The days blur together. I walk around with my arm in a sling once again, feeling slightly disconnected from reality and generally useless.

Aunt Thea hardly says a word to anyone, and what she does say is mostly angry. When McGinnis tells her that Uncle Roy died safeguarding Cuvier's research in the hopes that she might walk again, she snaps, "I don't want to walk. I want my husband."

Milena makes too much food, as she always does in response to trauma. That first night without him, we sit at the dining room table doing normal, alive-people things like chew, swallow, and burn our mouths on the lentil soup.

Someone's spoon splashes into their bowl. I hear the sound of my boots in Uncle Roy's blood.

I excuse myself.

Dad turns into a robotic stranger, and if Tish found him slightly intimidating before, now she sits up straighter every time he walks into a room. Not even Abby can soften him with her upturned smile, her hand smoothing across his shoulders, or her head nuzzling up under his arm. He doesn't ignore her or brush her off, but his hugs and reassurances and even the way he says "junebug" are all mechanical.

Abby has always taken for granted her power to stroll into the impregnable fortress that is Oliver Queen, and she is baffled and heartbroken that this time she's locked outside with the rest of us. "It's like he doesn't feel anything," she says, slumped between Mom and Tish on the sofa one night.

"That's not true, baby," Mom says. "I promise you that's not true."

"Then how can he be so cold?"

"He lost his brother," I say, looking up from the police report on my glassbook, and I know from Mom's expression that this is indeed the right label. Brother-in-law is more accurate but less true. "What do you want from him, Abigail?"

"I don't know," she murmurs. "I want him to be here with us. Just here."

For the sixth or seventh time, Tish says, "I know this is the worst possible time to have a houseguest." Her fingers twist together nervously in her lap. "Maybe it's time for me to - "

"No. It isn't," I say impatiently, because Jesus Christ, sixth or seventh time. "Not as long as Risdon is still out there. Your dad's house? The press will stake it out the second you go back. The dorm? At least three hundred people have access to that building. So no."

Tish's hands go still in her lap, and she says pointedly, "I appreciate your concern."

I look away long enough to take a breath and very deliberately unknit my shoulders. If I'm going to let all this slow-simmering anger boil over on an innocent bystander, I could at least have the decency to pick somebody who can punch me in the face. I meet Tish's eyes again. "Sorry I snapped at you."

"It's all right," she says softly.

"What he means," Mom says, looking at me over the tops of her glasses, "is that we'd worry if you left, and we already have enough to worry about."

"Thank you," Tish murmurs.

Aunt Thea finalizes the funeral plans, and the day before we bury Uncle Roy, Mom, Dad, and I accompany her to the funeral home for the viewing. His mouth looks strange and wrong, and there is very obvious makeup giving him creepily life-like color.

"Clean his face," Aunt Thea tells the funeral director, who explains that some amount of cosmetics is necessary.

"We'll make it so subtle as to be unnoticeable."

She nods once. The second her eyes brim, she storms away from us.

Dad stares down into the casket, and Mom stares up at Dad.

"No one's ever going to know who he really was," I say. "He died saving research that will help millions of people, but it's going down as a mugging."

"The people who loved him knew exactly who he was," Dad says, and they're the right words, but the wrong tone. It's like he's reading from a script.

"I shouldn't have told him about the cure. This is exactly what you thought would happen."

Dad shakes his head. "He deserved the truth regardless."

I look down at Uncle Roy's clasped hands, arranged neatly over the buttons of the suit he wore at his and Aunt Thea's twentieth wedding anniversary back in March. She designed and made it for him herself. The high collar hides the gash in his neck remarkably well.

"How would you have explained it," I ask slowly, "if Risdon had drowned me that night?"

Before they can answer, a voice behind us says, "My condolences."

Galen.

I'm too angry to be afraid. I step toward him, but Dad grabs my shoulder right at the strap of the sling.

Galen's head tilts sinuously on his neck. "Have you considered my offer?"

"Go to hell," Dad says.

"I would remind you," Galen says, lip curling, "how many media outlets would be happy to publicize your son's civic improvement project."

"And risk a libel suit when their claims can't be substantiated?"

