Dreaming the Wolf, R, 10-23-09, Chapter 23 and Epilogue

[dagney]

I sitting here with my jaw on the floor. WoW Can you write powerful action. I'm still hopeful that Lex can help Chloe figure out what has happened. Loved the last line. Dagney

[Kit Merlot]

This was a fabulous update!

I didn't think that Lex was the one involved in what was happening to Chloe. I hope they pull their resources and kick the person's butt who is actually behind it all. I'm thinking it's Lionel

And I also love Lois and Chloe working as a tag team--that is very cool.

Thanks for this lovely Christmas gift, and please update when you can

[somethingeasy]

One minute Lex was having a conversation with his bodyguards and the next the double doors to his office were flying open and an obviously irate Chloe Sullivan was bearing down on him. He was in the process of escorting them from his office when all this occurred so it came as a surprise when his guards seemed to fly away from him and he was tackled to the ground with Chloe straddling him. She looked vicious. Something was wrong with her face but he couldn’t concentrate on that because her eyes were gold and her lips were pulled back into a fierce snarl. He could see elongated fangs and feel vibrations. She was growling low in the throat and he felt it in his bones.

His head was pounding and he didn’t think he could move even if he wanted to do so. From the corner of his eye, Lex could see his two bodyguards, Mercy and Williamson, stand. Mercy pulled her glock, but Chloe didn’t remove her eyes from him. Williamson rushed to Chloe and made to grab her, but she lashed out. Her hand gripped Williamson’s fore arm and with a sharp twist, Chloe broke it. All of them heard the bones snap. They saw the blood as it gushed from his wound. But most of all, they heard Williamson scream. Chloe released his arm and pushed him. Williamson fell to the ground screaming and writhing.

WOW! This was an awesome, wicked beginning to the new chapter, Ava! I was stunned and in awe! Your action sequences are truly amazing, and I love the way you can convey such blistering, blinding fast-paced movement while still keeping the descriptions of everyone’s actions and positions perfectly clear at all times.

Above everything else, I love the ‘suddenness’ and viciousness of Chloe’s attack. I can see that none of Lex’s guards had even the opportunity to see her, much less start to react to her presence before she incapacitated them. Chloe’s VERY dangerous, and Lex is in a very tight position right now.

Chloe put both of her hands, palms down, on his chest. Lex could see claws. His breath hitched and he knew that he was only a few moments away from panicking. Chloe then began to press hard on him. Lex felt like a Labrador retriever was standing on his chest. He could barely breathe.

heh, I can see that Lex has been brought into a position where he can REALLY appreciate the horrible precariousness of his situation. Chloe is NOT going to show him any mercy, and she’s making him full aware of that.

Chloe spoke for the first time. It was deep and menacing, “Tell them to leave, Lex.”

Lex wasn’t stupid and he knew that the only way he could possibly get out of this alive was if his bodyguards were present. He gasped his words, “I don’t think so, Chloe. You’ll have to kill me in front of them. I lay odds that if you do, a bullet will soon find its mark.”

LOL! Despite how, at this point, I believed Lex was partially responsible for Chloe’s current situation, I still had to admire his balls and nerve. Even in such a obviously dangerous position, he’s keeping his wits about him and is trying to negotiate. He’s really quite a nervy, courageous guy.

Chloe smirked, “Lex, how much do you want to bet that I could get off you, rip that gun from her hands, and violate her ten ways from Sunday with it before she even knew what was going on? Do you think in that time you could get far enough away that I wouldn’t be able to catch you? How about your life? Yes, I think I’ll take that bet. Tell them to leave or you’ll live to regret it.”

LOL! unfortunately for Lex, Chloe is ALSO a masterful negotiator, and she’s holding all the cards right now. And she knows it too. LOL! Love it! Love HER!!

Lex knew when he was caught between a rock and a hard place. Something was wrong with Chloe and she had murder in the eye. Her rage was a tangible thing and for the life of him he couldn’t understand what was going on. His brain felt like it wasn’t working. He knew that if he could only start thinking again, he would know why she was behaving this way. “What happened to her? She was fine when I last saw her.” As Lex stared at her, he came to the conclusion that he was going to be screwed either way. It was the way rocks and hard places behaved. Mercy seemed to be seeing the situation the same as he was. She lowered her gun, helped Williamson from the floor, and closed the doors as she left.

oooh, that observation ‘she was fine last time I saw her’ left me wondering about the circumstances under which he saw her last. Was it while she was being ‘tested’ by his scientists? What kind of checks did they perform to see whether she was ‘fine’?

