Oliver's frown at the couple image on his screen. Hal dragged pulled Chloe into his side. She didn't look happy, though he wondered if it had to do with the greedy hands attached to her person or him calling her "his woman". Hal smirked, "Finders Keepers, Queen. She called me right after you left, you know…One would say—"
He stopped listening to Hal's goading to rack a tired hand over his face. After a nerve-racking flight, a tense press-conference, and an even tenser debriefing, all he wanted was to call Chloe and let her soothe him. The distance she put between herself and his so-called best-friend helped. He'd never been the jealous type, until her.
Oliver smiled at her beautiful image. "Sidekick, are you moonlighting on me already?"
"Watchtower needs Green Arrow, even a poor reproduction."
"That's not a very nice thing to say, Blondie! I did fly across the country for you, you know…"
Chloe grinned and Hal's mocked protest fizzled into the background. Her smile illuminated her heart-shaped face and the tight band around his ribcage loosened enough for him to smile back. "Hey…"
"Hi…"
A delicate peach hue colored her cheeks, so pretty he had to physically stopped himself from touching her image on the screen.
"O-kay… I think I'll go upstairs and chill with some ESPN while you two make eyes at each other, maybe order some pizza."
Hal's departure only clicked a moment later. Oliver smiled softly. "Did you eat something that's not all carbs and fat?"
Chloe rolled her eyes at that, finally breaking the enchantment. "Yes, I had iced dairy."
Oliver laughed. "You mean you ate ice cream for diner."
"With strawberries. Give me some credit, Hero…"
"Always." He hated himself for changing the subject. "Did you watch the press conference?"
Chloe nodded. "Yes, yes I did. You handled Lois really well."
"It was a little weird to hear her call me Mr. Queen, to be frank. As if we hadn't spent the past week eating breakfast together every morning and playing Mario Kart every night. At least by now I am used to her pit-bull tendencies."
"At least by now she likes you."
Oliver shook his head. "I'm not sure if that's reassuring or more terrifying."
"Oliver!"
A discreet 'bip' pierced through Chloe's half-hearted outrage for her cousin. He watched, fascinated, as her mood changed from playful to serious as she scanned the information on one of her monitors. When the tip of her tongue appeared between pursed lips, Oliver interjected. "Talk to me, Tower."
"I would if I had anything to report," she muttered, clearly unhappy with what she was seeing.
"Is it the feed from Metron?"
"Yes." At last she pushed the keyboard away. "There's nothing there. No fire. The sprinklers shot off but there was nothing to extinguish."
He sighed. "Yeah, that's more or less what the police said."
Chloe's head shot up. "What! You knew and you didn't tell me? I could have worked on something else instead of—"
"Chloe… Chloe. I am just checked in the hotel. I couldn't call you earlier…"
Her cheeks turned crimson. "Sorry, sorry…" She rubbed the heels of her hands over her shiny eyes, no doubt trying to stop them from welling. "Hormones… I yelled at Hal earlier."
He grinned, his hands itchy to take her in his arms to cajole her. "Hal probably deserved it. Why don't I give you the run-down of what the police said?"
It took less than two minutes to summarize that after the deluge had been stopped and the fire department had entered the building, they had found no trace of fire. Maintenance was going through their logs, but the only "helpful" conclusion they'd reached so far was that somehow, some software upgraded that had been done during the holidays had reset the clock of the annual testing of the fire protection system.
Chloe perked up at that. "I can check the upgrade, see if it could really have caused that?"
"Sure, okay."
"You don't want me to."
"No, I do. I think it's a good idea. You look at things from a hacker point of view, that's something the IT department cannot do. Maybe you'll notice something they won't."
"But?"
"No but. Just a gut feeling, I guess. It's a bit anticlimactic… All this panic for a malfunction."
Voicing it out loud shaped the unsettling pull in his stomach to something he recognized. Stress. Not a full-blown anxiety, just… That disturbing sense that the other shoe was about to drop, that the few quiet days they'd enjoyed in Coast City was just the eye of the storm.
"Is this the moment when you say you have a bad feeling about this?" Chloe tried to joke, but her heart wasn't in it, her eyes suddenly huge and too deep. Oliver kicked himself for putting the idea in her head.
"Actually, I think it's the part when you tell me I worry too much."
Chloe let out a chuckled at the same time a discreet knock echoed through the empty hotel suite.
"Must be Barbara. Give me a minute."
Oliver put the laptop on the side table before he went to the main room to open the door.
"Barbara, didn't we— What are you doing here?"
"Step back. Slowly."
Oliver did as instructed. The tent in the Burberry's pocket looked too real not to be a gun. However good his reflexes, he had no chance in hell to avoid a bullet at close range.
"It's your goddamn fault."
