Chapter 3: Once Bitten
"My name is Oliver Queen. After five years on a hellish island, I have come home with only one goal. To save my city. But I have lost everything important to me, and I am no longer the Arrow I have strived to become. Things have changed; and I have to deal with the ramifications that have shifted my life and the lives of the people I love."
Isla stepped out of the motel, stretching her long arms wide. She was glad it was finally daytime, for when her alarm had finally went off, it meant she could escape the torture device that served as a bed, and welcome the day. She adjusted her plain white tee and favorite pair of matchstick jeans, then headed away from the motel, walking along the sidewalk at a leisurely pace. It was a bright sunny morning and she didn't want to rush it. Sure, she was starving, but at 9 a.m, iHop wasn't going anywhere and this was the first time she had ever been in Starling. She wanted to explore it a little.
"Food first, though," she grumbled as her stomach gave a tiny protest. She pulled up an app on her phone, and began to search for reasonable food joints. As she scrolled while she walked, she hardly noticed someone headed directly her way, also not looking where they were going…
SMACK! Her head collided with someone's chest, and she grunted and fell flat on her back, stars spinning in front of her eyes.
"Oh God, I'm sorry," the voice of a young man apologized, reaching a hand out toward Isla to help her up.
She waited a beat for the tricolored stars to dissolve from her vision, before taking the hand and rising to her feet, dusting off her pants in a huff. "Jeez, walk much?" She glared up, expecting to see some punk-ass creeper with a bad haircut. But much to her surprise, standing in front of her was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen in her life. Seriously…he was perfect.
He had one of those perfectly square heads, that immediately contributed to a chiseled jawline and his eyes were small but wide at the same time. Isla remembered once, before her mom started drinking again, when she would say things like "the eyes are the window to the soul"; and this was true on so many levels. Looking into this young man's eyes was like looking into a vast ocean at high tide. One step forward and she was a goner.
"Excuse me?" he replied in an irritant voice, snapping her out of her reverie.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry," she fumbled, remembering her first words to him. She realized that she sounded a little less-than forgiving, seeing as he had politely given her a help up. "I shouldn't have snapped, I'm sorry. I'm Isla." She stuck out a hand toward the boy, making sure not to stare too long at his eyes.
He stared at her hand warily, and then took it. "Roy."
"That come with a last name, 'Roy'?"
"Does yours?" he shot back, a little icily. Isla withdrew her hand, and casually stuck it in to her back pocket, making a quick maneuver to sidestep him and continue on her way. If he wasn't going to be friendly, either, she was not going to bother sticking around.
"Where you going?" Roy asked her as he reached out to catch her sleeve.
'Why do you care? We just met," she replied lazily, trying to sound like she really didn't care. Although she still couldn't shake the way his eyes seemed to dig deep into her skin like claws, and stay there, drawing out every ounce of will she had. But she wasn't here to ogle for some random civilian, though. She had a goal to find someone, and Roy was definitely not it.
Unless…she chanced a look into the boy's eyes again and breathed deep, trying to control her nerves. "Hey, I know we just met, but…maybe you can help me?"
Roy's eyes squinted in confusion, and he released her, crossing his arms over his chest. "I can certainly try. What do you need, 'Isla'." The imaginary parentheses around her name were obvious, almost in the same way she had repeated his name beforehand.
Touché, Roy. She reached into her purse and pulled out a wallet-sized photo. It was creased as if folded a thousand times from being looked at, and handed it over to him. "I'm looking for this girl; name's 'Felicity Smoak'?"
His eyes narrowed (those gorgeous eyes) and he took the photo, looking at it with an expression that Isla couldn't decipher. It was a cross between befuddlement and surprise, but more confusion than anything else, which completely threw her off. Whoever this guy was, he knew something, she could feel it like a pinching in her gut, and whatever he said that denied knowing anything about her sister, she wouldn't rest until he came clean.
"So?" she piped up, after Roy hadn't spoken for several minutes. "Have you seen her around?"
He shrugged and handed the photo back. "Doesn't look familiar."
Isla squinted. "I don't believe you."
"And that's my problem?"
"Yes," she retorted, shoving the photo into her back pocket, and folding her arms stubbornly over her chest. "It is your problem. I know you're lying."
He scoffed. "Really? Are you a human lie detector now?"
"No," she shot back defensively, not able to help it. "But I do have a long history of having been lied to since I was…very young."
