The dust from Lex's Porsche hadn't even settled into the gravel when the screen door of the farmhouse slammed open.
Ryan stumbled onto the porch, his small frame trembling. His face was a mask of sheer, wide-eyed terror, his breath coming in jagged hitches. He looked as if he had just stared into a sun and been blinded by the heat.
Clark, still standing by the barn with the lingering warmth of Lex's "friendship" in his chest, turned with a worried frown. "Ryan? What's wrong? You're supposed to be resting."
Ryan didn't answer with words at first. He gripped the porch railing so hard his knuckles turned white, his eyes fixed on the distant black speck of Lex's car disappearing down the road.
"He's lying," Ryan whispered, his voice cracking. "Clark... he's lying about everything."
Clark stepped forward, his brow furrowed in confusion. "Who? Lex? Ryan, he just offered to pay for your lawyers. He's trying to help us."
"No!" Ryan shouted, overstepping the porch and running toward Clark. He grabbed Clark's flannel sleeve, his hands shaking. "I heard it. It wasn't like the others. Most people have messy thoughts, like a radio with too much static. But his... his mind is like a cold, dark room with only one light on."
Clark knelt down to the boy's level, his protective instincts flaring. "What did you hear from his mind, Ryan?"
"He doesn't care about the lawyers," Ryan sobbed, the tears finally breaking. "He knows, Clark. He knows about the bridge. He knows about the woods. He saw the metal you crushed. He's not your friend... he's an investigator. He thinks you're a 'miracle' he can study. He wants to own you."
The color drained from Clark's face. The air in his lungs suddenly felt heavy, as if the very atmosphere of Smallville had turned to lead.
"He knows?" Clark's voice was a ghost of itself. "He can't. I was careful. I've always been careful."
"He has a room," Ryan choked out, his eyes darting around as if Lex were still listening. "A room under his house. It's full of broken things. He has your fingerprints on pieces of his old car. He's been watching you since the day you met. He's just waiting for you to trust him enough to stop hiding, so he can see what you're made of."
Clark stood up slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs—a sound so loud he was sure the whole farm could hear it. The "gratitude" he had felt moments ago curdled into a cold, sickening dread. Every handshake, every gift, every supportive word from Lex over the past few months replayed in his mind, now stripped of their warmth.
They weren't gestures of kindness. They were probes.
"I have to get you away from here," Clark muttered, his eyes darting toward the house, then the road, then the horizon. "If he knows about me, he'll never let you go. He'll use you to get to me."
"He's already using you," Ryan cried, wiping his face with his sleeve. "He thinks he's the only one smart enough to understand you. He's obsessed, Clark. It's like a hunger."
Clark spun around, his super-hearing picking up the distant, rhythmic thrum of Lex's Porsche miles away, but it sounded like a predator's heartbeat. He felt exposed—as if the farmhouse walls were made of glass and Lex was standing on the hill with a telescope, documenting every breath.
"My parents... if they find out Lex is investigating us..." Clark's breath hitched. He looked at his hands—the hands that had crushed the metal Lex was currently analyzing in a lab.
He wasn't just a farm boy anymore. He was a target.
"Ryan, go inside. Stay with my mom. Don't tell anyone else what you heard—not yet," Clark said, his voice dropping into a low, frantic register.
He didn't wait for an answer. He couldn't stay at the farm. If Lex was watching, every second he spent there was a second Lex was recording data. He needed someone who understood the "technical" side of the world—someone who had fixed the Talon's glitches and managed the town's strange phenomena without blinking.
He needed Jeremy.
Clark blurred into a streak of red and blue, moving faster than any human eye could track. He didn't take the truck; he didn't want the GPS signature. He arrived at the back entrance of the Talon in seconds, his chest heaving not from exertion, but from pure, unadulterated panic.
He found Jeremy in the basement, bathed in the green glow of his monitors. Jeremy didn't look surprised to see him. He didn't even turn around.
"You look like you've seen a ghost, Clark," Jeremy said, his voice smooth and disturbingly calm.
"Lex knows," Clark blurted out, stumbling toward the desk. "He has a lab, Jeremy. He's been tracking me. He has pieces of his car... he has evidence from the woods. He's going to expose me. He's going to take everything."
Jeremy turned his chair slowly, his emerald eyes coolly assessing Clark's breakdown.
"I need your help," Clark pleaded, his hands trembling. "You... you know how to handle the Shards. You know how to make people forget things, like you did with the others. Please. You have to make Lex forget. You have to wipe the files. Make him forget I have powers."