Chapter 22: What You Can't See
The tennis ball sailed past my face before I could react.
"Dead," Clark said from across the Kent barn. "That's the third time."
I rubbed my eyes, frustration building. My broken arm throbbed in its cast—a reminder of Jeff Palmer's first ambush three days ago. The bastard had caught me in the Torch parking lot, invisible and angry, and slammed me into my own truck hard enough to snap the radius.
"Again," I said.
"Cole, maybe we should take a break—"
"Again."
Clark sighed but retrieved the tennis ball. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to focus on the Meteor Sense that hummed constantly in the back of my skull. Jeff Palmer was meteor-affected, which meant I should be able to feel him. Should be able to track him even when my eyes were useless.
Come on. Find it. Find HIM.
[PERCEPTION TRAINING: ACTIVE. CURRENT ACCURACY: 34%. RECOMMEND: CONTINUED PRACTICE.]
The sense had always been passive before—a warning system that pinged when meteor freaks were nearby. But after Jeff's attack, after feeling him vanish into nothing while my arm bent the wrong way, I'd realized passive wasn't good enough.
I needed to hunt.
Clark moved. I felt him—not with my ears, not with my eyes, but with something deeper. A displacement in the world. A presence that didn't belong to normal humans.
"Left," I said.
The tennis ball whistled past my right ear.
"Wrong."
I opened my eyes. Clark stood where I'd indicated, but his arm was extended in the opposite direction.
"You felt where I was," he said slowly. "But you didn't account for the throw trajectory."
"Kryptonians feel different," I muttered, processing. "Bigger. More present. Like a bonfire instead of a candle. Jeff's meteor signature will be smaller, harder to track."
"But you CAN track it?"
I thought about the attack. The moment before impact, I'd felt something—a flutter at the edge of perception, like a shadow moving through my peripheral vision. If I'd been faster, more attuned, I might have dodged.
"I think so. But I need practice with something closer to his power level."
The barn door creaked open. Kara stepped through, carrying a tray with sandwiches and lemonade. Her eyes found my cast immediately.
"You're pushing too hard."
"I'm pushing exactly hard enough." I accepted the sandwich she handed me, suddenly aware of how hungry I was. The healing process demanded calories I kept forgetting to consume. "Jeff gave us until tomorrow night. That's not a lot of time."
"Which is why you need to eat and rest, not exhaust yourself in a barn." She sat beside me on the hay bale, close enough that our shoulders touched. "You won't help anyone if you collapse."
"She's right," Clark said. "And I've been thinking—maybe we're approaching this wrong."
"How so?"
"You're trying to detect Jeff with your senses. But Jeff's invisibility isn't just visual—it affects perception generally. People who see him don't remember seeing him. Cameras glitch around him." Clark leaned against the barn wall, arms crossed. "What if you're not looking for what you CAN sense, but what you CAN'T?"
I stopped mid-bite.
The absence. The void.
"Negative space," I said slowly. "He's not invisible—he creates a blind spot. Something that makes brains skip over his presence."
"Exactly. So instead of looking for a signature—"
"I look for where signatures SHOULD be but aren't."
[TACTICAL INSIGHT CONFIRMED. RECOMMEND: RECALIBRATE DETECTION PARAMETERS.]
The sandwich suddenly tasted better. I finished it in three bites, mind racing with possibilities.
"Let me try something." I closed my eyes again, but this time I didn't search for Clark. I searched for everything else—the hay, the wooden walls, the animals in distant stalls. I mapped the barn through perception alone, building a picture of what SHOULD exist.
And there, in the corner near the old tractor, was nothing.
Not absence of matter. Absence of presence. A hole in the world shaped like a person.
"Someone's watching us," I said quietly. "Near the tractor."
Clark moved faster than human eyes could track. One moment he was across the barn—the next he had his hand wrapped around something invisible.
"Let go of me!" The voice was thin, reedy. Familiar.
"Jeff," I said.
The air shimmered. Jeff Palmer materialized in Clark's grip—skinny, acne-scarred, eyes wild with fear and rage. His invisibility flickered like a dying light bulb.
"How did you KNOW?" Jeff demanded. "No one can—you're not supposed to—"
"Surprise." I stood, ignoring the pain in my arm. "Your ultimatum just got moved up."
"You can't do this!" Jeff struggled against Clark's grip, but Kryptonian strength wasn't something you broke free from. "I have RIGHTS! Whitney Fordman destroyed my life and everyone just watched! Do you know what that's LIKE?"
"Actually, yes." I stepped closer, close enough to see the meteor scars on Jeff's neck—the green-tinged skin where the rocks had fused with his flesh. "I know exactly what it's like to have power you didn't ask for. To want to hurt the people who hurt you."
