Seeing Lex Luthor's after what she had learned made it incredibly difficult for Irene to not punch him across the face. The man was a monster. Everything he did all the lives that he took just destroy Superman's image.

It made her sick just looking at him. But she had to pretend that she didn't know, that everything was the same since they last saw each other.

"Irene I was delightfully surprised when I got your call." Lex told her as he opened the door for her to enter. "I was honestly expecting your call sooner."

"I would have liked to come sooner but work has been a little hectic." Irene replied casually before looking in her bag and pulling out a velvet box that held the diamond necklace that he had sent her. "I also needed to return this."

"Keep it." He said dismissed.

"I couldn't." Irene replied honestly, she couldn't imagine owning something so ridiculously expensive. Not to mention that she didn't want anything that came from Lex Luthor.

He turned away from her and began walking down the hall, leaving her to follow after him. The mansion looked different without all the party guest in their fancy clothes, it felt even bigger and more lonely. "It looks much better around your neck than it does sitting in a glass case."

"Thank you." She said as she shoved the box back in her bag.

He then opened one of two large double doors opening them for her to enter. She couldn't deny that she had a moment of hesitation, because some part of her had to admit that she did fear him. Of what he was capable of doing, but she couldn't let him see that.

The door lead into a large office, it was much larger than any office need to be. And it was clearly carefully decorated, though like the rest of the mansion it felt cold and lonely.

"This was his office." Lex said thoughtfully and he didn't need to elaborate for her to know who he was talking about. He was referring to his father who had died of cancer and left an 18 year old boy to run one of the most important companies in the world. "I left it just the way it was. It's silly. The magical thinking of orphan boys."

Irene found herself speechless unsure about what to reply to what he just told her. In the end she decided that it was best to ignore his words all together. "Thank you for seeing me on such short notice."

"I have to say I was a little disappointed when you never published anything about our last interview."

Him being so direct was unsettling, but she had prepared herself to see him again. The approach she would take to get what she needed. "That's because the rock you found isn't the real story. Isn't it Lex?"

"Now what do you mean?"

"We'll there's more to the story. Something that you aren't sharing." Irene stated bluntly, studying his reaction to her words. But he had no reaction other than a slight smile, it seemed that she wasn't the only one that had prepared themselves. "You have real evidence about the existence of meta-humans and why you find them dangerous."

She could ask him directly about the bullet or what happened in the desert, doing so would only give him time to prepare himself for his next move.

"You're a clever one. I knew there was a reason I liked you."

"Maybe if I understood more about the danger of meta-humans... of beings like Superman." She continued and she found that the words were a lot harder to say than she initially thought. "Then I could write something real."

"I think this will have the answers you're looking for." He told her as he reached into his pocket and then holding a USB drive in front of her. She took it from between his fingers realizing that he had expected this. That he was waiting for her to go to him, that was the only explanation she could find as to why he already had the drive ready.  "Maybe once you take a look you'll realize the danger that we're really in. I think the world deserves to know."

Did he know that she had flown to D.C. and that she knew what he had done? Maybe she was just being paranoid because if he did know wouldn't he try to stop her now?

"I'll get right on it. Thank you Lex."

As she headed toward the door a large painting that almost took up the entirety of the wall caught her eye. There was something chilling about it that caused her to stop and take a closer look.

It was a painting of demons coming from the ground as angels came from the sky. It looked like they were preparing for a battle. Suddenly Irene felt as Lex came up behind her, and for the first time she froze.

"Hey, you don't think dad would mind, do you? If I change just... just one thing in this room." Lex said softly as he placed a hand on her shoulder. He was closer to her, uncomfortably close and Irene had to fight the urge to move away. "Because, that should be upside down. Now, we know better now, don't we? The devils don't come from hell beneath us. No. No, they come from the sky."

His words caused her heart to beat faster in her chest, the look in his eyes. The hatred there, she had never seen anything like it.

When Irene returned to the Daily Planet she was annoyed to find Clark gone, but relieved to see Jimmy sitting at his desk.

Although he didn't say so Irene knew that what happened at the desert had really scared him, and that some part of him did resent her for brining him out there. That was why she hadn't reached out to him for everything she had found out about Lex Luthor. She wanted to give him space, even though she missed working with her best friend.

Irene walked over to to Jimmy's desk feeling a little hesitant but needing to talk to him. "Those are good, who are they for?"

Jimmy glanced up at her offering a small smile before turning his attention back to the computer. "For Lois she needs them ASAP."

"Where's Clark?" She questioned as she took a seat on the edge of his desk.

"Off being... well you know." Jimmy said as he continued to edit his photos on the computer, he seemed distracted or maybe he was still a little upset with her. "I told everyone he went out for a coffee run. So you better make sure that when he comes back it's with coffee."

"Did you tell everyone that he went on a coffee run because you wanted some coffee?"

Jimmy looked up at her again his smiling widening. "Maybe."

Irene couldn't help but feel relieved that he seemed to be back to his old self, though she knew better than anybody that what happened would continue to haunt him. "You better hurry up with those photos Jimmy there is so much I need to catch you up on."

Although Irene was feeling impatient she waited until Jimmy finished editing his photos before she began telling him everything that had happened in the last couple of weeks. She told him everything that she had uncovered, everything except Bruce Wayne being The Batman. It simply wasn't her secret to share, and Barbara had come to her personally trusting that she wouldn't say anything.

