Chapter 3

Her days constituted of bursts of fleeting awareness that would then fade to oblivion; sleep, slumber or unconsciousness, she wasn't sure. She wished she could call these periods comforting, but if the oblivion were to be put on a scale with reality to determine which would outweigh the other, she wasn't sure what the result would be.

Not knowing how much time passed when she was out of it, or the thoughts circling her head when she wasn't, both seemed equally as depressing.


After a while, the length of time for which her eyes could stand to look at the brightness of the sun grew and so did the frequency of the visits of the man she despised. He would never say anything which she found unnerving, he'd just watch her.

When she finally took her first step, a smile erupted on her lips for the first time since she left Starling City. She admired the feeling of her muscles stretching and contracting when she wanted them to.

The happiness didn't last long.

At first, her strolls around her prison were brief but each day she'd push herself further until she was close to passing out with exhaustion. When she could finally walk around her whole room without stopping for a breath, Slade began talking. It never was about anything significant. Just tiny things - how there was more rain than usual or that she looked like her mother. The latter drove her mad - she didn't wish to be anything like her mother but she didn't tell him that.

She never said anything. Until today, when she finally snapped.

"Why would you do this to me?" she cried. He remained quiet and continued to stare out of the window.

"How could you just inject me with something?!"

Her own father drugged her with some serum for god knows what reason. As from one his earlier monologues, she just knew it didn't quite resemble Mirakuru. Ah the comfort she gained from that.

Anger was just constantly by her side when she thought about what her father did. She picked up the only object inside her prison that wasn't her bed.

A bedside lamp.

She wrenched the cable out of the power socket and with one swift move, threw it the direction of her father's head.

She watched it fly.

It would have hit him, if he hadn't decided to move in the last second. Contacting the wall, the light bulb shattered to tiny pieces, falling to the floor together with the metal stand.

Slade's eyes pierced her skin.

After a pregnant pause, his voice filled her cell. "Meghan, I haven't done this to cause you pain."

She stilled. Did he actually believe the words that were leaving his mouth?

"Now that people know you're my daughter-" He sighed. "I need to know that you'll be safe, kid. The serum you've been injected with, gives me that guarantee."

" Nobody has to know who I am. Hell, you didn't even recognise me."

"You did change your surname. They have their ways"

"Who's they?"

"People like that kid whom you are so intent on defending. People that want me dead."

"Well you're not that easy to kill." He smirked

"But you are."

"But as I said, they don't know who I am. I mean, everyone who works for you probably now does know, but I'm sure you have your ways of keeping them quiet. On my side, I can erase everything that could possibly connect me to you. I'm good at that stuff. And viola! There's no reason for you to keep me here."

"You can't go back."

"But I just sai-"

"I said no."

"You can't keep me locked up in a room Slade! Drugging me up so you can silence that paranoia reigning in your mind! It's not you! It's the Mirakuru talking."

He started to laugh.

"I can help you but you need to let me go," she tried again.

"I don't think so kiddo. I'll get someone to clean it up." he said, before turning to the door.

"No. I don't want anybody coming in here." Felicity said. Slade looked at her one last time before making an exit.

She sat down on the floor, placing her head on her knees.

She could feel anger bubbling beneath her skin at the injustice of it all.

Turning her attention to where the lamp hit the wall, she was stunned to see that it left a noticeable dent.

She rubbed her eyes and when she half opened them again, her world was obscured by a void of alabaster. The walls were were painted this colour, so unsurprisingly, she quickly decided that it needed a special place on her list of 'most hated things/people'.

Just after Slade. And maybe the lovely Ms. Rochev.

It really was an eggshell colour, but alabaster somehow managed to sound a whole lot nicer, so when she said it, she could pretend she was referring to at least something pleasant. And she needed pleasant.

Soon after she got comfortable with walking, uncontrollable drowsiness, followed by paralysis and eventually sleep; began to occupy a lot of her time.

It wouldn't matter if she was standing, sitting - it'd just happen.

It wasn't hard to deduce it was the handiwork of the serum. A side effect, he told her.

