An electric charge shot through Clark’s entire body, and in an instant he was hurling himself through the warm night air, teeth and fists clenched, eyes locked on the flames. In a fraction of a second he arrived, shoving Paul and Mikey away from the fire.
Mikey sprang to his feet and swung at Clark, missing badly.
Clark froze, afraid to swing back. Afraid he might do real damage. In front of everyone. So he just stood there as Mikey charged and shoved him in the chest as hard as he could. It took Clark a second to realize he should be falling, like Paul had, so he threw himself backward. His fake fall turned real when he tripped over a small pile of wood, launching himself directly into the searing flames.
The crowd around him gasped and screamed as the fire torched Clark’s clothes and hugged his skin, the smoldering red logs popping against his rigid back, giving off an odd warming sensation and a smell like burned rubber.
Clark spun quickly out of the pit and into the glass-covered grass, where he began frantically tamping down the flames leaping off his shirt.
“Jesus, Mikey!” Corey shouted, racing to Clark’s side. He helped pat down Clark’s shoulders, saying, “Shit, man, you okay?”
Clark nodded, scrambling to his feet. He reached down for his glasses and put them back on.
His clothes were torched, and everyone was staring. He shoved his hands, which should have been covered in burns and cuts, into his pockets. “I’m fine. I was only in there for a second.”
Corey pulled Mikey away.
Gloria hurried to Clark’s side. “Oh my God, Clark! You fell right into the fire.”
“I’m okay,” he insisted.
“Are you burned?”
He shook his head.
Bryan was there now, too. He held Clark’s right arm as he looked at his brother. “Corey, get that guy out of here! You see what he just did?”
Several of the football players huddled around Clark. “You saved him,” Tommy was saying. “You saved Paul from the fire.”
Paul was still kneeling on the ground a few feet away from Clark, picking glass out of his elbow. “You had my back,” he said.
Clark shook his head. “I just reacted.”
The hum eventually died down once people saw that Clark wasn’t seriously injured. In the dim light, it must have happened really fast for those watching. They probably assumed he had minor burns under his shirt. And little cuts from the glass, like Paul did. But Clark didn’t have a mark anywhere. The flames had been warm against his skin. He’d felt them. But they’d caused him no harm.
“You have to go to the hospital, Clark,” Gloria said, visibly shaken. “Have them check out your back.”
“I’ll take him,” Lana said. “I’m his ride.”
“I’m okay,” Clark assured them both. “Honestly. I just want to get out of here.”
“Of course.” Lana turned toward a group of friends. “He’s okay. I’m taking him home.”
Corey was shouting at his friends as they headed out to the parking area with their chauffeur.
Bryan kept asking Clark if he was okay. Lex, too, and lots of people from school. Everyone wanted to talk to him, to see if he needed anything.
But all Clark wanted to do was disappear.
He’d shown a glimpse of his powers, right here in the open. Were they all secretly wondering about him now? Did they think he was a freak?
Lana was eventually able to lead Clark through the crowd, toward her car. “You really are a good guy,” she said, opening his door. “Those football bros always give you shit. Yet you’re the first one there when any of them is in trouble.”
They were both quiet as she drove them to Clark’s house.
He played back everything that had happened after they heard the shattering of the sliding glass door. Paul and Mikey falling toward the flames. The impossible speed he’d reached in getting to them. How he’d rolled out of the pit with his shirt on fire.
Had he revealed himself to his classmates?
Did they know?
Lana was in her own world, too. She stared straight ahead as her headlights cut through the dark night. Sometimes she would nod to herself. Other times she’d shake her head or tap the steering wheel as if emphasizing some unspoken point. It wasn’t until she pulled up to the foot of Clark’s long driveway that she spoke. “What are your plans for tomorrow morning?”
“Going back to the Joneses’ farm,” he told her. “With you.”
She looked at him suspiciously. “How’d you know that’s what I was going to say?”
“Because,” he said, “there might be something there. And we both want answers.”
She nodded.
As Clark went to get out of the car, he felt Lana’s soft hand on his wrist. “Clark,” she said. “Wait.”
He turned to look at her.
“I agreed not to take you to the emergency room.” She paused, looking him in the eye. “But at least let me make sure your back is okay.”
Clark fell into his seat again, feeling anxious. How was he going to explain it to her? That the fire hadn’t marked him. That the glass hadn’t cut him.
But this was Lana.
So he turned away from her, giving her access to his back.
In a few seconds he felt her slowly lifting his shirt up his back. Then he felt her warm hands on his skin. And he listened to her breathing. And when she slowly slid her entire hand down the length of his back, his whole body tingled under her fingertips. And his breath caught. It was Lana’s hand. His best friend. But at the same time it was the hand of a beautiful woman. The hand of someone he trusted. Someone he’d do anything for.
“Not even a single mark,” she whispered in awe. “How’s that possible?”
He turned to her, his heart thumping inside his chest. “I rolled out as quickly as I could.”
“But your shirt—it’s torched.”