"If you don't think I can furnish evidence - "

"No," Mom says. "You can't. At least none that anyone will believe, when I'm through with you."

"You are going to leave us in peace," Dad says. "And you are going to pull your operation out of Starling altogether."

For the first time, I find out what Galen's laugh sounds like. It's dry and crackling, like something slithering through dead leaves. "Out of the goodness of my tender heart?"

"The last time you threatened this family, we shut down your trafficking operation, burned your headquarters to the ground, and handed a dozen of your highest-ranking members to law enforcement." Dad looks at me and gestures between us. "We didn't want to, you understand. After we got what we came for, we were ready to go home. But you really pissed off my wife."

I thought I'd seen every variation of Mom's smile, but this icy cold one is new. "A few nights ago we smashed the last profitable thing you had going in this city. Imagine what we'll do to you if we ever make you a priority."

Galen steps into her space, eerie green eyes fixed on hers. "We are the Black Hand, and we burn behind us what we cannot use. The conference in two days is nothing if not a powder keg. How difficult do you think it would be for me to supply a spark?"

"Get out," Dad says quietly.

Galen nods sarcastic respect to Uncle Roy's casket, and he leaves.

Sara's flight gets in late that night, and without a word I grab my keys and head for the back door. The ride to the airport means at least twenty minutes out of the house, doing something halfway useful.

"There are plenty of people with two working arms who could pick her up," Mom calls after me.

I don't look back. I can drive one-handed just fine, thank you.

As the door closes behind me, I hear her exasperated, "Jonathan!"

At arrivals, Sara stands on the curb in her trenchcoat with her rollaway bag at her feet. In the darkness, she makes nearly the same exact picture as the last time I picked her up. Maybe that's why when she gets in my car, the first thing I say to her is, "Does someone always have to die for us to see you?"

Her eyes narrow. "Excuse me?"

"No, really, who should I get killed next?"

Sara seriously considers slapping me. Her hand rises and everything. But instead she says, "Get out from behind the wheel. You shouldn't be driving with that arm anyway."

She takes me to Panoptic and leads me down to the lair, where I have not set foot for days. She slips on strike mitts, which I have not touched for weeks, and she says, "You want to lash out?" She holds them up. "Lash out."

"No," I say flatly.

She gives me a look eerily reminiscent of Dad.

"I'm not in the mood for this."

She smacks me in the head.

Before I know what I'm doing, I'm pounding my free hand into the leather of the mitt.

Sara absorbs the blow expertly. "I know you can hit me harder than that."

Damn right I can. I tear off the sling, and I land frantic punches.

"I barely felt that!" she yells at me.

Liar. I'm forcing her back toward the wall.

"Come on. Hit me. Hit me as hard as it hurts."

Then the shredding pain in my arm is too much, and her infuriating calm is too much, and fuck this noise. I'm done.

When I collapse to the floor, Sara follows me down. She sits cross-legged while I fight through big, ugly, angry sobs. She doesn't look grossed out when I snort back snot before it can drip everywhere. Then she waits patiently while I catch my breath, combing my hair away from my sweaty face. All the while, she murmurs to me in Arabic. It's half-song, half-poetry, and I have no idea what it means.

"If you could not tell anyone about this," I croak after a while, staring at the ceiling, "that would be awesome."

She smiles, sending a tear sliding down her cheek. Eyes on the bank of glass at the other end of the lair, she keeps running her fingers through my hair.

The Sunday of the funeral dawns bright and gorgeous.

All fifty-six of Panoptic's employees come to the service. This is not the first time they have lost a colleague, and they have a very specific ritual. "Hey, kid," Darius Jones tells me in the lobby, "we're going to Marky's for a few rounds afterward. Tell some stories, see him off right. Ramirez can give you a ride."

"Thanks, man," I say in all sincerity. "But - family, you know?"

"Of course. I just wanted you to know you were welcome."

A dozen tattooed young men show up, looking extremely uncomfortable in their cheap suits. I've never seen them before in my life, but Aunt Thea greets them by name and asks after the mentoring program at Bridge House. They treat her like the dowager empress of some lost civilization, and to a man they claim that Roy Harper saved their lives. "I'd be in the Heights or in the ground, if it wasn't for him."

