Happy Halloween, all! Wanted to get this up before we needed to get a couple hours of sleep before heading to Orlando. Here's hoping that this week's chapter is considered more treat than trick!And we're back on schedule as of this week! See you in two!

Much to her own surprise, Kala didn’t have to fake her frustration and disappointment. Because the crystals Luthor had used to create it were missing a few tiny pieces – the ones that had been used in research, and to create New Krypton – this version of Jor-El created lacked certain features of the fully-functional AI in the Fortress. One of which was apparently the ability to understand a human accent. And that was her problem; she’d quickly stopped trying to purposefully deceive the projected image, trying to enunciate clearly in Kryptonese, but all she kept getting was a reminder to work further on the intricacies of her native tongue.

Damn annoying, actually, considering she’d always prided herself on speaking the language better than Jason. Daddy was more fluent, but he’d had many more years of conversing in Kryptonese in which to practice. It stung her to realize she wasn’t as proficient as she’d thought, even though that was exactly the impression she’d been trying to give.

“Is there a problem, Miss Lane-Kent?” Luthor growled, as one of his technicians reset the crystals.

One good thing about this outcome: she also didn’t have to fake her annoyance and anger. Rolling her eyes toward him, Kala snapped back, “I don’t know. Why don’t you try coaxing him into giving you the weapons information? Oh wait – you can’t, or you wouldn’t need me. It has to be an heir to the House of El.”

He stiffened slightly, staring at her, and Kala crossed her arms with a confidence she didn’t feel. “Apparently the version of Grandpa Giant Floating Head that I know and loathe is a little more adaptable than your half-baked version. He can allow for human mistakes and mispronunciations.”

“Those mistakes wouldn’t be deliberate, would they?” The madman’s voice could be soft and coaxing when he wanted it to be, but Kala knew there was more danger in that honeyed tone than in the snarl a moment ago.

“How stupid do you think I am? I want out of here, the sooner the better, and if I don’t try to help you, you’ll kill me.” It hurt to state that so baldly, but Kala had a lifetime of brazening out confrontations to draw upon. “There’s no contractions and no slang in Kryptonese, Luthor. It’s a highly formal language. And the cadences weren’t meant for a human larynx to reproduce. I’m better than you’ll ever be, thanks to Dad, but I still sound a little too human.” She paused, for effect, and added in a low mutter, “It’s not like I get too many chances to practice Kryptonese, you know. I am in high school, I’ve got tests and homework…”

The reminder of her mundane life was suddenly painful, her throat closing on the memory of slogging through endless algebra equations with Elise brilliant and sharp-edged as a diamond. Had she really hated those times, been bored out of her mind by repetitive problems? It felt like paradise just now.

“Well, aren’t you lucky,” Luthor snarled poisonously. “We just so happen to have a native speaker of Kryptonese on hand to tutor you. But I expect to see some progress, fast. Or else…”

Kala flipped him the bird as she stalked out. She could insult Luthor as long as he needed her for this, and if she got too cooperative he would suspect deceit. This sort of stereotypical adolescent disrespect should convince him that she was doing what he asked, just protesting as much as any teenager would.

Once out of the room, and unnoticed by security, Kala looked down and gripped her elbows tightly, suppressing a shudder. Luthor’s goons scared her, his white-coated scientists creeped her out, and the man himself terrified her. Having to attempt to pry the information he wanted out of a damaged version of her grandfather while under their eyes was awful.

And what she was walking toward was, perhaps, no better. Zod at least had not threatened her, but Kala remained wary of him. He was Zod, after all. And now, thanks to her accent, she was going to be spending more time around him. Luthor wouldn’t accept ‘he’s a creepy bastard who tried to enslave my dad and kill my mom’ as an excuse for lack of progress. “Great,” Kala sighed to herself.

She didn’t want to linger out in the corridors, with security guys and technicians eyeing her. It seemed that Luthor had a sizable presence; she hadn’t explored a tenth of the compound, and couldn’t begin to guess how many people were down here, but both figures looked depressingly high. Or perhaps not so depressing – it was really hard to hide the presence of a lot of people, so maybe it would help Dad find her sooner.