So she was having side effects but the real good stuff remained hiding?

Just her luck.

Perhaps, in a true superhero fashion, the 'new abilities' whatever they were, needed to be triggered by a traumatic event?

She was sure she had more than enough of these under her belt.

One of her favourite comic book characters, Rogue, had her powers emerge when she kissed the boy she liked, only to find that the romantic gesture drained him of memories and energy, leaving the poor guy in a coma.

See? Another reason why her having some serum pulsing in her veins wasn't the brightest of ideas.

If she had guys she liked go into a coma when she was relatively normal, who knew what she'd be like, once that thing inside her, truly did take hold?

Maybe she should just be kept away from the world.

A sigh escaped her lips.

Few days ago that sleepiness accounted for her falling onto an edge of a window sill. Few hours later when she woke up, she was wearing a nice split lip.

Inside her head, that was good enough reason to want to haul things at her father's head. Yet, he insisted that it would pass after he saw it happen for himself.

"Only a small throwback, don't let it distract you from the bigger picture."

Obviously he failed to tell her what the bigger picture was. She shook her head. He was very much insane.


There was no need for a key as there was no lock only a keypad. He must have done his research; learnt she excelled in IT and if he hadn't she just told him in their earlier 'discussion'.

She was one talented hacker and yet he left her with the electronic lock keypad and a broken lamp.

She expelled a deep breath. Why did people always underestimate her?

There wasn't anything stopping her from having a little look at the technology that was supposed to keep her from walking out. She could bypass the lock by jamming the signal by making it latch onto a cell phone network instead, for long enough to get out, simply by reprogramming it.

She waited until it got dark.

Lucky for her, she still had light in her room. Using a jagged piece of glass, she made an incision on a brightly red coloured cable, completely severing it and began pressing the buttons she needed .

Few minutes minutes later she was done.

She edged towards the door, pressing her right ear to its wooden surface and remained there until she was convinced there was nobody was lurking around.

She pushed the door forwards, and gleamed with joy, simultaneously pumping her fist in the air when it burst open.

She peeked outside. "Real cosy", she muttered as she stepped into the corridor.

In reality, it was anything but. It stretched for about fifteen feet, and with the flooring out white tiles, Felicity couldn't help but think it had a quite clinical feel to it. The tiny window in her room, presented her with a view of miles of empty land with a few scattered yew trees. Further to the east, she could make out a couple of evergreens that eventually turned to a patch of forest, so in the midst of a nowhere she hardly thought she'd see a building with high ceilings and a hospital atmosphere tangled together.

Her footsteps were barely audible, thanks to the thin material covering her feet - the socks would be wonderful if she ever got as far as the forest. She shuddered when she thought of the damp slipping in through the cotton, eventually making her feet so cold she'd lose sensation. She turned right, onto the same looking corridor.

Why couldn't they ever bother with decorations?


She quietly slipped through the unlocked door. It was a supply room. Bottles of volatile chemicals stacked the shelves, but she had her eyes out for a clear, aqueous solution of adrenaline. If she was to get away, she needed to stay awake.

A couple of minutes into browsing through names of bottles she couldn't pronounce, she found what she was looking for. She hoped it would be small enough to fit in the pocket of her cardigan but the huge needle that came with it, made things somewhat harder. Eventually, she managed to squeeze it into her trousers' pocket with the tip hidden away by her blouse.

She peeked outside the narrow window.

Dusk.

She must have wondered around for longer than she realised. That didn't leave her long to find a way out. She was guessing that she was on the second floor, about twenty feet above ground. Even if she did find an unlocked window in the next array of rooms down the hallway, she doubted a jump from that height would not severely incapacitate her, thus ruining any plan of escape.

Whispers down the hall made her however reconsider.

She took off her cardigan and wrapped it around her clenched fist, and before she could change her mind, plunged it forward, breaking the barrier that was keeping her away from her freedom.

She repeated the action a few times before she knocked out enough glass, for her body to fit through.

Her heart pounded as she climbed up to the edge of the window. The frame was narrow and the uneven edges of the broken glass, teared the skin on her arms. She tried to squeeze through it faster, as the echo of several pairs of footsteps grew louder.

