Does One Kiss Change Everything?

There wasn’t a picture of Wallace Echols anywhere online that Chloe could show Clark to give him some idea that they were on the right trail but seeing as to how it was the only lead he had, he took what he could get. While a description of the elusive Wallace had not been possible, she was able to get the address of the family home. The Echols weren’t farmers like most of Smallville’s residents but they occupied a nice piece of property outside town.

It took Clark less than 20 minutes to make the journey from Metropolis to Smallville and all the while there was this sense of foreboding that no matter how fast he was running, time was running out. Such feelings were rare but Clark had learned enough to trust his gut instincts when something wasn’t right and as hoped that on this occasion, he was wrong. He had no idea where Lois was and knowing he was on the clock was not going to make him rest any easier.

The Echols place was deserted when he reached the gates and noted that the place had the look of desertion. It made sense of course, the Echols had been missing for weeks before Lois had trailed their disappearances to the cemetery and had her near death experience. Clark shook thoughts about near death experiences out of his head because that would only precipitate more thoughts about Lois well being and he was having enough trouble fighting the panic that wanted to overwhelm him at the thought of her abduction.

Snapping the huge padlock that kept trespassers off the property, Clark slipped into the grounds and immediately switched to his enhanced vision to locate any signs of life. Fortunately, there were no buried bodies or grisly finds reminiscent of the murdered victims in the cemetery. There was however, one person in the house. Seeing through the walls, he saw the young man he assumed was Wallace Echols and no matter how hard Clark stared, he could not be certain if Wallace was indeed Lois’ assailant.

Clark cursed, debating whether or not to waste his time talking to the guy if he couldn’t be sure especially when there was no signs of Lois anywhere on the property. If Wallace had indeed kidnapped Lois, he’d want to keep her close by. After one attempt on her life, it was safe to assume the police would take a second rather seriously. Pros and cons aside, Clark still didn’t have an answer and the mounting fears for Lois’ life felt like a gun being pressed against his skull.

Frustrated at his lack of progress and fighting his rising panic that he would not reach her in time, Clark was about to leave when he sighted something that made him stop in his tracks.

A damp towel.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


It was went she started feeling light headed that Lois knew she was running out of air.

Something inside her snapped at that moment and despite everything she told herself about not panicking, about keeping her calm and not wasting oxygen, all that was forgotten upon reaching the spirit crushing realization that no one was coming for her.

Lois started screaming and when she couldn’t scream anymore, she sobbed.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

The plan had worked out well as far as Wallace Echols was concerned. Even though he had hoped for a few more months before the bodies were discovered, things couldn’t have worked out better if he had planned it. Despite his initial belief that Lois Lane’s interference might upset his carefully planned stratagem, it seems the attempt on her life had actually solidified the police’s suspicion that the murders were being carried out by some psychotic killer.

Whatever.

All Wallace knew was the insurance company had called today, informing him that a nice fat cheque was coming his way and already, he was talking to his dad’s lawyers about finalizing the sale of the garage. In six months, Wallace planned on taking himself away from Kansas to some place where girls in bikinis would serve him Pina Coladas on pristine white beaches for the rest of his life.

Suitable payback for a father who had claimed he would amount to nothing.

Until a year ago, Wallace Echols had been your typical Smallville outsider. He didn’t associate, had little tolerance for others and took almost perverse pleasure in showing just how indifferent he could be to the parents who spoiled him. Imagine his surprise when they finally decided to put their foot down in a last ditch effort to help him build some form of character and told him he had to fend for himself? Wallace had been unimpressed and would not have fared very well if not one for singular event that changed his life.

Smallville had a meteor shower.

His car had been almost totaled when the meteorite struck the road he had been driving on. He should have died but instead of being splattered across the inside of the cabin like an egg, he had somehow been flung out of the vehicle to safety. Wallace was even more astonished by this since there had not been an open door or broken windscreen to manage this miracle. In the days to come, he discovered that he had joined the prestigious ranks of one of those freaks former Smallville High alumni Chloe Sullivan had been so fond of writing.

He had developed the ability to move through solid matter or cause matter to pass through each other or even displace it if necessary.

Wallace put this talent to use, stealing small amounts at first, a robbery here, a trinket there but eventually he wanted the big score. The murder of his parents, with all the wealth they had accumulated over the years, wealth which would be his someday anyway, seemed like the best way to acquire it. Remembering the plot to an old detective novel he once read, he came across the plan that would reach that end.