There's your immortality right there, the Captain might have said.

Mom cries unashamedly while Dig gives the eulogy, and Aunt Thea glares at the flower arrangements. Elaine and Abby sit on either side of me, arms looped through mine.

Mom, Dad, Dig, Lyla, Sara, and I stand as pallbearers, and we carry my uncle out into the May sunshine.

If it weren't for the police escort, we'd never have made it from the funeral home to the cemetery through the crowds of protesters. Signs with Cuvier's name misspelled. Justice for the Sixteen. Vote Yes on Kobel. And everywhere, the stylized bow and arrow.

"Powder keg," I mutter.

"It won't come to that," Dad says.

We bury Uncle Roy, and all I can think is that there's no particular reason it shouldn't be me in his place. If one night I screw up or guess wrong or roll snake eyes, how long before everything I've done is undone? How long before the cartels and gangs and corrupt officials take back every inch of ground we've gained? Regardless, no one would ever know. What could anyone even say about me at my funeral? Well, he was kind of an asshole kid, halfway cleaned up his act, won some MMA tournaments, and oh I think his family liked him.

I know I'm not invincible. More than once I have felt the complete, clear-eyed certainty that I was about to die. But then I didn't, and that was the end of it. Moving on. Walk it off.

Watching my family lay flowers on Uncle Roy's casket, a chill fear creeps into my bones. It's not the heart-spiking terror of, holy shit that's a gun in my face. It is the slow dread of, oh God what would that do to my little sister?

The second we get home for the reception, I go upstairs to tear off my tie so I can breathe.

When I look up into my mirror, McGinnis' reflection meets my eyes. He stands in my doorway, looking more sincere than I've ever seen him. "Are you ok?"

I turn to face him. "What do you want me to say?"

He looks me over, then says very deliberately: "I heard a rumor that you got your uncle killed."

I freeze where I stand.

"Which I thought was strange," McGinnis says, slipping his hands into his pockets and ambling into the room, "because I was ninety-nine percent sure that a convicted murderer named Joe Risdon pulled the trigger. But some asshole is going around telling people that it was your fault."

"Shut up, McGinnis."

"Come to think of it, that asshole looked a lot like you."

"Shut the fuck up."

But McGinnis comes right up to me. "I was there. I saw what happened. It was not your fault."

"I had the shot," I say thickly. "All I had to do was take it, and he'd be here."

"Sometimes you do everything right, and it goes to hell anyway."

One of these days, people are going to stop quoting Quentin Lance at me. I look at the floor.

"Hey." He gives my shoulder a shake. "I'm really sorry, Jon."

"You," I say slowly, "are a Nimitz class douchecanoe."

"I know," he says, and he starts herding me toward the door. "Come on downstairs. Milena can't lift the iced tea dispenser by herself."

Not an hour into the reception, Deshawn Taylor arrives and says to Dad, "So sorry for your loss, turn on the newscasts."

A fire is raging across the street from the Convention Center. People are throwing trash cans through storefront windows.

"McKenna Hall wants your help," Taylor says. "I hate to do this to you, but it's all hands on deck right now."

Dad looks to Aunt Thea.

Fear brings out the best in my aunt - all her fire and fierce strength - but pain shows her at her worst. "Go," she tells him. "I guess I should be grateful you came to the service this time."

I don't know what that means, but it lays him open to the bone. In a voice I've never heard before, he says, "I am so sorry, Thea."

Then he leaves with Taylor.

At nightfall, Detective Hall calls the Arrow.

"We could use your help out here tonight."

Standing in the corner of my living room, watching Mom and Aunt Thea bid goodbye to the Lance sisters, I sigh. "What am I going to do that eight hundred cops in riot gear can't?"

"Protesters have been putting the Arrow's silhouette on their signs. You know the one," she says. "From where I stand now, I count four of those and another six arrowhead posters."

"They think I'm on their side, and you want me to, what - prove them wrong?"

"Are you?"

I turn my back to the room. "What?"

"Do you want Starling to burn over this?"

