The First Death of Sara Lance
"No woman should suffer at the hands of men," Sara Lance said when she returned to Starling City as the Canary. Sara knew all too well how that suffering felt like, the powerlessness of living under the mercy and fury of a power-hungry man.
Sara Lance spent a year on The Amazo under the protection of Dr Anthony Ivo, and it was he who taught her the first lesson in why you should never depend on anyone for your own safety.
A/N!: This story contains implied non-con/rape, if this isn't for you consider this a warning. It is in no way graphic, just hinted at in this story.
She placed the metal tray down on the bench, breathing in the moldy smell that was especially pungent in the kitchen. The ship had seen better days, now only a naked shell of what it once was. Everything was grey, metal, and cold. The thin sweatshirt she wore above the black tank top Dr. Ivo gave her when she first arrived on the boat little over a year before did nothing to keep her warm. The more physically demanding tasks that came with living on a ship were the only thing that warmed her up. Most of her dreams now consisted of warm showers and thick blankets. And being far away from this place.
Few people would venture into the kitchen, meaning that was one of the few places she could be assured some alone time. The thickness of the air had become comforting, in a strange way calming her nerves that were always on edge. Ivo was the one who assured her safety, but he also dangled it in front of her as a reward given only for good behavior. Obedience wasn't optional. It frustrated her to have to follow orders especially since she had never done so in her entire life. Rebelling against her parents had been what her entire teens had been about, and when she got on the Gambit she was still only 19.
The last time she checked the date on Dr. Ivo's notes it was only weeks until her 21st birthday, and she didn't know how she felt about spending her adulthood onboard this ship searching for a miracle serum. Usually she would be able to keep track of time when The Amazo docked at a harbor in northern China, but it had been months since they last docked. Food was running low, and the canned peaches were too sweet on her unaccustomed tastebuds, but there wasn't much else to eat. The beans and canned potatoes were only served a couple of times a week, and even then the rest of the crew got most of it. She was hungry, but still pushed around the peaches on the tray.
Dr. Ivo thought he had found the island where the serum was hidden. They'd been on course for the island for the past couple of days, but Sara wasn't confident it would be the right island, not after the past year of failures. She still hoped this island would be the one. She didn't believe in it like Ivo did, she didn't think this was going to save humanity. What she knew was that she wasn't strong enough to take Ivo's disappointed rage.
She wrapped her arm around herself, feeling the bracelet that she wore around her bicep. Ivo had given it to her when they docked in Tianjin months ago. The size of the place had dwarfed her, and she had stuck to Ivo's side so that she wouldn't get lost in the maze of the place. The dock had been filled with men who'd been intrigued and excited by the presence of a woman, a white and blond one at that. The few women they'd passed as they made their way through security had eyed her suspiciously, but didn't even whisper to each other as they regarded her. Sara didn't think she'd make it through customs, but Ivo bribed the workers and no questions had been asked.
"Last time I came through here I was alone," Ivo said when Sara glanced back over her shoulder at the people who openly stared after the two of them. "They think you're my whore." At that revelation Sara had gulped to swallow the lump in her throat, but was unsuccessful. Later when Ivo placed the band around her bicep it felt less like a gift and more like a shackle.
The next port they stopped at was Port of Busan, and there he'd bought her the neckless that hung around her neck at all times. No matter how loose it was it often felt like it was choking her.
She heard the echo of boots against metal as someone descended the stairs. She'd heard those steps enough times to know who it was. None of the men working on the ship went near her since Ivo declared that Sara was under his protection, so she'd become intimately familiar with Ivo's steps. Some of the other's she could pick out when she laid awake in bed at night listening to the crew working. Others were harder to distinguish.
"What are you doing down here?" Ivo asked, one hand was on the door frame, the other in his pocket. Like this he looked like any other man, someone she could've waited on in the café she'd worked at last summer and not thought twice about. He was like this whenever they had a lead, when he thought that this time they'd find the Mirakuru. Friendlier, and less on the edge. Despite that his kinder disposition made life easier for her it did nothing to comfort her. She had seen what happened when he struck disappointment again.