I liked how Lex came to the conclusion that he was screwed whether his bodyguards stayed or not, so he might as well offer obedience as a means of placating the monster at his throat. I also liked how his body-guards were smart enough to ALSO arrive to the same conclusions… although it might have been better if they had waited for confirmation from their fallen leader before retreating, LOL!

Mercy was a mind reader like that. It was why Lex had hired her. She was very good at what she did and didn’t bat an eyelash at the weird things. Recent events had shown him that he could no longer be lackadaisical about his security. He could no longer count on his wealth and notoriety to protect him. Lex realized that the time of lax security and trusting his welfare to rent-a-cops were done.

GOOD! About time Lex got himself some serious protection! The lack of security around him was becoming a really old joke, and it’s good that he’s FINALLY taken steps to stop looking like he’s courting suicide. AND I was really pleased to see Mercy brought onto the screen. She’s always been a favourite of mine from the Warner Brothers animated version of the DC universe, and I always enjoy seeing her reincarnated into SV fanfic.

Chloe was getting agitated. Lex kept staring at her. He was so freaking calm. Her world had been turned upside down. Everything she knew to be true wasn’t anymore. Her life would never be the same. No matter how much she accepted what she was now or adapted to what she was, some part of her would forever wish that this wasn’t her reality. Some part of her would always rail against the hand that fate had dealt her. And she’d be damned if his life went on the same as it always had. For once in his life, Lex would know the suffering he caused. Chloe moved her right hand so that it rested on his chest just below his breast bone…over his diaphragm. She pressed down and up hard with her palm.

LOL! It figures that, even though I admired Lex for holding onto his cool, his calmness only served to further aggravate Chloe. I imagine it IS very irritating for people to see Lex remaining so calm and collected, even under threat of death by dismemberment.

But, I can also see how this coolness would make Lex the perfect match for Chloe with all her passionate, over-flowing emotions… which have only become more intense and overwhelmingly out of control ever since she turned into a half-wolf.

If Lex thought that he couldn’t breathe before, he was more than certain that he couldn’t now. He also felt his eyes burn and felt liquid on his lip. Lex realized that his nose was bleeding. But he knew that she hadn’t punched him or touched him other than to knock him to the ground. Lex felt tremors in his body. Something was seriously wrong other than being pinned on the ground by a woman smaller than he was. Lex was the first to blink in their stand-off. As soon as he did, Lex’s body stopped trembling and his mind cleared.

Chloe immediately felt better about the entire situation. She could do this.

Wow! Fascinating! I can also see why Lex’s coolness ‘might’ have been interpreted as a ‘challenge’ from Lex by Chloe’s inner-wolf. She wanted him disconcerted to prove his submission to her superior force, and she only relaxed when he finally showed real, intense fear for her.

It was ALSO so interesting how Chloe did the ‘trick’ with her eyes on Lex… forcing him into a headache until he finally had to drop his eyes to relieve the growing pressure on his chest as well as in his head. I wonder how Lex will feel once he knows that his blinking and averting his eyes was a sign of submission to Chloe’s inner wolf… I don’t think Lex will be pleased AT ALL about giving even the ‘appearance’ of submission to anyone… not even Chloe.

“I know what you did to me…to those others. Did you think you’d get away with it?”

Chloe realized that he wouldn’t be able to answer her if he couldn’t breathe. It was a dilemma. “Hurt him or let him answer?” She decided that her need to hurt him was less important than her need to have the answers to her questions, so she removed her hand from where it was pressing against his diaphragm. The response was immediate. Lex began gasping and wheezing. Chloe stood up and watched him roll away from her towards his desk.

LOL! At least Chloe’s wolfy half still allows her higher brain to set the priorities straight. It’s very good to see that, even in a rage as intense as this one, Chloe STILL has control and final say over the wolf’s actions and decisions.

Lex had been close to death many times before but this was the first time that he didn’t think that he would survive. The first time he truly felt weakness. “Of course it was Chloe Sullivan.”

squeee! I loved how, even at this dangerous moment, Lex still felt such a grudging sense of respect for Chloe. He’s actually not surprised that Chloe was the one person to inspire fear from him, where all others have failed. The admiration is clear!