"Dark past, huh? That's so original," Roy sneered, sarcasm dripping from his voice, thick as syrup. "Well, you're not the only one who's had to deal with people's bullshit lies in the past. And let me tell you a little secret, Isla?" He leaned his neck forward, putting his mouth up to her ear. His breath was warm on her skin. "You're really not all that special."
She rolled her eyes and turned her back on him, tired of being sucked into that intoxicating gaze of his. It wasn't easy to be all tough and rock-hard exterior, when you had gorgeous blues burning chasms into your dignity. "Well, Roy, when you decide not to be an ass and fess up that you actually do know my sister, then here's my number." She pulled a scrap of paper out of her purse, along with a pencil, scribbled down her number, and tossed it at him without even a backward glance.
Then she left, fingers crossing that he wouldn't let her down.
oOo
The wheels on Oliver's motorcycle screamed against the wet pavement as he breaked hard, trying to squint through the downpour at the retreating back of Callum Hunt. He put his hand to his ear, and clicked the speaker on his Bluetooth headset.
"Felicity?! He's getting away!" he yelled, stress obvious in his voice.
There was the rapid sound of fingernails tapping against a keyboard, and then, "He just made a sharp left onto Pap Street. I think he's headed under the ruins of CNRI. Go there."
"Alright, got it," Oliver kicked into gear and sped down the street, gunning the engine faster until the scenery around him was just a blur of color and sound. The most obvious being the steady beating of hard rain on asphalt, which meant…
"Don't ride too fast. Rain makes the asphalt slippery, you know."
"Felicity!" he growled, rolling his eyes as he steered onto Pap Street, catching sight of the back of Callum's coattail as he turned into the crumbled remains of CNRI. Oliver gunned the engine and jumped over a particularly large slab of concrete that still hadn't been taken care of by the city. But he wasn't surprised. The Glades had never been the number one priority to the city, it's why after the Undertaking, things had only gone downhill. Poverty was so bad, he swore if there were a record for it, the Glades would make it into the Guinness Book for being the most disintegrated, neglected part of a city in America.
He tailgated Hunt until they were in the depths of CNRI and when the other man hit a roadblock, he squealed to a stop and hopped off his motorcycle, removing a gun from his jacket pocket. He fired blindly behind him at Oliver, as he turned down a narrow opening. He slowed slightly because it was narrow to the point where he was almost too large to squeeze through. Oliver jumped off his bike, too, and pulled his bow off his back, closing in on Hunt's heels. He fired an arrow into a pile of rubble above the man's head, and rock exploded, closing off the crevice and forcing Hunt to reel backward.
"I wouldn't continue running, if I were you," Oliver shouted, notching another arrow and aiming it directly above Hunt's head, at another particularly weak beam that if hit in the right spot, would swing down and knock the man unconscious.
Hunt seemed to hesitate a second, then whirled around, firing a round at Oliver, each bullet missing completely and colliding with the crumbling stone wall behind him, falling to the floor with weak little plink sounds. Oliver's fingers squeezed on the bowstring, as if subconsciously daring Hunt to fire again, for he itched to send an arrow straight through that arm of his.
Hunt fired, and an arrow hit the gun, knocking it askew. The man sucked in an obvious scream and leaped to the side to retrieve is fallen weapon, but Oliver was too quick. He sent another arrow flying, pinning Hunt's hand to the back wall, forcing a bloodcurdling scream from his lungs.
"What do you want?!" Hunt cried in agony, staring in wide-eyed shock at the blood slowly seeping out of the wound around the arrowhead embedded in his flesh.
"What do you want with Queen Consolidated?!"
"Wh-what?" Hunt stammered. An arrow flew again, this one sticking into the wall above where his hand was still pinned, It was only meant as a scare tactic. The man screamed in pain, though, as if the arrow had actually hit him again and then let out a shaky breath of relief. "Look, man, I don't know, okay? It's the biggest foreclosure in Starling. I put up my business, and the money comes rolling in."
Oliver bared his teeth and strung another arrow. "What gives you the right to tear away the one thing that keeps the Queen family together?"
"Why do you care? The Queens have done just as much wrong this city as any big name around here," Hunt trembled, wincing in pain. "They're no better than Merlyn Global."
The familiar name tore through Oliver as if it were one of his own arrows, but instead of hitting his hand, this one seemed to drive straight through his heart. He bit back the pain, and drew the arrow string back, preparing to release. "Do not speak of the Merlyns' that way! Malcolm may have failed this city but his son never did! Now, what were you planning on putting in Queen Consolidated's place? What exactly is your line of work?"
"I-," Hunt swallowed. "I, uh, own Hunt Horizons. It's a, it's a law firm. We defend the guilty mostly."
