Chapter 24 - Episode 16: Jinx

Episode 16: Jinx

Date: Friday, November 11, 2011.

Location: Smallville, Kansas

The football rested in its cradle near half-field. The Smallville High bleachers were packed with fans whose cheers rolled across the stadium. Red and blue banners snapped in the November breeze as the crowd rose to their feet in anticipation. Clark Kent sat on the bench, helmet resting on his knees, as the opposing team lined up for the opening kickoff.

"Here's the kickoff!" the announcer's voice boomed over the stadium speakers, cutting through the crowd noise. "The winner of today's game will move on to the state championship one week from today!"

The referee's whistle pierced the air. The kicker approached the ball, his leg swinging through in a clean arc. The football sailed high into the blue Kansas sky, spinning end over end as it traced its path toward the Smallville receiving team.

Tyson positioned himself under the descending ball. His cleats dug into the turf as he tucked it against his chest before exploding forward. The crowd erupted as he weaved between the defenders. The collision came at the thirty-yard line. The whistle shrieked again, signaling the end of the play and the official start of the game.

Coach Quigley turned toward the sideline. "Offense get in there!" he barked.

Clark stood with his teammates, the usual pre-game nerves settling in despite everything. He pulled his helmet over his dark hair, the chin strap clicking into place as he prepared to take the field. As Clark passed, Coach Teague reached out and patted him on the back. Coach Quigley clapped his hands together.

"Let's go. Good hustle, fellas."

Far below the excitement of the game, in the basement corridors of Smallville High, the sounds of the crowd filtered down through layers of concrete and steel. The cheers became a muffled roar, punctuated by the announcer's voice echoing through the building's ventilation system. Chloe Sullivan paused at a corner where the hallway branched off into an even darker section of the basement. A young man was waiting against the wall just ahead, half in shadow.

"So, are you the guy?" Chloe asked.

"Well, I guess that depends on what you're looking for," he replied, his accent distinctly Eastern European.

Chloe fumbled with a piece of paper in her hand, squinting at the writing in the poor light. "Um, Mikhail Mik-Mixl-Ptglix?" she attempted, her tongue struggling with the unfamiliar syllables.

Mikhail's smile widened, revealing perfect white teeth. "Mix-il-pit-lik," he corrected slowly, enunciating each syllable. "Let me guess. You want to buy a vowel."

The joke broke some of the tension, and Chloe laughed nervously. "No, I just would like to put 80 on the game."

Mikhail's smile dimmed. "What, you mean the game that's started already? Well, I'm sorry. I can't take bets after kickoff."

Chloe's face fell. She'd spent the better part of the week working up the courage for this, and she'd missed it by minutes.

Mikhail looked her over. The disappointment was obvious. "Rookie, huh? Well, maybe in your case, I'll make an exception."

Chloe smiled gratefully. She reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out a carefully folded stack of bills she'd been saving for weeks. "Thanks. Can you, uh, put me down for Smallville to win?" she asked, extending the cash toward him.

Mikhail accepted the money but didn't immediately pocket it. "You sure about that? I have a funny feeling about the quarterback today."

"Yeah, well, as much as I hate to admit it, I never bet against Clark Kent."

"Mm. Well, suit yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you. Rule number one. A bet is a bet."

The transaction complete, Chloe turned and began walking back toward the stairwell that would take her to the main level of the school. Above them, the crowd's roar intensified, suggesting something significant was happening on the field.

"Twenty seconds left in the fourth quarter!" the announcer's voice boomed across the packed stadium. "It's fourth and one! The Crows have twenty-one and the guests twenty-four! The clock is stopped!"

Coach Quigley gathered his lineman in a tight circle on the sideline, his weathered face intense under the stadium lights. "This is it, boys! This is what we've been working for!" He looked at every face in the huddle. "Everything we've practiced, every two-a-day in August, every sprint in the rain, it all comes down to the next twenty seconds!"

In the bleachers, Martha Kent sat forward on the edge of her seat as she clapped enthusiastically. "Come on, Clark!" she yelled.

Beside her, Jonathan Kent said nothing. Knowing what Clark was capable of made the stakes feel higher, not lower.

The team huddle broke with a clap, players jogging back onto the field. The crowd rose to its feet as one, red and blue pom-poms waved frantically as the Smallville fans tried to will their team to victory.

Chloe Sullivan sat next to Lana Lang in the student section, both girls clapping. Chloe kept glancing between the field and a spot several seats to her left where Mikhail sat quietly among the other spectators. Unlike the animated fans around him, he watched the game without expression.

The opposing team's defense lined up in a goal-line formation, their players packed tight against the line of scrimmage. They knew exactly what was coming, one yard to go meant a running play, and everyone in the stadium understood the stakes.

Clark Kent crouched behind the center. "All right, guys, here we go. Ready?"

His teammates shifted into their stances. The offensive line set their feet, preparing for the play that would determine their season.

"Blue-72! Blue-72!" Clark called. The defense shifted slightly, trying to read the play call. Linebackers crept forward, defensive backs tightened their coverage.

"Hut!"

The center snapped the ball back into Clark's waiting hands. The crowd erupted as both lines crashed together. Clark pivoted, the ball in hand as he began his movement to the right. Clark rolled out, selling the fake handoff with perfect timing. His teammate burst through the gap, arms wrapped around an imaginary football, drawing the attention of three defenders who converged on him. The defensive player who intercepted the fake runner grabbed him around the waist. The Smallville player hit the ground hard, but he had done his job; the defense had bought the fake.

Clark continued his rollout, the real football still clutched against his chest. He scanned the field, found his intended receiver breaking free along the sideline. The pass was perfect, a tight spiral that settled into Tyson's hands at the twenty-yard line.

The crowd exploded as he caught the ball and immediately turned upfield. Chloe and Lana jumped to their feet, clapping wildly. Mikhail remained seated among the standing crowd, unmoved.

As Tyson approached midfield with clear running room ahead, Mikhail spoke quietly, "Fumble."

Reality caught up a half-second later. Tyson's grip loosened. The ball slipped from his hands at the forty-yard line, tumbling end over end as it hit the turf and bounced erratically.

Chaos erupted as players from both teams converged on the loose ball, diving and scrambling in a desperate pile of bodies.

But Clark ran up behind it and picked it up.

Martha and Jonathan stood with the rest of the crowd as Clark secured the fumbled football. The stadium erupted in a deafening roar.

"Go, Clark, go!" Martha screamed. Her hands gripped the metal railing as Clark sprinted toward the end zone with nothing but open field ahead of him.

The opposing team's safety, who had been playing deep coverage, angled toward Clark's path. He was the last line of defense, the only thing standing between Clark and a game-winning touchdown. The player set his feet, preparing for the collision that would determine the outcome of the season.

In the stands, Mikhail tracked the play, jaw tight. His lips barely moved as he spoke a single word.

"Trip."

Clark felt his right foot catch on something that shouldn't have been there. His stride faltered, sent him stumbling forward into the waiting defender. The football remained secure against his chest, but his balance was completely gone. The safety saw Clark stumbling and moved in for what should have been an easy tackle. But Clark's loss of control turned the play into something far more dangerous. Instead of a controlled collision, Clark's falling body became a battering ram. His shoulder and extended arm crashed into the defender's chest with tremendous force.

Both players went down hard at the goal line, Clark's momentum carrying them both across the white stripe into the end zone. The defender hit the turf with a thud, as they tumbled together in a tangle of limbs and pads.

The referee whistled, his arms shooting skyward in the signal for touchdown.

"Touchdown! Clark Kent!" the announcer's voice boomed over the stadium speakers, his excitement infectious. "The Crows win again! What a victory!"

The Smallville section of the bleachers exploded into pure pandemonium. Lana and Chloe leaped to their feet, their screams of joy joining the chorus of celebration that swept through the crowd. Red and blue confetti rained down as fans threw whatever they could find into the air.

On the sidelines, Jason Teague pumped his fist in the air. "Yes!" he shouted, clapping his hands together. "That's how you finish a game!"

Martha threw her arms around Jonathan. He held her, but his attention stayed on the field. The opposing player lay sprawled in the end zone, groaning in obvious pain.

In the stands, Mikhail went cold. His carefully laid plans had backfired spectacularly.

The Smallville team poured onto the field from the sidelines, their helmets held high as they rushed toward Clark to celebrate their victory. Players tackled him in a massive group hug, their voices raised in triumphant shouts that mixed with the ongoing roar from the stands.

Meanwhile, players from the visiting team gathered around their fallen teammate, their celebration completely forgotten. The injured player remained on his back.