Lex’s system had been hacked earlier that day and he could finally see the two pronged attacked that had rendered his security measures pathetically ineffectual. There was a blunt force knock at the front and back door of his system, but even sneakier was the scalpel that neatly and deftly lanced its way to the inner parts of his system. His computer techs didn’t even see it coming. They didn’t see Lois Lane and Chloe Sullivan working in tandem to utterly obliterate and defeat them. “Amateurs.”

I loved, LOVED the description of the two-pronged attack on Lex’s research facilities. I loved hearing about how Chloe combined the subtlety of her sneaky B&E acquired skills along with the new strength and brute force that came from her Wolf. It’s fantastic to see her utilizing ALL her talents to become even better at everything she is already so amazing at.

“So you saw the files. All of them,” at her nod, Lex continued, “Then you are as informed as I am. Yes, I had you and those others taken. But that was only to see what you could do. Haven’t you noticed that the meteor infected are getting stronger? Their abilities are manifesting in a more and more dramatic fashion. I thought that by knowing who you were we could at least prevent some of the disturbances. My scientists ran one test. Only one, which was to determine what you might be able to do. We let them go immediately after except a few who were actually homicidal. It ended there for me and my project, but not for someone else.”

Lex turned away from her, moved behind his desk, and turned on his computer. He wasn’t lying. There were no body signals that indicated he was lying. Many people lied through the course of the day and she had gotten a feel for the body cues. Pupil dilation, slight pulse change, a minute change in breathing patterns. It wasn’t exact, but she could be ninety-five percent sure that he wasn’t lying. It was good enough.

Ooooh, that IS quite a interesting, surprising twist given to the developing plot. Who would have imagined, but Lex was actually being a GOOD GUY while he was kidnapping people and testing them about the Freak abilities. I can understand why Lex would have felt the need to have tested these people in the first place, considering his own horrendous experiences with psychotic mutants… but I’m impressed that he didn’t use this as an opportunity to exploit the Freaks while they were in his custody.

LOL! It’s a VERY convenient talent for Chloe to be able to tell when someone is lying. She doesn’t have to bother to check out his story or corroborate everything he’s telling her against secondary sources, because she can TELL when he being truthful. And, miracles or miracles, Lex is actually telling the truth over here… even if it ‘might’ not be the WHOLE truth, at least there are no lies mixed in with everything he’s saying.

I wonder if he knows about the full extent of Chloe’s powers, and therefore knows that she would be able to tell if he’s lying…? Is that why he’s not trying to lie to her right now?

“You only ran a test? Nothing more?”

I VERY curious about this ‘single test’ that was performed on all of them. The visual of Chloe being strapped down to a table with probes being gutted into her… it seemed VERY painful, and an example of a very extreme kind of testing.

“I also found a few more files that you missed because they are stored on a different server,” with this Lex removed his hard drive and gave it to her, “Chloe, I am sorry. I honestly thought that what I was doing was the right thing. If none of this ever happened, no one would’ve gotten hurt.”

darnnit! I really want to know some more about these files that had Chloe rushing over here ready to tear Lex’s throat out as soon as she confirmed her findings. Was someone trying to frame Lex? Or did the files just ‘happen’ to lead to him by unhappy accident?

Lex’s apology also seemed quite sincere and genuine… which took me by surprise. I was viewing the Chlex relationship in this fic as an antagonistic one… even if Lex is not, at this moment, the person responsible for making all these moves against Chloe, I certainly didn’t expect him to CARE that Chloe had been hurt during the course of HIS all important research.

And he gave her his hard-drive?! WOW!

Lex watched Chloe leave as quickly and abruptly as she had come. He couldn’t blame her. “I need a drink.”

Lex walked to his bar and poured himself some scotch. He was about to take his first sip when he was once again aware of the blood on his lip. He looked into his glass of scotch and threw it into the wall. He was breathing hard. Today had not been a good day and it didn’t look like he’d have any in the foreseeable future.

LOL! Yep! This is one time when Lex REALLY needs and deserves a drink without the readers judging him for using alcohol as a crutch, ROTFL!

His bodyguard came running. He pushed past her on his way out of his office, “Tell every tech we have that they aren’t to sleep until every project Lionel has ever worked on has been examined with a fine-toothed comb! Threaten them, hurt them, kill them! I don’t care how you get his former employees to cooperate. Leave me plausible deniability and get it done! I won’t accept failure from you.”

squeee! I love seeing Lex taking firm, merciless control of his more ‘dubious’ employees. It’s always fantastic seeing them being ordered to go out and bend some rules for their employer’s benefit.

