door. There was no window. Fresh patches of plaster were probably phone jacks that were filled in recently. There were no clocks, though she thought her watch was correct. It was getting late and her stomach was growling. She couldn't eat what they gave her, obviously, but she drank water from the bathroom tap.

Lionel will be finished work by now, she told herself. He has a long drive before he gets here. He might even eat first.

Her simple dinner had made it clear there was no private chef, so she really might have extra time while he had dinner. A tiny hope flickered like a guttering candle, and she tried to hold her breath inside her mind. She had to think about what might happen soon, but not too closely. The room was full of things to use, if she just figured out a plan.

Everyone she met kept trying to convince her she was just her body, but she knew she had a good mind. A tear fell to the floor, but Chloe kept moving around the big, cold room, thinking.

[westwingwolf]

I know this is not going to end well. Great job keeping up the tension. Please let Lex find her, though I have a strong feeling it will be too late. Loved the interaction between Lois and Lex, it felt very real, I wish the subject could have been on better terms but still loved the work.

[hfce]

That was scary eek!! This won't end good.

[Kit Merlot]

I'm hoping against hope that Chloe finds a way to escape or that Lex finds her before Lionel gets to her or before his goons decide to "loosen her up."

The Lex/Lois conversation was wonderful--they both care for Chloe and want her back safely.

Thank you for updating this fic.

[dkfuryan]

so beautiful, yet very dark themes. I can't see this ending well for either of them. can't wait for your next update.

[ambrosine]

Wow. This fic is intense. I really hope Lex can intervene in time!

[somethingeasy]

Panic wore out slowly, letting her sluggish thoughts get somewhere. She wasn't going to able to physically get herself off the floor quickly. Her legs were tingling painfully. Motion sickness was numbing her stomach, made worse by the fear pumping inexorably through her blood. She could sit and think, but she couldn't be calm. Simple logic slogged in her mind, and she cursed the irony of being too quick at all other times.

Very nicely done, Nonky! I appreciated the visceral way that you portrayed Chloe’s panic, despair and terror… and the way that these emotions were insidiously stealing away her strength and equilibrium. I also really liked the way Chloe is telling herself to snap out of it; scolding herself for showing weakness in front of her kidnappers, even with the panicked terror clogging up her brain. This was a great way to set the scene for certain terrors and horrors on the way… erm… so when are those terrors and horrors coming exactly…?

When I don't show up, Lex will look for me, she told herself. I can survive anything for a few hours. Lionel doesn't want me dead.

heh… I’ll just bet that Lex would have been, not gratified, but humbled and horrified to know that how much Chloe was depending on him. He just doesn’t have faith in his own ability to save anyone. Good thing that Chloe (and the readers) know better that to use Lex’s self-assessment as final say on what he’s truly capable of!

I would have known, he thought bitterly. I would have seen the his smugly malicious face and known today he was going to take her. I didn't want to face him until I had the upper hand.

She had been missing for hours, her cellphone ringing endlessly but never being answered. The guards told him there was no sign she had left Smallville's limits, all the while Lex had been indulging in self pity. He should have sent someone to bring her safely to him, or gone himself. Secrecy was a lesser concern than Chloe's safety.

heh… I can see it’s barely been about a half-hour before Lex started wondering whether anything horrible happened to Chloe, and yet he’s well on his way to piling on the guilt and blame on himself. Martyr complex indeed, LOL! But I loved the way that he’s rushing forward on action, even in the middle of all the self-pity. Now there’s the delightful difference between Clark and Lex… Clark can most usually only focus on self-pity, whereas Lex knows how to multi-task!

He grabbed for her again, roughly pushing her wrists together. Chloe looked at his unshaven face, and realized he was completely ordinatry looking. He had to be a few years older than Lex, but he was doughy in the middle and had a patch of acne on his cheek. She wouldn't have been afraid of him any other time. He wasn't even very brutal when he looped a plastic strip over her hands and pulled it tight so it locked shut.

“Please,” she whispered hoarsely, but he was already standing up and climbing down. The other men stood to either side, as if she could somehow lope away like a deer. She flicked her gaze around as they pulled her to her feet. It was evening, and they weren't in the city. The clear sky was bright like it would snow. She nearly fell as she climbed down, and the same guy who tied her caught her arm.

“Walk,” he directed.

woah! This was a scarily accurate portrayal of a real thug, Nonky! Not someone who has become a hired thug because he enjoys inflicting pain and fear in others… but just an average-joe, who probably considers himself a nice guy… and in fact might be a nice guy, except for his inability to say ‘stop’ when he sees someone else doing evil things.

I loved the way that you captured him, not as evil, but just vacant, empty, lethargic and disinterested… and just as guilty of the wrong-doing as the person who planned and financed this kidnapping.

Automatically, she started looking around for something to help herself. It wasn't very homey. Everything was expensively useless, and pristine. It was obviously not a full-time home, though she could sense a kind of occupancy from the way there was a mat in front of the doorway, and a coat rack off to the side. Lionel owned property all over the state, but she couldn't say where she was. It was debateable if the house even had a land line telephone or internet.

Nonky, I loved the way that you captured the essence of a ‘gilded cage’ with this paragraph without actually using the clichéd phrase ‘gilded cage’.

The dimness made things nightmarishly vague when she desperately needed her observations to make a difference. He trotted her to a door and pushed it in on a creaky hinge. His crowding into her back made Chloe turn around hurriedly. He chuckled with soft cruelty. He wasn't ordinary at all. His face was lined with an expression of masculine bravado, and he had permanently narrowed eyes. His hand came off her to dip into his pocket, and came up with a folding knife. She flinched hard, stumbling into the room he'd opened.