"I don't understand what you're talking about. Calm down. Let's—"
"Shut up, Queen! We were working on it, then you showed up! You broke her heart!"
"I—"
"I said shut up!"
Oliver clamped his mouth shut, hoping Chloe was picking up the insane muttering of Gordon Byers.
"Look, I don't know what lie she fed you, but I have never touched your wife and even less broke her heart."
The man aimed his gun square at his chest. Oliver took another step back. It brought him closer to the couch and his laptop. He refrained the urge to touch it or even look at it. Byers' eyes —and his glock— were fixed on him. He had to keep it that way.
"What do you want from me?"
Make him talk. Give Chloe time to… To what? Send the Cavalry? The gun jolted in the councilman's hand. The moment something startled Byers, Oliver was a dead man. His only chance was to diffuse the situation.
"What do you want, Byers?" Oliver asked again, this time taking a step forward. "The Mayor seat? Lands on the shore front to satisfy the developers? What?"
Oliver thanked his Green Leather training for keeping his voice—and his voice— steady. The muzzle of Byers' gun bobbed for the second time in as many minutes. His other hand kept flexing in his pocket. Oliver swallowed.
"You're going to kill Lionel Luthor."
"Sorry what?"
"Pick up the phone." Oliver didn't budge. Byers yelled. "Pick up the phone! Tell Lionel you agree to discuss his offer to retake control of Metron, right now, right here."
Byers was insane. There was no other explanation.
"I am not killing anyone. Neither are you. Give me that gun, Byers."
"Do as I say!"
Oliver stepped forward. Byers pushed the glock in his stomach. The younger man grabbed his wrist but before he could twist it away, a blinding pain shot through him.
Chloe typed frantically on her keyboard. She was blind. The closed door blocked the hotel's safety cameras, and Ollie's laptop faced away from the two men. She yelled in the intercom. "Hal! Hal! Ollie needs you!"
Green shimmered beside her in an instant. "What?"
"Metropolis. Byers. In Ollie's room. He has a gun. Go!"
Hal's brown eyes turned to milky green and he zoomed away.
Chloe returned her attention to the faint conversation she could hear.
"Do as I say!"
Bang!
"No!" Her heart punched a hole in her ribcage. "No! No! No! No! No! Please! Please, not him! I need him, he's all I have, please…"
Her screams covered the rustle coming from the sensitive speakers. The image jerked suddenly. She held her breath. A shadow loomed over the sofa.
"Mr. Luthor, good evening Sir. I am Mr. Queen's assistant. Mr. Queen would like to hear your terms… Yes, Sir in person… The Diamond Suite at the Halldorf, Sir… Yes, Sir… I'll let Mr. Queen know."
Lionel. Lionel was coming. He couldn't see her. Did Hal take a communicator with him? Clark. She couldn't call Clark if Lionel was involved. Panic scorched her pipe, making her gag.
Chloe tried to breathe, but her lungs were frozen in place. Her hands shook so bad she abandoned her typing.
"You know what that bastard did. You're going to make him pay… That's what she wants. Kill him. Give her what she wants."
Chloe closed her eyes and screamed her heart out.
Pain.
Gripping. Endless. So hot it was almost exquisite.
A lick of fire coursing through his veins to seep out of his body and skinned him alive.
"Ollie? Oliver? Oh god… Clark, Clark, please… He's hurt…"
"He's covered in Red-K…"
"Stand back Clark! Don't go anywhere near his blood! Can you… Can you find the man who did this? His name is Gordon Byers. I'm sending his picture to your phone."
"Okay. Chlo—"
"I know. Thank you…"
His. His Chloe. His wife. Pleading. Pleading another. Pleading with Clark.
The shadow framed in the door looked like Clark. The man who'd hurt Chloe. Who'd abandoned her. His Chloe. His. She was his.
Kill him. Give her what she wants.
Blood tainted the hand he fisted. Tainted his vision. Tainted everything.
"Oliver? Oh fuck! Chloe, he'd been shot, call the hospital, I'm bringing him in!"
Sobs. Chloe crying. He'd kill whoever hurt her with his bare hands. "Stop trashing man, I'm here to help. You're bleeding out. Damned it, Oliver!"
Hal had had his hands on her. Touched her when she didn't want to be touched. Oliver snarled in rage.
Kill him. Give her what she wants.
His whole body burned. His legs. His arms. The scalp stretched too thin on his skull. His hip was the worst. The world blinked in black and red.
He wrestled the beats. The green. The red. Kick. Punch. Strangle. Bite and claw. They were keeping him down. Tried to keep him away from protecting Chloe. The monsters deserved to die. Kill them, that's what she wants.
He didn't need a bow or arrows when he had his fists. He screamed in fury. He screamed in anguish. Then the screams became hers and he blacked out.