He had to find her. She could only play Luthor and Zod off each other for so long. And Luthor would start to get impatient quickly, especially with how vehement Dad had been on the phone. Everyone knew her time was limited, and Luthor would want results now, knowing she’d be trying to stall. Kala didn’t even want to think what kind of obstacles he could place in her father’s path…

…but she already knew about a big one. Her mother’s deal with Luthor. Kala felt ice creep over her heart at that thought, and she shivered, finding herself in the corridor between her room and Zod’s. She looked at his door apprehensively. Luthor hadn’t quite ordered her to go start language lessons right away, but if she did so, it might make her seem more willing to go along with his plans, and he might back off a little. On the other hand, if she started anticipating his orders he might decide to push her around even more; plenty of kids in school were like that, and Luthor seemed like a bully at heart to Kala. She had always stood up to bullies, always.

While she debated, the door slid open in front of her. Light spilled out, the closest thing to sunlight that could be found here, so far beneath the ground, and it felt as though Kala’s skin cried out for it. Just how long did she have, anyway, before she started losing her speed and strength to the lack of sunlight?

Still, she hesitated; Zod had not spoken, but the open door was a clear invitation. I have to choose; I can’t hold both of them at bay. And he is the lesser of two evils. For now. After a moment, Kala stepped inside, still wary.

Zod had been seated, facing the door, but he rose to acknowledge her. The door slid shut silently, leaving them facing each other. When the silence spun out, Kala unsure of what to say, Zod finally spoke. “Good day, Kala Kal-El.”

Kala spent a moment trying to figure out what she should say to him, and finally settled on a fairly innocuous question. “Do I really have an accent?”

“Slight,” Zod told her in Kryptonese, pulling out a chair for her. “I assume that Luthor insisted you attempt to gain access to the encrypted information?”

“Yes,” Kala said, taking the seat cautiously. She remembered what he’d told her yesterday about Luthor listening in, and fell easily into the language’s cadences after having spoken it all morning. “At first I intentionally held back, but even when I tried to speak correctly, the hologram told me I must continue my studies.”

Zod sat down across from her at the table where she presumed he took his meals; the entire room was so spotless as to be antiseptic, and the light pouring down reflected off the predominantly white surfaces. “Consider this,” the older Kryptonian said after a moment. “Jor-El expected his son to undertake an extensive period of tutelage, perhaps as much as a decade. During that time he would have developed more fluency in our native tongue than you have.”

“I have been taking lessons at the Fortress for ten years,” Kala informed him haughtily.

“Daily?” The question gave her pause, and Zod continued quietly. “It is one thing to learn a language to passable proficiency. It is another entirely to use that language every day, acquire its idioms and linguistic quirks, to come eventually to think in another tongue than the one with which you were raised. That is the level of fluency which the artificial intelligence demands.”

“So Luthor’s screwed,” Kala muttered in English.

Zod tilted his head. “If you mean to say that what he wants of you is virtually impossible to accomplish, particularly in a limited time frame, then yes.”

“But he doesn’t have to know that,” Kala mused. “At least, not for a while.”

“I presume Luthor sent you to me for further lessons in Kryptonese?”

“Not exactly. I came here on my own. I’d rather make my own decisions than let Luthor order me around.” It was better not to let him know she’d been fraught with indecision; Kala didn’t want Zod to know she feared him. Let him, and Luthor, see her bold and unbowed.

“Proactive.” Zod leaned back in the chair, steepling his fingers together, and considered. Kala watched him while trying not to show it, thinking know thine enemy. Besides, she could learn from him; this was supposedly Krypton’s premier strategist, and at the moment he looked every inch the general plotting his next tactic. Only this war would be fought with minds and misdirection instead of weapons and troops, and their opponent already possessed the means to destroy them both.

Yeah, Kala was definitely in over her head here, and she could use his expertise. He knew Luthor better than she did, too. If anyone had a chance of escaping Luthor’s plots, it was Zod. She had to put her hopes somewhere, and Zod was better than Luthor. But Kala reminded herself that part of the reason he could help her was that he could think like Luthor, and that should stay uppermost in her mind. He can think like Luthor because he is like Luthor: amoral, self-serving, willing to sacrifice others. Zod might be able to get me out of here, but I can’t trust him.

