What was this upperclassman doing here?
Had she taken a break from robbing the rich to help the poor and decided to steal fabric instead?
Clark started paying closer attention to Felicia. He quickly realized she was not here for him, and not here for fabric either.
At the far end of the warehouse, there was a separate blast-glass chamber.
Inside it sat several briefcases marked SEALED.
Felicia landed lightly on one of the support beams, silent as a cat.
At least silent to everyone else.
To Clark, she might as well have been setting off fireworks.
She was wearing a pair of high-tech goggles with night vision and infrared scanning, and her silver hair had been pulled back into a ponytail. The black bodysuit traced every elegant line of her figure.
She glanced down at Peter, Gwen, and Cindy, who were still off in another section, enthusiastically arguing over materials, and a faintly amused smile crossed her lips.
But she did not disturb them.
Instead, she moved quietly along the beam, closing in on the blast-glass chamber.
Just as she started to pull out a glass-cutting tool, Clark's gaze locked onto her.
This place was not actually unguarded.
Harry may have disabled the visible cameras and normal door systems, but in a facility like this, Oscorp had installed a hidden alarm network.
It did not glow.
It made no sound.
The moment it was triggered, it would instantly send a signal to both the NYPD and Oscorp's top-tier private security, while dropping blast doors weighing several tons to lock down the entire warehouse.
Felicia's goggles were advanced, but they clearly could not detect Oscorp's newest invisible-spectrum trip system.
Or maybe Oscorp had simply made sure not to include that feature in any outward-facing version of the tech.
No one wanted thieves using your own systems to rob you.
One extra layer of paranoia made perfect sense.
Seeing Felicia just about to touch the first invisible line, Clark let out a sigh.
If it had been an ordinary day, he might have thought about whether or not to stay out of it.
But Peter, Gwen, and Cindy were all here now.
Not only were they gathering materials, they also risked exposing identities they would need later.
If the alarm went off and the police surrounded the warehouse, Peter and the others would never be able to explain why they were here.
And if Oscorp found out they had sneaked in, Norman would absolutely start digging into them afterward, then order Harry to stop associating with them.
"What a headache..." Clark muttered, black lines practically appearing over his face.
Then his body blurred.
It was not teleportation.
He was simply moving so fast the afterimage had not faded.
In less than a thousandth of a second, he crossed nearly a hundred yards and appeared directly in front of the blast-glass chamber.
Felicia, meanwhile, only felt the faintest rush of wind at her side.
She was just extending a foot outward when suddenly a warm hand came from nowhere and caught her by the ankle.
Then lifted her clean off the beam.
"Who—?!"
Felicia's heart slammed in surprise.
She had not realized anyone else was here, so her body reacted on instinct. Her free leg whipped upward immediately, trying to lock around the attacker's neck and force him to release her.
She landed the hold perfectly.
But Clark did not move.
In fact, if anything, he looked a little embarrassed.
The outcome Felicia expected never came. She was using a ridiculous amount of strength, but the man holding her did not seem affected at all.
She was upside down and could not yet see his face clearly.
"Upperclassman... security here isn't nearly as bad as you seem to think. And also, could you maybe let go with the legs? There's such a thing as personal boundaries."
The voice that reached her ears was helpless, warm, and completely familiar.
Felicia's emerald eyes went wide.
Looking through her goggles, she finally got a clear view of the man holding her suspended in the air by one ankle.
"Clark?"
For a moment, Felicia's brain stopped.
This was the same Clark she knew?
The sweet, innocent-looking boy from the school cafeteria, the one who turned red and fled if she teased him too directly?
The smiling, harmless one?
And right now he was holding her up one-handed by the ankle, utterly unaffected by her choke hold.
More than that, when had he gotten here?
How had he even appeared?
While her mind was still reeling, the corner of her eye caught something else inside the chamber.
Invisible beams.
Felicia sucked in a breath and immediately broke into a cold sweat.
If Clark had not stopped her, she would have triggered the alarm and trapped herself inside like prey in a box.
But what shocked her even more was Clark himself.
He was standing inside the laser web, and the beams were acting as if he didn't exist.
No sign of an alarm.
No sign of a reaction.
Not just that.
It felt like she and Clark were somehow inside a separate pocket of space, like nobody outside it would even notice they were there.
"Is this your secret?"
After the initial shock, there was no fear in Felicia's eyes.
If anything, she looked even more intrigued.
Even more excited.
The mystery only made him more appealing.
Not only did she stop struggling, she used the angle Clark was holding her at and twisted her body with a sharp flex of the waist, coiling around him like a boneless snake.
Clark immediately released her ankle, mostly because he had no interest in accidentally snapping her leg.
Her arms looped around his neck, and her face, impossibly beautiful and dangerously alluring, ended up so close their noses nearly touched.
"What exactly are you, Clark?" Felicia breathed against his face, her voice soft and taunting. "A big bad wolf pretending to be some sweet little lamb?"
Same formula.
Same method.
Same catastrophic effect.
In Clark's mind, the emergency innocent-boy alarm started blaring again.
Warning! Warning! Dangerous enchantress at point-blank range! We are unable to defend against this class of magical assault!
The little devil in his head was whistling madly.
Go! This is your moment! Show off your masculine charm!
The little angel, meanwhile, was pinned under the devil's foot, wailing weakly:
No! We have to stay pure! Gwen is literally outside picking fabric right now!
Clark fought down the powerful urge to throw Felicia across the warehouse, took a deep breath, and tried to make his voice sound cold.
"I'm just me, upperclassman. I'm Clark Parker. Just an ordinary high school guy here with his little brother to find some fabric." He kept his eyes on her. "You'd better tell me why you're here. Because if what you're doing puts my family or friends at risk, I have no problem handing you over to the police right now."
Felicia looked at him, ears red, face overheated, trying his absolute hardest to act cool and intimidating.
Then she burst out laughing.
"So you're still an innocent little virgin, huh? You can't even lie properly."
She loosened her arms from around his neck, hopped off him, and gave him a light pat as she landed effortlessly in the safe zone outside the hidden alarm net.
"Relax, overprotective big brother. I'm only here to take back something that already belongs to me."
Felicia turned and pointed toward the sealed briefcases behind the blast glass.