AN: Thank you all, again, for leaving me reviews! It makes my day when I see them! Also, thank you MicRiddy for your awesome beta work yet again.
Reminder: There is mention of torture in this chapter as well.
I do not have the pleasure of owning anything Arrow, only CW does.
Chapter 11 – Malcolm
Malcolm's POV
Malcolm sat at his desk with the biggest of grins on his face. Everything up to this point had gone perfectly, exactly as planned - unlike with the Undertaking.
Malcolm had personally abducted everyone in just a couple of nights. He had brought them here to the Glades. How fitting, he thought, bring them to the place that they all worked so hard to protect in order to punish them for getting in my way! He had been very careful of when he was caught on the cameras. He had wanted Oliver to know who was abducting everyone knowing that he would play hero and come and get them.
As he sat looking at the screen he almost laughed. Oliver was having a nightmare thanks to the Vertigo that Malcolm had just injected him with. He had carefully prepared that dose. He had decided to give Moira a taste of what she had allowed Thea to partake in, not enough to do serious injury but enough to scare her. Malcolm knew that Oliver would not be able to sit idly by and watch as he did this, so he was sure to include a large enough dose in the syringe for Oliver. A dose that would knock him out, give him nightmares, but that would not kill him – that would ruin all the fun still to come.
Things had worked out perfectly for Malcolm that time as well. As predicted Oliver volunteered, no demanded, that he be allowed to take Moira's punishment. It was all Malcolm could do not to smile. He loved it when a plan came together.
Malcolm thought back to when he had tazered Walter. That was another of his carefully executed plans. He had purposefully mentioned the fact that the Arrow had saved Walter before, purposefully wondered aloud if someone would step up to take his place. Oliver, again, took the bait as Malcolm knew that he would.
It was never Malcolm's intention to inflict so serious an injury on Moira or Walter as to permanently injure them, he just wanted a little payback for them interfering with the Undertaking. The ultimate goal had always been to torture Oliver, simply doing so in front of everyone would hurt them as well, possibly scar them for life.
That was the whole reason he had taken the bag of supplies with him the first time. He had only ever planned on using the tazer with Walter, Oliver on the other hand was always destined to feel the bite of the generators electricity.
The last time that Malcolm had captured Oliver he had studied the young man. While he was hanging in Malcolm's warehouse unconscious Malcolm had taken stock of all of Oliver's scars. He used that knowledge now to recreate some of the experiences that Oliver would have gone through to gain those scars. Even though Malcolm didn't know the circumstances behind each scar he knew that simply recreating the injuries themselves would cause Oliver to have flashbacks and nightmares. He was counting on those to drive everyone in the cell block away from Oliver.
Malcolm's plan was working perfectly. As he sat playing with the police baton in his hand he laughed. He knew that Oliver would volunteer yet again, what Oliver didn't know was that Malcolm was done letting him take the brunt of the punishment.
People were about to seriously get hurt!
….
Mixed POV
Everyone looked to the door as it opened and Malcolm walked in, again with his two assistants. They silently went straight to Lance's cell, pulled him out, and strung him up in the middle of the room as they had done with Walter.
"Quentin Lance" Malcolm said menacingly.
"What do you want, Merlyn?" Lance said, taunting Malcolm and refusing to be intimidated by him.
"I want you to know that interfering with my plans for the Glades was a very, very bad idea." Malcolm stated as he started to walk around Lance. As he walked around behind Lance he flicked his wrist, causing a Police baton in his hand to extend to its full length.
Laurel gasped in her cell. She had seen those Police batons at work, she knew how strong they were and she knew that whatever Malcolm had planned to do with it was not going to go well for her Dad. She stood, grasping the bars to her cell and watching intently at what Malcolm was doing.
"You should have never gotten involved with helping the Arrow, I mean Oliver. You should have never gone down into the Glades the night of the Undertaking, and you most certainly should not have touched my device." Malcolm snarled as he swung the baton at Lance, hitting him in the middle of his back.
Lance let out a scream of pain. He had been taken by surprise with the hit from the baton and it really hurt when you got hit with one of those things. He should know, he had inflicted that pain on more than one criminal during his time on the Police force, and once had had one turned on him. He still remembered the cracked ribs he got that night.
"Stop! Please, don't hurt him anymore. He was just trying to protect the…" Laurel started to plead when she got cut off by Malcolm.