Clark pulled off his helmet and looked past his celebrating teammates toward the player he'd injured. The joy of victory drained from his face. In the stands, Martha and Jonathan exchanged a look. Jonathan's jaw tightened.

One of the visiting team's linemen, still kneeling beside his injured teammate, looked up at Clark with undisguised anger. "What the hell was that?" he shouted.

The confrontation was building when Tyson stepped in. "Everyone, back up, make room for the trainer," he commanded, waving his arms to create space around the injured player.

The crowd of concerned teammates reluctantly stepped back. He knelt beside the fallen player, positioning his body to block the view from the stands and sidelines. His hands moved to the player's chest, ostensibly checking for injuries, but a subtle golden glow emanated from his palms, hidden beneath his bent form.

The healing energy flowed through Tyson's hands, mending damaged ribs and soothing bruised organs. The injured player's labored breathing gradually eased as the supernatural healing took effect. By the time the team trainer reached the scene, jogging across the field with his medical bag, the player was already sitting up.

"I'm okay," the player said. "Just got the wind knocked out of me."

The crowd burst into applause as the player stood and walked off the field. As the immediate crisis passed, both teams began lining up at midfield for the traditional post-game handshake.

— Meteor Freak —

Clark sat hunched at the kitchen table within the Kent farmhouse, his dark hair still damp from the shower, droplets occasionally falling onto his clasped hands. His Smallville High letterman jacket hung over the back of his chair. Jonathan moved quietly around the kitchen and poured himself a coffee.

"There's more to life than championships, Clark."

Clark's head lifted slightly, his gaze still down. "I bet it's easier to say that when you have one." His fingers drummed once against the wood before stilling. "Dad, when I put on that uniform, it's like I forget who I am. But at the same time, I've never known myself better. It's more than just a game."

Jonathan took a slow sip of his coffee. "Clark, I allowed you to join the football team because I thought you understood your responsibility not to let anybody get hurt out there."

"And I accepted that responsibility because I know I can control my abilities."

Jonathan set his mug down with deliberate care. "Then why don't you explain to me why there's a kid that would be lying in a hospital bed right now if Tyson hadn't covered up for you by healing him?"

Clark's shoulders tensed. He didn't have an answer.

"Have you ever seen me trip? Ever?"

Jonathan opened his mouth to respond, then closed it. In seventeen years, he couldn't recall a single moment of genuine clumsiness.

Clark pressed on. "Something happened out on the field. It was like I couldn't control my own legs."

"Just because you're strong does not mean you can't get rattled out there just like anybody else," Jonathan said. "Now, I'm sorry, but the last place you need to be right now is out on that football field, and you know it. Coach Quigley is likely to be at the victory party tonight. Now, I'll give him a call, and I'll be the bad guy."

Clark pushed back from the table, the chair legs scraping against the linoleum. He stood slowly, his full height putting him over his father. "No, Dad. Like you said, it's my responsibility. Whitney is cleared to play again. I'll step away."

They looked at each other for a moment, then Clark walked away.

The Talon's theater lobby had transformed into a celebration space. Red and black streamers hung from the ceiling, a massive "Go Crows" banner stretched across the back wall. Music competed with dozens of overlapping conversations and bursts of laughter, and students clustered around tables of food. Near the punch bowl, a small cluster of cheerleaders still wore their game uniforms.

Martha Kent moved through the crowd with a tray of pastries, navigating between students and offering smiles as she worked her way toward the bar area.

Jason Teague stood near the makeshift bar, his coaching jacket replaced by a casual button-down shirt, occasionally nodding to players who caught his eye. When Martha approached and set her tray on the bar beside him, he turned with a genuine smile.

"These look amazing, Mrs. Kent," he said as she arranged the pastries.

Martha's hand briefly touched his shoulder as she passed. "Thank you, Jason. The boys deserve something special after today."

The lobby's main entrance opened, and Clark stepped inside wearing his letterman jacket over a simple t-shirt and jeans. He looked for Jason, found him near the bar, and headed over.

"Hey, coach, can I talk to you for a second?" Clark asked.

Jason turned from the bar. "What's up?"

Before Clark could respond, another player burst through a group of students and approached them enthusiastically. The guy was still riding the high of victory, his face flushed with excitement as he slapped Clark on the chest.

"Kent, Kent! Huge save today! Oh, man what a play! You put us in the championship!"

The interruption broke the moment between Clark and Jason. The enthusiastic player grabbed Clark's arm and began pulling him away from the coach, his energy impossible to ignore. Clark shot Jason an apologetic look as he was drawn into the crowd.

Another player materialized from the throng of students, equally excited and ready to heap praise on Clark. "I can see the ring on my finger already," the first player said, holding up his hand and wiggling his fingers as if already wearing the championship jewelry.

Clark shook his head, uncomfortable with the attention. "No, the team put us in the championship."

"I can see the scholarships already," the second player chimed in.

"Oh yeah! Whoo!"

Clark glanced back toward Jason, hoping to continue their interrupted conversation, but the coach was now engaged with other parents who had approached the bar area. The moment had passed.

A cheerleader bounded over to their group. "Hey, Clark, you're here! Ta-da!" She gestured dramatically. As if on cue, two other cheerleaders emerged from behind the crowd, carefully carrying an enormous cake between them. The dessert was shaped like a football field, complete with green frosting yard lines and goal posts made of white icing. They set the cake on the bar, and students began gathering around, pointing and commenting.

Spontaneous applause erupted throughout the lobby, hands clapping in appreciation for both the cake and the player it honored. Clark stood uncomfortably at the center of the attention.

A young man standing nearby reached up and pulled the "Go Crows" banner down from the ceiling where it had been hanging. He draped it around Clark's shoulders like a cape, the fabric settling across his letterman jacket. The banner's bold lettering proclaimed the team's identity across Clark's back.

Tyson appeared at Clark's shoulder and said, "Cape looks good on you. You should consider it."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Coach!" one of the players called out.

The interruption had its intended effect. Students began turning toward where Coach Quigley, the assistant coach, stood near the entrance, and the applause gradually died down. The football players, recognizing the cue, began gathering closer together.

"Coach! Coach! Coach! Coach!" The chant started with the players but quickly spread to other students, their voices creating a rhythmic pulse that filled the lobby.

Coach Quigley raised his hands and walked toward the center of the impromptu gathering.

"All right! All right!" he called out.

The lobby fell quiet, conversations stopping mid-sentence as students turned to listen. Even the music dropped back.

"Topeka West may have three titles under its belt, but I know we have a real shot at the championship, and this year we got it all! An impenetrable defense, an aggressive offense," he found Clark in the crowd, "and a golden arm!"

Teammates pounded Clark's back in enthusiastic agreement. He accepted their congratulations with a tight smile, the banner still draped across his shoulders.

"Let's go take the title home!" Coach Quigley raised his fist in the air.

Students cheered with genuine enthusiasm. "Crows! Crows! Crows! Crows!" The chant began again, this time involving the entire party, making it impossible for Clark to do what he'd come for....

Quitting the team.

— Meteor Freak —

The Torch office was quiet this late, the hallway outside dark, and Chloe had the place to herself. Just her and the half-finished article on her screen and the steady hum of the old desktop tower under the desk.

She didn't hear him at first.

Mikhail stood in the open doorway, one shoulder against the frame, watching her work. He stayed like that for a few seconds, taking in the room. The Wall of Weird. The stacks of back issues. The corkboard bristling with pushpins and clippings. Then he rapped his knuckles twice against the doorframe.

Chloe spun in her chair.

"Oh, hey." She looked him over, then past him into the empty hallway. "I didn't realize bookies made house calls. Especially after hours."

She turned back to the computer and closed her document with a quick click, then gathered up a stack of manila folders from beside the keyboard. She stood and carried them to the other desk across the room as Mikhail walked in, his hands in his jacket pockets, looking around with casual interest.

"Well," he said, "I guess I just walked right into the lion's mouth, hmm?"

Chloe set the folders down and turned back to him. "What are you talking about?"

"Well, you know." He pulled one hand free and gestured vaguely at her, at the office, at the newspaper banner tacked above the door. "You're a first timer, and you show up at the end of the season. I have some questions. And, uh, I don't think it is a coincidence that you are also Smallville's most notorious whistle-blower."

Chloe walked back toward him, stopping at the desk he was standing next to, and hopped up to sit on the edge of it, her legs dangling.

"Notorious, huh?" She tilted her head. "I like the sound of that."

Mikhail watched her for a beat, then nodded slowly, like she'd just confirmed something for him. "So, uh, this bet was just research for the article."