If she had asked me a week ago, I would have rolled my eyes at the question. Tonight, the thought crosses my mind that maybe this is what it will take for things to finally change. Thirty years of the Arrow, and maybe the only thing that will leave a lasting mark is to burn the godforsaken city to the ground.

But I have no idea what to build in its place.

Risdon is out there somewhere, and now that Desilva is in custody, he may very well be free to do whatever he wants. Likely what he wants is to hunt me down and finish what he started that night with the washbucket. If he has half a brain, he'll expect me to be on the rooftops above the protests tonight.

Cold wraps around my insides, but so does a fierce willingness. Let him come. I want to look him in the eyes while he dies.

"I'll be out there," I tell Hall.

I go to the lair alone.

Someone - probably Lyla - cleaned the blood from my leathers and replaced them on the mannequin. The display case opposite them stands empty. Arsenal's gear has been moved to the bank of glass at the far end of the room, sealed in lovingly with Dad's old gear and Mom's old computers. I don't know who did it, but I feel a pang of resentment. They're already putting him away.

I suit up in the locker room.

On my way out, I meet my parents coming down the stairs. Dad physically blocks my path. "Not tonight."

"City's burning," I say. "Get out of my way."

Dad shakes his head. "I never should have put a bow in your hands."

"Why?" I know it's cruel, but I say it anyway: "Because I got Uncle Roy killed?"

My father so rarely raises his voice, Mom and I both jump when he yells, "Because it could just as easily have been you bleeding out on the concrete!"

Silence. I match Dad's glare dagger for dagger.

Mom steps up to me. "You're in no shape to go out there."

"My arm is fine." It's about fifty percent true.

"I don't believe you, but even if it were." She lays her hand on my chest, just left of center. "You're in no shape."

"I have a job to do."

"Risdon is off his leash somewhere out there," Dad says, "and he's going to be hunting for you."

"Good. Saves me the trouble of finding him."

"He'll kill you, Jonathan," Mom says.

"Your faith in me is touching."

"You were planning to go out alone, no one on Watchtower, without even telling anyone you'd be hooded up. You know your head is not screwed on straight right now. Risdon has backup, two working arms, and no restraint whatsoever. He will kill you."

The possibility has never felt more real or immediate. I wonder if some mortician will make me up like a clown.

I could do what Mom says. I could sit here on my ass, letting the man who did this to my family run free. Hoping SCPD takes him out before he does too much collateral damage. I will never be able to look Aunt Thea in the face again, and I will probably have issues with mirrors too.

They say a hero is a man who is afraid to run away.

"I'm going out there."

"I won't let you."

"How are you going to stop me?"

Her jaw sets. Dad takes a step toward me, and all three of us know that if he decides I am not leaving this room, that is how it will happen whether I like it or not.

I'm going about this the wrong way. All wrong. So I look Mom in the eyes. "On the way home from the Port Authority," I say quietly, "you asked Dad why he brought your reckless teenager as backup."

Her lips part in surprise. "You were awake to hear that?"

I turn to Dad. "Do you remember what you said?"

He looks about ready to strangle someone. "I said that I trusted you to make the right call when it counted."

"Do you trust me or not? Am I the Arrow, or am I just playing dress-up?"

Mom reaches for my hands, and in that low voice she says, "I'm asking you please not to go."

The best I can give her is: "Mom, I'll come back."

Dad looks up sharply, but Mom hardly moves. Only her expression changes; her eyes fill with tears exactly the way they did the night I took that first bullet from Risdon. It's obvious she doesn't expect me to comply when she whispers, "Promise me."

I can't do that, so I squeeze her hands, and I bend my head so she can kiss it.

Dad lets me walk right past him to the stairs.

From the roof of the overhang at the entrance to the Convention Center , I survey the wreck of the day. Firefighters work to damp down the last few smolders of the burnt-out cars parked up and down Duwamish. Glass glitters in the street, and yellow tape cornered with colored synth-flares marks off restricted areas.

A crowd of thousands mills around the convention center, working up to a chant or a straggling march every so often. Len Broussard's cops patrol the area in humvees and tactical gear, looking more like an occupying army than a civilian peacekeeping force. They're so tense you could use them for mouse traps. One poke and snap.