"DO NOTtell me he was protecting anyone." Malcolm roared. "He was doing what he was told was helping the people of the Glades, when in reality he was just hurting them. He should have let the device go off, effectively leveling the scum in the Glades and ridding the city of the low life's that lived there."
Turning back to Lance he then started beating him. Malcolm hit him with varying degrees of force in his chest, back, and ribs to the sounds of Laurel screaming for him to stop. Oliver knew that Lance was going to end up with more than just a few broken ribs if he didn't step in soon.
"Stop Malcolm." Oliver said forcefully. "You can do whatever you want to me. Just stop hurting him."
Malcolm stepped over to Oliver's cell where he stared at him, eye to eye. Malcolm was taunting him now, knowing that Oliver would step up to take Lance's place. It was time that Oliver knew he would not always be able to get people out of situations such as these.
"Lance is going to pay for what he did." Merlyn spat the words in Oliver's face.
"Malcolm!" Oliver yelled.
"NO! You cannot take his place this time Oliver." Malcolm replied as he swung at Lance yet again. He continued to beat Lance for a couple more minutes until Lance was hoarse from the screaming, the pain was excruciating.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity Malcolm's goons dropped Lance to the floor. He cried out in pain and he fell onto his injured ribs. They dragged him back to his cell and threw him to the floor before closing and locking the door behind him.
As Malcolm's two goons left the room Malcolm turned to Oliver. "Do you still want to take some of his punishment?" He asked.
"As long as you leave him alone." Oliver quietly stated.
Suddenly Malcolm pulled a Police service gun and shot Oliver in the side so quickly that not even Oliver had the time to react, probably due to his injured state.
"Fine, you can have the bullet meant for him." Malcolm said, clearly pleased with himself.
Oliver fell to the floor with a small grunt of pain.
"Oliver!" Felicity cried, trying to get as close to him as the bars would allow.
"That should teach you to not be so quick to step in when others are being punished." Malcolm threw over his shoulder on the way out the door, before slamming it shut behind him.
Felicity's POV
"Oliver!" Felicity cried pressing herself into the bars that were separating them, trying to reach him but being just out of reach.
This was worse than when he was out fighting bad guys and came back injured. At least then they had a way of taking care of Oliver. Now though they had nothing. No medical supplies, no extra blood, no defibrillator in case his heart stopped beating – again. Oh God! Please don't let that happen. She thought, clearly remembering the night that she first saw Oliver with a gunshot wound.
She had just finished her day at Queen Consolidated and was getting into her little Mini Cooper in the garage when she heard a moan of pain from behind her. She jumped, not having realized that there was someone there when she got in the car. Turning she saw an awful lot of green leather in her back seat.
"Felicity" the voice had said.
"How do you know my name?" She had asked, clearly taken aback by the fact that this guy actually knew her name.
"Because you know mine." Oliver had stated as he looked up to her, pulling off his hood.
That was the night she officially became part of Team Arrow, the night Moira shot her son. Oh my God, I wonder if she remembers that she shot the Arrow. How long will it take her before she realizes she shot Oliver? What will she say? Will she apologize? She should, I mean really who shoots their own son and doesn't feel bad about it. I wonder what Oliver will say if she does apologize. Oh no, I'm doing it again, I'm going to stop rambling, even if it isn't out loud. Totally not the point Smoak. Okay! Shutting up now. Felicity took a deep breath, calming herself.
Felicity was relieved when she realized that Diggle was talking to Oliver.
"How bad is it man?" Diggle asked clearly worried.
"I'm fine." Oliver replied, he was clearly in pain though. Not that anyone else would be able to tell though, Felicity thought, I mean, I can hardly tell and I've been working with the man day and night for two years! He can be so stubborn - and he really needs to redefine fine.
Oliver slowly moved to the back wall of his cell and pulled himself in to a sitting position. He was out of breath and his I'm fine mask was slowly slipping. It was starting to become obvious that he was in pain.
"Oliver?" Detective Lance called, the pain still evident in his voice.
"Yes, Detective." Oliver replied quietly, it was obvious to Felicity that he was trying desperately to keep the pain from his voice.
"I know that I haven't always liked you. In fact there was a time that I really hated you. But you have saved my life on more than one occasion, including tonight, and I just wanted to say Thank You! Thank you for looking out for me and for my daughters when you had no obligation to." Lance stated, the sincerity clear to everyone in the room.