"Front page," Chloe said, "if you play your cards right."

He laughed, short and quiet, but there was something underneath it. He shifted his weight. "Well, I don't suppose that being a local celebrity is going to be good for business."

"I think maybe you should, uh, change professions."

"You just found my Achilles' heel."

"What, greed?"

"No, uh." He looked at her, and the smooth confidence in his voice slipped just enough to let something genuine through. "Pretty girls with infectious smiles."

Chloe grinned. Full, unguarded, the kind that took over her whole face before she could rein it in.

"I'm still writing the article."

"Why would you want to go and spoil all the fun by writing that article?"

"Because it just keeps getting juicier by the minute."

"Are you sure about that?"

Chloe leaned back on her palms, studying him. "What, are you going to do something to change my mind?"

He closed the distance between them. Not fast, not aggressive. Just a slow, deliberate walk until he was standing right in front of her, close enough that she had to look up at him from the desk. He didn't say anything. Just stood there, watching her with that same half-smile, letting the proximity do the talking.

Chloe held his look for a long moment. Then she laughed, quiet and breathy, and shook her head.

"Nice try. You're very cute." She hopped down from the desk, landing on her feet beside him. "But I already gave you anonymity, and it's going to press tonight."

"But you're only just starting to scratch the surface." He turned with her, matching her movement, and took another step forward. She took a half-step back without thinking about it, and her face changed when she realized she had. "And I can give you so much more dirt."

"You're just trying to stall the article, aren't you?"

"I don't think you understand me, Chloe." Almost a whisper. The accent thickened around her name. "I always get what I want."

She snorted. "On looks, apparently. Because your charm just ran out."

She moved to walk past him toward the door.

"Stop."

The word wasn't loud. It wasn't shouted or barked or even particularly forceful. He said it the way someone would say sit down or hand me that, plain and expectant, like compliance was a foregone conclusion.

Chloe stopped.

Her foot was mid-stride. It came down flat on the floor and stayed there. She stood frozen in the middle of the Torch office, her back half-turned to him, and for a second she didn't seem to understand what had happened. Her body had simply obeyed. No hesitation, no decision, no conscious choice to comply. One moment she was walking, and the next she wasn't.

She turned her head to look at him. The playful confidence was gone from her face. Something else was there now, something she was trying very hard to process and failing.

"Kiss me."

Same voice. Same tone. Quiet, unhurried, certain.

Chloe turned around fully. Her movements were smooth and deliberate, like a sleepwalker, and her face told a completely different story than her body. She walked back to him, closed the distance she'd just tried to create, and stopped when they were inches apart. She could smell his cologne. Something warm and foreign.

She kissed him.

It was slow. Her lips pressed against his, soft and careful, and she held there for a long moment. Her hands stayed at her sides. Nothing about it looked forced from the outside. It looked like a girl, kissing a boy she liked in an empty office after hours, tentative and sweet, and that was the worst part of it, because behind her closed eyes Chloe Sullivan was screaming.

She couldn't stop. She'd tried. The command to pull away fired somewhere in her brain and died before it reached her muscles, smothered by something she couldn't name or fight or even fully comprehend. Her body wasn't hers. It moved on his words like a puppet on strings, and the kiss continued, gentle and unhurried, until he decided it was done.

Mikhail broke the kiss. He leaned in, past her cheek, and put his mouth close to her ear.

"This is me asking you nicely." His breath was warm against her skin. "Now. You are going to drop that article whether you want to or not."

He stepped back.

The release was immediate. Whatever had locked her muscles into compliance let go all at once, and Chloe stumbled slightly, catching herself on the edge of the nearest desk. Her hand gripped the wood hard enough to whiten her knuckles.

Mikhail stood a few feet away, watching her. The half-smile was gone. There was nothing playful in his face now, nothing charming or flirtatious. He looked at her the way someone looks at a problem they've just solved, calm and clinical and completely without remorse.

Chloe stared back at him. Her lips were still warm from the kiss. Her pulse hammered in her throat, in her wrists, behind her eyes. She wanted to say something. Wanted to demand an explanation, wanted to threaten him, wanted to do anything other than stand there with her hand white-knuckled on a desk while her brain tried to reconcile what had just happened with everything she understood about how the world worked.

Nothing came out.

Mikhail held her look for another moment. Then he turned, walked to the door, and left the office without another word. His footsteps echoed down the empty hallway, steady and unhurried, and faded into silence.

Chloe didn't move for a long time.

Her hand came up once and pressed the back of her knuckles against her mouth, hard, like she was testing whether she could still control her own lips. She held it there. Then she dragged her fist down her chin and wiped it against her jeans, slow and deliberate. The taste of his cologne was still there. She wiped her mouth again, harder. It didn't help.

— Meteor Freak —

Clark stood on the ground level of the barn with a football in his right hand, turning it over once to find the laces. A dozen more sat in a loose pile on the workbench beside him. Fifteen feet away, the old tire swing hung from a crossbeam, swaying just barely in the draft from the open loft doors.

He set his feet, drew back, and threw.

The ball sailed clean through the center of the tire without touching rubber. It hit the hay bales stacked against the far wall with a solid thump.

He picked up another. Same motion, same release. The spiral was tight and the trajectory flat, threading the tire dead center again. The ball punched into the hay beside the first.

He did it four more times. Four more perfect throws. The tire barely moved.

Clark set the last football down and walked to the other end of the workbench, where a small lead box sat by itself. His fingers rested on the lid for a moment. Then he opened it.

The green glow hit him immediately. A dull, sick pressure behind his eyes, spreading down through his jaw and into his chest. The fragment was barely the size of a marble, sitting on a square of cloth inside the box, but it radiated through him like standing too close to a space heater that burned cold instead of hot.

His head shook slightly. He swallowed against the nausea and reached into the box.

The moment his fingers closed around the kryptonite, his knees wanted to buckle. He locked them. The rock pulsed against his palm as he made a fist around it. He could feel his strength draining out of him like water through a cracked glass. His muscles went from steel cable to something ordinary. Something human.

He walked back to the footballs. He picked up a ball with his right hand, and it felt different now. Heavier. He set his feet. Drew back. Threw.

The ball wobbled off his hand, arced wide to the right, and hit the barn wall three feet from the tire. It dropped to the ground and rolled into the straw.

Clark stared at where it landed. His jaw worked once.

"I've never seen you miss before." Martha's voice came from behind him, near the barn door. Clark didn't turn around. "I've also never seen you shrink away from responsibility," she said. "No matter how difficult."

"You saw the look on those guys' faces." He kept his back to her, his left fist still clenched at his side. "I couldn't let them down. I just thought I could find a way to play like everyone else."

Martha walked around him. She moved into his line of sight and took in his face, the tightness around his mouth, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead that shouldn't have been there. Then she looked down at his left hand. His knuckles were white around something that leaked green light between his fingers.

"Clark." Her voice changed. "Open your hand."

He uncurled his fingers slowly. The kryptonite sat in his palm, glowing against his skin, and the veins in his wrist stood out dark where they shouldn't have.

"What are you doing?" Martha grabbed the rock out of his hand. The relief was almost instant. Color flooded back into his face, and the trembling in his body stopped. She crossed to the workbench and dropped the fragment back into the lead box, snapping the lid shut. "You know how dangerous kryptonite is."

"I always get better after it's gone." Clark flexed his left hand, feeling the strength pour back into it. "And so what if I'm playing sick? Other guys play injured." He walked over to the tire swing and picked up the football from the ground, brushing off the straw. "And if Dad knows I don't have my abilities and I can't hurt anyone..."

"You are not taking meteor rocks out on that field. I know this is hard, but you can't make yourself sick."

"And I can't quit, either."

"Clark, the answer is no." She took a breath. "You asked your father if we'd ever seen you trip before. Never. Not without kryptonite. I was so excited to see you get a chance to be like everyone else that I guess I forgot for a moment that you aren't." She paused, and the words cost her something. Guilt, maybe. "I didn't think anything of it when you tripped, but you've never had mishaps like other kids."

Clark turned to look at her.

"Something happened to you out there," Martha said. "And if you really want to play in the game on Saturday, you need to find out what it was."

He looked at her for a long moment. Then he nodded.

Martha stepped forward and put her hand on his shoulder. "If you really want to play in this game without your powers," she said, "maybe Tyson can help."

Clark went still. Tyson had given his powers back when Eric Summers had stolen them. He'd reversed the transfer. If he could reverse the transfer, he could probably cause one too. Temporarily. And do it safely.

"You think he'd do it?" Clark asked.