He centered his entire plan around the annual pilgrimage his parents would make to the Smallville Cemetery to visit his grandfather’s grave. As the date approached, he began selecting random victims whom like his parents, came to the graveyard to visit their loved ones. Furthermore, Wallace liked the idea of hiding the bodies in plain sight. Swelling in pride at his ingenuity, it was very easy to sent the first person to their death, then the second and the third. It almost matched the ecstacy he felt sending his parents into the dirt and leaving them just enough air in their hollowed out grave to prolong their agony.

Lazing back in his father’s arm chair, Wallace reached for the bottle of coke on the table when suddenly, he noticed the liquid inside beginning to shimmer as if the ground was trembling. Knotting his brow in confusion, the young man had time enough to form the word earthquake when suddenly the front door exploded into a thousand wooden fragments as debris rained across him and the leather seat he was sitting on. He had enough time to shield his eyes before he was on his knees, scrambling for cover.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Clark demanded as he grabbed Wallace by the scruff of the neck and hurled him across the room. Wallace’s face broke his fall and he slid to the base of the wall, seeing stars.

Disorientated and temporarily unable to concentrate, Wallace looked up at his attacker and recognize him immediately. “You were at the cemetery,” he muttered and then realized, “that’s how she got out…”

Clark wasted no time, aware that once he regained his equilibrium, Wallace would be escaping as before. Moving at super speed, Clark was next to Wallace in a minute and lifting him up by the foot. A fist enclosed the young man’s ankle and crushed bones easily. Wallace let out a scream of agony before Clark let him go and saw him fall against the floor with a thud.

“You may be able to move through walls but you’re not going to be doing it on your feet.” Clark warned. “Now one more time, where…is…she?” He said with enough finality and just enough flame in his eyes to indicate that having broken bones was the least of Wallace’s problems.

“I don’t know who you mean!” Wallace spat and tried to concentrate, gritting his teeth in agony. His eyes flashed green.

Clark sunk into the ground up to his knees and couldn’t move for all but five seconds, before his eyes blazed and flames shot up around Wallace who could do nothing but sink into the ground to avoid the fire.

“WHERE IS SHE?” Clark demanded again, refusing to listen to any other response.

“She’s dead!” Wallace hurled back.

Clark who was in the process of tearing himself out of the floor, ripping up floorboard and mortar stopped short at that. No. He refused to accept it. He wouldn’t accept it. Not Lois, not yet.

Not before he had a chance to tell her what she meant to him….

“You’re lying!” Clark grabbed the man’s other foot and crushed with similar ruthlessness, eliciting another cry of excruciating pain. “Now tell me where she is before I break every bone in your body and put you someplace that will make jail look like a theme park!”

It was a bluff of course but right now Clark wasn’t being rational and playing twenty questions with this guy was time Clark didn’t have. Besides, Clark really did have some place to put him where he wouldn’t be a threat to anyone.

“She’s at my father’s garage in town!” Wallace gave in at last, unable to take any more damage or pain. “You’re too late! She’s probably run out of air….”

Before he could finish the sentence, Clark was already out of the door.


~~~~~~~~~~~

Her nails were broken and fists were aching but it didn’t stop Lois Lane from trying to escape despite the futility of it all. It wasn’t in her make up to simply give up while her life was being stolen from her without so much as one scream of indignation. However, the breaking in the dam had cost her and through her sobs, she was finding it harder to breathe. Crying herself into exhaustion, Lois finally gave up and accepted that she was going to die.

A lifetime of regret surfaced quickly.

There was so much she had wanted to do, so much she thought she had plenty of time to take care of. Damn, she was just starting to figure a few things out too.

Al her life, she had been somewhat rudderless. Her dad dragging her across the world from one place to another offered little in the way guidance. Lois didn’t blame the general, such were the cards that were dealt her. However, this writing thing was becoming more and more important to her and Lois had even been toying with the idea of going back to college, finishing that degree – picking a major this time. Maybe trying for a job at the Planet, when she was done, to be real reporter, not some tabloid hack.

Her thoughts were always such a mess her head and when she tried to speak them, they almost always came out in barrage, like artillery fire. Writing them down however, made her stop, made her think about what she was saying and Lois realized that her writing gave all those scrambled thoughts expression. Lois had so much more to say and now it looked like the chance would never come.

Like her chance with Clark.

Closing her eyes at the sound of his name inside her head, Lois began to sob again because the despair she felt at realizing that her luck with men hadn’t changed at all, had no description. Like she had said to Mrs. Kent after that whole business with Graeme the assassin, she’d most likely be looking the other way when her Jonathan arrived. Well she wasn’t looking the other way but as luck would have it, she was going to get herself killed only minutes after finding him. She wasn’t angry that he wasn’t here and inside, she knew that he would continue to search even if he was too late. She hoped he didn’t blame himself, Lois couldn’t bear that.

He had enough of that crap with Lana already. Lois would hate to be the reason why he continued to be miserable.

Feeling it harder and harder to breathe, Lois dried her eyes as best as the confined space would let her and waited for the end.

She had no more fight left.

