"Oh, good. You're here," Moira said as she entered Thea's bedroom carrying a couple of dresses on hangers.

"Yeah, I had a f-" Thea stopped. She didn't want to let her mother know that her only friendship that didn't include alcohol and recreational drugs had lasted less than a month, "A feeling you'll probably want me to go to Walter's… thing."

"Yes. His stock auction," Moira smiled and said, glad that Thea was paying at least some attention to what's going on. Whether or not Charleen Quinzel was truly Robert's daughter, and whatever she knew or planned, the effect the girl had on her daughter's attitude was undeniable. "Do you want to wear the Clavin Klein or the Zac Posen?" she asked Thea, showing her the dresses.

Thea shrugged. She knew it was important to her mother that she'll come to this thing, but feigning actual interest was where she drew the line.

"You know," Moira said, coming to sit next to her on the bed, "When you were four years old, you came home one day with a cat. It was a stray, it was filthy… and it was mean. But you stood there and you declared that it was coming to live with us."

"Look, I see where you're going with this," Thea stopped her, "Charley's the mean stray cat and I shouldn't be friends with her."

"No," Moira said, "Let me finish."

Thea nodded, and let her mother speak.

"Your father came home from the office and he saw what was going on, and he sat you down and he explained to you – that the cat was in fact a tiger, and that we needed to get it home. And somehow, you understood. Robert was always so good at getting through to you, I… I was always so jealous of that."

"You never talk about him," Thea said, tears rolling down her cheeks, "Dad. That's the first time you've talked about him in years."

"Well, I think you and I have gotten into some bad habits," Moira told her, "There's been a lot that has changed recently, Thea, and I… think that maybe this can change too. And I think… For whatever reason, this Charley Quinzel seems to have brought back a side of you that I've missed. So, what I was going to say is, perhaps you should invite her too."

At best, if Charley was innocent after all, Moira would be happy for Thea to have a better friend than the ones she had. And at worst, if the girl has entered their lives to cause trouble, Moira preferred to keep her close where she could have an eye on her.

Charley sent Thea an apology text the morning after their fight. She knew that Thea was right, at least about some things. I should have just had her back, not tell her off.

But it was too late, or at least that's what she thought until later that day when Thea replied.

She didn't really acknowledge Charley's apology, but did invite her to some stock auction event as her family's guest and said they could talk there.

It's better than silence, at least.

Maybe once she apologized in person, Thea would see that she was truly sorry for her behavior.

Charley has been to her fair share of fancy events with her grandfather, and she did at least have a nice enough dress to pass as someone who belonged there, but as she walked into the stock auction event the atmosphere in the room still felt threateningly rich.

She tried to look around for Thea, but couldn't see her anywhere, and figured it would be rude to bother the other girl with texts before she had a chance to properly apologize. I'll just have to keep looking.

Charley was still looking for her friend when all hell broke loose. Someone shot one of the waiters, and then everyone started to run and hide, screaming. It's that marksman the news talked about, the one who murdered those two businessmen.

He kept shooting people, almost like he didn't care who he was hitting. Charley was hiding behind a column, and she saw two people hit with the sniper's bullets right in front of her. The bullets just ripped through them like their bodies were made of paper, and as she stared at them paralyzed it looked like they were already dead within seconds.

Charley tried to steady her breathing, looking around in fear for somewhere safer than behind this column. Some way out.

Then Charley saw Mr. Diggle hurrying towards the stairs. She figured following him would probably be a smarter choice than staying out her, especially since he was currently working for Thea's family. Wherever he's going, Thea might already be there, she thought.

Trying to stay behind cover but still move quickly, Charley followed Mr. Diggle as he went up the stairs. She was too far behind for him to notice her, and she didn't want to distract him by saying something at just the wrong second.

The further they went, the louder the sound of gunshots became. It sounded like the marksman was now in a gunfight with someone, likely either the police or the Hood. And we're moving towards him, not towards safety, Charley realized. But she was already here, and felt that she couldn't go back down now.

"Drop your guns!" Oliver told Floyd Lawton, taking cover behind a column.

"I admire your work," the assassin told him, "Guess you won't be extending me any professional courtesy."

"We're not in the same line of work! Your profession is murder."

"You've taken lives," Lawton reminded him.

"For the good of others," Oliver insisted, "You're out for yourself."

Lawton started shooting again, aiming his wrist turret at Oliver's cover.

Oliver got out of cover for a quick instant, shooting a precise arrow at Lawton and immediately withdrawing back behind the column.

But when he got out of cover again, the archer saw that he has hit the mark perfectly. His arrow protruded from Lawton's laser eyepatch as the assassin lay on the ground.

Oliver stood there for a few seconds, looking down at gunmen, when he was startled by a voice from behind him.

"Oliver?" John Diggle stood at the doorway, holding his gun, "You're the vigilante."

Oliver was about to figure out his next move, if he should say something to explain, or whether it would be better to restrain Diggle first and talk later. But then he noticed someone else behind John.

Looking closer he saw that lying on the floor was a girl in a lilac dress, unconscious and with a gunshot wound in her shoulder.

Pointing her out to Diggle, the two of them put the revelation of his secret identity aside for now and rushed to her. "That's my sister's friend," Oliver said when they were close enough to see the girl's face properly.

"Charley," Diggle recognized her too.