He didn’t have an answer for that part, so he kept quiet.
She stared at him for several long seconds, their eyes locked. He wondered if she might lean forward and kiss him.
Or if he might kiss her.
And what would that feel like?
She released an audible breath and turned to look out the windshield. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning, then,” she said.
He pushed open his door, stepped out of the car, and closed the door behind him. He ducked to look through the passenger-side window, trying to think of something to say. But he didn’t have words for what he felt. So he tapped the hood twice and turned around and started up his driveway.
The sun had just begun to rise when Clark left the house the following morning. He started down his driveway, thinking that he was early, that he’d have to wait for Lana. But there she was, her little hand-me-down Honda idling at the foot of his long driveway, as if she’d never left the night before. As he made his way to her, he worried it might be weird between them. Nothing had happened last night, of course. But there were a few intense seconds where it felt like something could have.
Luckily, he had it all wrong.
When he opened the door, Lana greeted him with a big smile, saying, “You want the latte or the mocha?”
Clark looked down at the two large cups, one sitting in each drink holder. “Oh, wow,” he said. “Maybe the latte?”
“Good. ’Cause I’ll drink any kind of coffee.”
He climbed in and picked up the latte and took a sip, feeling intensely grateful for their friendship. “You already stopped for coffee? What time’d you get up?”
“Early bird gets the blah, blah, blah.” She put the car into drive and pulled out onto the quiet street. “To be honest, I didn’t get much sleep last night. Just tossed and turned, thinking about my conversation with Gloria. And the fact that Wesco bought the Joneses’ farm.” She glanced at
Clark. “And your run-in with that rich asshole, obviously.”
Clark sipped his coffee, staring out the window at a flock of birds flying in a great V in the sky. He turned back to Lana. “You know what I realized after you dropped me off last night? I’ve never been in an actual fight in my life. I didn’t even know what to do.”
“Um, I consider that a good thing.”
“No, I do, too,” Clark said. “I’m just saying. In many ways we’re lucky to be growing up in a place like Smallville. Some kids have to deal with stuff like that every day. I just wish…”
She followed Clark’s gaze to the VOTE YES ON ISSUE 3 sign proudly planted in a neighbor’s yard. “That we weren’t also racist?”
“Well…yeah.” Clark thought about this for a few seconds before amending his answer. “Though I truly believe that most people in Smallville are accepting of others.”
Lana raised an eyebrow and shot Clark a skeptical look. “Let’s let voter turnout be the judge of that.” She refocused on the road. “If you’re too busy to get out there and vote with your accepting little heart, guess what? You’re complicit.”
Clark nodded and took another sip of his latte. He couldn’t argue with her there.
A minute or two later, she pulled the car over at the Alvarez Fruits and Vegetables stand, saying, “I don’t know about you, Clark, but I could use a bagful of Honeycrisps right about now.”
“Let’s do it,” Clark said, knowing they were really here to ask some questions.
As he and Lana got out of the car, he called to Carlos and Cruz. “Hey, guys!”
The father-son duo waved and continued organizing one of their stands. Clark could tell by Carlos’s slumped shoulders that he wasn’t his usual jovial self.
While Lana went to pick out apples, Clark sidled up to Cruz. “Everything okay?”
Cruz stopped stocking bananas. He glanced over at his dad before telling Clark in a quiet voice, “The cops were here yesterday morning, asking questions.”
“Deputy Rogers?” Clark asked.
Cruz shook his head. “Two people I’ve never seen before.”
“What’d they want?”
“They said if we want to stay in business, we’ll have to submit a permit by the end of the month. My dad’s been selling produce here for over ten years. He’s never had to have a business permit before,” Cruz scoffed.
The thought of this conversation pained Clark. “So what are you guys gonna do?”
“Sell off what we have left,” Cruz said. “Then shut the stand down. Do something else.”
Clark couldn’t believe it. “I’m really sorry to hear that.” It was one thing for Cruz to move beyond the fruit stand when he got older. It was another to have his family’s livelihood taken away.
“Seems like there are more cops around now,” Cruz said. “My dad’s worried.”
Lana and Carlos joined them near the register, and Clark could tell that Carlos was in no mood to talk. He gave Lana the price for the apples, took her money, and handed her a couple of dollars as change. Then he went back to stocking fruit.
Lana looked at Carlos before turning to Clark and Cruz. “I wish there was something we could do,” she said.
“We’ll be okay,” Cruz said, forcing a smile. “I’ve got a plan, actually. We’ll see.”
They said their goodbyes, and then Clark and Lana climbed into her car and drove off in silence. After a few minutes, Lana shook her head. “What was that you were saying about Smallville?”
Clark sighed. “I don’t even know anymore.”
Lana eventually merged onto the same back road she’d taken the night before, on the way to the party at the Joneses’ farm. “So now we have two different companies buying up Smallville farms,” she said. “My question is this: Are they competing? If so, how does Corey fit into the equation? Is he some kind of interloper?”
