A/N: Thanks for all the positive feedback guys! It isn't going to be a novel, but I have got at least a couple more chapters coming for you.

Let me know what you think of it!

The beginnings of consciousness slowly began to creep into Felicity's mind. She mindlessly wondered why her apartment smelled so dank and musty. She heard a mechanical hum coming from behind her, blocking out the intermittent sound of distant voices. She mentally noted asking Oliver to look at her AC again. Had she fallen asleep on the couch in front of the TV with a container of Kung Pow chicken on her lap again? Had she stayed up waiting for Oliver? She couldn't remember. She lifted her head slightly from where it had sagged for what must have been hours. The instant she moved, her head pounded. "Gah… what the-?" She moved to rub her head where it ached. Her hands didn't move. She saw a flash of a memory in her mind's eye. Her head. The concrete wall of the stairwell. Then nothing.

Her eyes shot open. Everything was blurry at first. Definitely concussed, she thought. A crack in her glasses lens along with small drops of crimson that stained her left shoulder, just below where her head pounded, told her she hadn't dreamt the whole thing up. A single ray of light pierced the room from a small crack in the thick black curtains that lined the wall on her left. The room was huge; walls stretched up so high she could barely see the ceiling. The floor of this vast space was plain concrete covered in pools of what she hoped was just water. In this light she couldn't be certain. Her blood pressure sky rocketed: her face felt flushed and the room seemed to move around her. She couldn't catch her breath. She was panicking. She tried to move her hands again. They were tied behind her back so tightly, and for so long, that they were full of pins and needles; useless.

Her movement must have attracted attention because she now heard no voices, only the shuffling of approaching feet. She could feel someone standing directly behind her. The deep laugh that followed made her skin crawl. "We had bets over when you would wake up. Shorty thought you were dead." The voice circled her like a shark. She refused to look up at him, to give him the satisfaction of seeing her fear. "You will pardon Rick, he doesn't always know his own strength." This earned the man a laugh from the people that remained behind her. She figured there were at least more 5 of them.


It was well past 3 a.m. by the time Oliver placed his bow back in the case. Digg was attempting to hide a yawn. It had been his idea to circle back to the warehouse after their patrol and see if the group had returned. He was right in his hunch, but they had left again. This time, instead of leaving behind a hostage, there was a dead video camera lying on the computer desk where Felicity had worked. It must have been some use to the gang so they brought it back to the foundry to charge and hopefully recover some semblance of a clue from it.

Oliver plopped himself down into Felicity's chair. As he sank into the chair he noticed something; it smelled like her. He smiled to himself knowing only he would notice. Only he was subconsciously tuned to notice anything Felicity. How is it that he could never get her out of his mind? Even something as trivial as just the hint of her perfume left on a chair sent his heart into flutters. Only she was capable of doing this to him.

He recovered his stoic expression as he plugged the camera into the side of one of Felicity's monitors. It took a moment for the camera to get enough juice to turn on, but when the red light began to blink and the picture showed up, Oliver's blood ran cold.

Oliver, Roy, and Digg were right back to the small computer room at the back of the warehouse. They watched as the door opened and a tiny blonde computer genius walked in and sat down. Oliver held his breath. Digg fast forwarded through footage of Felicity sitting at the computer, sighing in resignation as she turns it off, getting up, and walking out. The screen went black, but only for a moment.

An all too familiar face filled the screen. James McLaughlin, 6' 2" with shaggy brown hair, peered into the camera with a sickening grin on his pock-marked face. He was one of the six inmates who escaped iron heights just three weeks before. "Hello Arrow." Oliver tensed all over. "I'm going tell you a story-" he began patronizingly. "It all started with a young man. This man was free to do whatever he wanted. He had everything he could have dreamed of. Life was great. But one day, a big bad grass coloured nitwit with a demented hero complex shows up-" his voice was becoming increasingly loud and seeping with disdain, "- and decides to take away everything the young man had ever worked for!" McLaughlin takes a moment to collect himself, breathes deeply once, then smiles once again at the camera.

"Now, I know what you might be thinking." McLaughlin clears his throat and makes his best whiney child impression, "'Everybody gets what they deserve, James!' Well, I would tend to agree with you, which is why my friends and I have decided to take a stab at the whole justice thing. Avenging angels- as it were. I won't keep you long, as I imagine you have places, or rather a place, to be. Just know this: you took my life from me- from all of us- and now we are going to get even. We were just hoping to get a shot of you minus the hood, but what we got was so much better." His smiled widened, and Oliver felt sick.

"No one was expecting that cute little number. Don't even try to convince me that you don't see it. No man sends a woman into a completely empty room armed with a hunting knife unless they have an extreme case of the I-love-yous." McLaughlin laughed. Oliver was burning. "Tell me, does she know? Want me to tell her for you?" His face became stone cold. "The best part about all of this is that by the time you even find this, she will already be ours. I'm not a cruel man though, and she is far too gorgeous to disfigure, so I propose a trade. Her life for yours. You have until midnight."

Oliver was out of the chair and reaching for his bow before Digg could even turn off the now static covered screen. "Where are you going, man? You don't even know where they have her!" Digg reminded him.

"I have to see if I can make it. They might not have gotten to her yet. She could still be safe." He said without looking at Digg, as if he were trying to convince himself. He seemed to snap into Arrow mode and directed, "Digg, get to work on the video. See what you can find out. Roy, try calling her. Tell her to get out of there." He turned and raced up the stairs three at a time. "Felicity…" he whispered.


The feet that had circled her stopped directly in front of her. A hand reached down and gently lifted her chin. She looked away in disgust. Smack. Her head ricocheted to the side and her ears began to ring. A small drop of blood escaped the side of her mouth. She didn't make a noise. She looked him right in the eyes as a tear slid down her face.

"Much better! It's crazy what a mere few hours of unconsciousness followed by a heavy dose of sodium amytal can do to a woman. " The man exclaimed.

"What do you want with me? Who are you? How long have I been out?" Felicity asked, voice shaking.

"It doesn't matter who I am. You were out about eighteen hours. Ricky is a little out of practice, it was only supposed to last sixteen. See, I really can't stand the sound of a nagging woman, but we couldn't very well keep bashing your head into walls, I made your boss a deal."

"What? Why?" she asked confused

"None of us thought him and his thick head would be clever enough on his own to get all the dirt he used to find us and put us away the first time. There must have been some brains behind your little operation. Imagine my surprise when you sauntered onto my video footage. It didn't take long to find you. For someone so smart, you can be really stupid. Google hot blonde computer genius and guess who shows up within the first ten results. A certain Felicity Smoak: MIT, top of her class, and more awards and accolades than I can probably even pronounce let alone understand." He paced back and forth as he spoke, the bowie knife in his belt was visible under his brown leather jacket whenever he turned to change direction. This made her nervous. He didn't seem the kind of guy who was likely to keep his promises.

"Please just let me go. Just leave me here and go!" she pleaded.

"Why would I do that? I am about to get everything I want!" he boasted, stopping directly in front of her once more.

"Please, I-" he slapped her hard across the face once more, sick of her killing his enjoyment with questions and whining. This time, a small gashed opened just below her eye from the ring he wore.

"I'm so sorry," She said quietly, seemingly to no one, as she looked at the floor. She began tearing up.

"HA! What do you have to be sorry about?" he mocked.

"Because he is going to kill you." She softly began to weep, not for herself, but for the part of himself that Oliver would willingly sacrifice in order to save her.