Chapter Two - Jailbreak

"Let's go, Lance."

The clattering of his cell door opening roused Quentin more than the guard's voice. It was early on the second day, and a sick sense of dread filled him as the guard motioned for him to get up and move out. Moving him would likely cause a problem with whatever plan the Arrow had for a break out, and as much as he wasn't thrilled with the idea of breaking out, he did want to be in a position to help save StarlingCity.

"Bring your things," the guard ordered as Quentin moved to leave the cell without them. He didn't have much: a picture of his girls with Dinah from years ago, a battered copy of some wizard crime novel he'd read a thousand times, and the three now useless phone cards. He dropped them all into the too-large box the guard was holding and let another man secure his hands in a pair of cuffs. They led him down the hallway, securing the cell behind them. Rather than taking him to another cell, however, they escorted him straight to the warden's office.

A very slender woman with a long, blonde braid stood beside the warden's desk. She wore a neatly tailored black pantsuit with a white blouse and a pair of slim, black-framed glasses perched on her nose. The faint outline of a shoulder holster could just barely be seen beneath her jacket. The edge of some sort of badge was barely hidden by the tilt of her hips. When Quentin studied her face his heart began to thump rapidly in his chest. Her features were angular, far more masculine than the red headed woman who'd given him the phone cards. Her lips were thin and barely tinted rather than full and colored, but her eyes-they were the same too forgettable shade of brown.

"Quentin Lance," the woman began, reading his name directly from a thin sheaf of papers in her hand. Her voice had a nasally quality to it, but there were still similarities to the throaty alto he'd heard on the phone. "You are hereby remanded into the custody of the United States Marshals Service." Her eyes remained on the papers, but one hand dropped to her hip and pulled back the edge of her jacket to reveal what he thought might be a very real marshal badge. "You will be transported to an undisclosed location to await negotiations regarding your assistance in a federal judicial matter. Do you understand?"

For the first time, her eyes met his. Every doubt he'd had disappeared as a familiar gleam of amusement flickered behind the lenses of her glasses before being replaced with a very serious glare. "I do."

The woman handed the sheaf of paper to the warden, stepping forward to fasten her own pair of handcuffs around his wrists. She turned him to the guard, allowing them to remove the prison cuffs while she gave him a quick, cursory pat down to make sure he wasn't hiding anything. "I urge you not to make any escape attempts, Mr. Lance," she lectured. "The last prisoner I transported did, and then he spent quite a bit of time recovering in a hospital for his efforts." As she finished her search, he found himself fighting his own reflexes to keep from flinching at what might have been an entirely purposeful pinch to his backside.

"Wouldn't dream of it," he quipped, glaring down into her face as he was turned to face her once more. If he was right, and this woman was on the Arrow's side, they were going to have a long talk about things that were and weren't appropriate. He'd ignore that an attractive woman hadn't bothered to pinch him like that in a long time-particularly when he had no idea what that woman really looked like beneath her disguises.

"You got lucky, Lance," the warden growled. "Most men aren't don't get the chance to be threatened by such a pretty little thing."

It took everything he had not to laugh when she didn't even bother to conceal her annoyance.


The black SUV parked in the prison yard was exactly the type a marshal would drive, down to the cage to keep prisoners in the back. While a guard situated his belongings in the trunk, the woman secured Quentin behind the passenger seat. She leaned across him to fasten his seatbelt, one hand on the gun beneath her jacket. When she pulled back the guard slammed the lift door, and in the rush of sound she pressed something small and metal between his palms.

"When I say," she whispered, using the brief few seconds to further hide her words. Without a glance, she shut the door on him. While she carried on a brief conversation with the guard he opened his palms and found a silver handcuff key. Folding his hands neatly over the key, he leaned his head back against the seat and closed his eyes, imitating the prisoners of his memory.

She slammed the door slightly when she climbed behind the wheel, and Quentin peeked out beneath his lashes. Her eyes found his in the rearview mirror, the lenses of her glasses automatically tinting in the daylight. Everything about her face told him to keep his mouth shut, so he did exactly that while they paused at the gate. She spoke with an easy manner to the guard who collected her prisoner transfer pass, and no one gave her any trouble as they drove through the gate and onto the open road. It wasn't until Iron Heights completely disappeared behind them that she finally spoke.

"Alright, you can use the key now." The nasally quality in her voice was gone, replaced by the same lilt he'd heard over the phone. She kept talking while he fit the key in the lock and eased the cuffs off. "If you lift up the seat next to you, you'll find a black duffle bag. Go ahead and get changed."

He dropped the cuffs to the floor, key still lodged in the lock, and followed her instructions. There was, indeed, a bag beneath the seat. When he opened it he found a stack of clothing that he was pretty sure came out of his closet and a pair of military combat boots that he'd never seen before. "Do I even want to know how you managed to find clothes that look like the type of thing I like wearing?"

"I broke into your apartment and took them from your closet," she admitted, not missing a beat. "The boots were someone else's idea."

"You know, I usually at least know a woman's name before I strip in front of her," he joked, halfway through the buttons on the orange jumpsuit he was going to hate for the rest of his life.

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her flip the review mirror into its night driving position so she couldn't see him. "Technically, you're stripping behind me."

Quentin rolled his eyes as he worked his way into his jeans. He should have seen that one coming. "You can pinch my ass, but a name's too much," he grumbled as they slowed at a stop sign. She turned left, and he shot to attention. "Hey. Starling City is the other way."

"According to your transfer papers, you are being transported to a location outside of the city. We have to make this look good." After a short pause, she added "I needed to make sure you knew who I was so you wouldn't actually try an escape attempt." She turned her head just enough that he could see the smirk on her lips while he buttoned his shirt. "And you've got a pretty nice ass for a man with two grown daughters."