"I think," Martha said, "that you should ask him."

Clark found Chloe alone in the Torch office, hunched over a stack of printouts with a red pen between her teeth. He knocked on the open door frame.

"Hey. Mind if I use the computer? I need to go over some game footage."

Chloe pulled the pen from her mouth and waved it toward the desktop in the corner without looking up. "All yours."

Clark sat down and navigated to the school's media server. The sports editor had uploaded raw footage from Friday's game, and it took him a minute to find the right file and scrub to the second quarter. He found the play. The handoff from the quarterback, the hole opening up on the left side, his legs pumping toward the gap.

Then the trip.

He rewound it. Watched again. His left foot caught behind his right ankle like someone had tied his shoelaces together. No contact from a defender. No divot in the turf. Just his own body betraying him for no reason.

He rewound it again. Frame by frame this time. His stride was perfect, perfect, perfect, and then wrong. The hitch came from nowhere. One frame he was running clean, the next his leg was moving at an angle that made no biomechanical sense.

He rewound it again.

"What's up with the self-flogging?"

Chloe had come up behind him. She was leaning against the edge of the desk with her arms crossed, watching the same clip loop on the monitor.

"I'm watching the sports editor's tape of the game," Clark said. "Trying to figure out what happened. But it's like I had no control. Like my mind was sending one message, but..."

"But your body was getting another," Chloe finished.

Clark looked up at her. "Yeah. Exactly."

"It's Mikhail."

"The foreign exchange kid?" Clark frowned. "Mix-uh..."

"Mxyzptlk." Chloe said it fast and clean, like she'd been practicing. "Say that three times fast. He's our new resident puppet master." She paused, and something uncomfortable crossed her face. She picked at the corner of a printout on the desk. "This is kind of embarrassing, but he made me kiss him."

Her hand came up, quick and unconscious, and wiped against her lips for a half-second before she realized what she was doing and dropped it back to the printout. She resumed picking at the corner. Her nail went a little harder into the paper than it needed to.

"Made you?"

"Yeah." Her tone sharpened. "It was just like how you explained your trip. It was like someone else was controlling me. My body just moved on its own. Trust me, Clark, it was not voluntary."

He held up a hand. "Okay. I believe you. But why would he want me to throw the game?"

"Clark, he is the biggest bookie in the school." Chloe pulled her chair over and sat down at the second computer, already typing. "The power to control the odds."

"So he trips me up, the spread shifts, and he collects." Clark turned back to the monitor and paused the footage on the frame where his leg buckled. "Can you find anything on him?"

"Let me do a search on his name." Her fingers rattled across the keyboard. She typed M-X-Y-Z-P-T-L-K and hit enter.

The search engine thought about it for three seconds and returned nothing.

"I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Mxyzptlk didn't bring anything up," Chloe said.

"What's that?" Clark pointed at the screen. Below the empty results, in small blue text, the search engine had generated a suggestion: Did you mean Kltpzyxm?

Chloe stared at it. "It's Mikhail's name backwards."

She clicked Yes.

The page loaded a single image first. A painting, old and dark, rendered in the style of Eastern European folk art. The background depicted a village consumed by fire, orange and red flames climbing timber walls and thatched roofs. On either side of a dirt path, villagers fled in every direction, their faces twisted in panic. Down the center of the path, walking calmly toward the viewer, was a black cat. Its eyes were two points of yellow light.

"It looks like a nursery rhyme gone bad," Clark said.

"Yeah." Chloe leaned closer and started reading the text below the image. "It's some legend from the Piatore region in the Balkans. That's near where Mikhail's from."

She stood up and moved to the other desk, pulling a notepad toward her and scribbling something down. Clark took her seat at the computer and scrolled through the article. The text was dense, translated from what looked like a regional historical archive, full of references to local superstition and family genealogies.

"It says the region has been terrorized for centuries by a bloodline of people who have..." He trailed off, reading ahead. "Who can control the hand of luck?"

"It's not exactly luck if they're controlling people," Chloe said from behind him. "What does it say about the backwards name?"

Clark scrolled further. "The family changed their name a century ago and left the area after the village mysteriously burned to the ground."

"Looks like Mikhail's still running from his heritage." Chloe came back to the computer and leaned over Clark's shoulder, scanning the page. "It doesn't exactly say how to stop the kissing bandit, does it?" Her finger stopped on a passage near the bottom. "Oh, here. According to the legend, the only thing that stopped them was a plague of locusts."

"Great," Clark said. "I'll check the farm supply store."

"We need to tell Tyson about this," Chloe said.

Clark turned in the chair. "Tyson? Why?"

"Because he's the receiver on the football team. If Mikhail's rigging games, Tyson might be targeted next. Or maybe he was already targeted, remember he fumbled in that last play."

It was a reasonable answer. Too reasonable, maybe, for how quickly she'd landed on it. Clark read her face for a beat, but Chloe just looked back at him.

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll invite him over tonight for dinner. I'll tell him after."

— Meteor Freak —

Clark led Tyson up the narrow stairs to the loft. Clark dropped his schoolbooks onto the desk and sat on the edge.

"Thanks for coming by," he said.

Tyson settled onto the couch across from him, stretching his legs out. "No problem. Lana's hanging out with Emily tonight. She seems to be adjusting well." Emily Dinsmore had been through enough that any sign of normalcy was worth noting.

Clark opened his mouth to bring up Mikhail, to explain what Chloe had found, but a voice from the top of the stairs cut him off.

"Oh, look. A pair of real-life American football superheroes."

Mikhail Mxyzptlk stood at the top of the loft stairs with his hands in the pockets of his jacket, leaning against the railing like he'd been invited.

Clark stood up from the desk. "What are you doing here?"

"I knew Chloe would squeal." Mikhail took a step into the loft, looking around at the rafters and the old furniture. "Just not to you. Games are my business. So if you don't know the players, you cannot guess the outcome."

"I know about you," Clark said. "And where you're from. The Village of the Damned."

Mikhail's smile widened. It was genuine this time, or close to it.

"I'm not cursed, Clark." He said it like he was correcting a child's pronunciation. "I am damned, though. And on Saturday, the championship game—"

"If you think I'm gonna throw that game for you—"

"If?" Mikhail tilted his head. "When there is an 'if,' there are odds. And I always win the odds."

Tyson stood up from the couch. "I'm not sure what you're saying, but I really don't like your tone."

Mikhail looked at him. The smile didn't change.

"Choke."

One word. Flat and quiet.

Clark's throat closed. The airway sealed itself shut. He tried to inhale, and nothing moved. He tried to cough, and his diaphragm locked. His hands went to his throat on instinct, fingers pressing against skin that felt normal from the outside, and he dropped to his knees on the loft floor.

Beside him, Tyson made a strangled sound and staggered. His hands clawed at his collar, pulling it away from his neck as though the fabric were the problem. His mouth was open and working, but nothing came through.

Mikhail crouched down next to Clark, whose vision was starting to pulse at the edges, dark spots blooming and receding with each heartbeat that pushed blood through a body that couldn't get oxygen.

"For example," Mikhail said, his voice conversational, almost friendly, "the odds in the championship are based on your playing. If you don't go out on the field, then my profit margin takes an unfortunate turn."

Clark gagged silently. He could feel the veins in his forehead standing out, the pressure building behind his eyes. His body was screaming at him to breathe, but he couldn't. He tried to push back against it, tried to find whatever invisible hand was gripping his throat, but there was nothing to push against. The command had gone straight into his body, and his body had listened.

Mikhail stood and turned to Tyson, who had now dropped to his knees, his face going gray as the seconds stretched. Tyson's hands had stopped clawing at his throat. They hung at his sides, fingers twitching.

"That is why you're not going to tell anyone else about me," Mikhail said. "And you are going to be on that field. Both of you." He paused and looked between them. "Unless you want to see more of your buddies in the hospital."

He turned and walked to the stairs. His footsteps were unhurried. Clark's chest was burning. The dark spots in his vision were growing, merging together at the periphery. He could hear his own heartbeat in his ears, too fast, too loud.

Mikhail stopped about halfway down the stairs. He turned back to look up at them, one hand resting on the railing.

"Breathe."

The air rushed in like a dam breaking. Clark's lungs seized on it, pulling in a ragged, tearing gasp that hurt all the way down. He pitched forward onto his hands and knees, coughing, sucking in breath after breath. Each one felt raw, like his throat had been scoured from the inside. His arms shook under his own weight.

Tyson was on all fours beside him, making the same desperate sounds, his back heaving.