“We must appear to comply with Luthor’s plans, while in truth defying him,” Zod murmured. “If he thinks us docile, he will turn his attention elsewhere; that is how I acquired the light bulbs which mimic sunlight. He believes me tamed, and did not think that I might be working to increase my powers.”

The thought of Zod with more power sent a tendril of unease down Kala’s spine, even though he had already told her about the light bulbs. He was quite powerful enough to threaten her now, though he hadn’t done so. She shrugged off the disquieting thought with a reminder that he could be stronger than he seemed. “So, language lessons,” Kala said in English. “Ever taught Advanced Kryptonese?”

Zod’s saturnine features were skeptical, and Kala reminded herself he’d had little exposure to teenage sarcasm. “No. But I presume myself capable of the task. That is well, considering it has already been assigned me.” He considered for a moment further, then continued, “You already have an adequate foundation in our language. I suppose the best way to proceed is to simply use Kryptonese as much as possible.”

Kala sat up a little straighter when she switched to Kryptonese to reply, completely unconscious of the fact that she associated proper posture with proper speech. “In other words, talk. With you, since you are the only source of correct pronunciation other than the hologram itself.”

“A dire fate indeed,” Zod said, raising an eyebrow. Kala gave a wry smile; so he did have a sense of humor. Enough of one not to take offense at her not-precisely-respectful comments. That was good to know. It made him seem less like her family’s oldest nemesis and more like an actual person, someone she could understand.

“Forgive me. I am … under a great deal of stress,” Kala apologized.

Zod inclined his head slightly in acknowledgement. “As are we all. In any case, I am certain you have some unanswered questions about Krypton. All of your knowledge of your ancestral home comes filtered through the lens of one man’s observations. Perhaps I can enlighten you further.”

And that was the one thing Kala could not have been able to resist. Even before Luthor demanded that she get language lessons from Zod, she’d wanted to talk to him about Krypton, to speak with someone who had actually walked its streets, been inside its buildings. Jor-El was not usually patient with her desire to learn more; he had an agenda to teach his heirs, and nostalgia wasn’t on it. Unless the topic could be related, however indirectly, to the hero’s quest, Jor-El was unlikely to spend much time on it.

But here was Zod, who hadn’t been able to reminisce with one of his own people for over a decade. Non and Ursa had been held in separate facilities ever since their capture. He likely would have been willing to talk even if Luthor hadn’t compelled them into this situation. His perspective on Kryptonian life was probably a bit different than Jor-El’s, too, and Kala had always been taught that to see anything completely, you had to look at it from more than one point of view.

Leaning forward on the table, her hazel eyes alight with curiosity, Kala tried to decide what to ask first.

…

In a long day filled with bad news and the suspicion of worse to come, Maggie simply wanted to go home, curl up on her sofa, and drink some scotch on the rocks. Tobie, Cat, and Jamie would all be safe in the apartment with her. Very shortly, those who were heading to Smallville would be at Ron and Lucy’s place, where they’d have police protection. And the rest were doubling up, watching each other’s backs. She could relax a little, once everyone was home for the day.

Of course, Lois and Clark were headed right into trouble, but they would have Superman looking after them. You couldn’t ask for better protection than that. He’d already saved Richard’s life and hers in the past twenty-four hours. Maggie still remembered, all too clearly, how she’d felt the instant that Lois had screamed at her to get down. It wasn’t the first time she’d been fired upon, and likely wouldn’t be the last, but Maggie had discovered then that she hated snipers. Some punk with a Saturday Night Special aimed at her, she could handle; she could read body language, make a guess about whether the gunman would really shoot or not, and if he was going to fire, she could often see it before he even began to move his trigger finger. But a sniper was out there somewhere, so far away you couldn’t even see the person trying to kill you, far enough that you had no chance to negotiate or defend yourself.

Maggie gave a little shiver at the turn her thoughts had taken. She cast about for something to break her mood, and when she saw Jason walking toward her, she was at first relieved. “Hey there, Jason,” the policewoman said. “How’re you holding up?”

The boy sighed, his serious blue eyes looking into hers steadily. A lot of kids his age were nervy around cops, but Jason had an utterly clean conscience and it showed in his bearing. So very much his father’s son… “Aunt Maggie, I need a favor from you,” he said quietly.