Oliver could only nod his head in acknowledgement, but Felicity and Diggle could tell that the words had meant a lot to Oliver. Felicity was extremely thankful that Lance had spoken to Oliver.
Felicity turned back to Oliver at the same time that he turned to look at her. She looked him in the eyes, trying to send some strength his way. She knew he had to be in no small amount of pain and she wanted to remind him, yet again, that she and Digg were there for him and would help him any way that they could.
She sat for who knows how long, watching Oliver. She wanted to make sure that he really would be fine and it was killing her that she could not help him at all. Felicity was watching Oliver so intently that she jumped fifteen minutes later when the door swung open again. One of Malcolm's goons walked in with a small bowl in his hand. He walked over to Felicity's cell and unlocked it.
"Come here." The man demanded.
Felicity slowly stood to her feet and walked to the entrance of her cell. The man grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her over to the door of Oliver's cell. He thrust the bowl into her hands before opening the door to Oliver's cell and pushing her through.
"Clean him up. Mr. Merlyn is not ready for him to die." The man stated as he locked the cell door behind her. "Don't even think about using any of that against me. I am not afraid to hurt you or anyone else if you do." He stated as he walked over and stood by the main door.
Felicity looked down and saw a few medical supplies in the bowl. It wasn't anything fancy but she knew that it would work to rid Oliver of the bullet in his side and stitch him up. The only thing was, this was Digg's job, and she hated blood. As she looked to Oliver though she realized that she was his only help - it was time to face her fear in order to help him.
She walked quickly back to where Oliver was sitting. Getting on her knees she looked at Oliver and said, "I'm going to take that bullet out Oliver. I'm sure it's going to hurt, and I'm sorry, but I can't leave it in there when you are clearly in so much pain."
Oliver reached up and cupped her cheek with his hand and Felicity leaned into his touch. "Felicity, you're going to do fine. Digg can walk you through what to do and I'll help when I can. You can do this! I have faith in you." Oliver said quietly yet with conviction.
Felicity nodded. "Okay. I can do this." She said with a shake of her head.
"Okay, Felicity, the first thing we need to do is clean the wound." Diggle stated from the cell next to her.
Felicity looked around for a water bottle, she noted that Oliver's had a little bit of water left but she didn't want to use it knowing that he would need it later.
"Here Felicity." Moira stated quickly, concern evident in her voice. "You can use the rest of this one. There is some left from the extra bottle we got earlier." She handed Diggle, who then passed it to Felicity, the bottle of water that she had used to clean Walter's burns; there was just enough left to clean Oliver's gunshot wound so that she could see what she was doing.
After flushing the wound with water she looked to Diggle for some direction. She had seen him do this many times before but the thought of doing it herself still scared her.
"Use the forceps to find and pull out the bullet." Diggle stated, knowing that Felicity was scared to do this but that she was more than capable.
Felicity picked up the medical tool and tuned to Oliver. She looked intently at the wound focusing on her task to the point that she didn't realize that her hand was shaking until she felt Oliver place his hand on hers. She looked up into Oliver's blue eyes. Such beautiful blue eyes. She thought suddenly. Oliver smiled at the same time Diggle gave a small laugh next to her, "Oh God, I just said that out loud didn't I?" Felicity said horrified.
Oliver gave a small chuckle before saying, "Felicity, I know this is hard for you but you can do this. Don't think too hard about it, okay."
"Okay." Felicity shook her head some, reassuring herself that she wasn't really going to kill Oliver by taking out one single bullet.
She then set to her task. She was able to pull out the bullet, clean the wound and sew it all up rather quickly she thought. Once she was done she looked back to Oliver. He hadn't said a word the entire time. In fact the only sound that he had made was a couple of grunts of pain as she was digging the bullet out. Now he sat with his head leaning against the wall and his eyes were closed.
Felicity reached up and placed her hand on his cheek. "Oliver, I'm done." She said quietly as she was blinking back tears, the emotion clear in her voice.
"Thank you Felicity." Oliver replied as he leaned into her touch.
Right at that moment the guard chose to came back and remover her from Oliver's cell. Time for her to go back to her own cell. The guard collected the medical supplies, locked her back in her cell and walked out the door, locking it securely behind her.
Felicity moved to the corner closest to Oliver – again. She couldn't stand not being right next to him when he was hurt like this. She wished there was something that she could do to take away his pain.
AN: Thank you again for reading, now please leave me a kind review to let me know what you think! Thanks!
