Chapter 19: Identity Crisis
Chloe's apartment was cramped, cluttered, and exactly the kind of organized chaos I'd come to expect from the Torch's editor-in-chief.
"Everything I have on Tina Greer," she said, dropping a folder on the coffee table. "Medical records, school transcripts, police reports from three different states."
Kara sat beside me on the worn couch, close enough that our shoulders touched. She hadn't let go of my hand since the parking lot—since discovering that someone wearing my face had kissed her.
"How long have you been researching her?" I asked.
"Two weeks. Since the first reports of identity confusion started filtering through the rumor mill." Chloe pulled out a newspaper clipping. "Tina's mother was killed in a meteor strike when Tina was seven. She was holding her daughter's hand when it happened."
The meteor connection. Of course.
[THREAT PROFILE UPDATED: TINA GREER. ABILITY: PHYSICAL TRANSFORMATION. TRIGGER: CHILDHOOD TRAUMA + METEOR EXPOSURE.]
"The transformation ability must have manifested then," I said. "But why target me specifically?"
Chloe pulled out another document—a psychological evaluation from Tina's previous school.
"'Subject exhibits obsessive fixation on individuals who achieve social acceptance despite outsider status,'" she read. "'Pattern suggests desire to inhabit rather than befriend target identities.'"
Kara's grip tightened on my hand.
"She wants to BE you," Kara said quietly. "Not just look like you. Actually replace you."
"The new kid who showed up from nowhere and made friends, got a girlfriend, became part of the group." Chloe's voice was grim. "You're her ideal template. Everything she's never been able to achieve."
My stomach churned. The idea of someone wearing my face, living my life, touching Kara—it made my skin crawl in ways I couldn't fully articulate.
"We set a trap," I said. "My apartment. If she wants to be me, she'll need to maintain my life. Show up where I'm supposed to be."
"Already ahead of you." Chloe pulled out her phone. "I've been tracking your schedule inconsistencies for the past week. Times you were supposed to be somewhere but witnesses say you weren't acting like yourself."
"How many?"
"Fourteen incidents over seven days."
The number hit like a physical blow. Fourteen times someone else had been living my life. Fourteen opportunities for Tina to learn my secrets, damage my relationships, discover things I'd kept hidden.
"What did she do?" I asked. "During those times?"
Chloe's expression was carefully neutral.
"I don't know. Not everything. But some of the reports mention you being 'distant.' Others say you were 'more forward than usual.' One person—" She hesitated. "One person said you asked questions about Kara. Personal questions. About her background, her family, where she came from."
Kara went very still beside me.
"What kind of questions?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.
"About how she ended up in Smallville. Whether she had any... unusual abilities."
The silence stretched. I could feel Kara's fear radiating through our joined hands—fear that her secret had been compromised, that the careful walls she'd built were crumbling.
"She doesn't know anything concrete," I said firmly. "If she did, she would have used it by now. Tina's obsessive, but she's not subtle. She would have confronted you directly."
"You don't know that."
"I know her type." The words came out harder than I intended. "She wants to BE me, which means she wants what I have. If she thought you were hiding something valuable, she'd try to possess it. Not expose it."
Kara's breathing steadied slightly. Not calm—she might never be calm about her secret—but manageable.
"So what do we do?" she asked.
"We hunt."
The trap at my apartment failed.
We set up surveillance—Chloe monitoring the building's entrance, Kara watching from across the street, me waiting inside like bait in a cage. Three hours of nothing. No Tina. No contact.
Then my phone rang.
My own number. Calling me.
"Hello, Cole." The voice was mine—exactly mine, down to the slight roughness I'd developed from shouting during the Sean Kelvin fight. "Did you really think I'd fall for such an obvious trap?"
"Where are you, Tina?"
"Everywhere. Nowhere." A laugh that sounded wrong coming from my own throat. "I've been you longer than you think. You'd be surprised what I've learned."
"Whatever you think you know—"
"I know about the laptop. The one you hide under your mattress. The research files about Smallville, about meteor freaks, about the Kents." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I know you're not who you pretend to be, Cole Harrison. And soon everyone else will know too."
The line went dead.
I stood in my apartment, phone pressed to my ear, feeling the walls close in around me.
[WARNING: IDENTITY COMPROMISE DETECTED. THREAT LEVEL: ELEVATED.]
She'd found the laptop. The research I'd compiled about this world, about the show, about everything I knew from my previous life. If she understood what she was looking at—if she figured out that I had knowledge I shouldn't have—
My secrets weren't just about hiding my transmigrator status anymore. They were about protecting everyone around me from the implications of that status.
Think. She has information, but does she understand it?
Probably not. Tina was obsessive and dangerous, but she wasn't a strategic thinker. She collected details without understanding context. My notes would look like paranoid research to someone who didn't know better.
But "probably not" wasn't the same as "definitely not."
I needed to end this. Tonight.
Clark found me pacing outside the Torch office at midnight.
"Chloe called," he said. "She said you were planning something stupid."
"Not stupid. Necessary."
"Cole." He stepped into my path, using his considerable bulk to block the hallway. "Whatever Tina knows or thinks she knows, it's not worth getting killed over."
"She's wearing my face. She's been living my life. She's—" I stopped, forced myself to breathe. "She kissed Kara. As me. Do you understand what that means?"
Clark's expression softened.
"I understand."
"Then you understand why I have to end this. Personally."
For a long moment, he didn't respond. Then he stepped aside.
"Lana's been getting strange phone calls. Someone asking questions about the meteor shower, about people who were changed by it." He met my eyes. "I think Tina's been researching more than just you."
"Watch her. Keep her safe."
"And you?"
I thought about Kara's fear. About my compromised laptop. About the shapeshifter who wanted to steal my entire existence.
"I'm going to give Tina exactly what she wants."
[TACTICAL ASSESSMENT: HIGH-RISK STRATEGY. RECOMMEND: BACKUP CONTINGENCIES.]
Clark nodded slowly.
"Don't die," he said. "Kara would never forgive me if I let you die."
"Neither would I."
I left him standing in the hallway and went to plan a confrontation with myself.
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