“According to Tommy,” Clark said, “Wesco didn’t officially take ownership of the property until midnight last night. So I doubt we’ll actually find much there.”
“Most leads are dead ends, Clark. But we still have to follow them all.”
Lana pulled into roughly the same spot she’d taken the night before. But this time her car was the only one around. She put it in park, removed the key, and turned to Clark. “Here’s what I keep coming back to: Why would Wesco buy a farm they didn’t intend to use for farming? I mean, doesn’t that strike you as odd?”
Clark shook his head as he took off his jacket and tossed it onto the back seat. “Tommy’s dad thinks they’re going to transform the place into a vineyard. Apparently, the soil around the crater is super rich.”
Lana pushed open her door. “So, that’s why they’re so interested in craters?”
“Maybe.” Clark got out, too, and closed his car door.
As they walked toward the farmhouse, he expected to find empty beer cans and red cups strewn about. Overflowing trash cans. But the only reminder of last night’s party was the charred remains of the bonfire, piled inside the makeshift fire pit he’d tumbled into. Otherwise the place was immaculate. Even the shards from the shattered glass door had been removed. Whoever Tommy had hired to help clean up had left the place in great shape.
“Pretty quiet out here,” Clark said.
“Yeah. But this place is almost two hundred acres, according to the public property sales records I found online last night.”
Clark nodded. Of course Lana had done research last night.
As if reading Clark’s mind, she turned to him and said, “What? I told you—I couldn’t sleep.”
They walked past the fire pit and down the slight slope in the grass where they’d been hanging out when the fight started. Within a few minutes they’d crossed through a thin line of trees and reached the farm area. Aside from the fact that all the Joneses’ farm animals were gone, Clark didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. When he and Lana came upon a small, dilapidated shed, Clark opened the creaky door and looked inside. Nothing but old and broken tools covered in spiderwebs.
They passed an empty mud pen where the Jones family had kept their hogs. Then came a vast stretch of dirt that had once been a cornfield. As they neared the end of the long field, they came upon a second row of trees, which had been planted as a windbreak. This one was unusually dense. Clark estimated that it was eight to ten trees deep, and it stretched out on both sides as far as the eye could see. This must have broken up the land for one of the homes Tommy’s grandfather never got around to building.
Clark stopped when he thought he heard voices in the distance.
Lana stopped, too, and looked at Clark. “What?”
He pointed beyond the line of trees before realizing she likely hadn’t heard a thing. “Hang on,” he said, turning his left ear in the direction of the sound.
There it was again. Human voices. Maybe a half mile away, which he assumed was still within the property.
“Do you see something, Clark?” Lana asked anxiously.
He shook his head. “I thought I heard something. I’m not sure, though.”
Lana stared at the line of trees for a long time before saying, “We should keep going. Just…let me know if you hear anything else.”
As they crept through the dense trees, Clark motioned for Lana to stop a second time. “You can hear it now, can’t you?”
“No,” Lana said. “What is it?”
Clark strained to determine where the sounds were coming from. He heard a male voice: “Mark it there.” The words were as clear as day to him now, and he flashed back to the night he’d found the three men in cowboy shirts on his own property. He half expected to hear the sound of the beat-up white truck.
“Voices,” he told Lana. “Someone giving instructions.”
“Shit, Clark, someone really is here. What now?”
The distinct sound of an aerosol can in use was coming from beyond the third thick grove of trees, this one over a hundred yards ahead of them. Clark waved for Lana to follow, and they hurried through the clearing.
As they neared the third row of trees, they slowed to a walk and then crouched. Lana could hear it now, too.
“What’s that sound?” she whispered.
“I think it’s some kind of spray can.” Clark turned to Lana. “Maybe this isn’t such a great idea. Can’t we get into trouble for trespassing?”
“It’s not the police I’m worried about.”
Creeping forward slowly, they exchanged a look as they neared the edge of the tree line. Then they proceeded into the thick grove, picking their way carefully and silently through the dense foliage. They got as close as they dared to a large clearing on the other side, stopping behind the trunk of a broad tree.
There were three men in the clearing, wearing unmarked black fatigues. Clark thought of the man downtown who’d attacked his teammates. But that guy had been wearing brown fatigues. And he was Mexican. These men were white. They looked like they were part of some kind of top-secret Special Forces unit. Two of the men were measuring something in the tall, weedy grass while another followed along behind them making marks with a can of white spray paint.
Whatever they were doing, it had nothing to do with traditional farming.
Or designing vineyards.
The clearing was large, nearly half the size of a football field. And it was well protected. Two thick groves of trees on opposite ends, to the north and south; a small hill to the east; and a shallow valley with a creek running perpendicular, to the west. And there was the crater. It was slightly larger than the one on Clark’s property. There was some kind of machine inside it, digging into the center.
The area was obstructed from view by anyone nearby on the ground. It could only be seen from above. And Clark had a sneaking suspicion that this clearing, and the crater, were the reasons Wesco had purchased the farm.
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