Lucinda stared at the white ceiling. A few cobwebs clung to the corners—shifty, suspicious-looking webs—and she was pretty sure the spiders were winking at her.
Because why wouldn't they? This was Smallville, the land of meteor-mutated corn and unregulated teenage heroism. Anything could happen here. Truly anything.
But one thing definitely could not:
Billionaires still had limitations.
For example. First: They can't stop heavy rain, no matter how dramatic their coat flaps.
Second: They can't pull a phone signal out of thin air, not even with a multimillion-dollar laboratory under their feet.
Third: They can't just kill someone because she accidentally learns too much...
Lucinda's eyes widened. "I mean… this is still Season 1, Lucinda," she whispered to herself. "He'll… get there."
She cleared her throat and very deliberately turned her gaze to the left—where there was nothing but a stack of dusty boxes she doesn't know and definitely don't wanna know.
It was surprisingly cozy inside the storage-slash-temporary-sleeping-area, but the thin cushion beneath her felt like it was conducting every ounce of cold from the concrete straight into her spine.
She tugged the fluffy blanket up to her chin, sighing into it… until her mind inconveniently wandered to Lex. Out there.
She had no idea how he was sleeping now—or if he was sleeping at all. All she knew was that when she last saw him, he was sitting on that too-comfortable couch outside, posture impeccable, reading a book that hopefully wasn't titled 101 Ways to Eliminate Witnesses.
Lucinda buried half her face into her blanket, letting the soft fabric muffle both her breathing and her increasingly dramatic thoughts. The storage room was dim, lit only by a flickering overhead bulb that buzzed like it, too, was judging her life choices. She tried—really tried—to close her eyes and drift off, but the moment she came anywhere near relaxation, the same intrusive thought stabbed through her like a meteor rock to the chest:
Lex is out there freezing like a Victorian orphan, and I'm in here wrapped like a burrito. This is how villains are born, Lucinda.
She groaned and rolled onto her back, glaring at the ceiling again. A spider above waved a leg at her. Maybe. Or maybe she was hallucinating. Honestly, it was a toss-up at this point.
A shiver rattled down her spine. What if something happens to him? If he gets hypothermia, pneumonia, a case of billionaire sniffles—Lionel Luthor will dissect me with his bare hands, she thought, grimacing. He'll probably do it alphabetically.
Another tremor ran through her. Not from the cold—no, this one came straight from the pit of her stomach, where anxiety had begun nesting. With a frustrated hiss, Lucinda sat upright, blanket falling off her shoulders.
"Okay," she whispered to herself. "Fine. Fiiiine. Go check on the future supervillain so he doesn't die and doom your entire timeline."
Slowly, she swung her feet down to the icy floor. The cold sank into her soles like tiny needles, forcing a wince she barely managed to swallow. Still, she crept toward the doorway, inch by inch, blanket dragging behind her in sleepy rebellion.
Lucinda followed the dim hallway back to where she'd left Lex earlier. The low electrical buzzing reverberated through the narrow laboratory corridor, vibrating faintly against the metal and prickling along her arms. It felt less like a hallway and more like the inside of a giant refrigerator—one with very questionable ambiance.
Finally, she reached the room.
She peeked around the doorless frame—and immediately had to squint.
Lex sat on the couch exactly where she'd last seen him. But the tall lamp beside him was angled in such a way that it shone directly onto his perfectly bald head with the intensity of a lighthouse trying to warn ships at sea. The glare bounced off him like he'd polished the thing before sitting down. Lucinda raised a hand to shield her eyes, blinking rapidly before they adjusted.
There he was, unmoving. Book open on his lap, elbow propped on the armrest, head resting against his forearm. Eyes closed in a posture that suggested he was either sleeping or contemplating the mysteries of the universe—perhaps both.
Even unconscious, he radiated a strange, solemn authority—like a statue of a king someone forgot to dethrone. The curve of his posture, the tilt of his head, even the way his hand rested near the open book all carried that same quiet command, as if Lex Luthor could supervise the room in his sleep.
Lucinda exhaled softly. "He looks okay though," she whispered, more to calm herself than anything else. She started turning back toward the hallway—until a faint puff of mist rose from Lex's lips.
She blinked.
Another breath. Another fragile cloud.
The room wasn't that cold, was it?
Her gaze dropped to his hand resting near the book. His fingers twitched—not in a dreamlike way, but in a slow, involuntary shiver that sent a pinprick of concern down her spine.
Lex, of course, remained motionless in dignified misery, chilled air brushing against his bare scalp.
"And also he's bald," Lucinda continued under her breath, her nose scrunching in sympathetic distaste. "That head is not built for the cold."
"Is staring at people not a crime in 2023?"