Dad moves among the protesters forty feet below me, talking quietly to people with McKenna Hall trailing not far behind.

I tap on the lenses built into my mask, and I zoom in to scan the crowd. For now, things are more or less peaceful, but I snap to alert every time I see someone reach for their belt or get pissy with a police officer.

"Two armed robberies coming over the police scanners," Mom says in my ear. "Somebody's making the most of the chaos."

"I'll take care of one," another voice offers. Sara. "Can the Bat handle the other?"

"I'm insulted that you feel the need to ask," the Bat answers.

"Isn't your leg fucked up?" I ask him.

"Didn't you reopen your gunshot wound?"

"You keep an eye on the crowd, Arrow," the Canary says.

I guess I've got backup. "Maintaining position."

"Oh, God," Mom says, and I can picture her wide eyes. "Oh, no."

"What is it?" all three of us demand.

"There's been a shooting at City Hall." I hear her fingers flying over Mary's keyboard. "Mayor Lee was struck in the chest by a high-powered rifle at long range."

"Is he alive?"

"They're rushing him to Starling General now."

My jaw sets. "Galen."

"Almost definitely Galen," Mom says grimly. "If he can't have his toy, he's going to smash it so no one else can play with it."

"What are the odds Risdon was the trigger man?"

"It would explain why he's not out here taking potshots at you," the Bat says.

I can see the moment the news hits the crowd, and that's when it happens. What, precisely, it is, I can't really say. People will probably argue forever about who started it and how, and by the time it catches my eye, it's already a brawl. Bellowed words rise up, and right up on the line of cops below me, one officer has a man on the ground. Other protesters are trying to drag him off, and more cops are trying to drag them off in a messy round of swinging fists and truncheons.

Powder keg. Boom.

The panicky anger sweeps through the crowd as if by electric current, setting people yelling and shoving and crashing against riot shields in waves. Somewhere down in that tangle of bodies is my father.

I have to do something, fast, but I have no clue what. What the hell kind of help does Hall expect me to be with this? Every weapon I have hanging off my back or my belt will only make this worse.

But she didn't summon the Arrow because he is a weapon. She summoned him because he is a symbol.

"Watchtower, can you light me up and amplify my voice as loud as possible?"

"Yes, of course." Apprehensively, Mom says, "What are you going to do?"

"Do it now."

The floodlights of six different mobile SCPD units swing over and converge on me blindingly, and there is a squeal of feedback from their giant speakers.

"The floor's all yours," Mom says.

Great. Perfect. Now, how to address two or three thousand people? Hey, you? But the words come.

"Starling!" I bellow, and I hear my digitally altered voice echo across the plaza. "STARLING!"

I've never had this many eyes on me, or at least not live and in person. Murmurs wisp through the crowd like wind through tall grass - Arrow, that's the Arrow, oh my God, it's the freaking Arrow, are you kidding me, oh my God.

Dad and Uncle Roy's years in the hood have given it a power I never could have achieved on my own. I have their attention.

"How many of you are From Here, born and raised?"

There is a nonplussed silence, and then someone cheers. It catches, sweeping through more than half the crowd.

"So am I, and I'm not going anywhere."

Another cheer.

"When this is over, the conference speakers and half of these protesters are going home. Those of us who have to stay and pick up the pieces - what kind of city do you want?"

There are yells and murmurs, but I can't even see past the lights glaring in my eyes.

"No, don't tell me. Show me."

If I've misjudged this, they might take it as a call to start kicking the shit out of people. For a few tense seconds, I listen to the rising tide of voices. Wait and see.

Then, slowly, the floodlights dim, and I watch the crowd below me retreat behind the police line, forming orderly groups, allowing cops and paramedics to move among them. I catch sight of my dad helping a woman to her feet. He looks up at me and nods.

"That's what I want too," I say, still massively amplified. "Thank you." Feeling a little cheeky while I've got the big mike, I hold out a stern finger and add, "Now don't make me come down there."

There's a ripple of surprised laughter, including Mom's over the comm. Then the speakers whine with feedback again, and I melt back into the shadows.

"Arrow 3.0, stand-up comedian," the Canary says.

"Did you guys grab your armed robbers?"

"So many insulting questions tonight," the Bat gripes.