“And what would that favor be?” Maggie’s voice had gone careful, wondering what he could want. If Jason was being quiet and relatively secretive about it, it couldn’t be something good.

“I want to see Giselle.”

He’d barely gotten the words out when Maggie retorted, “No. Absolutely not.”

Jason looked at her reproachfully, which was comical enough that Maggie let him try and talk her into it. “Aunt Maggie, she was my girlfriend for the last four months. I talked to her every day, had her visiting our apartment almost every week, and I never even guessed she was a spy for Luthor. Or that she was twenty-two. It’s … it’s a serious head trip for me, okay?”

“I imagine it must be,” Maggie replied cautiously. “So why do you want to see her again, Jason?”

“I want…” He paused, looking away for a moment, his hands balling into fists and then relaxing. “I want to see the actress with her mask off. I want to know who she really is, who I’ve been kissing all this time. I want to know if she’s actually a bad person, or just someone who got mixed up in the wrong things.”

Poor boy – poor sweet, noble boy. He would have made a great cop, if he could develop a thick skin over those sensitive feelings. “Jason, even if you were able to see her again, I can’t guarantee you’ll get answers to any of those. She has no reason to tell you the truth.”

“She has no reason to keep lying, either,” he pointed out. “Besides, if I never talk to her again, I can guarantee I won’t get answers. It’s worth a try, at least.”

He was an optimist, too, something Maggie had never claimed to be. “She might just as easily try to hurt you. She knows you well enough to know just where to stick the proverbial knife in. Jason, it’s not worth it.”

The boy shrugged. “She’s in jail, isn’t she? You wouldn’t let me see her without a glass wall between us, anyway. The only way she can hurt me is with words – and sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” Jason grinned half-heartedly, as if the old rhyme were actually true.

Maggie knew better than she wanted to that it was false. Some words – ‘unfit mother’ for example – hurt worse than any broken bone she’d ever had, and left scars on the psyche that lingered far longer than scars on the skin. For further proof, she could look no further than Lois, still trying to prove her father wrong after the man had been in his grave almost twenty years. All she said to Jason, however, was, “You’re a smart enough young man to know that isn’t true.”

“I’m smart enough to know I probably won’t get what I want,” Jason countered, “but I’d be a coward not to at least try. Besides, Aunt Maggie, the city jail ought to be safe. It’s controlled-access and full of police and corrections officers, right?”

She crossed her arms and stared at him. The boy had a point, and she found herself considering the request as if it came from an adult, and not a sixteen-year-old boy. Jason had often seemed more mature than his age.

There was one good thing about the situation – he was still young enough that she could fob him off with ‘because I said so, that’s why.’ Maggie sighed. “I’ll think about it, Jason, but no promises, okay?”

“Thank you,” he said gravely, and contented himself with that answer.

…

Luthor watched the surveillance screen, scowling. The girl was up to something, but he couldn’t tell exactly what her game was. She’d seemed sincere in her efforts to convince the hologram, but Luthor could hear the difference between the way the girl spoke Kryptonese and the way Jor-El and Zod sounded. It would take lots of practice for Kala to sound like a true Kryptonian. And Luthor didn’t have that kind of time.

What he did have was Zod. Perhaps the general hadn’t been quite honest with his old enemy; it was possible that he’d been holding out. If the hologram would speak to anyone who approached, how could it tell if Zod wasn’t one of its heirs? Perhaps a little competition would inspire the Kryptonian to his best effort. After all, if it looked like Kala might unlock the information, Zod would become superfluous – and since he hadn’t even tried to ally himself with Luthor, Zod knew what his fate would be.

Right now, Zod and Kala seemed to be circling each other, each uncomfortable in the other’s presence. That was to be expected; they both knew the significance of the other. Her conception had been his destruction, and his brief reign had ultimately led to her father’s absence. Luthor chuckled. The general was too arrogant, too cold-bloodedly aloof, to cultivate an alliance with Kala, and the girl was too temperamental, too young and hot-headed, to think about such things. The possibility of them uniting against him was remote, but even so, Luthor already had plans to address the issue.

