Just a a short chapter this time. I found the perfect place to finish and I can't wait to watch you all squirm. *evil laughter*
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"There's an archery range in this base." Artemis said, shouldering her bow and quiver. "C'mon, I'll take you."
Wally stood up and moved toward the door when the archer stopped him.
"Wait." She said. "You should probably have these on."
Artemis took a pair of handcuffs out her bag.
"If my dad saw you just wandering around he'd blow a fuse." She explained, and Wally nodded and held out his hands. The metal didn't seem to bite as much as it had done before, and soon he was out of the cell and being led down the corridor. They walked for several minutes in silence, Wally dropping his gaze every now and then when a guard passed on patrol, until Artemis stopped outside a pair of steel doors and let him through.
It was larger than his cell, for sure, with a higher ceiling than his 'questioning' room and empty, aside from the targets at one end and benches lined along the walls. Looking closer, Wally saw the targets were life size cutouts of justice leaguers: Batman, Superman, Captains Marvel and Atom, Wonder Woman, two green lanterns- his heart skipped a beat- the Flash. Each riddled with bullet holes, stab wounds, even singe marks.
"Maybe this wasn't such a good idea..." Artemis started, but she was brushed off.
"Nah, it's okay, we can just... Pretend they're not my mentor, or his friends." Wally shifted on his feet. "Did, er, you do any of this?"
Artemis looked uncomfortable.
"I may have taken a little rage out on Black Canary." She muttered, and Wally suddenly recognised the league member he hadn't been able to identify, half her face being missing.
"Oh."
There was a chill in the room he hadn't noticed before, and after a moment Artemis had her hand on his arm.
"We should go."
Again he shook her off. He didn't want to go back to the cell, not now, and he was savouring every moment of being able to look at different walls, even if they were still greyfaced and grim.
"Oh, c'mon." Wally pleaded. "I know you want to practice, you know you want to..." It wasn't working, he had to try another angle. He sighed dramatically. "I guess you're just not that good after all and you don't want to embarrass yourself. It's okay, really, nothing to be ashamed of-"
"Fine!" Artemis threw out her arms. She looked back at the row of heroes, scratched and torn nearly to pieces, her brow furrowed in thought. "I've got an idea." She said. "Wait here."
Artemis walked a few steps towards the door, then, almost as an afterthought, spun round, arrow in bow, and fired. The speedster cried out, but it didn't touch his skin, just caught the edge of his shirtsleeve and pinned him to the wall.
"Hey! I guess you don't trust me, whatever!" He called after her. "I'll just wait, I don't care!"
As soon as she disappeared through the door he was struggling to pull the arrow out. The awkward angle of his cuffed hands didn't help, and it was a few minutes before he accepted that the arrow was embedded several inches into the wall and wasn't coming out anytime soon. Dejected, Wally let the arrow hold him up as he sagged against the wall, sulking.
Artemis returned, her bow and quiver still over her shoulder, but this time the monopoly box was in her hands.
"I'm not playing that stupid game again." Wally moaned.
Artemis looked at him, wholly unimpressed.
"What are you, five? If you throw a strop I'll just leave you there for a few hours."
Wally glared at her.
"You wouldn't."
"Yes I would, now shut up or the next one's going to hurt you." She walked over and, after a moment of silent struggle, managed to pull the arrow free. "Do you know how to make paper aeroplanes?" She asked.
Wally stared at her. She's gone insane, he thought, God help me I'm at the mercy of a madwoman.
Artemis read his face, then opened the monopoly box and thrust a handful of the paper money at him.
"Well, can you?"
-o-
Five minutes later, Wally was folding and launching paper money planes into the air and watching Artemis's arrows tear them into ribbons or skewer them, joining a host of other aeroplane kebabs on the wall of the range, and wondering how on earth he managed to end up here. Wally, that is, and not the paper plane. The speedster threw two at once, and cheered when they were both taken out by the same arrow.
"Nice one!" He called, and across the room, Artemis nodded, smiling, and drew another arrow from her quiver as he prepared the next plane. This time, he stacked three banknotes so they would break apart in midair, creating three seperate targets.
"Hurry up and throw them!"
He finished folding them, pulled his arm back, then watched as the three planes split formation in mid flight, one exploding almost instantly in a burst of confetti, the others flying free for a moment. Then second and third arrows flew out of nowhere and the other two planes were out of action. Wally whooped.
"Woah, that was awesome!" He yelled, before catching himself. "I mean, it was pretty good, for a newbie like you."
Her eyes shot arrows of their own at him, but she was grinning underneath it all, and Wally tried to start a conversation as he folded more planes.
"So... You got any cool trick arrows?" He asked.
"No. Dad thinks they're for wimps, he only lets me use the real thing. Maybe incendiary arrows, but never anything that couldn't be used to kill."
Two more planes fluttered to the ground, in pieces.
"When did you start learning?"
"Since I was five, six. I don't know, it's dad, he wanted to train me up like my sister, wanted me to be like him."
Another plane spiralled to the floor, the arrow that had taken it out shivered in the wall, only a few inches protruding out of the boards.
"Did you ever think about being anything else?" Wally asked, a little more tentatively. He threw the next plane into the air, watched it arch up and start to descend, she would hit it any moment now-
And then something shot past Wally's face and hit the wall next to him with a crack, he felt burning in his cheek and lifted his hands to his face. Blood. The offending arrow was still vibrating by his ear, he shot a glance to Artemis, ready to run.
"That was a warning." She said bluntly, another arrow cocked. "Next time you say anything like that, I won't miss."
In the corner of the room, the lone plane hit the ground, the only one to survive unscathed. Wally noticed his hands were shaking. He fumbled with another paper note, but was stopped.
"I think that's enough, now." Artemis walked over, pulled the arrows from the walls and stashed them back in the quiver.
They walked back to the cell in silence. Wally sat down on his mattress, noticing that Artemis hadn't taken off the handcuffs, but he was too afraid to mention it and watched her sit back down in the corner, pick up an arrow, and begin to sharpen it.
It felt like he'd taken a few tiny steps, only to be thrown back to where he started, and that realisation weighed upon him, suffocating. Wally's eyelids wavered, then closed.
-o-
His eyes snapped open. Artemis's face was a hair's breadth from his, her eyes a storm and her mouth a snarl and Wally did not see the hand that pulled back and struck him, snapping his head back against the wall. Stars flickered in and out of his vision but before he could collect his thoughts they were scattered again as Artemis punched him once, twice, three times. He moved his hands up to block the strikes, found them handcuffed, tried to catch one of her fists in his hands, succeeded. The archer paused for a moment, then grabbed Wally's wrists and pulled him up and forwards, letting go while momentum still had its hold on him, then simultaneously pushing his head down and driving a knee into his ribs. Wally hit the ground.
There was no mercy in Artemis's gaze as she stared down at him, predatory. She started to kick, hard and fast and vicious, Wally cried out and curled up as he felt blood swell up inside him. A boot to the ribs, a dull crack, he managed to catch enough breath to shout-
"Artemis!"
She did not even falter, but went for his face instead. Past a bloodied nose, Wally tried again.
"Artemis, please!"
Then she bent down, hands at his throat, lifting him and crushing him against a wall.
"Stop-"
He couldn't breathe. Desperately, he clawed at her hands, tried to find the humanity in the dark glare of her eyes, the twist of a snarl, his vision was fading, fading, his lungs ached for the taste of air but now he was slipping, slipping-