Jeff's thrashing slowed.
"But here's the difference," I continued. "I chose not to. Every day, I choose not to use what I have to destroy the people who would destroy me. Because the moment I do, I become them."
"That's easy for you to say. You have friends. A girlfriend. A LIFE." Jeff's voice cracked. "I have nothing. They took everything."
"Then build something new. Or let the rage eat you alive." I met his eyes. "Your choice, Jeff. It's always been your choice."
The barn was silent. Clark's grip loosened slightly—not releasing, but no longer crushing.
Then Jeff screamed.
His body flickered—visible, invisible, visible again. He tore free of Clark's grip somehow, stumbled backward, and vanished completely.
"TOMORROW!" His voice echoed from everywhere and nowhere. "TOMORROW NIGHT! AND NEXT TIME, I WON'T COME ALONE!"
Footsteps. The barn door slamming. Then nothing.
"Well," Kara said into the silence. "That could have gone better."
Dinner at the Kent farm was a quiet affair.
Martha had made pot roast—tender, savory, exactly the kind of comfort food I needed after the confrontation. Jonathan carved in silence while Clark updated his parents on the situation.
"The boy is dangerous," Jonathan said finally. "But he's also suffering. There has to be a better way than fighting."
"There isn't." I set down my fork. "Jeff's past the point of talking. He's been invisible so long he's forgotten what it feels like to be seen. The only language he understands now is power."
"And you think YOU can speak that language?" Jonathan's eyes were sharp. "You've been here two months. You don't know this town, these people—"
"Jonathan." Martha's voice was soft but firm. "Cole has done more to help Clark than anyone except us. He's earned the right to be part of this."
Jonathan's jaw tightened. Then, slowly, he nodded.
"Tomorrow night," he said. "What's the plan?"
I looked at Clark. He looked at me.
"We give Jeff what he wants," Clark said. "A confrontation at the football field. Whitney as bait—"
"Whitney knows?" Jonathan interrupted.
"Whitney's been attacked three times. He's scared enough to cooperate." Clark's expression was grim. "Cole tracks Jeff's movements. I intercept. We end this before anyone else gets hurt."
"And if it goes wrong?"
I thought about the void in my perception. The way Jeff's rage had burned behind his eyes.
"Then we improvise," I said. "It's what we do."
Walking home, I tested my new senses.
The night was alive with presences—small animals in the underbrush, insects humming in the darkness, the occasional meteor-touched creature that had become common in Smallville's ecosystem. I catalogued each one, building a mental map of what belonged and what didn't.
[PERCEPTION STAT: +1. CURRENT VALUE: 18. THREAT ASSESSMENT CAPABILITY: IMPROVING.]
There. At the edge of the field. A void that shouldn't exist.
Jeff? No. Different shape. Wrong size.
I stopped walking. The void stopped moving.
"I know you're there," I said to the darkness. "Show yourself."
Nothing happened for a long moment. Then the void shifted, changed, and became—
Kara.
She emerged from behind a tree, not invisible but simply hidden. Her expression was guilty.
"You followed me."
"I was worried." She fell into step beside me, matching my pace. "After what happened in the barn... I didn't want you walking home alone."
"I'm not helpless, Kara."
"I know that." Her hand found mine in the darkness. "But being strong doesn't mean being alone. You taught me that, remember?"
I did remember. The hilltop. The stars. The conversation about belonging that had changed everything between us.
"Tomorrow's going to be dangerous," I said quietly.
"I know."
"I need you to stay back. If Jeff figures out what you are—"
"He already suspects." Her grip tightened. "Tina told him something before she was captured. About me being 'different.' About you being connected to someone powerful."
Tina. Of course.
The shapeshifter had been contained after our confrontation—locked in a facility Lex had recommended, somewhere she couldn't impersonate anyone else. But clearly she'd talked before then.
"All the more reason for you to stay safe," I said.
"And all the more reason for me to fight." Kara stopped, turned to face me. "Cole, I spent my whole life being protected. On Krypton, I was too young to help. Here, I'm too weak, too dormant, too alien. But I'm TIRED of being protected. I want to protect YOU for once."
The words hit harder than I expected. Because I understood them—understood the desperate need to be useful, to matter, to stop being the person everyone worried about.
"Okay," I said finally. "Tomorrow night, you're on backup. If things go wrong—ONLY if things go wrong—you come in."
Her smile was fierce and grateful.
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. We still have to survive."
We walked the rest of the way in comfortable silence, hand in hand under the Kansas stars. Tomorrow would bring danger, chaos, possibly death.
But tonight, I had her. And that was enough to keep the fear at bay.
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