"I was just going to wash up," she said and pointed to plate on her tray that she had her peaches on before.
"Leave it." He smiled and walked up to her. He placed the tray and plate in the large industrial sink, lowering his gaze to hers. "Come to bed." His touch was as light as a feather on her arm, but even through the shirt it felt burning hot. It had taken a long time but she'd learned not to flinch away from it.
"I will," she said to their shoes, not wanting to face him. "I think I need some fresh air first." Buying time may have been stupid, pushing up the inevitable and risking to shift his mood to something less kind. Something that ended up with a bruise like the one that had nearly completely faded from her wrist.
"It's raining." There was no emotion in his voice that said that he had grown annoyed with her. Maybe he understood her reluctance now and had accepted it. He was only stating a fact. She let out a soft 'oh', which killed all her protests on her lips. Fall in the Northern China sea was unforgiving, the rain was nearly ceaseless ice drops. The cold crept inside your bones until the winter had passed.
The first time he took her to his bed was only days after she arrived. Frightened and clamoring to him for security she'd never considered refusing any of his requests. Even so she had just lain there in silence, like a doll for his disposal. It was never something she wanted, but it was something she needed. Maybe she knew even then the wrath and the vengeance that was hidden underneath the cool exterior. When she found it weeks after her rescue she knew that she had made the right decision. She didn't dare to think what would've happened had she refused him.
At least his body was warm, like a furnace in bed next to her at night.
Before The Amozo, before the Gambit, Sara hadn't followed anyone's orders. She had lived life to the beat of her own drum, she had said what she thought, and ultimately it was that which made her end up on the Gambit in the first place. Her grudge against her sister for calling the cops on the party where she went to meet Oliver, and then becoming Oliver's girlfriend, had followed her for years. The inability to let go had landed her in the hands of someone else who couldn't do it either. Ivo was obsessed with finding the Mirakuru. Everyone else were just pawns to him, Sara included.
One day, she thought when Ivo had drifted off to sleep, she would be strong enough to be able to fight him. Men like him, men like the people on this ship. She would cut their throats and leave them to die with no remorse. Ivo would be the first man on her list. His blood would be warm on her hands at first, and then just like his body it would cool.
Sara still remembers the softness of one man's stomach when her foot hit it. Ivo had watched her closely as he said his orders. Though she wasn't strong the prisoners were starved and weak from spending so much time in an enclosed space. It frightened her how easily the man's ribs broke under the force of her kicks, and afterward she had thrown up in the basin. It took days before she got a night of unbroken sleep. She got over it quicker than she had hoped she would, her humanity slipping through her fingers like water. That's how she knew she could kill them. There was no longer any space for the girl she once was inside of her, there was no space for remorse.
If she let those emotions in it would swallow her whole.
So she took the humanity where she found it, the human connection in the small spaces that her new life allowed her. Smiling didn't happen naturally anymore, but when the weather allowed she would get on deck and force a smile onto her stiff face while the wind tangled in her hair. The bangs she had when she got on the Gambit had grown long enough to go behind her ear, but when the wind got to it it would fall across her face and obstruct her view. For some strange reason that feeling delighted her, it stirred something that was barely a memory, just a feeling in the pit of her stomach. It felt like innocent childhood and smelled like her father's hair. She couldn't tell you what the smell was, but she knew that it was him.
The thought of them was the last of her humanity she clung onto. Where everything else was grey, cold, and bare, they were the sunshine and a reminder of who she once was. But she knew that they thought she was dead. By now they must've known she was on the boat, somehow they must have figured it out. A year was a long time without a word, without anything telling them she was alive.
Death was strange, she thought. Surely this wasn't life, it couldn't be. It was easier to think of it as something beyond living, less than living.
The ship creaked as it turned, a familiar sound to her now. Distant voices could be heard from down below, orders shouted at each other to keep the ship going. There was nothing in their voices that told her there was a need to panic. The first weeks on the ship when she had heard them shouting she believed the ship was going down. Memories of being sucked out of one ship would keep her up at night. But after a year on this boat she trusted it to keep them afloat for a long time.