~~~~~~~~~

The garage that Wallace spoke of was in fact a fully fledged auto service business that the young man had promptly shut down after his parents’ bodies had been discovered murdered at the Smallville cemetery. With their demise, he saw no reason to keep it open and thus men and women who worked at the place, relying on its income had been pinked slipped the very next day.

Clark arrived at garage less than a minute after leaving Wallace Echols with two broken ankle, a show of force he did not think was unjustified, considering the number of people he had sent to his grave. As anticipated, the place was empty with steel security gates pulled over the shop front and garage doors. Wasting no time, he swept his x-ray vision through the length and breadth of the establishment, searching…

What he found was a body under the floor.

Eyes widening in horror as he saw the struggles of the person trapped there grow sluggish, Clark zoomed through the door, nearly tearing it off its hinges as he raced unto the main garage floor, now devoid of cars and mechanics. He came to a stop on the concrete floor that covered the entire room in one large thick slab. The bastard had buried her under the floor using his powers. Had anyone else but Clark found her, it would have taken nothing less than a jackhammer to rescue Lois.

Using his enhanced hearing, he could hear two things, he could hear her shallow breath and he could hear her sobbing. The sound of both made his heart clench in panic and as he dropped to his knees, pulling back his fist for the punch that would crack open her prison like an egg. As he pulled his arm back, Clark paused a second and considered what it was he was about to do.

There would be no explaining how he had managed to rescue her.

Lois was not dumb enough to believe his lies and in truth, Clark didn’t want to lie to her. His attempt to keep the truth from Lana had driven her to Lex and Clark didn’t want to make the same mistake twice. Lois wasn’t Lana and for once in his life, he was going to have to make a choice for truth and live with the consequences. Without further hesitation, Clark Kent threw his punch against the concrete.

The shudder that ran through her ears was loud enough to snap Lois out of her despair and her approaching unconscious state. Staring up in shock, she was met with a face full of concrete dust and an infusion of fresh air that made her gasp greedily for it as she took hungry breaths. A crack of light appeared from overhead and as she tried to process what was happening, she heard another jolt, like the sound of clapping thunder as the sky opened up for her.

Clark!

It was Clark that was looking down at her. It was Clark who had just ripped through solid concrete with his bare hands. Lois questioned whether this was real or was she hallucinating when she saw him pull apart the cement slab like he was unwrapping his last Christmas present. She saw him do this and suddenly, clarity she had never known before flooded her senses. A thousand images flashed through her mind in that second, all those near misses where she and Chloe had almost met their ends surfaced, where they had been saved by Clark who was always managing to get there, just in time.

Clark was always there, keeping them safe because he could.

He really could.

“LOIS!” Clark saw her lying there, feeling fresh fury at the man who had left her like this to die. He could see the bloody edges of her fingers, where the nails had been cracked and broken. They looked as bad as the purple bruises on her wrist and suddenly, Clark didn’t feel all that sorry about breaking Wallace’s bones She hadn’t moved but considering her cramped position, her muscles would be sore and aching. However, Lois was conscious, conscious and staring at him. Ignoring what that look could mean for now, Clark reached in and pulled her out.

Lois felt his hands on her skin and let out a sob of relief. Arms wrapping around his neck, she rested her head on his shoulder as he hoisted her out of that tightly space hell she had been put into by a monster. Her legs ached, her back was stiff and a dozen different pains became acute as he lifted her into the world again. Lois needed a moment to take it in, to deal with the fact that she wasn’t going to die. Burying her face in his chest, she let out a little sob, allowing her vulnerability to show because he had earned the seeing of it.

“Lois,” Clark asked shakily, still overwhelmed by what he had done. He was terrified and relieved at the same time. She hadn’t said anything and he supposed her current condition made it a little unfair for him to expect a response that but he had to ask. He had lived with this for too long.

“Lois, talk to me, are you alright?” His voice filled with fear and concern that she might not be.

“Yes,” she nodded emotionally, tears creating crow’s feet against the concrete dust on her face. Lois wanted nothing than to stay where she was, in his arms, safe. “I’m okay…” she expanded. “Just get me out of here please,” she begged. “I want to go home.”

Clark nodded, more than happy to oblige that request. The noise he had made rescuing her might attract attention and he had to deal with Wallace as well. He had revealed his secret to two people today and he had to deal with that. One was easily taken care of, thanks to Jor-El while the other, the other, he looked down at Lois, he wasn’t so sure.