Lex had spent too much time in this back-water shanty town if something as large as what was perpetrated against him escaped his notice. He’d been too nice and it had gotten him nowhere. He had a fiancée in love with another man, a town that didn’t appreciate the jobs he brought, and an inexplicably bloody nose. The citizens of this town were sadly mistaken if they thought they knew him. They were in for a rude awakening because he would show them the real him. He was Lex Luthor, son of Lionel Luthor, billionaire, and CEO of a multi-national corporation. He could buy and sell every person in this town many times over and not break a sweat. “Damn them if they can’t accept it.” They had no real recourse or power to stop him. He would know his enemies.

This part gave me a real thrill, because I knew that Lex was finally ready to go to war… and his focus was completely on destroying his enemies. He is not going to settle for even a surrender from them… I think he’s aiming for complete annihilation this time. Now it’s only a question of knowing whether his targets are strictly restricted to the ‘bad guys’ or whether he’s also got some innocents in his sights… I can’t wait to find out who is in danger from Lex Luthor.

The time of treating these people with kid gloves and giving them space and time to accept the change he represented was over. They would do as he wanted or he’d destroy them and find someone who would.

“She was hurt.”

oh WOW! Oh dear heaven! This last sentence took me completely by shock, and completely turned my whole perception of the Chlex exchange upside down. I assumed that Lex felt nothing more for Chloe except for animosity coupled with a grudging sense of respect and admiration for her skills. BUT, it actually seems like he cares for her. And that the reason for his rage right now is hearing about how SHE has been hurt by whatever was uncovered in those mysterious files.

Squeee! The plot is becoming more intense, and I can’t wait to see how it turns out in future chapters. Please update soon, Ava… I’m really anxious for more plot progress!!!

[Avalanche]

Disclaimer- see ch1

A/N- Look at this. An update. I leave on business and then school so you’ll really have to wait. I'm too nice sometimes as somethingeasy well knows.

Warnings- Readers, this part is rated R for violence and disturbing behavior. It isn’t nice. Kale is a hitman. It’s what he does. Keep that in mind. If this scares you off, then pm me and I’ll give you the gist of what’s going on.




Chapter 7- Origins of the Wolf


Part I- A Day in the Life


“It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
Bhuddist quote



Two Months Before…


Nathaniel Chase, Nate to his friends and family, was finally getting home after a long day of work. Nate was 6’2, wore nerd glasses and let his wife dress him in tailored suits. He worked as an engineer, mainly designing and building mines for the army. He was good at what he did and had been part of the team that had reduced the size of a mine series by half. It wasn’t going into wide spread use, but it could function for limited types of engagement. He was inordinately proud. It was with this lens that he could say with certainty that his life was great. It was on track. Nate had a relatively large home, two cars, a boat, a dog and a summer home in Florida. The dream of a white picket fence was his. He made sure that the house he bought with his success had a white, picket fence. He had a beautiful wife, Janie, and adorable twin girls, Emma and Lucy. They were the light of his world. Everything he did was for them. There was nothing that he wouldn’t do if it meant that they could be happy. Nate could die at this moment a happy man. “Yes, my life is good.”

This attitude was greeted with silence from his home. It was dark and quiet. More importantly, it was unnatural. Nate came home to laughter and bright lights of his home. His girls ran to his arms and gave him sloppy kisses. His dog greeted him with a bark and a wag of his tail. And his lovely wife looked on indulgently with a soft smile. But all of that was missing now. Nate was excitable and absent minded. His wife was the cool, collected one.

He ran into his home calling the name of his wife.

“Janie!”

The sight that greeted him as soon as he entered the dining room chilled him to the bone. His dog was dead. The side of his wife’s face wasn’t there anymore. Her eyes were vacant. Sightless. Blood covered her chest, but Nate couldn’t see that. He only saw her face…her eyes. Her crystal blue eyes. Her long, dark hair matted with blood. Nate heard the whimpering of his daughters and he saw that they were bound and gagged close to their mother. Their faces were streaked with tears.

Nate ran to move to them when a voice stopped him cold. The voice originated behind him. Nate slowly turned to face the voice. It was a man who had been a valet at the parking garage he regularly frequented.