Regardless, he had to keep the pressure on. Kal-El would be coming, and though Luthor had hidden his tracks well, even the most obscure trail would eventually be unraveled. It was simply a matter of time, and he had to be ready to spring the trap when the alien did arrive. Hopefully all of his efforts had borne fruit, and the family was now in disarray, mistrusting each other. It would make them much less effective and easier to pick off one by one.

Leaning back in his chair, Luthor pondered the many strategies open to him. One item in particular loomed large in his calculations: the kryptonite gun he’d fashioned, which was locked in a lead vault just outside this office, along with some other samples of kryptonite. It was the ultimate answer to so many problems: Zod’s recalcitrance, Kal-El’s discovery of the facility, Kala’s defiance. If the thing hadn’t leaked radiation at levels Stanford said were unsafe for humans, Luthor would have carried it at his side all the time.

But even if he couldn’t keep the lethal kryptonite gun close to hand, Luthor was never unarmed. In the desk drawer beside him was a .357 magnum Ladysmith revolver, the five-shot model with a rosewood grip. A woman’s gun, his security staff would have scoffed, but Luthor knew it was designed for maximum man-stopping power. The hollow-point bullets in its cylinder would not blow through their target, instead intended to lodge deep in the central body mass and deliver all of their force to internal organs. A gun meant not to threaten, not to impress, but to kill.

Luthor smiled. He would have expected no less from the weapon he’d taken from Lois Lane.

…

Kala’s head was swimming in history. She’d learned more in the past hour – or was it two? – than she had in a year’s worth of lessons with Jor-El. Not just the events, but a little background on the principal people involved in them, as well as detailed descriptions of the locations where they’d taken place. Zod had a gifted memory, at least for things that interested him, and history certainly interested him.

Jor-El usually wanted her to memorize a list of historical facts, and he would discuss the broad political and cultural importance of some of them. Zod could spin out at least five ramifications of each event, and track the trends in society that had led to each. That was exactly the kind of in-depth information Kala craved.

Along the way Zod would occasionally correct her pronunciation, or suggest a more elegant way of phrasing something, but she’d forgotten about language. This was simply too fascinating for anything else to hold her attention. And Kala hadn’t even gotten through half of the things she wanted to ask; she kept getting sidetracked by some new detail, some seemingly unrelated circumstance that Zod would patiently explain to her.

Zod paused for a sip of water, something he’d been doing frequently, and Kala leaned her head back to ease her stiff neck. She looked slowly from one side to the other, trying to ease her tense muscles, and caught a glimpse of the clock. Which seemed to be wrong – it couldn’t be that late, could it?

Seeing the direction of her gaze, Zod said, “Perhaps we should pause briefly.”

“It’s really that far into the afternoon?” Kala asked.

“Yes. The perception of time is relative, and you have been preoccupied.”

A fancy way of saying ‘time flies’, but accurate. Kala looked back at the clock, and was struck by a sudden wave of homesickness. If she’d been at home, right about now she and Jason would be browsing the fridge, accustomed to snacks after school. Likely as not, they would have been pushing each other, calling names, and generally behaving like a couple of heathens as they squabbled over who got the hummus or the leftover curry. She longed for that little slice of normalcy so much that tears stung her eyes, and she got up hurriedly, trying to hide her sudden weakness from Zod.

He remained seated, and she could feel the weight of his silent regard as she struggled to regain her composure. Kala couldn’t help sniffling a little, arms crossed and hands gripping her own shoulders as if to keep herself from flying apart with the yearning to simply go home…

“You miss your home,” Zod observed quietly. “It is a feeling with which I have considerable acquaintance.”

Kala turned to look at him, wondering how it would feel to know your home was gone, destroyed, and the fragments that were left had turned lethal to you. To truly never be able to go home again, to have to live out the remaining years of your life on an alien world whose inhabitants feared and despised you. And then to have some adolescent half-breed pick through your recollections with all the excitement of an archaeologist, never even recognizing her own callow disregard for the fact that these were your memories of a world that no longer existed. His expression was hard to read, that typically Kryptonian air of cultivated detachment, but she thought she saw the echo of loss in his eyes.

