If We Were Infinite [paused] ➴ Lex Luthor

Chapter VII

A WORLD WITHOUT YOU IS A WORLD NOT WORTH LIVING
⊰ ⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯⎯ ⊱

❝Doubt thou that the stars are fire;
doubt that the sun doth move;
doubt truth to be a liar;
but never doubt I love.❞
⎯ Hamlet, Act II, Scene II

LEX LUTHOR flipped through the files that the technicians had provided him, signing and ticking where appropriate.
He hadn't slept in days ⎯ weeks, even; his mind was ignited in some frenzied obsession which kept him at the labs for hours. He became fevered ⎯ agitated; prone to lash out in stuttered clamoring and rambles. It had all been going so well! Ever since Senator Finch had blocked the import license for his mineral, his plans became fractured, derailed. Little did the senator know that whilst they fooled themselves into believing that they were championing the winning side, Lex was prepared to remind them that they were all just pawns in his game.

And Elora Everett? What of her? She hadn't attended the charity event at the Metropolis Library, not as Lex had hoped. Often, he would slip away from conversation to conversation, just so he could await her arrival at the front entrance, but despite his efforts, she did not appear. Perhaps, he may have figured her out all wrong, after all. Perhaps she did not feel the way Lex had thought she felt about him.

And how exactly did he feel about Elora Everett?

He couldn't be in love with her. It was an undeniable impossibility. But what if, for the sake of example, he had been in love with her. Was it honest? Or would he have been simply in love with the way she made him feel ⎯ as if, for once in the thirty-one years of a turbulent life that he had lived, he was understood.

But Elora Everett was a true and genuine soul.

Lex admired her spirit, her intelligence, her courage. She was irrevocably and unequivocally unselfish, kind, yet even such glorious words had been an understatement. She did not deserve to love the late hours, the liquor, the punishing nightmares of a father who failed to love.

She was hope. He was chaos.

"Mercy, a moment, please," Lex looked up from the files. "I need to ask a favor."

Mercy nodded. "Of course, sir."

"Everyone will be at the hearing in a week'e time," Lex began. "And I want to make sure of ⎯ um, something."

"Make sure of what exactly, Mr Luthor?"

Lex's fingers quivered over the pen he had placed down. "That Miss Everett is not to attend. She is to be denied access to the hearing. I want you to do everything in your power to make sure that she does not attend."

"Of course, sir."

"Mhm. Good. Good."

"Anything else for you, Mr Luthor?"

"No . . . No ⎯ nothing else. Thank you, Mercy. That is all."

His throat felt dry. Lex sauntered over to his liquor cabinet and quickly poured himself a half glass.

She's stubborn, he took a sip.

What if she doesn't listen? He took another sip.

Lex gazed intently at the horizon. He watched the blur of the city; the magnificent flourish of clouds that casted a near perfect reflection in the skyline of Metropolis, and yet in all the beauty, he was blinded by a lingering sense of unease.

Elora Everett's hamartia ⎯ her fatal flaw ⎯ was, in fact, not her stubbornness, but her unyielding curiosity. Her curiosity, however innocent, would eventually betray her, and the thought of it frightened him.

She was his final chance.