When the ghastly wind hit her, her skin erupted in goosebumps. Looking down, she was slightly comforted by the fact that there was grass rather than concrete, but not to the extent to stop her body from trembling.

She closed her eyes. She told herself now or never and plunged herself forward.

As she was falling she realised that maybe she should curl her legs up to prevent too much damage to her ankle joints and all the small bones in her feet.

The air surged past her falling form, her stomach in knots.

She aimed to fall on to her side so the shock of the impact would spread all over her body.

Hitting the ground, she rolled sideways, wind knocked out of her. She struggled to gasp for air.

After a few seconds she dared to open her eyes.

Felicity looked down at her body and sighed in relief when she saw no bones sticking out. Maybe her friends weren't as sane as she believed them to be; how could they choose to jump from buildings as a form of pastime to relax?

She groaned as she stood up, sure her ribs were bruised. Still, that was better than she imagined; at least she was still breathing.


The concoction of sounds buzzed through her ears. Being a city girl, most of them were unrecognizable but there were a few she thought she could tell to whom they belonged to. The chirping of crickets or the far off cries of crows were her sole companions as she marched through the turf. After an hour or so it started. Every couple of minutes ,a black windscreen would cover her vision, before disappearing and she would stumble. She took a deep breath to calm down her rattled nerves.

She was terrified of needles, which was stupid considering all the things she has been through. Still, she needed a moment to collect herself and steady the rapid heartbeat that rose each time she looked down on the pointy end.

She filled the syringe that somehow withstood the impact of her fall.

3-2-1...

She plunged the needle deep into her thigh.

"Arrrrrggghhhh!" she screamed.

So much for keeping a low profile.


She walked for the whole day. With no soles to shield her feet from broken branches and sharp edges of pebbles, her feet turned into a mess of blisters and blood, significantly slowing her down. Masses of mosquitos whizzed past her face. She lost count of how many she killed, but the constant slapping of her arms in order to squash the blood suckers was leaving her quite frustrated.

Did they have mosquitos on the island? She scrunched her face at the thought of spending five, tremendously long years with bugs. Any bugs. She had real praise for Oliver for not going mad.

The adrenaline surging through her bloodstream prevented her from collapsing back then alright, but it just pushed the fog of sleep to a far off side of her brain, and she could feel it starting to become more prominent with every step she took.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead.

With darkness threatening to soon loom down, she turned to examine the forest scenery for a safe spot to reside in for the night. Nothing looked too inviting, but having walked miles, she was too tired to be picky and eventually laid down on green moss by a trunk of a tree. Bushes surrounded the area, and as she was falling asleep, she wondered if it'll be enough to keep her safe from the forest's more vicious denizens.

Probably not, she pondered just before sleep captured her into a web of dreams.


She awoke with a bolt.

Felicity wildly glanced around, trying to orientate herself to her surroundings. It took her a moment to realise she was, well, as safe as she could be and completely drenched in sweat.

Gross, definitely could do with a shower. Somewhat groggy and with a foul taste in her mouth she decided to trudge forward.

When the sun was at it's highest above the horizon, the wilderness came to an abrupt halt.

A road.

She screamed in delight. Finally she was close to finding a way back into civilisation; she was thirsty and hungry and desperately in need of a phone. She hoped she'd soon be hearing Oliver's voice telling her he'd be coming to get her.

She knew what going back meant. She'd be endangering them all but she had a tiny glimpse of hope that they'd forgive her for her selfishness.

Felicity followed the road's path, the asphalt being a welcome change for her tired feet.


After an hour or so, she caught a sight of an outline of a building in the far off distance. She conquered that half a mile in a run, or something that was supposed to be a run. Her laboured breathing did little to stop the pain radiating from her bruised ribs.

'Clydesdale Breeders of the U.S.A.', she read.

Just as she rounded a corner to enter the car park, which separated her from the reception, a black car she knew too well fishtailed around.

It skidding to a stop, centimetres away from her feet.

How foolish of her to think she could get away.