Mikhail's footsteps crunched on the gravel outside, fading toward the driveway.

Clark stayed on his hands and knees. His lungs were working again, but his body hadn't caught up to that fact. He pressed his forehead against the rough wood of the loft floor and tried to slow down, tried to think, but his thoughts kept snagging on the same loop. He couldn't breathe; he couldn't make himself breathe; his own throat had locked him out, and there was nothing he could have done about it. He'd been hurt before. Kryptonite made him sick, made him weak, made his bones ache like they were rotting from the inside. But that was external. That was a rock you could put in a lead box and close the lid. This was different. This had come from inside him. His own muscles, his own body, obeying someone else's voice like he was a puppet on strings. He'd felt his throat close and known, with absolute certainty, that he could not open it. Not with effort, not with willpower, not with any amount of Kryptonian strength. The command had bypassed everything he was.

He could hold his breath for twenty minutes. He'd tested it once, sitting at the bottom of Crater Lake with his eyes open, watching the sunlight filter down through the green water, counting the seconds until he got bored. Twenty minutes and twelve seconds, and when he'd surfaced, he hadn't even been winded.

This hadn't felt like holding his breath. This had felt like drowning. Like the air itself had turned solid in his throat and sealed him in.

His hands were still shaking.

Tyson was already on his feet.

The difference was simple. Tyson had been choked before. He'd been hit before. He'd had his ribs cracked, his lip split, his arm twisted behind his back until the shoulder popped. The fights he'd been in, particularly against Eric, had taught him that pain was temporary and that the window between getting hurt and hitting back was small, and if you wasted those seconds lying on the ground feeling sorry for yourself, you got hit again.

He sucked in one more breath, deep and steady, and his body settled. His hands unclenched. The burning in his throat was already fading to a dull ache, filed away alongside a hundred other injuries that hadn't killed him.

Mikhail was walking away.

Tyson turned toward the big loft window. The double doors were propped open to let in the night air, and through them he could see the yard below, the gravel path, the dark shapes of the outbuildings. Mikhail's silhouette was maybe thirty yards out, moving at that same unhurried pace, hands in his jacket pockets, shoulders relaxed, like he'd already won.

Tyson jumped.

The loft was fifteen feet up. He dropped through the open window and hit the ground in a crouch, the impact barely registering.

He reached for Emily's speed.

The world stopped.

Not literally. The wind still moved, the crickets still chirped, but everything stretched and slowed until the space between seconds yawned wide enough to walk through. The gravel under his feet became a frozen landscape. A moth hung suspended in the air near the barn light, its wings caught mid-beat. Mikhail's coat had been swaying with his stride, and now it hung motionless, the fabric frozen in a ripple.

Tyson closed the distance. Thirty yards compressed into nothing. He planted his back foot, rotated his hips, and drove his fist into the center of Mikhail's back, just below the shoulder blades. He put everything behind it. Not just Emily's speed but his own weight, his own anger, the memory of his throat closing.

The world snapped back to normal speed.

The sound came a fraction of a second after the impact, a heavy, wet crack that traveled up Tyson's arm and into his shoulder. Mikhail left the ground. His feet came up, his arms flew wide, and he sailed backward through the air in a tumbling arc that carried him ten feet before he hit the side of the barn. The old wood buckled inward. Boards splintered and dust exploded outward in a gray cloud, and Mikhail collapsed to the ground in a heap of broken siding and bent nails.

Clark dropped down from the loft window behind him. He stopped beside Tyson and looked at Mikhail's crumpled form against the barn wall.

"Who the hell is this guy?" Tyson asked. His voice was rough, his throat still raw.

Clark told him. He laid it out the way Chloe had, quick and factual. The Piatore region. The bloodline. The centuries and the village that burned. The family that changed their name and fled. The backward spelling. The power to control luck, or people, or whatever the distinction was between the two when the result was your body obeying someone else's commands.

Tyson listened without interrupting. When Clark finished, Tyson shook his head.

"His aura," Tyson said. "It didn't look like other meteor freaks."

Clark looked at him. "What do you mean?"

"Meteor infected. The ones I've seen. Their auras all have green in them. Bright green, dark green, doesn't matter. It's always there, threaded through everything else. It's the meteor rock. It gets into them and it changes the color of their energy."

Tyson looked at Mikhail. The guy was breathing, shallow and uneven, his face pressed into the dirt. A trickle of blood ran from his hairline down the side of his nose.

"His isn't green," Tyson said. "It's black."

Tyson turned back to the barn wall.

The broken siding was still there. The splintered boards, the bent nails, the dust settling in the still air. The impression of a body pressed into the old wood, clear as a mold. But the space where Mikhail had been lying was empty.

"What the hell?"

Tyson crossed the distance in three quick strides and crouched where the guy had been. The dirt was scuffed and dark where blood had dripped from his hairline. A single button from his jacket lay in the debris. But no footprints leading away. No drag marks. No trail through the gravel.

Clark scanned the yard, the fields beyond, the dark tree line at the edge of the property. His focus had shifted. He was looking through things rather than at them.

"I didn't see him leave," Tyson said. "He didn't speed away. Did you see him?"

"No," Clark said. He kept looking, turning a slow circle.

Martha had suggested asking Tyson to take the powers for the championship. He'd nodded at the idea. He'd been planning on asking. The thought of walking onto that field as just a guy, a normal senior in a helmet, had seemed like the cleanest way through a complicated season. He thought about that now with his throat burning and his own traitorous muscles. A man had walked into the loft and shut his airway with a single word, and every scenario in which Clark had said yes to Martha's idea went out the window, like Tyson just had. Quickly.

Tyson stood up and walked to the barn wall. The impression in the splintered siding was clear enough to read, a rough outline of shoulders and the curve of a back, the wood broken inward in the exact shape of a body driven into it at speed. Tyson pressed his palm against the deepest part of the impact. A man who takes a hit like that doesn't just stand up and walk away without making a sound. He doesn't vanish from a flat, open yard with two people with superspeed less than thirty feet away.

"I hit this kid with everything. That's a you-don't-walk-away hit. And he's not here. Whatever he is, he's not a Meteor Freak."

— Meteor Freak —

"Greetings, football fans, and welcome to the championship game between the Topeka Valley Huskies and your Smallville Crows!"

The announcer's voice was tinny and distant through the walls, but the roar that followed it was something Clark felt more than heard; hundreds of voices cheering.

He reached for his shoulder pads. Turning them over once before lifting them above his head and settling them onto his shoulders. He stood and crossed to his locker. His cleats were on the top shelf where he'd left them. He grabbed them along with his helmet and brought both back to the bench, setting the helmet down and dropping into a seat to lace up. When both shoes were tied, he reached for his jersey. Number eighty-nine.

There was another roar from outside. The band had started playing.

"All right, let's go!" Coach Quigley's voice boomed from somewhere up ahead, sharp and electric. "All right! Let's go, let's go! Come on, come on!"

Red jerseys jostled through the corridor. Clark rounded the corner at a jog and almost ran straight past the figure standing against the wall.

"Clark."

He stopped. Turned.

His father was leaning against the concrete, arms folded across his chest. He wasn't smiling.

"What are you doing?" Jonathan Kent asked.

The last of the team streamed past them. All except Tyson, who pulled up a few yards ahead and stopped, looking back.

"You know what Mikhail said." Clark kept his voice steady. "He'd hurt those guys if I wasn't out there."

"A bunch of 250-pound guys banging into each other on a football field is one thing." Jonathan pushed off the wall and took a step closer. "But getting hit by you is like getting run over by a freight train. It's a big difference, son."

"I hope that doesn't happen." Clark looked his father in the eye. "Dad, I know you don't agree with me. But sometimes taking responsibility means having faith in yourself to make the hard choices."

"And it also means being willing to accept the consequences."

"Every handshake, every hug, every time I'm out on that field, I make a conscious decision to fall when those guys hit me so they don't get hurt." The words came out with a quiet force that surprised even Clark. He'd been thinking about this for days. Longer than that. Years, maybe. "No matter how hard you try, you can't understand that. That's why it's my decision, not yours."

Jonathan said nothing. The corridor was quiet now, the last echoes of the team's departure fading into the distant roar of the crowd above. Father and son stood three feet apart in the concrete tunnel, and for a long moment neither of them moved.

Then Jonathan smiled. It was small, and it was proud.

"You're starting to sound more and more like your father."

Clark smiled back.

"I hope so, Dad."

Tyson cleared his throat. "I can have him hold your power."

Both of them turned. He was still standing a few yards down the corridor.

