Superman: Dawnbreaker (DC Icons #4)(49)

It took everything he had to will it back, and this time he focused on finding a way out. Security guards were waiting near the door where they’d entered. And the blond man had a small crew with him at a second entry point. But then Clark spotted an old fire escape with no one nearby. It was clear on the other side of the building, and Bryan was hurt, but the fire escape was their only chance.

Clark burst back into the room and explained the situation. “Bryan, you’re coming with me. I’ll help you get around.”

Bryan stood without arguing and wrapped his arm around Clark’s shoulder. The three of them quietly left the room and began making their way across the building, keeping their eyes peeled for the blond man, anyone wearing brown, or security.

Bryan and Lex were looking to Clark for guidance now. He couldn’t let them down.

His X-ray vision was less reliable when he was on the move like this—it kept cutting in and out—but he was able to determine a few key pieces of information. The fire escape they were looking for was only accessible from the third floor. And they were on the first. He remembered seeing an antiquated freight elevator behind the genetics lab.

“Here they are! Down this hall!”

Clark spun to find one of the security guards pointing at them. Two men in brown came marching around the corner, gripping police batons. When they spotted Clark, Bryan, and Lex, they started jogging down the hall toward the boys.

“This way!” Clark shouted at Lex. He hefted Bryan over his shoulder, and he and Lex sprinted the other way, out of the restricted area, back in the direction they’d come from and toward the elevator. As they gained a little ground, Clark kept expecting the men to shout at them, order them to stop. But they said nothing. Just hurried after Clark and Lex in silence, wielding their batons. They seemed more like robots than actual men.

When they came to a fork in the hallway, Clark remembered that one way led toward the genetics lab. He had no idea where the other passage went. Before the men in brown could round the corner, Clark said to Bryan, “I need one of your shoes.”

“My shoes?” Bryan said, anxiously pulling one off and holding it out for Clark. “Take it.”

Clark tossed the shoe down the unknown hall, hoping it would at least give the men pause. He took off down the other hallway with Bryan, Lex following closely behind.

When they made it to the freight elevator, Lex pushed the up button, over and over, but nothing was happening. “Come on,” he growled.

Clark set Bryan down and peeked back along the hall. Still no sign of the men in brown. He hurried over and put his ear to the elevator doors but didn’t hear a thing. The old elevator didn’t work. He had to think of something else.

“What now?” Bryan barked from the floor.

Lex was now straining to pull apart the doors. “I can’t even budge them!”

“I need the other one, Bry,” Clark said, and Bryan immediately ripped off his remaining shoe and handed it over. Clark hurried to Lex and gave the shoe to him, saying, “Go break something. A window. A lamp. Anything.”

Lex looked at the shoe in his hand, and a devious smile spread across his face. “I can do that.” He spun around and continued down the hall.

Clark wedged his fingers into the elevator doors and pried them open easily. He looked down. No elevator car. He looked up. There it was, stuck on the third floor. But he also saw a gap between the elevator car and the back of the shaft. Just as he was turning toward Bryan, who’d been watching him the whole time, he heard a loud crash in the distance.

Lex returned, out of breath. “Just took out a whole row of beakers. Hope there wasn’t anything important inside.” When he noticed the open elevator doors, he turned to Clark. “Jesus, how’d you—”

“Hurry,” Clark said tersely. “We have to climb the cable.”

As Lex raced to the open elevator shaft, Clark lifted Bryan again and tossed him over his shoulder. He carried him to the shaft, where Lex was already gripping the thick cable. “Up?” he shouted.

Clark nodded. “Go!”

Lex leapt onto the cable, wrapping his legs around it and beginning to climb.

Clark could hear footfalls coming toward them now. “Can you climb?” he asked Bryan.

“I don’t know.” Bryan looked toward the open shaft. “I can try.”

But there was no time for uncertainty. “Wrap your arms around my neck,” Clark told him.

“What?”

“Just do it.” With Bryan clinging to him, Clark leapt onto the cable and closed the door with his feet. Then he scurried up the cable, quickly catching up with Lex. “There’s a gap in back,” he said. “See if you can climb up onto the roof of the elevator car.”

It took Lex several tries, but he was finally able to shimmy up the small gap between the elevator car and the shaft and climb on top of the elevator. When Clark and Bryan got up there, too, Lex was already climbing down off the elevator, through the open shaft and onto the third floor.

“What now?” Bryan said, after he and Clark got down, too.

“The fire escape,” Clark said.

“There,” Lex said, pointing out a large window half-covered in tar.

Clark sprinted over and lifted the window, and the three of them climbed out onto the fire escape, one at a time. Clark threw Bryan’s arm around his shoulder again, and the trio hurried down the stairs, toward the street level. Lex hopped down onto the crumbling pavement first, then reached up to help Bryan. Clark leapt off last, his phone buzzing the second his feet hit the ground.