“If you will accept advice…?” He trailed off, and Kala nodded, not trusting her voice. “I have found that, at times, the memory of Krypton gives me strength and courage and comfort. At those times I cherish it, and I am grateful for the clarity of my recollections. Often, though, to think so much on what is lost beyond any hope of recapture brings only despair.”

Another long pause and Kala realized that this was probably one of the latter times. Betrayed and imprisoned by Luthor, reliving the glory of Krypton had to be bittersweet at best. She began to feel guilty for her curiosity, and grateful that Zod had been so patient with her. He continued, “At such times, when memories bring me only pain, it serves no purpose to hold them close. If it wounds you so deeply to think of home, here where you cannot afford to seem vulnerable to Luthor, then I advise you to do as I have done for so many years, and put these reminiscences aside for the present time. If I have learned nothing else from so many years of imprisonment, it is that such memories do not dull with age, becoming clearer the more distant they are. Should you need them, they will always be there, just as I can still clearly recall the sight of Great Rao rising over the Sea of Banzt.”

Kala considered it seriously. Right now, it only hurt to think of Jason laughing tossing a pomegranate at her, his hair falling into his eyes, and maybe Dad sighing in defeat from the living room. Or maybe Mom getting fed up with them both and chasing them out of the kitchen, scolding in mock fury that left the teens snickering helplessly…

The thought of Mom was another blow to Kala’s fragile psyche, bringing back the memory of Luthor’s laughter. Lois had made a deal with him, and for an instant Kala had suspected that maybe the deal was trading her for Jason. After all, the spy in their house had been Giselle, so the logical target was Jason. But at the last minute, Mommy’s favorite had been spared, and Kala found herself trapped here instead.

For most of her sixteen years, Kala had never doubted her mother’s love. Lois was fiercely protective of both of her children, and it had always been plain that she adored them. Only in the last year or two had things begun to sour between mother and daughter. The arguments had grown more frequent and more vicious, escalating from simply trading snide remarks to outright yelling matches. For every sweet moment between them in the last year, there seemed to be two or more uncomfortable ones. And though Kala knew in her heart that she hadn’t exactly been helping things go smoothly, she couldn’t believe it was all her fault. She wasn’t that bad, was she?

Meanwhile, Jason never seemed to put a foot wrong. Even when they were little, he rarely got yelled at. When both twins got into mischief, Kala was usually the one blamed. Jason had perfected an angelic, wounded look that convinced most adults he was utterly innocent, when in fact he’d been just as much of a rascal as Kala was. He had never taunted Kala about getting away with things, and had always tried to make whatever punishment she had to endure more bearable, so she’d never really blamed him for always getting her in trouble. When it counted, Jason was always by her side – until recently. When she and Mom fought, Jason kept trying to intervene, and more and more often he took Mom’s side. That only widened the rift between Lois and Kala, while strengthening the already close bond between mother and son.

If forced to choose which of her children to surrender – and Luthor was damn good at making people choose between two things they didn’t want to do, Kala knew from experience – wouldn’t Mom choose Jason? Kala knew she’d made some kind of choice, and Jason sure wasn’t the one stuck here.

Kala had turned away again, not wanting Zod to see her expression while such painful thoughts burned in her mind. But he read the set of her shoulders accurately. “What troubles you, daughter of the House of El?”

“Nothing,” Kala whispered, and then gave a bitter little chuckle before continuing in English. “I don’t know. I think… I shouldn’t believe Luthor, but … it’s hard not to.”

She heard Zod rise from his seat and approach, but he stopped a few feet behind her. “Luthor is false, and has always been so. Even when he speaks the truth, he shades it to his own advantage. Trust nothing he has told you unless you confirm it yourself.”

“I know, but it makes a sick kind of sense,” Kala said, arguing half-heartedly.

“What poison has he spoken?” Zod asked.

“Well, he said…” Kala broke off, recognizing the absurdity of her situation. Zod was not her friend; her ally, maybe, out of desperation on both their parts, but not someone she could trust so easily. Still, who else could she talk to? Schecter, who seemed nice but willingly worked for Luthor? Some random scientist she’d never met before, who for all she knew might be in charge of determining the fatal dose of kryptonite to a Kryptonian hybrid? One of the security guys, who would probably beat her up and rape her given half a chance? “I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

Zod heard her scoffing tone and waited without comment. He had to know he was the only person in the compound who’d shown himself to be even slightly trustworthy, and Kala literally had no one else to confide in.