“Mr. Chase, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Nate stuttered, “Tony? What…what’s going on here?”

Samuel Kale saw the recognition flash across the face of his mark. He saw as Nathaniel Chase’s eyes took in his features. The man may have been something of a goof, who had a wife way out of his weight class, but he was an engineer. Nathaniel was trained to notice the minutia. To augment and improve upon designs that had been streamlined already.

“I’m sorry to inform you, but my name is not Tony. It’s actually Samuel Kale.”

It was in that moment that Nate knew that he was going to die. No mere kidnapper, blackmailer, or burglar would ever reveal themselves let alone tell their true name. Nate didn’t doubt that he had been told the true name of the man who had killed his wife and hurt his daughters.

“Whatever you want. It’s all yours. Just please, please let my girls go. They’re kids. They won’t tell. They won’t even remember your face.”

Kale tilted his head to the left and narrowed his eyes, “They will die tonight as will you. The only say in the matter that you have is how quickly they die. Give me what I want and they won’t suffer. I’ll kill them quick…and you. Don’t waste your time begging. It won’t do you any good, but it will piss me off. This doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”

Nate felt his eyes burning. He knew that he was crying. His breath was little more than shallow pants. His body trembled. Nate could only hope that this man was telling the truth. How could it be that he had to hope in the word of a madman? What kind of God would let this happen?

“What do you want?”

Kale was glad that Chase had seen reason. He wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to the man’s plight. He didn’t relish hurting children, but he had accepted the job. He’d done his homework and knew that the key to Chase was his family. Kale didn’t want to hurt them more than necessary.

“You have some files that my employer wants. Project: Pipsqueak. I’m not entirely unreasonable so I’ll tell you the whys. You remember a Miss Kimberly Wavers don’t you? It seems that she didn’t appreciate you stealing her work and then lying about it…or rather her uncle didn’t. Ruining someone’s career is just so uncouth. So here we are.”

Nate hadn’t stolen her work. He merely borrowed some parts and presented it to the bosses. It was done all the time.

“Listen, I didn’t. She’s lying.”

Kale actually thought this might’ve gone easy, “No. I do believe you’re lying. I’ve been watching you for weeks now. You have so many tell-tales that it’s been pathetically easy to decipher you. But even if you were telling the truth and she was lying through her teeth, it would not have mattered. I’m being paid to get the files and kill you. So get them now or I’ll become rather…unpleasant.”

Nate ran upstairs to his computer with Samuel Kale right behind him. He put in his pass codes and left his computer open. After ten minutes, Kale got what he wanted and gestured for Nate to go back downstairs to his dining room.

“Well, Mr. Chase, we are now at the end of our little acquaintanceship. I have enjoyed my time as a valet. We had the most interesting conversations. So what I want you to do is pick up that gun on the table. It has three bullets. Before you think to turn that gun on me, know that you will fail. After you fail, I will hurt your daughters…very badly. Save us all the trouble. I think you know what you are to do.”

Nate trembled. There was no way that he could do as he was told. There was also no way that he could let this psychotic man hurt his daughters. Nate had no doubt that Samuel Kale would do just as he said he would. Nate closed his eyes and pulled the trigger in quick succession.

“Very good, Mr. Chase. You’re a better shot than I would’ve guessed. But then again, this is Texas.”

Nate’s voice was unsteady, “I had no choice.”

“How could it have all gone so wrong?” He turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger.

If there was anything that Samuel Kale actively hated, it was those words.

He spoke to a corpse, “No, you had plenty of choices. You could have chosen to defy me. Taken your chances, but you didn’t because at the end of the day you are weak. You could have chosen to not steal the work of others. Just because you see no other options doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It means that you lack a strong will.”

Kale left the quaint little house with a picket fence. He was actually on his way to meet his long-time girlfriend when he received a call. It was a phone reserved for business. There were so many layers of security and obfuscation that it would take an almost Herculean effort to get to him. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar except the kind of people who wanted his services.

“Kale.”

The voice on the other end spoke into his ear, “There’s a job for you in Smallville, Kansas. The information you need is in the usual drop box. Be here by noon tomorrow.”

Kale heard a click and the line was dead. Sometimes his future bosses were like that. No nonsense types. Efficient. The instincts that he had honed in the marines and his profession told him that this would be something off the beaten path of his normal jobs. He looked forward to it.