He gripped her upper arms with inhuman force, shoving her to a room. A much more smaller room and this time with no windows. Her body bounced off the concrete wall, leaving her crumbled on the floor. For a moment she almost believed a look of regret flashed across his face, but whatever it really was, it was gone before she could examine it properly.

The next day, she asked him if she could write a letter, her one last contact with the world she left behind.

'No tricks', he warned.


Oliver,

I want to think that you don't condemn my decision, but I know you better than that. I'm sorry for the four times towards the end that I told you nothing would change.

I guess I was wrong. Andrew Forster wrote about horses when reminiscing the old way of life, but I'm terrible with imagery, so I'll put it plainly as it's my second attempt already and clearly I was never born a writer. So whatever you must think, please know that the time I spent with You and the team, meant a world to me. It'll forever stay as one of the most fondest memories, but it was time I moved on. Be safe Oliver and try to forget me.

F. Smoak.

Diggle read it again.

"So what you're saying is that you never had the conversation about things not changing?" he probed.

"Yes."

'Sara, find who the hell is the Forster guy."

After a few clicks, Sara answered, "A poet. She must have been referring to his work titled 'the horse whisperer. Here." she moved to the side, letting the boys see the screen.

They shouted for me

when their horses snorted, when restless

hooves traced circles in the earth

and shimmering muscles refused the plough.

My secret was a spongy tissue, pulled bloody

from the mouth of a just-born foal,

scented with rosemary, cinnamon,

a charm to draw the tender giants

to my hands.

They shouted for me

when their horses reared at the burning straw

and eyes revolved in stately heads.

I would pull a frog's wishbone,

tainted by meat, from a puch,

a new fear to fight the fear of fire,

so I could lead the horses,

like helpless

children, to safety.

I swore I would protect

this legacy of whispers

but the tractor came over the fields

like a warning. I was the life-blood

no longer. From pulpits

I was scorned as a demon and witch.

Pitchforks drove me from villages and farms.

My gifts were the tools of revenge.

A foul hex above a stable door

so a trusted stallion could be ridden

no more. Then I joined the stampede,

with others of my kind,

to countries far from our trade.

Still I miss them. Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk.

The searing breath, glistening veins,

steady tread and the pride.

"Is there any way she was trying to send us a message using that?" asked Oliver, pointing at the text.

"It's a possibility." the ex-military answered. He scrunched his forehead in concentration.

"So we're certain about the second sentence being odd." Diggle paused. "Can someone read it again?"

'I'm sorry for the four times towards the end that I told you nothing would change.'

"Four times towards the end." Diggle repeated. "Sara, read out the fourth last line of the poem."

"Still I miss them. Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk."

"Okay, good. Is there anything else in the letter that sounded off?" asked John.

"Yeah, the whole thing about being terrible with imagery and not born a writer. We all know Felicity has a way with words." stated Oliver.

"Let me read it out.. 'Andrew Forster wrote about horses when reminiscing the old way of life, but I'm terrible with imagery, so I'll put it plainly as it's my second attempt already and clearly I was never born a writer.' "

"Second". said Diggle

"What?"

"She mentions numbers again."

"Not enough to show a geographical location" said Sara

"Try the second line from the poem." said Oliver.

"when their horses snorted, when restless"

Sara sighed. "That doesn't sound like anything."

"What about second from the bottom?"

"The searing breath, glistening veins."

"Perhaps the 'second' is referring to something else" tried Diggle.

"Wait, the other line - it mentions names, doesn't it?" said Oliver.

"Shire, Clydesdale, Suffolk."

"Clydesdale. Was she trying to get us to focus on that?"

"Or not; she said to forget about her." said Oliver, almost growling.

"Sara what do you think?" said Diggle, turning her way. The blond was tapping the keys on her keyboard.

"Clydesdale Breeders of the U.S.A., that's the most significant thing I could find. Unless, she simply likes the breed", Sara said smiling. "Pecatonica, that's where it is - which is about three and half hours away from Startling."

"That's a shot in the dark, but who knows? Maybe we'll get lucky."