"It would be really hard for me to hold on to it because of the meteor rock," Tyson said. "But I could pass it from you to your father for the game. That way you'd play as just a normal guy."

Clark considered it. He could feel the appeal of it pulling at him. Just a normal kid playing a game.

But it was Jonathan who spoke.

"No, Tyson. That won't be necessary." He looked at Clark. "I trust him."

"Good call, pops." Tyson turned and took off down the corridor, following the direction the team had gone until he disappeared around the corner toward the field.

Jonathan gave him a single nod.

Clark turned and jogged toward the exit, helmet tucked under his arm, the roar of the crowd growing louder with every step. Behind him, Jonathan watched him go.

The rest of the team had already poured onto the field ahead of him, helmets bobbing, cleats tearing into the turf. Tyson was somewhere in the pack.

"Now taking the field, your Smallville Crows!"

Clark pulled his helmet on as he ran, snapping the chin strap into place with one hand.

"Today's Crows captains are seniors Whitney Fordman and Clark Kent! The Crows are undefeated in thirteen contests this season. They are led by first-year head coach Jason Teague. We'd like to thank today's sponsors. The recently reopened Talon theater, the Smallville Ledger, LuthorCorp, D.D. Davenport's Autobody Shop, and Old Spice Red Zone."

What followed was football. Real football. Messy, violent, and fast.

A new play. The snap, the collision, and a Crow running back taking the handoff and driving forward. A Husky defender hit him at the line, and the running back kept his feet, shoving the tackler aside with one arm and churning forward for another eight yards before going down. The Crows on the bench leaped up, helmets raised, shouting.

A Husky receiver catching a pass over the middle, tucking it, hurdling a fallen Crow defender, and picking up fifteen yards before the safety brought him down.

A long pass spiraling across the field, dropping into a Crow receiver's hands at the sideline. He turned upfield, and a Husky cornerback drove him into the turf.

The Crows kicking off. The ball tumbling end over end through the air. Jason standing on the sideline with one fist raised, something fierce and satisfied in his face. In the bleachers, Mikhail watched with narrowed eyes.

A Husky running back breaking through the line, stiff-arming a Crow, sprinting untouched into the end zone. Touchdown. The Huskies gathered in a circle on the field between plays, bouncing on their toes, hyping each other up. Someone tossed the ball into the air above the center of the circle. When it landed, all of them threw themselves backward onto the ground at once, arms spread, grunting as they hit the turf.

Clark hurling the ball forty yards downfield. A receiver hauling it in, dodging one tackle with a sharp cut, then getting dragged down by a second defender at the fifteen. Then he took the snap, rolling right, flipping the ball to a Crow who caught it at chest height and immediately tumbled over a pile of bodies at the line of scrimmage, somehow landing on the other side with the ball still in his hands. The ref signaled first down.

Jonathan and Martha were on their feet, in the bleachers, with everyone else. Jonathan had his hands cupped around his mouth, shouting something lost in the noise. Martha was gripping his arm with both hands. Two rows down, Lana Lang stood with the rest of the student section, her hands pressed together under her chin. The seat beside her, where Chloe sat, was empty.

The scoreboard updated.

CROWS 17 — HUSKIES 21.

"Turnover on downs! The Crows regain possession!"

The home side of the bleachers erupted. Jason was already moving.

"The Crows immediately call their last time out. Thirty-seven seconds remain in the fourth quarter, and Smallville trails by four."

Clark stood near the edge of the field with Tyson beside him, both of them watching the officials signal the timeout. The scoreboard hung above the far end zone. CROWS 17 — HUSKIES 21. Clark pulled his helmet off and held it against his hip.

"Clark."

The voice came from behind him. Close.

Clark turned around.

Mikhail was standing three feet away. He was wearing a Smallville hoodie with the hood down, his hands in the front pocket, looking like any other student who'd wandered down from the bleachers. His face was calm. Almost pleasant.

Clark took two steps toward him, putting himself between Mikhail and the field. "What are you doing here?"

Mikhail pulled one hand from the hoodie pocket. He was holding a laminated card on a lanyard. Clark recognized the Torch logo in the corner. Chloe's name was printed across the bottom. Her press pass.

"Here's how the last play in my game works," Mikhail said conversationally. "If the Crows score another touchdown, Chloe's dead. If you don't go back out on the field right now and lose the game, Chloe's dead."

He held the press pass up between two fingers. Then he tucked it back into his pocket, turned, and walked away. He didn't look back. He moved through the crowd at the edge of the sideline and was gone.

Clark stood rooted to the spot. Win, and she dies. The only move Mikhail had left him was to walk back onto that field and play, and lose, or Chloe paid for it.

Jason was crossing the sideline toward him, playbook in hand, already talking. Clark heard the words, but they arrived muffled and distant, like Jason was speaking from the other end of a long hallway.

A hand closed around his forearm. Tyson had stepped in beside him, close enough that his voice wouldn't carry.

"You just play the game and win," Tyson said. "I've got Chloe."

Clark looked at him. Tyson's grip on his arm was steady, and his expression held nothing but certainty. No hesitation. No doubt.

"I've got this," Tyson said. "No problem. Catch up after the game."

"Kent." Jason was right in front of him now. "Let's go."

Clark blinked. Jason's hand landed on his shoulder, firm.

"All right." Jason leaned in, pitching his voice beneath the crowd noise. "We're gonna do an ace back Montana post. This is it." His grip tightened on Clark's shoulder. "This is for the title."

Jason patted him twice on the shoulder pad and stepped back, pointing toward the field.

Clark pulled his helmet on. His fingers found the chin strap and snapped it into place. The stadium was deafening around him, the bleachers a solid wall of people on their feet, the band blaring, the cheerleaders screaming. Thirty-seven seconds on the clock. Four points down. Chloe somewhere out there with a target on her back and Tyson running to find her.

Clark was three steps onto the field when Tyson's hand closed around Jason's arm.

Jason turned, irritation already forming on his face. The timeout was burning. Thirty-seven seconds. He didn't have time for whatever this was.

"Dean." Tyson's voice was low and flat. "We've got a problem."

The name landed; Tyson hadn't called him that around others, at football. The coach's mask dropped away. He glanced left, then right. Nobody was close enough to hear. The nearest player was ten yards out, jogging to the huddle.

"I think a demon has Chloe," Tyson continued.

Dean stared at him. "What?"

"That kid. Mikhail. He's got an aura, but it's not green. Not like the meteor freaks. It's dark. Black smoke, almost, sitting right behind his eyes. He told Clark to lose the game or Chloe's dead. But before that, he was doing things. Making players trip, forcing fumbles. And when he looked at me and said 'choke,' I started choking." Tyson touched his throat. "Like something was squeezing my neck. No hands. Nothing touching me. Just pressure, closing off my airway. Can demons do something like that?"

"Demons can do a lot of things. Telekinesis is standard. Most of them can throw people around, pin them to walls, and crush organs from across the room if they're strong enough. The choking thing, that's textbook. They don't need to touch you. They just think it, and your windpipe closes. The stronger ones can kill with a thought," Dean continued. "Hellfire. Smiting. Some of them can bend luck, make things go wrong around them. The really old ones, the ones that have been topside for centuries, they can do things that make telekinesis look like a party trick." He looked back at Tyson. "You said his aura was black? Then it's not a meteor freak. It's a demon riding a human body."

The referee's whistle signaled that the timeout was ending. On the field, Clark was standing in the huddle with ten other players, waiting.

"Son of a bitch."

Dean turned and walked straight to Coach Quigley. The older man was standing near the bench with his playbook open, red-faced, already shouting something at the defensive coordinator.

"Coach." Dean stepped into his line of sight. "I need you to take over."

"What?"

"Something came up. Family emergency. You've got the playbook. You've got the team. Run the Montana post like we drew it up. Tyson is out. Put Whitney in at quarterback. Clark knows the route."

"Teague, we're down four with thirty seconds on the clock, and you're telling me—"

"Coach." Dean put a hand on the man's shoulder. "I wouldn't ask if it wasn't life or death. You've been coaching football longer than I've been alive. You don't need me for this."

Quigley searched his face for two seconds. Whatever he found there made him close his mouth. He nodded once, sharp, and turned back to the field, already barking instructions.

Dean moved fast. He crossed the sideline in four strides and reached the equipment area where the coaches kept their bags. His duffel was shoved under the bench, wedged between a cooler and a stack of towels. He crouched, unzipped it, and reached past the rolls of athletic tape and the spare whistle until his fingers found leather.

The knife came out wrapped in a cloth. He pulled the cloth away. The blade had symbols etched into the metal. He slid it into the back of his waistband, pulled his jacket down over it, and stood.