********

Four hours later Samuel Kale was on the road out of Texas. He’d checked his email on a secure server. Emails sent to him were innocuous. Many referenced the weather. Others talked about seemingly random news stories, but all of them had meaning to him. He was intrigued by this new job. This small town in Kansas was too much to be believed. There should have been more press in the news about this town, but there wasn’t. No doubt all the oddities of the town were more than likely attributed to the fact that these people were hicks in a town so far removed from the map it was unreal.

“Smallville, Kansas here I come.”

[Kit Merlot]

What an intense update!

If I needed proof that Kale was a cold-blooded killer, I received it in this chapter. But I think he is going to have a surprise when he deals with Chloe--she is not weak willed in the least.

Good luck with your traveling and school, and I hope to hear from you soon with a new update

[hfce]

WOW!! What two amazing updates. So it isn't Lex who did this. My instinct tells me its Lionel. God I hate that man. I am so scared for Chloe. I hope she can get her self out of this mess.

[somethingeasy]

“It is a man's own mind, not his enemy or foe, that lures him to evil ways.”
Bhuddist quote

This was an excellent quote, and a apt way of setting the tone for this chapter. It ‘could’ have been referring to the mundane kind of evil Nate committed while he was stealing someone’s work, or it could have been a reference to Samual’s atrocity.

Nathaniel Chase, Nate to his friends and family, was finally getting home after a long day of work. Nate was 6’2, wore nerd glasses and let his wife dress him in tailored suits. He worked as an engineer, mainly designing and building mines for the army. He was good at what he did and had been part of the team that had reduced the size of a mine series by half. It wasn’t going into wide spread use, but it could function for limited types of engagement. He was inordinately proud. It was with this lens that he could say with certainty that his life was great. It was on track. Nate had a relatively large home, two cars, a boat, a dog and a summer home in Florida. The dream of a white picket fence was his. He made sure that the house he bought with his success had a white, picket fence. He had a beautiful wife, Janie, and adorable twin girls, Emma and Lucy. They were the light of his world. Everything he did was for them. There was nothing that he wouldn’t do if it meant that they could be happy. Nate could die at this moment a happy man. “Yes, my life is good.”

This was an excellent start to what will become a very tragic and gruesome chapter. I loved how Ava covered how incredibly happy, content, satisfied and at peace Nate was with his life before Ava tore it to shreds in front of him. Heh, and I also have to appreciate her black humour over here in reference to Nate making the observation that if he died at this moment, he would have died a happy man… Oh, what a difference a few moments make.

This attitude was greeted with silence from his home. It was dark and quiet. More importantly, it was unnatural. Nate came home to laughter and bright lights of his home. His girls ran to his arms and gave him sloppy kisses. His dog greeted him with a bark and a wag of his tail. And his lovely wife looked on indulgently with a soft smile. But all of that was missing now. Nate was excitable and absent minded. His wife was the cool, collected one.

Fantastic buildup! It started out just eerie and disquieting. None of us, including Nate, having any idea about the true scope of the horror waiting for him a few more steps into his home. You have a special talent for building up atmosphere, Ava!

The sight that greeted him as soon as he entered the dining room chilled him to the bone. His dog was dead. The side of his wife’s face wasn’t there anymore. Her eyes were vacant. Sightless. Blood covered her chest, but Nate couldn’t see that. He only saw her face…her eyes. Her crystal blue eyes. Her long, dark hair matted with blood. Nate heard the whimpering of his daughters and he saw that they were bound and gagged close to their mother. Their faces were streaked with tears.

I stopped short with startled terror at the same time Nate did. Of course ‘my’ terror probably didn’t come to even a fraction of the same level as this fictional character, but I really felt something intense for this poor man. Nothing… not even the crimes of stealing work from another brilliant young girl could have justified this kind of payback.

Samuel Kale saw the recognition flash across the face of his mark. He saw as Nathaniel Chase’s eyes took in his features. The man may have been something of a goof, who had a wife way out of his weight class, but he was an engineer. Nathaniel was trained to notice the minutia. To augment and improve upon designs that had been streamlined already.