"Why would you want to defend the guilty?"
"Because they're the ones that would pay big money to be proven innocent," Hunt explained, swallowing hard as if there were something sticky in his throat. "And if you know what you're doing, you'll choose the one's that pay the most."
Oliver's grip relented on the bow. "So you'd be paving the way for true menaces to still roam the city, just for their money?"
"Aren't you one of those 'true menaces'? Aren't you the famed Starling City Vigilante?"
Oliver felt his blood run cold. He hadn't heard that term in awhile, and it reminded him of a time when his bodycount had been by the hundreds. Now, the bodies laid to waste were few and far between. There were more evils locked away in Iron Heights prison than there were rotting in Starling City Cemetery. And if he allowed this Callum Hunt to live, there was the risk of him weaseling his way into a bail hearing and then finding some other way to land his firm in Starling, even if it wasn't on Queen Consolidated ground.
"I'm afraid, Mr. Hunt," he began, raising his bow again. "That your business...is too dangerous to continue." And as he prepared to let fly another arrow, this time into Hunt's head, there was an explosion from behind Oliver and he launched himself out of the way, just before a large black van roared into CNRI, headed right for Callum Hunt.
Hunt ripped the arrow from his hand and snatched up his gun, firing at a place right above Oliver's head. Oliver looked up fearfully as the other man fired two rounds into some crumbly rock above his head and as soon as they hit, dust and rubble rained down on Oliver, clouding his sight completely.
Tires squealed on loose rock, and by the time the dust cleared and Oliver could see again, Hunt and the van was nowhere to be seen.
"Dammit," he cursed as he pressed his hand to his ear. "Felicity?"
"I know," came her reply. "I tried to keep a lock on his location, but the connection got lost as soon as...something went wrong. Oliver, what the hell happened?"
He paused, gritting his teeth in frustration, before saying, "Callum Hunt happened."
oOo
Dig sat in the waiting room in Starling City General Hospital, hands wringing nervously. He had gotten the call from Lyla about an hour ago; some worries she had concerning the baby. And he still hadn't heard a thing, which was making him anxious.
"John Diggle?" a nurse spoke to him, poking her head out the door across from where he sat. He snapped his head straight up, suddenly very alert. He had been waiting this long, he hoped she gave him the answers he sought.
"Yeah, that's me," he answered, standing slowly.
The woman stepped out from the doorway, and carefully shut the door behind her, a nervous look on her face. "Are you in some way related to Lyla Michaels?"
Dig blushed. "She's, uh…we're together."
"Oh," the woman amended, looking apologetic. "Well, then, I guess I should tell you that there's been a complication with the baby."
A pit began to form in Diggle's stomach, and it took every ounce of will he had to not throw up. He knew that whenever doctor's acted like this, it wasn't just small, but something bigger. Right now, he wanted to shove past the woman into the room and find Lyla, fold her into his arms and never let go until all this was resolved. He had to be calm, though, this woman looked young and slightly inexperienced, so she was probably new. He had to cut her some slack.
"What exactly is the problem, Nurse?"
An irritated look flickered in her expression, and she curled her left hand into a fist. "I'm a doctor, actually."
Embarrassment washed through Diggle like cold water. That didn't happen every day. Now, he felt horrible. He must've looked like some kind of sexist to this poor nurse, erm, doctor. He scratched the back of his neck nervously, and flashed a friendly smile, hoping she wasn't the type to hold a grudge. "I'm terribly sorry, Doctor. What, um, what exactly is the problem with Lyla?"
The woman sighed. "Well, after the ultrasound, we noticed an abnormality with the child that might make it difficult for it to receive fluid from inside the womb."
Diggle blanched, his mind unable to understand just what she was trying to tell him. "And, um, what's so bad about that? I-I mean, um, of course fluid is important, but…uh…I'm sorry, what exactly is the…problem?"
The doctor paused, and gave him a funny look. "If the child can't receive fluid from within the mother's womb, it can starve and that leaves a ninety-five percent chance of miscarriage."
Oh, was all Diggle could think, but no words could make their way out of his mouth.
"So, unfortunately, we're going to have to take your partner into surgery so we can place a shunt in the child – a valve that helps to pump fluid from the brain to the stomach. That way, we can ensure it can receive the right amount of fluid so the miscarriage doesn't occur."
"So the miscarriage doesn't occur". That's certainly a nice way of saying: "So the baby doesn't die." Diggle thought, feeling bile rise in this throat. Because right now, he just felt like throwing up.