Tyson was waiting for him at the edge of the crowd.

Dean fell into step beside him, and the two of them pushed through the mass of spectators and away from the field.

The stairwell to the basement smelled like industrial cleaner and old concrete. Tyson took the steps two at a time, Dean right behind himt. The fluorescent lights down here buzzed with that particular frequency that lived somewhere behind the teeth.

Two janitors stood in the corridor at the bottom mopping. They followed cinder-block walls, painted in that faint shade of green that existed only in government buildings and old schools. A few doors, all closed. At the far end, one stood open.

Tyson heard Chloe before he saw her. A small, hitching sound. Not quite crying. He came through the doorway and stopped.

It was a storage room. Metal shelving units lined the walls, stacked with boxes of paper towels and cleaning supplies. Chloe stood in the middle of the room with her wrists cuffed together, cheap handcuffs, the kind you'd buy at a hardware store, held up in front of her chest. Mikhail had one hand on her shoulder. The other gripped her upper arm. He stood close, too close, angled over her.

"Hey," Dean said from behind Tyson. Casual. Like he'd just walked into a bar and spotted someone he knew. "Mikhail, right? How about you take your hand off the kid."

Mikhail didn't let go of Chloe. "This doesn't concern you."

"See, that's where you're wrong." Dean stepped into the room, positioning himself to Tyson's left. "Because it kind of does."

"You don't understand the situation."

"I understand it fine." Dean's hand drifted toward his waistband. "Guy alone in a basement with a girl in handcuffs. Not a lot of ambiguity there."

Mikhail smiled then his eyes went black. Black from corner to corner, like someone had poured ink across both sockets.

Dean didn't flinch. "There it is."

"Walk away, hunter."

"A school." Dean shook his head. "You're squatting in a school. What, the sulfur pit not have good enough lunch options? Had to come topside and play guidance counselor so you could get your hands on kids?"

"I already took a shot at him," Tyson said. "Hit him with everything I had. Full strength."

Dean glanced at him. "And?"

"He was just gone." Tyson's jaw worked. "Disappeared."

"Yeah." Dean reached behind his back and drew something from his belt. A knife. Not large, maybe seven inches of blade. The metal was covered in symbols that had been carved deep into the steel. "Regular hits won't do it. You're punching the house, not the tenant. This," he held the blade up, "will put him down. Permanently. Demon-killing knife. Only one I've ever seen."

Mikhail's smile dropped. He stared at the blade; if not in fear, at least in recognition.

"Interesting toy," Mikhail said. But his voice had changed. Tighter. The patience was gone.

"Isn't it?" Dean took a step forward. "Found it in a crypt in Nebraska. Long story. Point is, you know what it does. I can see it on your face. Well. His face. Whatever."

Mikhail pulled Chloe in front of him. His arm wrapped around her throat from behind, not squeezing, not yet, but the threat was clear. Chloe's cuffed hands came up and grabbed at his forearm, but couldn't move it.

"Unless you want this girl to die," Mikhail said, "you'll put that knife on the ground and slide it to me. Then you'll both walk out of this room. I'll release her when I'm clear of the building. You have my word."

"Your word," Dean repeated.

"My word."

"The word of a demon wearing a stolen body in a school basement. With a teenager in a chokehold. Real trustworthy."

"You have five seconds to decide how much her life is worth to you." Mikhail's arm flexed against Chloe's throat. She gasped, a short, strangled sound. "Five."

Dean looked at Tyson.

Tyson was looking at the knife.

"Four."

The room was small. Twenty feet, maybe twenty-two, from where Dean stood to where Mikhail had Chloe pinned against his chest. Metal shelving on both sides. Boxes of paper towels. A mop bucket in the corner. One door, the only way in or out.

"Three."

Twenty feet. The knife in Dean's right hand, held loose, blade down. Mikhail's arm across Chloe's throat, his back half-turned toward the far wall. Exposed. If someone could get behind him. If someone could move fast enough that the arm didn't have time to squeeze.

"Two."

Tyson reached for Emily's speed, and the world slowed to nothing. Dean's mouth was open, caught mid-word, his lips shaped around something Tyson would never hear. A droplet of gray mop water hung in the air near the bucket, suspended, trembling between one moment and the next.

Tyson crossed the distance to Dean in two steps. His hand closed around the knife handle and pulled it free from Dean's grip. Dean's fingers were still curled where the weapon had been, hadn't registered the absence yet, wouldn't for another fraction of a second that might as well have been an hour.

He pivoted. The room was small and he was already moving, cutting around the shelving unit on the left side, his sneakers silent on the concrete. Mikhail's back filled his vision. The demon's arm was locked across Chloe's throat, muscles tensed, caught in the act of tightening. Frozen in Tyson's accelerated perception like a photograph of violence about to happen.

Tyson planted his back foot. Drove forward. Brought the knife up in a short, sharp arc and buried it to the hilt between Mikhail's shoulder blades, angled down, punching through ribs and into the chest cavity from behind.

The speed dropped. Sound crashed back in. The fluorescent buzz, Chloe's choked breathing, and something else. A sound like a short circuit, like a transformer blowing, crackling and bright. Orange light flickered under Mikhail's skin, racing along his veins, visible through the meat of his neck and the backs of his hands. His mouth fell open. His black eyes went blank.

His arm fell away from Chloe's throat.

The light under Mikhail's skin pulsed once, twice, three times, each flash brighter than the last. His skeleton showed through on the third pulse, a dark shadow inside a lantern of orange fire, jaw locked open, hands clawed at nothing. Then the light went out. All of it, all at once, like a switch being thrown.

Mikhail dropped. His knees hit the concrete first, then the rest of him followed, pitching forward and to the side. Tyson still had his hand on the knife. The body's weight pulled it free as it fell, and the blade came out slick and dark, trailing a thin line.

Chloe scrambled away on her hands and knees, cuffed wrists scraping against the floor, until she hit the metal shelving unit behind her. She pressed her back against it and pulled her knees to her chest and didn't make a sound. Her eyes were locked on the body.

Dean was there. Tyson didn't know when he'd moved. He was just there, crouching next to Mikhail, two fingers pressed to the man's neck. He held the position for a long time. Five seconds. Ten.

"He's gone," Dean said. He meant both of them. The demon and the man it had been wearing.

Tyson looked at the knife in his hand. The symbols carved into the blade were still visible under the dark film of whatever had come out of Mikhail's back. His grip on the handle was tight. Too tight. His knuckles ached with it. He tried to loosen his fingers and they wouldn't cooperate.

"Hey." Dean stood up. He'd turned to Tyson now, not the body. "Give me the knife."

Tyson gave him the knife. His hand opened and Dean took it and the absence of weight in his palm felt worse than the weight had. He wiped his fingers on his jeans without thinking about it. Then he thought about it and stopped.

"Was he already dead?" Tyson asked. "The guy. The real guy. Before I..."

"Yeah." Dean cleaned the blade on Mikhail's shirt, methodical, turning it to get both sides. "Demon takes a host, most of the time, body's just a suit after that. You didn't kill anyone."

Tyson heard the words. They were clear but failed to register as he looked at the body on the floor. Mikhail's face was turned toward him. The eyes were brown again. Normal. Human. Dead eyes. He'd seen people die on the news, seen the aftermath of meteor freak attacks in photographs and shaky cell phone footage, but he'd never stood in a room with a body that had been alive thirty seconds ago and was now just mass. Just weight on a concrete floor.

His hands were shaking. He noticed it the way you notice a change in weather. Distantly. Like it was happening to someone nearby.

He'd fought meteor freaks. Several of them, since arriving. Kids from school, mostly, changed by the rocks into something dangerous. He'd hit them. Hard. Hard enough to put them down, to stop whatever they were doing, to protect whoever they were hurting. But they'd lived. All of them.

He hadn't held back with Mikhail.

He'd driven that knife in with everything he had. Full force, full speed, no hesitation. He'd felt the blade punch through muscle and scrape between ribs and he'd kept pushing until the handle met flesh. And in the moment, in the fraction of a second it had taken, he hadn't felt anything about it at all. No reluctance. No horror. Just the certainty of a thing that needed to be done.

That was the part that bothered him. Not the killing. The ease of it.

"Kid." Dean's voice. Closer now. "You with me?"

Tyson blinked. He was still staring at Mikhail's face. The brown eyes. The slack mouth. A man who he assumed had a name and a life before a demon crawled inside him.

"Yeah," Tyson said. His voice sounded flat, like someone doing an impression of him. "Yeah, I'm here."