"All hands on deck here at the Convention Center," I say. "Find a rooftop, keep an eye out."

We don't sleep. Until daybreak we patrol the area, breaking up fights before they can escalate. People are almost as surprised to see the Canary again after all these years as they are to see the Bat three thousand miles from his home turf. More than once, that moment of slackjawed shock gives us enough time to disarm them and send them to separate corners to think about what they've done.

The first time I get within spitting distance of three SCPD officers, they draw on me reflexively.

Against every instinct I have, I keep the bow pointed at the ground. "Go ahead," I tell them. "But if you kill me, who's going to do your job for you?"

Trent Parsons squints at me in the glare of the mobile unit's floodlights. "Has anyone told you that you are much douchier than the other Hoods?"

"If either of them had caught you harassing mayoral candidates, you'd still be in traction right now."

His partners stare at him, and when he shifts his weight guiltily, their shock turns to disgust.

Parsons lowers his weapon. "There's a fire on Philpott and Third. Could use some help with evac."

I nod, and I fire a grappling hook to the nearest rooftop to see for myself.

The Bat and I are dropping the last two evacuees off with EMS, both of us trying to get our coughing under control, when the news comes through: Mayor Lee is dead.

The Canary sighs heavily, leaning on her staff. "It's dawn," she says, nodding at the first reddish streaks in the sky. "Shift's over, boys."

At home, I slip in the back door just before six o'clock, feeling like I might collapse on the floor and sleep for days before I ever make it to a bed.

Tish and Abby sit at the kitchen island, still in yesterday's somber black dresses, makeup smudged under their eyes. Abby's head whips around at the creak of the door, and the second her eyes land on me, she shoots me a glare.

"Don't ever do that again."

So many people have disapproved of me lately, I don't bother trying to guess what I did this time. "Do what?"

She hugs herself, and the anger melts into hurt. "Disappear."

Guilt twinges in my gut. I've never had to check in with her before, and it didn't even occur to me. "I'm sorry, I didn't think."

"We couldn't find you, and then we realized where you must have gone, and you went alone, and your arm is still messed up, and you just got finished telling us that man is still out there." She takes a deep, shaky breath. "You can't just disappear."

"I won't do it again."

She nods, and she gets to her feet. "I'm glad you're okay. I'm going to bed."

I watch her out of sight, and Tish quietly gathers up the plate and mug that she left on the counter.

"Hey, um. How bad?"

Tish turns to me with more sympathy than I probably deserve. "She was pretty upset."

"Like, piano lid upset?"

She winces. "I was worried for a minute, but no."

I pull out a stool, thunk down onto it, and lean my elbows on the counter. "God damn it."

Tish starts rummaging in cabinets, pulling out a saucepan, vanilla, and a bear-shaped honey bottle. "We watched you on the news. You did some really incredible things last night, you know that?"

I make a grumpy noise in reply. Then I fold my arms and rest my forehead on them. I am so far beyond tired that I can't even drift off while I listen to the homey little noises of her doing kitchen-y things. The pilot light on the stove clicks, and the flames jump up with a little whumpf.

A couple minutes later, Tish comes up to me so quietly that it's her perfume that tips me off to her presence. She smells expensive, like Mom does. "Here," she says, and ceramic clinks down on the granite.

I raise my head. A mug of something creamy and frothy steams next to my elbow. It smells like nutmeg. I look at Tish, whose hands are wrapped around her own mug, and I narrow my eyes at her. "Stop being nice to me."

She smiles, reaches out, and runs her hand across my back. "Nope." Smooths her hand back and forth. With every pass, my bunched-up muscles relax a little more.

The creamy thing tastes like warm, drowsy comfort. I finish it quickly, and I slump sideways against Tish's shoulder.

"Go get some sleep," she whispers.

I nod into her arm.

Upstairs, I pass out on top of the covers with my shoes still on.

When I wake in the late afternoon, Mom is knocking on my door. "Jon, do you have a suit that's clean?"

Apparently the deputy mayor doesn't particularly want to be responsible for a city that could go to hell at any moment. She and the rest of the city council are passing the hot potato to Dad as fast as possible. They have set up the most slipshod inauguration since Sebastian Blood's. On the steps of City Hall, there is enough time for some bunting and a microphone with a podium, but apparently not enough for proper security.

