A/N: Thanks for all of the encouragement! It made me eager to update, so I appreciate it.
Stuck in a Box – Chapter Two
Felicity
"Felicity."
She heard the voice from far away. Echoing like boulders in her tired head. Oliver.
"Felicity?"
She heard the worry in his voice. Something rough scratched her bare legs as she struggled to open her eyes. Oliver's concerned face hovered over her. "There you are," he said, his voice gentle. His blue eyes were filled with worry but she saw an echo of a smile.
She blinked. She was lying on a bed; the blanket was what had felt uncomfortable. "Oliver?"
"Can you sit up?" he asked. His arm came around her to help. She put a hand to her head, it really did hurt.
"You've been drugged," he said, his voice low and soft. "It should start wearing off soon."
One of the lenses on her glasses was cracked, but she could see they were in a cement room. "Where are we?" she asked.
"Good question," Oliver said, with a grim look on his face. He handed her a piece of paper. "This was in an envelope with my name on it."
She read the note and felt a flutter of panic. "Four days," Felicity said, doing the math in her head. "We're going to be here for four days?"
"Not if I can help it," Oliver said. He stood up and grabbed a bottle of water from a shelf nearby. "Here, it will help with the after effects. Then I need your help."
"To do what?" she asked.
He nodded toward a vent high on the wall above a big door that had no handle. "I'd like to see what's through there."
The vent was ten inches by five inches. "Unless you have contortionist skills I don't know about, and I do realize that's a possibility, I don't think that's going to help."
He gave her his hard, ice-cold, stare. She was certain that stare scared the crap out of most people, but she wasn't most people.
"Fine, fine," she said. She got it – he needed something to do. She took the bottle from him and started to drink, watching him pace along the long edge of the room. "Can you stop that? You're making me dizzy."
He gave her another hard look but moved to the opposite wall from her and slid down to the floor, elbows on his knees. She realized he was in a white dress shirt; sleeves rolled up, and suit slacks. His jacket and tie over the edge of the bed.
She looked down to see what she was wearing and felt a flood of embarrassment, quickly pulling her skirt down. "Sorry about that," she mumbled.
To her surprise that got half a grin out of him, and his eyes lingered on her legs for just a second before coming back to her face. "You've got nothing to apologize for."
That almost sounded like flirting. She must be more out of it than she thought. Shaking her head to clear it, she returned to her original thought. The dress she wore, sleeveless, dark red, with a flowy knee-length skirt, was a dress for work. Which didn't quite make sense, since the last recollection she had was of leaving their secret basement the night before.
"Oliver?" she said nervously.
He frowned. "Yeah?"
"What's the last thing you remember?"
He paused for a second; the frown turned into a scowl. "I was changing out of my…" he stopped and glanced around them. "Out of another suit," he finished, giving her a pointed look to tell her what he had really meant.
Until that moment Felicity hadn't considered the fact that they could be under surveillance.
"Last night?" she asked, to clarify.
He nodded. "At Verdant."
"So whatever they've done it's affected our memory," she said.
He closed his eyes. "We're both dressed for work. So we've lost at least six hours, maybe more."
She tried to stand up and wobbled. Oliver was on his feet and at her side in a heartbeat. "Careful," he said, grabbing her elbow.
"I didn't realize I was missing a shoe. I'm okay." She slid her foot out of the strap of her remaining high heel. It made her even shorter than usual next to him. He was still holding her arm and he was incredibly close, looking down at her with those eyes of his. Seriously the eyes were worse than the abs. She felt a babble coming on and shook her head. "So the vent?" It came out as a bit of a squeak.
"Right," he said, stepping back. "The vent."
John
It was clear that whoever infiltrated Queen Consolidated's security had known exactly what they were doing. The card that had shown up as opening the door of the security system room was Oliver's. A review of the security logs revealed it to be a corrupt copy that had opened the door and left a flag in the system. It would have been caught in an evening review of the logs. Digg wished he could grill Oliver about how someone could have gotten ahold of his security pass. Of course what he really wanted was any conversation with Oliver.
Digg was at the end of his particular brand of expertise. He needed to look to see if there were any cameras from the street that might have seen anything. If Felicity were here…he tried to cut off the thought, as that thought lead to others that were seriously unpleasant. If one of them had been missing that would have been bad enough. With both of them gone Digg felt an extra sense of panic. Felicity could be used as leverage against Oliver, and Digg was pretty sure Oliver would do just about anything to prevent Felicity from being hurt.
He needed help. An ordinary call to the cops was the logical next step, but not knowing if the kidnapping was Arrow related, he was hesitant. Then he smiled to himself. Just because Oliver was gone, that didn't mean that the Arrow couldn't call in a favor.
Excusing himself from the security office, Digg walked to a quiet spot in the corridor. He pulled out his phone and with a security code and a few swipes he was able to put it into the "ghost" mode Felicity had programmed for him. Not only would his phone be untraceable, but with another push of a button Digg could disguise his voice.
"Hello," came the voice of Officer Quentin Lance.
"Hello, Officer Lance. I need your help," Digg said.
"Oh yeah?" the cop didn't sound openly hostile, just irritated.
"Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak have disappeared," Digg said, trying to imagine what his voice might sound like to Lance.
"How long?" Lance asked.
"Three hours," Digg said.
"Three hours? They could have gone to lunch," Lance said, sounding more irritated now.
"Someone tampered with the security system at Queen Consolidated and erased surveillance footage of Queen's office and Miss Smoak's shoe was found there as well. I don't like it," Digg said, trying to sound stern and cranky.
"You know for a smart girl she sure has stupid taste in men. Her boss know she works for you?" Lance asked.
In spite of the scenario Digg couldn't help but crack a smile. "I'd rather she didn't work for him. We both know his reputation. But she makes her own choices." Always fun to throw a little distance between the Arrow and Oliver Queen.
"Fine, so what's Queen done that might have pissed someone off?" Lance asked.
"We don't know that he was the target," Digg said. He had to drop his voice even lower as a young secretary walked by him in the corridor.
"You think someone might have taken her to get to you?" Lance asked, his voice sounding truly concerned for the first time. As Digg had suspected, Lance clearly had a level of respect for their blond IT girl.
Digg sighed, wondering how that would translate through the voice scrambling software. "It wouldn't be the first time."
"Alright," Lance said. "What do you need?"
"I need someone to look through any camera footage of the streets around Queen Consolidated and let me know if you find anything suspicious," Digg said.
"I can do that," Lance said. "How do I contact you?"
"I'll contact you," Digg said, hanging up the phone. He took a deep breath. He'd be a hell of a lot happier when Oliver could go back to being the Arrow.
