Many thanks to Xeladew for beta reading, you are amazing! Any mistakes within are due to my endless tinkering after the beta read. ;)

TOO LATE

His target were the drug dealers moving into the area dealing a yet another new knockoff version of vertigo. Cheaper than other drugs on the market made it popular in The Glades, but it came with an unsuspected side effect. Suicide. Although it took a while for the hospital to link the cause of death to the drug, out of fifteen suicides, thirteen of them tested positive with vertigo. The correlation was too large to dismiss. And Oliver was determined to stop its spread through his city before it took an even bigger toll on the already vulnerable population.

The streets were mostly quiet tonight. He followed a few teenagers for a couple of blocks. They found a secluded corner at the side of a building to smoke pot; these weren't the people Oliver was looking for, so he moved on.

He saw a car being broken into by an apartment complex and shot a flash-bomb-arrow at the thief's feet. The guy ran away. He figured that should be enough of a warning.

No drug dealers. He decided to try the other side of the highway closer to the old mall that collapsed in the disaster.

The sound was slight, but he caught it. It reminded him of the island. He listened closer. It was like a whimper. The kind of sound a wounded animal made.

The sound came from the alley off the main road. It was dark, if there were any security lights they were either broken or no one bothered to turn them on. He walked slowly, listening for any sound. He heard labored breathing coming from beside the dumpster.

A teenage girl sat hunched against the wall, her clothing was ripped; blood was smeared across her face and her side; she held her arm protectively against her body. A dark stain spread out on the pavement around her, and Oliver knew from experience that it was too much blood for someone that small to lose. She was young, younger than Thea.

"Stay away." She moved back further, pressing her back against the dumpster but in too much pain to do much else.

He stayed back and contacted Felicity. "Felicity, call an ambulance to my GPS location."

"What?"

"I came across someone who needs help." He explained before turning back to the girl. He turned off his voice modulator. "Help is coming. They're on their way."

She stilled and stared at him. "Who are you?"

He crept a bit closer. There had to be something more he could do to help. "I'm not here to hurt you." He assured her again. "Who did this?"

"You're the arrow guy, aren't you? I saw you on the news. Everyone thought you died in the disaster. " She took a deep breath and closed her eyes for a moment. "Brown eyes, crooked nose. He was wearing a grey jacket and an orange baseball cap." She shifted slightly and cried out in pain. Oliver inched closer.

He spoke into his link again. "How long? She needs help now.""They're on their way." Felicity promised him.

"He had a knife." The girl coughed weakly, and there was blood on her lips. She coughed again to clear her throat. "You'll get him? You'll find him, right?"

"The paramedics are coming." He said, but they could both hear the distinct lack of sirens.

"I don't want to die alone." She whispered.

He bridged the gap between them. "You're not alone."

She coughed again, this time more blood coming from her mouth. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and supported her as she struggled to breathe.

"Hold on. Just hold on, they'll be here soon."

She stopped breathing. Oliver held onto her. He could hear sirens now, but they were still distant. Gently, he laid her down and brushed the hair away from her face.

There was nothing he could do.

There were two ways to get into the Lair. One was through the club. The other was a secret entrance out back, beyond the loading doors. Felicity heard the alarm beep as the door opened, and she heard the thump of the door when it closed.

Felicity had been following the emergency bulletins. Despite Oliver's lack of update, she already knew the girl died, and she knew the paramedics had found her alone.

He walked up next to her. She glanced over. There was blood on his jacket.

"Can you look something up for me?"

"What do you need?"

"A name."

She already knew the answer to the question. "Anna Scott. The paramedics found her dead." What Felicity didn't tell him was that Anna Scott had been homeless since her parents died in the Undertaking. She didn't tell Oliver that there had been no one for the hospital to notify of her death. The girl had been truly and terribly alone.

Oliver sat down beside her. She opened a new window on the computer. "I found this on a sidewalk camera."

There was a video of a teenager walking down the sidewalk. Slightly behind her walked a man wearing a grey jacket and an orange baseball cap. He looked right into the camera as he followed the girl, and his nose was crooked.

"I used the police department's database. Harold Walker. He escaped from police custody three weeks ago while being taken to a court appearance." She watched him stand up. "So, what are you going to do?"

Oliver glanced back at her. "Call Officer Lance. Harold Walker will be ready and waiting when the police arrive."

AN: Thanks for reading! If you like my stories please review, let me know what I am doing right or what I am doing wrong, or what you think about what you read in general. I would love to have some feedback. Or, if you have any cool ideas for stories you would like to see me do, I would love to hear them!