She waited a little while longer, listening to Ivo's even breaths, before she lifted his arm from across her chest and crept out of bed.
There was a window that she could sit by, where Ivo had put a couch where she had slept the first weeks on the boat. She wrapped a blanket around her body, the night air made the ship even more chilly, and she was only wearing her tank-top. It was pitch black outside, but she could see the moon peeking out occasionally from the clouds above. Some nights she could see stars, but not this night.
"My name is Sara Margret Lance," she whispered to the moon. "I'm 20 years old. I was born in Starling City, and my parents are Dinah and Quentin Lance… I have a sister, Laurel and she's 23." She drew a deep breath. "She should be in law school now, she's really smart just a little too idealistic I guess." She tried to picture her sister at law school but came up short, the only picture of her sister she could conjure up was the photo of Laurel her mom took when they were on Hawaii when Laurel was 17. "I'm really scared that I'm starting to forget them." More than anything she wanted to keep talking about them, to tell someone about the family she still had back home, but her words failed her. The moon disappeared behind thick clouds, and Ivo shifted in his sleep. There was no one to tell about them.
She crawled back into bed beside him, wondering if it said something about her that she was already thinking of her family has gone to her. There was no hope of returning, just to keep on surviving whatever life threw at her.
Ivo was as kind as he was cruel. When he swooped in to save her from the crew last year he had been her savior. He had clothed her, given her a place to sleep that wasn't a hard mattress on the floor. It had been a trap that she had fallen into straight away, fooled by the cunning kindness that he believed was chivalry.
Tomorrow she knew she would be handing out punishment. A new prisoner had been causing a ruckus and needed to be dealt with. The crew could do it, she knew that they were more than capable, but for some reason Ivo wanted her to do it. It no longer upset her, in the back of her mind she knew that what she was doing as wrong. Yet, she knew her kicks and punches didn't have as much strength in them, didn't cause as much damage. She knew that if she didn't do it someone else would. Just as it was selfish of her to punish them for her own safety it would be selfish of her not to be the one to do it.
In the morning they were woken by three hard slams to the door, and a crew member shouting that it was seven am. Sara groaned in dismay from being woken from deep sleep, but Ivo was a morning person and was out of bed before she had time to fully process what was happening. Her eyes fell on his naked body for a second before she quickly averted her eyes. It didn't matter how many times she'd seen him naked the sight of him still made her stomach tighten and clench uncomfortably. It wasn't desire, it felt more like an empty stomach screaming for food than the tickling she felt when she looked at Oliver.
Like every morning Ivo left the room to go down to the kitchen to get them breakfast. At this time most of the crew would be eating down there, and Ivo didn't want her eating with them. Whether it was about her safety or not she didn't know and never asked, but it was how it was. Despite the year spent on the boat she had only encountered a handful of the crew, but hadn't talked to any of them. Ivo was the only one she spent her days with, assisting him with whatever he needed help with.
She dressed herself as she waited for him, noting that she needed to wash her clothes soon. They smelled of sweat and dirt and grime had stuck to the clothes. They were her only pair of clothes, meaning that if she washed them she wouldn't have any clothes for the day. It was why she didn't do it often enough. Ivo didn't complain, and as long as he didn't she was happy to smell disgusting. That was her armor.
When Ivo returned to the room he was smiling at her. It could only mean one thing, Sara thought.
"We're going to arrive at the island Lian Yu tomorrow midday," Ivo said and handed her a tray with baked beans on it and a piece of bread that was still slightly frozen. "It's a part of group of islands, there are five total." The bed dipped down when he sat down next to her and he grabbed her jaw to place a bruising kiss on her lips. She remained limp, not resisting but not encouraging him either. In a few days she was sure that it wouldn't be her lips he was bruising.
"Eat," he said then. "I need you to be strong today."
When Sara's foot kicked at a man's kidney a few hours later she knew that Sara Lance was dead. Whoever she was now she had no idea, but she wasn't the same person anymore. Frightened, alone, and slowly stripped of humanity. She didn't know if she could ever build anything on the raw and unstable foundation she had now.