Just like Samuel, I was also quite impressed by Nate, not only recognizing this man from a brief previous encounter, but also remembering his name. It’s obvious that there was a lot more to Nate than met the eye, and it’s such a pity that this man of obviously high intelligence, talents and skills had to be killed… and so brutally and viciously too. It’s obvious that Samuel did not share my feeling of intense regret for the loss of this bright spark of human life…

My same feeling of regret applies to ALL the human lives in this household. I’m sure Nate’s wife was also a wonderful person who deserved better than this… and the children… oh, the poor kids!

It was in that moment that Nate knew that he was going to die. No mere kidnapper, blackmailer, or burglar would ever reveal themselves let alone tell their true name. Nate didn’t doubt that he had been told the true name of the man who had killed his wife and hurt his daughters.

“Whatever you want. It’s all yours. Just please, please let my girls go. They’re kids. They won’t tell. They won’t even remember your face.”

My respect for Nate was growing by the second. He took in the trauma and horror of the situation, and he actually reacted VERY well considering the circumstances. He didn’t waste his time or antagonize this killer with curses or threats. Instead he went straight to bargaining, offering his own life without struggle as long as the children were left safe and alive.

Kale tilted his head to the left and narrowed his eyes, “They will die tonight as will you. The only say in the matter that you have is how quickly they die. Give me what I want and they won’t suffer. I’ll kill them quick…and you. Don’t waste your time begging. It won’t do you any good, but it will piss me off. This doesn’t have to be unpleasant.”

Kale is just… frightening! He didn’t bother to participate in the bargaining process… just told Nate that everyone in his home was going to be dead, and there was nothing he could do about it. The bastard really took pleasure in inflicting this despair on Nate before he finally killed him off.

Nate felt his eyes burning. He knew that he was crying. His breath was little more than shallow pants. His body trembled. Nate could only hope that this man was telling the truth. How could it be that he had to hope in the word of a madman? What kind of God would let this happen?

“What do you want?”

Kale was glad that Chase had seen reason. He wasn’t entirely unsympathetic to the man’s plight. He didn’t relish hurting children, but he had accepted the job. He’d done his homework and knew that the key to Chase was his family. Kale didn’t want to hurt them more than necessary.

Nate ACCEPTED this psychopath’s terms? He accepted that it was all right for his kids to die as long as they didn’t experience too much pain? I take back ‘some’ of my I said about Nate being smart, he might be clever, but he doesn’t have guts. I can see that Kale also felt gratified at seeing this proof of ‘unworthiness of living’ in this man’s easy acceptance of Kale’s deplorable terms.

“You have some files that my employer wants. Project: Pipsqueak. I’m not entirely unreasonable so I’ll tell you the whys. You remember a Miss Kimberly Wavers don’t you? It seems that she didn’t appreciate you stealing her work and then lying about it…or rather her uncle didn’t. Ruining someone’s career is just so uncouth. So here we are.”

Nate hadn’t stolen her work. He merely borrowed some parts and presented it to the bosses. It was done all the time.

“Listen, I didn’t. She’s lying.”

Kale actually thought this might’ve gone easy, “No. I do believe you’re lying. I’ve been watching you for weeks now. You have so many tell-tales that it’s been pathetically easy to decipher you. But even if you were telling the truth and she was lying through her teeth, it would not have mattered. I’m being paid to get the files and kill you. So get them now or I’ll become rather…unpleasant.”

It’s VERY interesting seeing this fully fleshed out character that had only created and built for about three pages. Excellent work, Ava! I loved how Nate has a very interesting and believable combination of cool nerves along with so many short-sighted weaknesses.

“Well, Mr. Chase, we are now at the end of our little acquaintanceship. I have enjoyed my time as a valet. We had the most interesting conversations. So what I want you to do is pick up that gun on the table. It has three bullets. Before you think to turn that gun on me, know that you will fail. After you fail, I will hurt your daughters…very badly. Save us all the trouble. I think you know what you are to do.”

Nate trembled. There was no way that he could do as he was told. There was also no way that he could let this psychotic man hurt his daughters. Nate had no doubt that Samuel Kale would do just as he said he would. Nate closed his eyes and pulled the trigger in quick succession.

“Very good, Mr. Chase. You’re a better shot than I would’ve guessed. But then again, this is Texas.”

oh dear GOD! What was Nate forced to DO in the end?!? It was horrifying beyond anything else I might have imagined. I think Kale took sick, vicious pleasure in forcing Nate to be the one to bring death to his own children. I don’t think he did it because he wanted to ‘cover up’ his crime as much because he just wanted this final bit of power over Nate before the man was killed.