Fighting not to let himself blush-really, how long had it been since a woman complimented him for something besides his work?-he busied himself with lacing up the boots. She stayed silent, seemingly intent on her driving. When he finally finished with the laces, he turned to replace the bag and found it was still heavy. Checking its depths again revealed his favorite leather jacket and, beneath that, a shoulder holster with two loaded side arms. His eyebrows nearly crawled into his hairline, but he didn't question it, strapping the holster in place and sliding his arms into the jacket.

They started to slow down. Retrieving the cuffs from the floorboard, Quentin shoved them into his jacket pocket. A stretch of deep river ran along the side of the road, and the woman pulled the SUV off the shoulder until it was just a few feet from the water's edge. A flash of red behind them caught his eye, and he turned to find a red sports car pulling up along the side of the road. "End of the line," the woman quipped, killing the engine and hopping down from the driver's seat. Quentin followed, stepping out into the sunlight just in time to hear her shout to who he assumed was the driver of the red car. "There's a box in the back, and that's it." He turned the corner at the back of the SUV and stopped in shock at the sight of Roy Harper.

"Officer Lance," the kid greeted him with a grin and a jerk of his head as he opened the trunk and lifted out the box of Quentin's possessions. "Explanations later. Stick this in the trunk of the car." He dropped the box into Quentin's hands, and turned to the woman who was now crawling into the back of the sports car, a small backpack in her hands. "In the river with this?"

Her response was muffled, but Quentin could only assume it was some version of 'yes.' While he popped the trunk on the car and set his box inside, he watched as the young man he'd had in cuffs more times than he could count gave one hard shove and sent the SUV into the center of the river. Roy didn't bother to watch it sink, jogging back to the car. The kid closed the trunk and nodded toward the passenger side of the car. Quentin settled into the passenger seat in a bit of a haze, buckling his seatbelt and trying not to think too hard on anything.

"It's a long story," Roy sighed, not even sparing him a glance as he turned the engine over and eased them back onto the road.

Suddenly, a blonde wig collided with the side of Roy's face. "Yes, it's a long damn story," the woman's voice crept up from the back, "and if you bother with it now we'll only have to go through it twice because you know your boss is going to repeat every word."

"Boss?" Quentin asked, trying very hard to ignore the tell tale shuffle of clothing from the back seat.

"I work for the Arrow," Roy admitted. "We don't agree a lot."

Before Quentin could ask more a loud snort came from the woman behind them. "That's an understatement," she muttered. The sound of velcro tearing loose came just before an immense sigh of relief. "My god. Remind me not to decide to be a skinny chick again. Binders are made of hell."

"Hey, you're the one that said having a different body type would make you less conspicuous," Roy laughed.

"Shut up," she growled. "Can one of you hand me the contact case and make-up wipes out of the glove box?"

Leaning forward, Quentin fished the requested items out of the glove box and turned to hand them to her. She didn't even look at him as she plucked them from his hand, but his jaw clenched at the sight of her, and he nearly wrenched a muscle in his neck when he rushed to turn back to the front of the car. He'd forced his mind not to look too hard, but he still knew he'd seen a lot of white lace, a long braid of light brown hair wrapped around her head, and what might have been some sort of tattoo on her hip. Still don't know her name, Quentin, he told himself. It's been a long time, but don't even think about it.

He was silent for a long time, listening to Roy and the woman bicker while she finished changing. Something in the way they spoke to one another screamed of familiarity, but he couldn't quite put his finger on why. He decided to tune them out, focusing on the things he did know about her. There wasn't a lot. She'd been called in by someone on the Arrow's team-and as of now he'd be betting that it was Harper-with the purpose of getting him out of prison. She was good enough at disguise to walk into Iron Heights at least twice and never be thought of as the same person. She either knew how to fake prisoner transfers on her own or had connections that did. The first time he'd seen her, he would have gauged her age in her mid to late thirties. The face she'd put on today made her seem in her late twenties.

Finally, he decided that it was all just too frustrating. "Alright, woman," he growled, barely registering that Roy jumped at the sound of his voice. "You've broken me out of prison. At least tell me your damned name."

Several things happened at once. The woman laughed. Roy slammed on the brakes, whipping around to glare into the back. Quentin through his hands against the dashboard to brace for an impact that never came. Then, the woman laughed even harder.

"Three weeks of planning," Roy began, his eyes narrowed at her, "four costume changes, two burner phones, and a jailbreak, and you've never told him your name!?"

Four costume changes? Quentin thought, suddenly curious as to exactly what it had taken to get him out.

Her laughter finally subsided into giggles. "It's my secret to keep as long as I wish," she mused, smacking the young man on his shoulder. "Get back to driving." As the car lurched back into motion, she leaned up between Roy and Quentin, reaching forward to drop the make-up wipes and contact case back in the glove box. Loose, her hair fell well past her shoulders, kinked up from the braid that had kept it beneath the wig. She turned her eyes to Quentin, revealing their natural stormy gray color. Without any of the make-up, her features were even more familiar, and he knew before she spoke why she had such an easy relationship with the young man driving them. "My name is Cassidy," she finally admitted, ghosting her hand against his shoulder. "Cassidy Harper."

A sharp prick pressed into the side of Quentin's neck. "I hope you can understand my keeping secrets, Mr. Lance," Cassidy continued. Her face was starting to get very blurry. "You're about to learn a lot of things, and we can't reveal certain locations until we know how you'll handle it."

Quite quickly, Quentin Lance slipped into darkness.