Chapter 42.
The Punishment.
Consciousness came slowly to Oliver. He got his sense of smell back first. Musty, dank, with an odd hint of citrus. And then his hearing. Buzzing behind him, a television playing a movie at a low volume. When he opened his eyes, his head began to throb.
He was in a bright motel room, chained to a radiator by both wrists. He stared up at them, registering first the color pink where the chains bit into his wrists, and then the pain. It rolled through him, quickly pushed to the back of his mind. A man was sitting on the edge of the only bed, staring intently at the TV, a gun loose in his grip. He took no notice of Oliver stirring.
"Who are you?" Oliver croaked.
Nothing.
"What do you want?"
Silence.
"Do you work for the man with the bowtie?"
At that, he got a glance. And then the butt of a gun to the face. Oliver reeled, his vision flickering out, and then back in. For a brief, terrifying moment, red dots swarmed his eyes. But they dissipated, like the pain. He put on a steely face and sat quietly, awaiting his fate.
A few minutes later, the bowtie man came into the room. He had changed clothes. Now he wore a pinstriped suit and a pink bowtie. His neat blonde hair was slicked back, his eyes a weirdly radiant blue. His skin was somewhat sallow, making Oliver think of a walking corpse. He seemed like one of those men who refused to age – who got every surgery in the book to stop it from happening.
"You were somewhere you should not have been," the man said in French. He switched to English suddenly. "You saw some faces you should not have seen."
Oliver stared up at him, defiant as ever.
The man crouched down, distant enough that Oliver couldn't reach him with his feet. Smart man. "I was told you might be a problem. Big attitude, no self-control. Curious. Reckless."
Oliver said, "Told by who? Who are you?"
The door opened again, and Amanda Waller walked in.
Now the picture was hazy. Oliver hid his surprise, sorting the puzzle pieces in his head. Waller. The bowtie man. Richard Martin. Bombs. Terrorism. The United States and Belgium. There were plenty of pieces, plenty of shapes, plenty of motives and means, but no bigger picture.
Waller said, "Why didn't you kill Richard Martin?"
And then it all fell into place. He almost heard the clicking inside his head.
"This was a test," Oliver said.
It was a statement.
Oliver knew now that he was a hamster running in a wheel. She had given him no information, no reason, no rhyme. She wanted to see if he would kill for her, if he would obey. And he didn't. He poked. He prodded. He searched for a way out of it, a way around it. She must have hated that.
Waller nodded gravely. She glanced at the man on the bed, at the bowtie man, and then ticked her head toward the door. Both left without a second glance at Oliver.
When it was just the two of them, she perched on the edge of the bed, looking down on him. She was still young, still trying to prove herself in ARGUS – but there was a strength in her that showed through her eyes. She was fierce. If she had channeled her energy into a more moral path, she might have accomplished a lot of good. She was technically on his side, technically one of the good guys, but she undermined it with her behavior, her manipulation, her fear tactics.
"You went against orders. I told you there would be consequences." She was blunt, straightforward. She was only this direct when she was threatening him. "I was serious about that, Oliver." She stood up, leaning over to place a key in his palm. "Go to the hotel. We'll pick you up at midnight. You know what will happen if you're not there."
And she left.
Oliver undid the lock and cradled his wrist, allowing himself a few moments to wallow in the pain. His right was the worst. The chain had cut just below his thumb, digging in like a tick. He had to peel the chain out of it. When it was out, he noticed something off about it. They weren't normal chains. The edges were serrated. Made to hurt. He wondered if that was Waller's idea, or something the man in the bowtie orchestrated.
He went straight to Richard Martin's house, a growing sense of dread driving him to kick the front door down. It was dead silent inside. He stood there, skin prickling, adrenaline coursing, heart racing. If anyone was home, they would have heard that, would have stirred by now. But there was nothing. No breathing. No feet shuffling, floorboards groaning.
Oliver drew his gun and crept around the downstairs, clearing each room methodically.
He found Richard Martin in the kitchen, dead on the floor, half of his head missing. There was blood everywhere, spattering the walls, creating a massive puddle.
Did Waller do this?
Oliver lingered, wondering if he should feel bad that this had happened. But it seemed Richard Martin was doomed the moment Waller set eyes on him. Oliver could not have stopped this.
He went back to the hotel, anxious to see Sara. Had she been there when Martin was killed? Had Waller found her and sent her back here?
She was sitting in the center of her bed, knees tucked up against her chest, hair wet from a shower. The shower was still running, producing steam that filled half of the room. Oliver took in the scene, read the fresh trauma in her eyes, and he knew what had happened.
Waller had made her kill Richard Martin.
That was his punishment.
"Sara…" he breathed. Her hands were red, raw, her nailbeds bleeding. She must have scrubbed them over and over to get the blood and gunpowder off. Her skin was red, too, glowing. The shower was probably scorching.
Had she killed before? He couldn't recall. He couldn't think of much when he saw her sitting there, looking like that. It was different when you weren't fighting for your life, when someone begged you for mercy. It was different when you walked up to someone and shot their face away.
Oliver went to her, sitting in front of her on the bed. He tried to catch her eye, but she was focused on something far away. He reached up and gently stroked a long blonde strip of hair from her face.
"It's okay," he whispered.
Sara shook her head. One hard, definitive shake. "She said she was gonna kill you."
Oliver felt a sharp sting in his heart.
She looked up, staring at him, tears brimming in her eyes. "I had to… I had to…"
"I know."
She sniffled, resting her chin on her knees. "Are you okay? Your wrists are bleeding."
"I'm fine. It's not deep."
Oliver got up to cut off the shower, and when he returned, Sara had let her legs down. She leaned against the headboard, wiping tears away.
He said nothing. He sat up beside her, put his arm around her shoulders, and let her lean on him. Sara gradually relaxed, closing her eyes, not sleeping. Every now and then she would shudder.
Oliver was floored. It took a few hours for his shock and fear to transform into rage. Waller knew how to hurt him. He had underestimated her. When he thought about her punishments, he imagined she would kill someone in his family, or kill Sara. He never thought she would hurt Sara this way – make her into a killer. That was the last thing on this planet that Oliver wanted. He was trying to shelter her from that, to keep her from becoming like him.
How did Waller know?
It didn't matter.
Oliver held onto Sara, wishing he could take this burden away, being as gentle and understanding as he could manage. But inside he let the rage run wild. Waller was going to pay for this. She thought she could manipulate him, use him, set him loose on her enemies like a trained dog. She had no idea how badly her little spy game was going to end.