Nate’s voice was unsteady, “I had no choice.”

“How could it have all gone so wrong?” He turned the gun on himself and pulled the trigger.

If there was anything that Samuel Kale actively hated, it was those words.

He spoke to a corpse, “No, you had plenty of choices. You could have chosen to defy me. Taken your chances, but you didn’t because at the end of the day you are weak. You could have chosen to not steal the work of others. Just because you see no other options doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. It means that you lack a strong will.”

I do NOT share Kale’s views that Nate deserves to pay with these ‘weaknesses’ with such an brutal death, but I can also understand how Kale would have arrived at such conclusions. Nate ‘did’ seem rather weak-willed in the way he stole another person’s work, tried to make excuses of his theft to himself as well as to others, and then folded over under Kale’s demands of shooting his own kids and himself.

Kale would have been thoroughly disgusted by all this evidence on why Nate didn’t deserve to survive, and would have felt justified in his own atrocious, terrible, monstrous and heartless actions. I’m starting to understand the kind of terrible philosophy Kale lives by… he basically believes in a survival of the fittest kind of world, where only those who are willing to put their whole being into FIGHTING to survive are the ones who deserve to live.

Hmmm, I wonder whether he’s going to admit that Chloe was the one prey who deserved to survive during the few moments before she rips his throat out. Or perhaps he will see that there is something more to life than simple ‘survival’ when he sees Lex and/or Chloe risking their own lives for each other?

Heh, I’m already dying to know how this character evolves as the story progresses, and how his end his going to come. Will he survive and become a better man? Or will he die the wretched kind of death he deserves?

Kale left the quaint little house with a picket fence. He was actually on his way to meet his long-time girlfriend when he received a call. It was a phone reserved for business. There were so many layers of security and obfuscation that it would take an almost Herculean effort to get to him. He wasn’t on anyone’s radar except the kind of people who wanted his services.

Long term girlfriend? Kale has a girlfriend?!? Are we going to meet her later? Is she going to be drawn into this story by Lex and/or Chloe as Kale’s weakness perhaps? Now THAT would be poetic justice.

The voice on the other end spoke into his ear, “There’s a job for you in Smallville, Kansas. The information you need is in the usual drop box. Be here by noon tomorrow.”

Kale heard a click and the line was dead. Sometimes his future bosses were like that. No nonsense types. Efficient. The instincts that he had honed in the marines and his profession told him that this would be something off the beaten path of his normal jobs. He looked forward to it.

Four hours later Samuel Kale was on the road out of Texas. He’d checked his email on a secure server. Emails sent to him were innocuous. Many referenced the weather. Others talked about seemingly random news stories, but all of them had meaning to him. He was intrigued by this new job. This small town in Kansas was too much to be believed. There should have been more press in the news about this town, but there wasn’t. No doubt all the oddities of the town were more than likely attributed to the fact that these people were hicks in a town so far removed from the map it was unreal.

“Smallville, Kansas here I come.”

I loved the details on how Kale gets his assignments, what kind of a tone he respects from his prospective employers, and the way that all the information is given in innocuous sounding code to throw off any possible listeners. It was really interesting seeing how, when and from where he gets his jobs from. Although I do wonder who manages his schedule for him.

This was an fantastic, amazing chapter! It was short, but VERY intense! It was angsty, traumatic, frightening, and an absolute delight to read! I loved it!!! I look forward to seeing how the next chapter comes along. Will it be posted soon? I really like this structure of posting short but intense pieces of work at a time. It provides me with an Avalanche fix, and doesn’t threaten to give me carpal tunnel syndrome through my feedback, LOL!

Please post soon.

[dagney]

yikes the plot become more complex. I fear for the gang in smallville. Dagney

[letia84]

Just catching up with this one. very interesting take on being a wolf. I'm glad that Lex doesn't seem to be the one behind what's going on. The hit interlude was a nice touch. I can't wait to see what's on that file Lex gave to Chloe and I'm sure there is more Chlex exchange to come.

[Avalanche]

Sorry folks this isn't an update. That's going slowly, but it is going. I did, however, write a side story for DtW concernin Kale. You can thank SE and skauble for that. The got the wheels turning on this one. Anywho, it has nothing to do with chlex so I can't post it here. It's posted to my lj: http://shard-baenre.livejournal.com/

I hope you enjoy!