I thought the first guard was terrible enough… but this guard was horrific! Now this is what we all imagine (in our nightmarish visions) when conjuring up the image of a vicious, brutal thug. Someone huge and strong who likes to use his strength to humiliate, bully and hurt others, for no other reason but pure amusement and enjoyment. The worst part is that I’m SURE that Lionel chose this kind of a guard on purpose, giving him strict instructions to freely frighten Chloe without actually ‘damaging’ her.

“You're going to make a pretty baby,” he said quietly, leering at her as he cut the plastic around her wrists. “Don't worry, we'll loosen you up.”

oh dear heavens, EW!! I wanted to cringe away from the screen, and from this guard character. I can’t imagine how dirty and disgusted Chloe must have felt in this man’s presence, where she could feel and smell him as well as listen to his repulsive words.

Your did a great job in building up the bleakness of Chloe’s situation, Nonky! Well done!

It's not about you, he thought bitterly. None of this is about how you look. Be convincingly terrified and you'll get more from Chloe's cousin. Make her believe you're worried about Chloe, because it's certainly true.

woah! Now this was a shocking, but pleasant, twist to the story. So Lois has been brought in as an active character? Awesome! Although Lex must be really desperate for help and leads if he’s approaching this stranger for assistance… so it’s not really the best of signs all things considered.

She shut the door behind them and stood with crossed arms, waiting for him to explain himself. Lex tried to meet her eyes and could only fake it. She sighed impatiently. “Chloe's not here, but she's an awesome person, so if she dumped you I'm not going to change her mind,” the young woman told him rudely.

Lois Lane was too much, and she dressed like it. Her shirt was too tight, too low and too red. Her jeans skimmed her legs like tights. Even her hair hung overgrown down her back. Her bold makeup made her look too young for it and simultaneously worn. She might possess a good mind and tact, but she only used the desperate toughness he now recognized as the inspiration for Chloe's hooker alter-ego.

LOL! Can you imagine Chloe’s blush and Lois’s rage if Lex ever voiced this opinion out loud… the idea that Chloe channeled Lois’s personality during her role as a hooker? ROTFLMAO! Damn, I’m already looking forward to the chapter where they can all be relaxed enough for that little confession to come forward for a short comedic moment.

But I really loved your brief, insightful and very compelling portrayal of Lois Lana, Nonky. Yes, she sounds brash, tactless and loud on the side of vulgar and tasteless… but she also sounds tough, aggressive, action-oriented and unstoppable. All in all, a great ally for anyone to have on their side. I think approaching Lois is one of the smartest moves Lex could have made… even if it WAS an act done in desperation.

“My father is a controlling man,” Lex said. “He would not approve of my dating Chloe and if he found out he might . . . borrow her for a meeting to either threaten her or bribe her out of my life. Now, I'm not saying Chloe and I will be together forever, but I don't want her to be terrorized. People should be afraid of my father. I-” he chuckled humourlessly, “-am afraid of my father.”

Very nice! I loved the way that Lex managed to come up with a story, right on the spot, that weaved truth and fiction into it so skillfully. Not only that, but he came up with this story under the panicky pressure of realizing that he cannot tell this scary woman that he raped her cousin the evening when he first met her, and since then has assigned himself as her sex-providing protector… awwwkwaaard!

Lois Lane had more than one road rage incident in her file, and a few bar brawls. For someone barely out of high school it was almost impressive. She wasn't the type of woman to worry about her manicure if she thought he needed to be punched. Lex was proficient with a gun, but he didn't fight women. He backed down from Chloe's cousin, and she smiled a little in victory.

LOL! I had to admit that I laughed in delight at the visual of Lex backing down, cringing from this scary lady… and it was even funnier seeing Lois exulting in the knowledge that she made him flinch, LOL!

“If you call the police they'll put Gabe Sullivan on the news asking for his daughter back,” he said reasonably. “They'll start looking at Chloe's friends and family, then her boyfriends. They will spend hours and hours questioning me, because there's a direct connection. But they would never think of my father and he would have plenty of time to react badly. I know you love Chloe, but give me a day to fix this quietly.”

erm… does Lex want Lois’s help even the slightest bit? Because I’m seeing him telling Lois that Chloe might be in dire kidnapped danger, but he’s also asking Lois not to interfere with his search for Chloe? So does he want her help or not?!

Anyhow, I agree with his reason that they should proceed cautiously and discretely (for now). Perhaps he’s hoping that Lois will be available to bring out the big guns, in the form of General Lane, if the situation becomes desperate enough. I can see how that would work.

Her simple dinner had made it clear there was no private chef, so she really might have extra time while he had dinner. A tiny hope flickered like a guttering candle, and she tried to hold her breath inside her mind. She had to think about what might happen soon, but not too closely. The room was full of things to use, if she just figured out a plan.

Everyone she met kept trying to convince her she was just her body, but she knew she had a good mind. A tear fell to the floor, but Chloe kept moving around the big, cold room, thinking.

At least Chloe is not being kept starving while waiting for Lionel to arrive. Knowing Lionel he would easily have ordered his men to keep Chloe hungry until he was ready to meet her. I guess he didn’t want to waste time feeding her before getting on with his torture upon his arrival.

I loved the way that Chloe is building up her strength and resolve… telling herself that it doesn’t matter how everyone around her keeps treating her like a disposable toy, because she knows she has worth and value that’s beyond any price they can command… the only thing they CAN do is use force to ‘steal’ her, since they cannot afford to buy her.

This is building up to a tense, ominous note, Nonky! I can’t believe you left it off over here. Come back and update now!! … please?!??