Queen:
Verdant. Now.
Emma read the text message and got the situation immediately. She grabbed her leather jacket and checked the gun she's gonna wear on her belt. You never know what happens when you're with Oliver. All she had to do was entering her yellow bug and drive to the secret hiding place at the Verdant but as she was walking out of the door somebody behind her suddenly took her arm, making her stop jerkily. Her long blonde hair fell around her face.
»Where are you going again?« Felicity, her younger sister, asked. Hunting criminals with your boss, Emma thought sarcastically.
»I'm meeting a friend at a club« Emma replied. It wasn't a lie in that sense.
»You use to say that but I don't believe you any longer. I might be nerdy but I'm not blind. When you return home you have bruises and wounds. I mean I don't know about your habits in bed but- oh my - did I really say this…" Felicity lowered her head putting her palm on her glasses ashamedly. Her ponytail jumped up and down from the sudden movement.
Emma answered with a chuckle even though she didn't feel like it. »Seems like it. Listen, I'm gonna explain everything to you. Okay maybe not everything and definitely not now. You have to trust me.«
Emma looked at her sister who spoke a silent »Okay« and let go of her. When Emma was walking to her car she had a bad feeling about keeping this secret from her sister but she reminded herself that it was for her safety. She has encountered Oliver Queen aka Arrow nearly a year ago when she was tracking down a corrupt police detective who hadn't payed back the money that was borrowed him to get out of prison but had continued illegal business threatening the city. That was when Arrow started watching the guy leading to him and Emma catching him at the same time. She was a tough girl. Without her help the situation would have gotten precarious. He had never told his secret until that day.
»So what's the matter, Queen?« Emma asked when she was rushing in to the hidden Arrowcave underneath the night club.
»I think I found out something about our phantom. He tries to get our attention. It seems to be part of his plan but I have no idea who he is. I was at the docks to find out where he comes from and when exactly he appeared but none of the workers there could tell me.«
»You've been going there alone.« Emma said reproachfully.
»What? I just took a walk wondering about the rumors as Oliver Queen. So what I actually wanted to show you is this. It would be easier to get things like this if one of us was a good hacker and I didn't have to ask that Felicity girl again and again.«
»Now that you mention it. I would appreciate it when you stopped asking her.«
»We've had this discussion before.«
»Yes but now she starts suspecting, I think.«
»We'll care about this when this is over. So this is the postmortem report of one of the corpses at the docks. The man was poisoned. It was stabbed in his chest with something sharp but there's something real strange about that poison. It consists of essences the laboratory couldn't figure out. It's not from this world like some kind of magic.«
»You have to be kidding me. I'm just saying, you are talking about magic.«
»I know but there already happened so many things to me that seemed impossible.«
»But magic…that's ridiculous.« Believing has never been one of Emma's strengths.
»Maybe you're right but I'm gonna try to find a way anyway. That's what I do. What we do. Fight for what's right and help those in need. We protect this city."
»Of course we do and I will support you but don't expect me to believe in something like« Emma hesitated to say the word, »magic.«
Oliver never was the guy of words. He just nodded and turned to look at his files again. He and Emma started planning their next steps when somewhere was a noise of something falling on the ground.
»What was that?« Oliver turned around alerted. Emma went to the storage where she gathered it came from only to find a bottle of water lying on the floor in front of a shelf. She looked around. Maybe there has been someone who has made it fall but there was no sign of anybody. That night they didn't find out more about the »phantom« that attacked the city like he was following an aim.