As she told him about Alex and everything that happened in the desert Jimmy stayed silent even though his eyes were wide in shock.

Jimmy sat in his chair in his chair in complete disbelief. And if Irene hadn't discovered it herself she would have also found everything hard to believe. "Why didn't you loop me in before?"

"I wanted to give you space after what happened." She told him, because how could he not be upset with her? She was the reason he went out to the desert that day, she was the reason that he almost got killed again. "And honestly I was afraid that you hated me a little."

"Irene I couldn't hate you even if I tried. But thank you for giving me space, I did need it."  He replied and Irene felt like a huge weight had been lifted of her shoulders. "So what else do you have?"

"This." Irene said as she held up the drive that Alex Luthor had given her only a couple of hours ago.

Jimmy immediately took it from her hand looking at it with doubt. "Where did you get this?"

"From Lex himself." Irene said and although she didn't trust Lex's intentions on giving her the drive so freely there also had to be something important in it.  "Let's look through it together?"

"Duh." Jimmy said as he plugged it into the computer waiting for the file to download.

There were multiple files on the drive. Jimmy immediately clicked on the first one, but all that was in it was a police report from National City that was filed three years ago on the day of Zod's attack. Someone had filed a report that an alien spaceship had crashed a couple miles outside of the city. It was discarded, but clearly Lex believed that there was something there.

Jimmy only offered Irene a single glance before opening another file that had a video that seemed to be deep under water. It was dark and difficult to see but there was no mistaking a man that swam across in an unnatural speed.

Though Jimmy didn't seem too impressed as he moved onto the next file. Video footage of a gas station convenience store began to play, but it was only a couple of seconds long and everything happened so quickly that it was difficult to make sense of.

"What the..." Jimmy muttered as he replayed the video and slowed it down frame by frame.

There were only three people in the footage a customer, the clerk and the man who had a gun pointed at the clerk. But the man robbing the store wasn't the real focus of the video, it was the man who was at the refrigerators at the other end of the store. The image was blurry but he looked young, and she was there one moment and gone the next. The that same frame the man robbing the store was unconscious on the floor.

Now a man moving at lighting speed left Jimmy stunned as he looked at Irene with wide eyes. "Irene do you know what this means?"

"This pretty much confirms the meta-human theory." Irene said mostly to herself. If there were more people with special abilities out there, that meant that they were all in danger too.

Nodding Jimmy turned his attention back to the computer where they only had two files left to open. The next file he chose one had a single picture. The date 1918 was at the bottom of the screen. It was a war photo, the soldiers in the pictures were smiling brightly celebrating a victory.

But the real focus of the photograph was the woman standing in the middle. She stood out not only from her beauty but the warrior armor she had on. The woman clearly did not belong, she looked ethereal. As Irene took a closer look at the warrior woman's face she could have sworn the her jaw dropped as she suddenly recognized her. "I know her." 

"You do?" Jimmy questioned looking at Irene like if she had gone insane. "Irene this picture is from 1918."

"I saw her at the charity event." Irene explained remembering how Bruce Wayne had run after her. She had taken something, but she couldn't imagine what. But clearly all of this wasn't just a coincidence, in some way it felt like pieces of a puzzle coming together. A puzzle that was still missing a lot of pieces. "It looked like maybe she stole something from Lex. But I'm not too sure."

"Looks like you could start with her."  Jimmy said thoughtfully, he was trying to make sense of everything too. "Shouldn't be too hard to track her down. Do you think she's like Clark?"

As far as Clark knew he was the only Kryptonian on Earth, if the woman from the charity event was also like him it could explain why it looked like she hadn't aged since World War I.

"I don't know I mean... she could be. Or she could be something else." Irene muttered really beginning to feel overwhelmed by it all. But she couldn't let herself begin to crack, there was so much more that she needed to figure out. So much that didn't make sense and that they needed to figure out. "How about the last one?"

Jimmy clicked on the last file, it only contained a short video that Jimmy immediately started. What they saw was horrifying, the image was blurry but they could see what looked like the top half of a corpse hanging at the far end of the wall.

"Oh my god." Jimmy exclaimed as he began to gag dramatically.

Suddenly a familiar face came into the frame as they adjusted the camera and seeing them caused Irene to hold her breath. "Silas?"

Jimmy looked at Irene for a moment before turning his attention back to the screen. Silas Stone placed a large metal box in his desk. But it wasn't just any box, it suddenly came alive as it rose in the air. In a single second the box flew across the room and attached itself to the corpse hanging on the wall.

Only it wasn't a corpse because he suddenly began to scream in agony. Jimmy and Irene gasped as the realized that the man was alive.

Irene put her hand to her mouth in shock, horrified by the man's screams. The pain sounded unbearable and she wondered why Silas would ever do such a cruel experiment in the man. The video suddenly went black and they both stood there in silence for a moment.

"Well that was disturbing." Jimmy muttered as he clicked away from the video and leaned back in his chair.

"I don't even know where to start." Irene admitted mostly to herself, there was so much information in that drive that most of it could mean nothing at all.

The only person on that drive that seemed to have any real connection to Lex Luthor was the woman that was at the charity event. So that was where she had to start, and hopefully something would start making some sense.

A/N: I've got about 13 chapters left of book 3. There are some moments that I am very excited to get to. Like maybe meeting Diana in the next chapter?