--9--
When Chloe came to, she was in a strange white room, tied to a chair with a TV screen in front of her.
The situation awakened something in her, as though her brain were fighting to remind her of something important.
Where was she? And why on earth would anyone kidnap her?
Then suddenly she realized that with her connection to the Blur as well as her supposed connection to the Green Arrow, there were a hundred-and-one reasons for someone to kidnap her.
But where am I? Chloe asked herself. The screen before her made her nervous. What are they going to do--brainwash me? Chloe wondered wildly.
"Glad to see you're awake, Watchtower." Chloe started when a woman appeared on the screen on the screen. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd ever come to."
"Who are you and why am I here?" Chloe asked, straining against her bonds.
The woman answered her coolly. "You can cut the act."
"What act? What's going on? Who are you?"
The woman studied her intently. Then, at length, she spoke again, "So you do have amnesia. Interesting. I thought it was a surprising mistake for you to return to your apartment when you should have known we'd be having it watched."
"What are you talking about?" Chloe demanded.
"Don't worry, Watchtower. You should have plenty of time to remember while we wait for your friends to come find you."
Agent Waller shut off the video feed and turned to the man in the room with her.
"I want two guards in the room with her and at least three outside the door. If they take her from under your noses like last time, so help me, heads will roll."
The man assured her nothing would go wrong and left quickly.
Waller leaned back in her chair, curious about the apparent amnesia the Sullivan woman was suffering from. Waller had originally thought the hospital records were a ruse, a way for Sullivan to have an excuse to hide away somewhere and perhaps take herself off their radar. Showing up at her own apartment, though...well, it just went to show sometimes there really isn't a plan behind every single move across the board.
She leaned back in her chair and waited for her opponents to make their next move.
Back at Watchtower, Oliver had a strong conviction that something was off. Chloe's tracking signal was still on, and it showed that it had indeed been Checkmate agents that had carried her off.
Dinah had overtaken her assailant, saving herself from being captured as well, but not in time to save Chloe. Oliver would have liked to have been angry with her, but he knew it wasn't her fault. Besides, she already looked miserable with guilt. And if Chloe had been there, and he were the one abducted, she never would have gotten angry at anyone. She would have coolly formed a plan like she always did and kept everyone calm.
"How could they not disarm the signal on her?" Victor finally voiced the question on all of their minds. "It's just palin sloppy. They're smarter than that."
Oliver stared at the blinking light on the screen. "They want us to come after her."
Bart stared at him. "What? Why? I thought she was the main target last time. They've got what they want, then, don't they?"
"Ever play chess, Bart?"
"No way. That game is way too slow. Why?"
"Because," AC answered for Oliver, "part of the game is to take as many of the other player's pieces as possible."
"What, like 'collect 'em all' or something?"
"I think that's exactly the idea," Oliver said, glancing at all of them, trying not to think about what that meant for them with no Watchtower to guide this mission.
"Is Clark coming?" Dinah asked.
"He's got his hands full with Lois, unfortunately. She's had her eye on him every minute and we agreed it's not a good idea to tell Lois her amnesiac cousin has been kidnapped by a secret government organization if we can help it. He'll break away if he has a chance to ditch her, but otherwise we're going to be a man short."
"Two men short," Bart pointed out. "Counting Chloelicious."
Oliver glared at him, and Bart backed away nervously.
"Sorry."
"Look, here's how we're going to do this. Victor, you can view a map of the building at any time, right?'
"Absolutely."
"Great. I want you to go in first and help us navigate the building." Oliver clenched his jaw as Victor nodded. It was supposed to be Chloe's job.
Chloe, hours later, was in the process of forming a plan of her own. It didn't start out that way, though. It started out with the solitary thought, What in God's name do they want with me?
And then, slowly, several pieces fell into place at last.
She felt like a bit of an idiot, really, considering how long it took her to realize what was right in front of her face.
Everything had pointed to it: Oliver's mysterious relationship with Clark, which included being privy to Clark's secrets. How overprotective he was. The fact that he'd not only realized immediately when she was gone, but had clearly panicked over it.
And hadn't she run into the Green Arrow that same night? How else would he have known to come looking for her? It had been evident that that was what happened. He hadn't just randomly stumbled across the one girl for miles in the middle of the night.
There were little things, too. His height, for instance. The dimple on his chin.
The smell of leather.
That's why everyone's been keeping things from me, why they've been worried that I'll go into shock or I'll react badly.
The Green Arrow said I work with him. How could I possibly pull that off and be Oliver Queen's personal assistant--what would be a full-time job if it were true--without someone noticing?
Chloe rolled her eyes. For the love of God, he calls me 'Sidekick' of all things!
Wow. It took me long enough, she thought wearily. Slowly it clicked into place the reason they must have taken her. They weren't interested in her. They had to somehow knowher connection to Arrow. The Archer had said something almost exactly like that, too. "It isn't safe out here for you. There are people who know about us and would use you to get to me. I don't want you wandering alone until you remember us.
She was bait.
Well then, she thought grimly, I'm just going to have to get out of here before he can get into trouble over me.
She looked at the two men standing in the room, both looking thoroughly bored.
Not exactly the brightest crayons in the box, are you two? she raised an eyebrow. All right, well, I may be more of a journalist than an actress, but surely I can muster something up in a minute here.
She remembered that in the Talon when she'd been attacked, she'd nearly overthrown one of the goons. She was stronger than she'd been at eighteen, and her instincts had led her more than anything. She remembered knowing some self-defense. She'd been forced to learn after a while, but apparently her skills had been honed slightly in the last couple of years.
Let's hope so, anyway. I'm probably going to have to rely almost entirely on instinct here.
She turned her head to the man closest to her, who was seated against the wall, elbows resting casually on his knees.
"So," she said, "what's a girl got to do to get a drink of water around here?"
"Shut up," he grumbled shortly.
"What?" she asked innocently. "Do you have any idea how dry your mouth gets after being passed out for that long? It's just a glass of water."
He didn't respond, so she sighed dramatically.
"You two are terrible company, you know that? Why don't you tell me something about yourselves? What are your names for starters?"
She looked from one to the other, but still no one responded.
"Shy? That's okay. I used to be shy, too...well, no, I guess I was never shy, but my best friend was shy. Really shy. Painfully so. He used to collapse just being in the same room as the girl he liked. Actually that was because he was dramatically allergic to her jewelry--which is a weird thing to be allergic to, don't you think?--but anyway, he never really got over being shy, either. I guess it's just in some people's nature. Plus he was raised on a farm by very polite people, so I bet that had a lot to do with it, too. I liked his parents. They were always really sweet to me, and his mom, oh my gosh she baked the best--
"If I get you water, will you shut up?"
Chloe nodded, grinning at him. He walked over to his partner and grumbled something Chloe couldn't hear. She used the opportunity to ascertain what kind of knots she was dealing with around her wrists. She'd spent a good portion of her sophomore and junior years learning how to escape chains and ropes, and she could only thank God she'd gotten kidnapped after remembering that part of her life.
When the first guy left to supposedly get her water, the second one stood up and walked over to her, gun in hand.
Chloe raised an eyebrow at it. "Well that's not very friendly," she joked.
He rolled his eyes in response.
Chloe smirked.
"What are you so happy about anyway?"
"You have no idea how much those ropes were chafing my wrists."