"Damn it," Lyla says. "If we'd done this in June, like we were supposed to, we'd have ten bodyguards for the event. Half our staff is covering bigwigs at the BioConference, so there will just be the four of us - me, Dig, Jones, and Ramirez."

"And a whole contingent of SCPD," I point out. "Also, this is about as public as it gets."

"Of course. SCPD," Lyla says. "I feel safer already."

The inauguration is surprisingly well-attended for something so last minute. Despite his other responsibilities right now, Police Chief Len Broussard shows up. I haven't seen him face to face since Captain Lance's funeral. "Where's your executioner's axe?" he asks me, grinning.

I jerk my head at my left arm, hanging in its sling again. "Do I look like I can lift it?"

He laughs a big, booming laugh and pounds my good shoulder just slightly too hard. "That smart mouth is going to get you in trouble someday, kid."

"Someday? What do you think Dad did ten seconds after they took the cameras off us?"

Broussard nods. "My youngest is your age. I know how it is."

Aunt Thea, Mom, Abby, and I make a tableau of supportive family off to the side, and Dig and Lyla take up posts not far from us. I see Jones and Ramirez down at the base of the steps, weaving steadily through the crowd, eyes roving everywhere.

I have never seen anyone take an oath as seriously as Dad takes his oath of office. He does solemnly swear to discharge the duties entrusted to him, to uphold the law, and to serve the citizens of Starling City to the best of his ability. It's hard not to internally scoff - what do you people think he's been doing for thirty years? Next to me, Aunt Thea seems to be thinking the same thing.

Mom, on the other hand, wears an expression of soppy, beaming pride. It's kind of gross.

Dad has just said the final words when the justice of the peace's head turns to pink mist.

The report of a rifle echoes across the square.

Screams. Dig and Lyla are moving before he has even hit the ground, dragging all five of us Queens to cover. But men pour out of the crowd, pulling on ski masks and brass knuckles, and the rifle keeps cracking. I rip off the sling, and Mom and I keep Abby covered between us.

Lyla hustles Dad over to us, her favorite Glock barking in her hands. Dig goes to work too, and two masked men take nasty gutshots. But holy shit, they get to their feet and keep coming. Splice. Gotta be. Neither pain nor fear will stop them.

The cops all around us rally and open fire, but there are too many men closing in on us. Dig drops one, but they dogpile him. He takes a blow to the head, and I can't see what happens. Can't see, shit, I can't see.

No one is supposed to know what Oliver Queen is capable of, but when someone grabs Mom, Dad breaks the guy's jaw and then crunches his knee the wrong way out from under him.

A man in black drags Abby away from Mom, who shrieks and pepper sprays the hell out of him. Where did she even get that? He stumbles away blind and screaming, but there are more - too many more.

In the middle of it all, Risdon ascends the steps, rifle slung across his back. Alone among them, he is not even masked.

Aunt Thea sees him too. She reaches for a nearby cop who's shouting into her radio, and she steals the woman's sidearm with nimble fingers. With perfect, icy calm, she levels the gun at Risdon, pops off the safety, and opens up. One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Three. A neat cluster of holes appear in the center of his chest.

The body armor saves him, and then there are too many civilians and cops in the way, and Aunt Thea has no clear shot. From behind us a masked son of a bitch overturns her wheelchair, spilling her across the white steps, and the gun clatters away.

I dive on him, and we roll down a few steps, and the pain jolts him free of my grip. When he lunges at me, I bounce his head off the stone, and he's out.

I scramble back toward Mom and Abby, who are screaming for each other as Risdon's men drag them apart. Dad coldcocks the guy who's got Abby and kicks his limp body down the stairs. Len Broussard tears another man off of Mom, gets him on the ground, and starts pummeling his face. Another ski mask pistol-whips him from behind, and he slumps sideways with an ugly, guttural noise.

Lyla pulls Aunt Thea back to her chair. Dad gathers Mom and Abby close, head up and scanning the crowd.

His eyes lock on me, and then everything goes black.