Dean looked at him for a moment. Whatever he saw, he didn't comment on it. He just nodded and turned toward Chloe, who was still pressed against the shelving unit, facing the body, unblinking. He crouched next to her. She flinched when he reached for her wrists, then held still as he worked a thin pick from his jacket pocket into the handcuff lock. Cheap cuffs. The lock turned in under three seconds and the metal fell away, leaving red bands pressed into her skin.

"You're alright," Dean said.

Chloe rubbed her wrists. She nodded, but kept looking back at the body.

"Want to know what this one was actually doing here?" Dean didn't wait for an answer. "He wasn't running a bookie operation for the football winnings. He was running it for the paper. Kids sign up, lose a few bets, can't cover. He offers to clear the debt in exchange for something they don't think is real. A signature. A handshake. A promise. Some of them kiss a contract and laugh about it on the way home, because they're teenagers, and to them, souls are a metaphor. Ten years, twenty, whenever the contract comes due, a collector shows up. And by then, the kid who laughed in a school basement is thirty years old with a family and no idea why the lights just went out in the hallway." Dean's mouth was flat. "I don't know how many kids in this town put their names on something this fall. Probably neither will you. But if anyone in your graduating class dies weirdly in ten years, you'll know why."

Dean stood and turned to survey the room. Storage shelves. One door. A dead man on the floor. He ran his tongue across his teeth and looked up at the ceiling. "Couple hundred people upstairs," he said. "Game's still going. Parking lot's full, every hallway's got parents and kids wandering around looking for bathrooms and vending machines." He looked at Tyson. "We can't carry a body out of a high school during a football game."

Tyson didn't respond. He was standing where he'd been standing, three feet from Mikhail's body, his hands at his sides. The shaking had stopped. That was almost worse.

"Tyson." Dean stepped into his line of sight, blocking the view of the body. "I need you thinking. Right now. Not later. Now."

Tyson turned to Dean's face.

"Tyson."

Chloe had gotten to her feet, one hand still braced against the shelving unit. She was looking at him now, not at the body.

"You came for me," she said. "Again." Tyson turned to her. "This is the third time I needed you. You came."

She looked scared and hurt, standing in a room with a dead body, and she was the one trying to make him feel better. Something about that landed in a way Dean's words hadn't, and the locked-up feeling loosened.

"Yeah," he said. Not flat this time. Quiet, but present. "I came."

Dean let the exchange pass without comment. He'd seen this before. The aftermath. The way people pulled each other back from the edge of the thing they'd just survived. He'd never been great at it himself. Good to know someone was.

"Alright," Dean said, once the silence had settled into something that felt a little less like shock. "We still have a body and a building full of witnesses."

"I can move him," Tyson said. The focus was back. Not all of it, not the way it had been before, but enough. "Fast. The way I stabbed him. Nobody will see me."

"You're talking about carrying a hundred-sixty pound dead man through a school at superspeed."

"There's a tree line past the faculty lot that runs back about a quarter mile to the creek." Tyson's jaw set. "I'll burn him there. Nothing left but ash."

Dean looked at him for a long moment. Weighing it. The knife was back in his belt, cleaned and sheathed, and his arms were crossed over his chest.

"You've done this before?" Dean said. "The speed thing. Carrying something heavy."

"No."

"Hell of a first time."

"I batted a car away two weeks ago. A body won't slow me down… Unless you have a better idea?"

Dean didn't. That was the problem. His usual playbook involved a tarp, a trunk, and a stretch of empty road, none of which applied to a school basement during a packed game. The kid's way was faster, cleaner, and left no trail. It also meant trusting a teenager who'd killed his first demon four minutes ago to hold it together long enough to dispose of the evidence.

"Do it."

— Meteor Freak —

The parking lot behind the Talon was empty except for the three of them. Lana sat on the low brick wall that bordered the sidewalk, legs crossed at the ankle, while Chloe leaned against the building's facade with her arms folded. The red marks on her wrists had faded to pink. She hadn't mentioned them.

Tyson stood between them, hands in his jacket pockets, watching the dark stretch of Main Street. Smallville after eleven pm on a Friday was a ghost town, unless there was an event at the Talon. Storefronts dark, streetlights buzzing, nothing moving except the occasional truck rolling through on its way somewhere else. They heard the car before they saw it. A low, heavy rumble. American muscle, loud and completely unapologetic about it. Headlights swung around the corner two blocks down, and the black Impala rolled toward them, engine note dropping as it slowed.

Dean pulled to the curb and killed the headlights but left the engine running. He climbed out, shut the door with care, and walked over. Leather jacket, boots. The knife and the Colt were somewhere on his person.

"Hell of a game, huh?" Dean said. "State championship. You're basically famous."

Tyson extended his hand. Dean took it. "We're throwing a party tomorrow night," Tyson said. "Whole school's going to be here. Celebrating the championship. You should stay. Coach."

Dean glanced at the Talon, then back at Tyson. "Nah. Better if I clear out. Let Quigley have his moment. Been coaching here forever, he doesn't need some random drifter hanging around stealing his thunder. Besides, I've been in Smallville for three months. That's about two months and three weeks longer than I usually stay anywhere. I had fun while it lasted."

He turned to Chloe and Lana. Chloe pushed off the wall and met him halfway, and Dean pulled her into a one-armed hug. Chloe's hand came up and grabbed a fistful of his jacket for a second before letting go.

"Stay out of basements," Dean told her.

"Stay out of high schools," Chloe shot back.

He hugged Lana next. She held on a beat longer than Chloe had.

"I'll have my brother email you a primer," Dean said to Tyson. "Sam's the research guy. Demons, ghosts, shapeshifters, the whole monster manual. Signs to look for, how to put them down. Salt lines, devil's traps, the works. Smallville's got enough weird going on, and you've added the Supernatural to the pile."

"CC me on that," Chloe said.

Dean looked at her. "Seriously?"

"Dead seriously. I've got the wall of weird in the Torch filled with Meteor Freaks, unexplained deaths, and missing persons. If there's a whole other category of things that go bump in the night, I want to know about it."

"Alright, Buffy." Dean pointed at her. "Just don't go full slayer. You were in the room for one demon gank. That's not how this works."

"Hey!" Chloe's chin came up. "I was abducted by a guy with black eyes. I think I've earned at least a field correspondent badge."

"You earned the 'stay in the car' badge. There's a difference."

Chloe opened her mouth, closed it, and settled for a look that promised this argument would continue over e-mail. Dean grinned at her, and for a second, the basement and the body and the dark film on the knife blade felt very far away. Then he turned back to Tyson, and the grin faded into something quieter. He put his hands in his jacket pockets and stood there for a moment, like he was deciding how to say something.

"You did good in there, I want you to know that," Dean said. "First kill is always the hardest. Doesn't matter if it's a demon, a ghost, or a werewolf. The first time you put something down, and it stays down, it changes the way you see yourself. You start asking questions you didn't have before. Whether you crossed a line. Whether you can uncross it." Dean looked him in the eye. "You can't. But that's not the same thing as saying you did something wrong."

The Impala idled behind him, patient, waiting.

"The man that demon was wearing was already gone. Once they're inside, once they've taken the wheel, the person you're looking at isn't a person anymore. They're a prison. And the thing wearing them will ride that body until it falls apart and then find another one. You didn't kill a man tonight. You ended an occupation."

"I know," Tyson answered. And he mostly did.

Dean looked him over for another second, then gave a short nod. He clapped Tyson on the shoulder once, hard enough to feel it.

"You've got my number," Dean said. "Anything comes through here that you can't handle, anything that doesn't fit the Meteor Freak playbook, you call me. Day or night."

"Likewise," Tyson said. "You run into something bigger than you can handle, you know where to find me."

Dean's mouth twitched. "I'll keep that in mind. It was fun, Tyson."

"It was fun, Dean."

"Where will you go?" Lana asked.

Dean looked at her, and for just a moment something gentler came through. "Pick up my brother. He's a few states over, working a case. After that..." He shrugged. "There's always something that needs hunting."

He walked back to the Impala. Opened the door. The interior light caught the worn leather of the bench seat, a duffel bag in the back, a box of cassette tapes on the passenger side.

A whole life that fit inside a car.

Dean dropped into the driver's seat and looked at them through the open window.

"See you around," he said.

The engine roared as he pulled away from the curb. Taillights flared red at the end of Main Street, held for a beat at the stop sign, then swung left and disappeared. The sound of the Impala faded slowly, block by block, until it was just a low rumble on the edge of hearing, and then it was gone.