Lucinda gasped so hard she nearly swallowed her tongue. She had just been thinking how peaceful he looked—then he went and ruined it by speaking like a resurrected gargoyle. She almost bolted, but it was too late; Lex had already opened his eyes.
Caught red-handed, she offered the only greeting her panicking brain managed to produce.
"Yo~."
Lex's smirk curved slow and amused, the kind that implied he was filing this moment away for future torment. "Is the storage room too uncomfortable for you, Lucy?"
Lucinda blinked dramatically. "No," she said, waving a dismissive hand as if sleeping in a metal closet was absolutely her dream vacation. She leaned against the doorframe, trying to look casual. "In fact, it's too comfortable. How about you switch? You take the storage room, and I sit over there—" she pointed at his couch with mock elegance, "—like a civilized housemaid."
Lex cocked a brow, unimpressed. "Just go back inside, Lu—"
He didn't finish.
Thunder cracked so violently it sounded as though the sky itself had split open. A flash of lightning illuminated the lab in a stark, blinding burst, and the entire building trembled—walls rattling, floor humming, machinery groaning like it was reconsidering its life choices.
Then everything went black.
The lights died, the hum of the machines cut off, and a heavy, swallowing silence fell over the lab.
Lucinda exhaled into the darkness. "Well," she muttered, "that's… ominous."
Somewhere ahead, Lex released a long, world-weary sigh—so deep it reverberated through the hallway. A second later, a harsh beam of light snapped on and shot directly into Lucinda's eyes.
"A—ah! Your head~!" she yelped, flinching and throwing an arm over her face.
There was a beat of confused silence.
"What about my head?" Lex lowered the flashlight, illuminating his own very human, very bald silhouette instead of trying to blind her with it.
Lucinda squinted, blinking away the spots. "Oh. I thought the light hitting me was your head reflecting." She said it with such guileless innocence that it almost sounded like a compliment.
Lex did not take it as a compliment of course. His grimace was immediate and profound.
Slowly—deliberately—he stood, straightening like a man preparing to reclaim his dignity one vertebra at a time.
"Stay here," he said, clipped and authoritative. "I'll go check the generator."
"Ahh~" Lucinda raised a finger before he could pass her, blocking him like a very underqualified security gate. "We better stay together."
Lex closed his eyes briefly. "And why would that be?"
"This"—she made a dramatic sweep of her hand toward the darkened hallway—"is exactly how a horror scene looks, Mr. Luthor, sir." Her voice was serious; her motives, less so. She simply refused to stay alone in a pitch-black laboratory filled with suspicious machinery and Lex-flavored secrets. "So, I suggest we stay with each other. Now, where's the generator?"
"Lucy, we're not in a horror movie. So just do what I say and stay he—"
A crash exploded from somewhere down the corridor.
Both of them gasped, the sound embarrassingly synchronized.
Lex's reflexes kicked in instantly; he snapped the flashlight up, its beam slicing through the dark and over Lucinda's shoulder. Glass crackled somewhere ahead, settling like ice breaking on a frozen lake.
"What was that?" he muttered, tone low and sharp.
Lucinda lifted her shoulders. "I don't know, but I think it came from that way," she said, pointing to the hallway on her right.
Lex stepped closer, angling the light toward the direction she indicated. His brows knitted together. He knew exactly what lay in that wing—rooms dedicated to studying meteor-infected plant specimens. Plants that did not stay entirely… predictable.
If anything had fallen or moved in there—
"Lucy! Where are you going?!" Lex hissed, barely keeping his voice above a whisper.
Because Lucinda, with the bravery of a toddler chasing a balloon, had already begun hopping—yes, hopping—toward the ominous hallway.
"Lucy!" he snapped again, lunging after her. "This is not the time for improvisational death wishes!"
"Oh, but I saw a kid, Mr. Luthor," Lucinda said cheerfully—as if that were somehow reassuring.
"A kid—" Lex choked on his own breath. "A kid?"
He blinked, eyes wide with a mix of disbelief and impending cardiac stress, because Lucinda was already several meters ahead. Her strides were tiny, but apparently chaos granted her supernatural speed.
With a sharp hiss, he resigned himself to fate and hurried after her.
"How could a kid even get inside here, Lucy?!" Lex demanded, already right behind her. Her steps were minuscule, but her recklessness traveled at light-speed.
Lucinda tilted her head up and grinned at him. "Right?"
Lex grimaced, breath tight. "Right and? It's probably your eyes playing tricks on you."
"Oh, believe me," Lucinda said, tone light as a breeze. "It must be a ghost. They usually show up in dark places."
Lex inhaled slowly, recalibrating his patience. "Then we should turn the generator back on to lure it out," he argued, even though he had no idea why he was bothering to argue logic with her at all.
Lucinda's grin brightened. "Oh, but where's the fun in that?"