She sighed, figuring that at worst he could confirm her dark suspicions. “Luthor called my father – he wanted to taunt him, frighten him. I wouldn’t beg for rescue. Instead I told Daddy to stay away, that I was fine, that Luthor was trying to force him to walk into a trap.”

“Courageous of you, and most wise,” Zod said. “Few can think so clearly in such circumstances.”

“Yeah, well, then Luthor told my dad that Mom made a deal with him. He never said what the deal was, but he winked at me when he said it.” Kala’s throat seemed to close, choked with tears, and she lifted a hand to rub at her eyes. “I don’t know, but … what if the deal was Luthor took me instead of Jase?”

Zod was silent again, considering, and he took a few more steps to stand at Kala’s shoulder. She found his proximity more comforting than disturbing; Zod was a true Kryptonian, with all of their social taboos about touch, and she was safe with him in a way she wouldn’t be safe around any other man in the compound. Perhaps by approaching, he was trying to offer the same sort of sympathy that a human would express with a hug.

“I do not think your mother would have traded you to Luthor,” he said slowly. “I did not know her well, but she did not strike me as the sort of woman who compromises easily. It would be more in her character to offer herself to Luthor, rather than endanger her children.”

Kala exhaled, the tension in her shoulders easing a little. That did sound like something Mom would do. But doubt lingered. “Jason’s girlfriend and her mom were Luthor’s spies. It sure looked like he was going after Jason, but switched to me at the last minute. What would make Luthor change targets?”

From beside her, Zod asked, “How were you captured?”

She shuddered all over, remembering the stench of the cloth pressed to her face, the world going black. “I … I was in the subway, and they came up behind me. Someone half-smothered me with something, ether or chloroform, and knocked me out. The next thing I knew I was being carried in here.”

“Was the subway part of your normal route, or were you doing something unusual?”

Laughing bitterly, Kala replied, “Well, considering that I’d just run away from home for a dumbass reason, it was pretty unusual.”

He nodded. “And these spies, did they know of it?”

“Probably,” Kala mused. “Jason probably told Giselle as soon as he knew. Actually, Giselle was at the party the night before – she probably knew I was gonna be grounded.” She gasped as realization struck. “Holy shit, Giselle was probably the one spreading the rumors about me! She’s the only one who could’ve known… That bitch probably manipulated me into running away!”

“By ‘ran away’, you mean you left your house without your parents’ knowledge or permission.” When Kala nodded agreement, Zod elaborated, “So these spies had knowledge of your starting location, and may have known what route you would take as you left home. Your mother, on the other hand, could not have known those things. Therefore, your mother could not have given Luthor the information that led to your capture. It seems you were a target of opportunity; they planned to take your brother, but they had too perfect a chance to pass up.”

Kala took a deep, shuddering breath. She hadn’t realized until the weight rolled off her heart just how much she dreaded the possibility that her mother had given her away. Trembling, she fought to hold back tears of relief.

Perhaps Zod misunderstood her reaction. “Your mother did not abandon you to Luthor,” he reassured, and placed his hand lightly on her left shoulder.

With a half-choked sob, Kala let the tears flow. It was bad luck that had landed her here, not a deliberate choice of her mother’s, and whatever deal Luthor was talking about had to be something else entirely. Of course, it would amuse the bald bastard to let Kala think she’d been given away, and her hatred for him flared even brighter.

Anyone else would have embraced her, but Kryptonians didn’t do such things. Zod left his hand on her shoulder while she struggled to regain her composure, a gesture of support that spoke louder than any words. Kala turned her head to look at him, trying to find the words to thank him without sounding too personal or too indebted. She glanced down, biting her lip as she searched for the words.

That was when she noticed his hand was slightly crooked, the fingers stiff. Caught off guard, Kala spoke without considering the implications. “Oh, ouch! What happened to your hand?”

Zod lifted it to the light, and Kala could see that his hand had been badly mangled at some point in the past. Just as she was blushing with embarrassment at her thoughtless question, Zod answered wryly, “Your father.”