03: The Mercy Seat

After they landed on the ground, Oliver released his bow from the wire and looked up to the building from their spot between the building they were on and the one next to it. “Looks clear, come on,” he said as he started to run towards the back of the building, quietly cursing that there were no trees to hide between for the both of them.

Bella pulled one of her guns out of her boot and held it at a ready stance, her back against the building as they made their way around. “At this point don’t worry about it. Robin? Do you see anyone that might be watching?” she asked.

No, you’re good to go,” Felicity replied. “Be careful though, I don’t have a clear visual on the building that holds the power, they might have done something with it.”

“Just do what you can to find out who is behind this mess. We’ll deal with this generator issue,” she replied as she pushed forward, heading for the door, her eyes keeping sharp for anyone that might be around.

Oliver shot the lock of the power house from a distance to make sure that it was open and not hooked up to something before continuing their approach to it.

Please be careful,” Felicity’s voice sounded a bit panicked. “I can’t see you and I don’t want you two to end up like crispy critters.”

“I’ll go in first,” Bella murmured, knowing he wouldn’t like it but she had less chance of serious injury compared to him. “Don’t argue with me. After this morning, I think you can understand that I want to get back with both of us in one piece.”

Oliver pointed to the house as he nodded. “Ladies first,” he saw her approach the house and went in, gun first. He gave her a few seconds and then followed her in. It wasn’t a big power house and you could feel the electricity tingling on your skin. “So uhm… now what?”

For the love of God, Ollie, don’t caveman it because it’ll explode.”

“It’s not like there’s an off switch!” Oliver grunted and then pulled Bella out of there, having an idea. “Let’s cause a distraction,” he said as he pulled her further away and got two flare arrows out of his quiver before lining them up.

She looked back at him and hissed, questioning his sanity. “Oliver! What are you doing?!” she whispered harshly.

He’s going to caveman it, isn’t he?” Felicity sighed audibly.

“Don’t you know it…”

He released the arrows and out of instinct, grabbed Bella to shield her from the blast as he pushed them down to the ground. Upon impact, the power house exploded into a big ball of fire and some debris flew in the air, landing on top of them but didn’t get them injured as Bella had found her way to her secret flap underneath his shoulder padding and made contact with his skin.

Coughing through the smoke, Bella tried to lift her head and look around. “Ugh,” she grunted out, pushing a large piece of sheet rock wall that fell on top of them through the explosion. “You need to stop blowing shit up like this. I don’t want to hear any more shit about my firearms,” she managed to get out between coughs as she pushed herself to her knees to look around and take in the damage.

“It’s fine,” Oliver said as he dusted himself off. “It’s just a tiny powerhouse and nobody got hurt,” he then looked to the door of the building and saw it move. “However, we need to move,” he tugged on Bella’s arm before loading up his bow and aimed it at the door.

She quickly went to pick up her gun that she had dropped in the explosion, readying herself as the door opened for whoever was coming in. Glancing behind them, she tried to see if there was somewhere that could be used for cover but didn’t see any. “Next time, give the girls a chance to use their brain before you go all bang, bang, smash mode Bruce,” she muttered.

Even though it had been his idea to ask Bella for her people’s help, it had also been the worst idea ever because now they had to take a beat to see if the people getting out of the door were friendlies or not and that second could get them killed. However the last time they spoke to Steve, he was on the other end of the building so it was pretty clear that these were some of the raiders checking out what was going on. He fired off one of his arrows into the first guy stepping out the door and lined up another as he and Bella were retreating towards the nearest corner.

Bella had slipped her hand back under the shoulder flap of Oliver’s uniform as she shot the following person exiting as they came out with their own weapon poised to shoot. “Crapshoot. This is a crapshoot! This is beginning to feel like a fucking trap,” she called out, firing her gun at another man coming around a corner, hitting him in the leg.

“Relax, don’t panic,” Oliver said calmly as he kept firing off his arrows – not really caring about casualties or not at the moment. “Breathe.”

“I am fucking breathing and calm. This is me pissed off at the situation,” she snapped at him.

“Get it under control or you’re going back up to the roof,” he said as he turned around and started to run back towards the building where Roy was. This was useless, how many people were involved in this raid?

She merely glared at him as she managed to check her remaining bullets she had in her current cartridge. “Robin? Any chance that you can wire Steve in on our signal? We need to know what he’s seeing. We just ran into a little snafu down here.”

The fastest I can do is to put him through on his phone,” Felicity said, followed by some frantic typing.

Seeing as there had been people pouring out of this door near to the power house, Oliver figured that there weren’t any boobytraps in that stairwell. Knowing that he and Bella didn’t need their main weapons to function to take someone down, he skidded to a halt and then turned around after tapping her on her shoulder to go to the door. “We’re going in,” he announced as he pulled some arrows out of the bodies on the floor. “Felicity, I want you to find out anything you can about this company, how deep it goes, what it’s tied in with. This is too ridiculous for just a disgruntled employee.”

Sadly, more and more, the simple stopping of crime or catching criminals were getting less simple than initially thought were happening more often than not and that annoyed Oliver. It was almost as if it was part of a bigger pattern, someone instructing them what to do, a group of people stress testing the police department, but for what end? “Also see if there are any connections to previous raids in the last couple of months,” Oliver added before he looked at Bella with his hand on the door. “Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” she murmured, tense and ready to battle. With a nod, confirming both to herself and to him, she braced herself for whatever might surprise them.

He opened the door and got in, there was no other way to get in but to turn right and head up the stairs. Oliver crouched as he climbed the stairs, staying out of sight as the wall started to even out the further he climbed.

Nice distraction,” Steve’s voice sounded over their feed. “Half of them scattered to go and see what was going on.”

“Men,” Bella huffed as she moved ahead of Oliver to check and clear the nearest rooms before moving on. “You are all the same. Have to blow things up and consider it mission accomplished. I don’t know what I’m going to do with all of you.”

Oliver looked at Bella as she was about to set off a trip wire. “Stop,” he said as he quickly made his way towards her to see where the wire was going. He saw the wire connected to the wall and that it was running further down the corridor. He stepped over the wire and followed it to its end destination; a suspended desk that would be released upon tripping the wire. “Juvenile booby trap,” he said as he took hold of the table before he cut the wire and set it back on the ground.

She slowly let out the breath she’d been holding before moving forward, more careful with her steps as she eyed each corner apprehensively. “Did you reach the civies yet?” she asked her friend.

Almost, the targets are on the fourth floor so be careful on your way up.”

Bella looked back at Oliver. “What do you want to do? Help him first or go straight up?” she asked. “I vote we just go ahead. We can keep whoever is up there busy while they get the innocents out and they can back us up after if shit hits the fan.”

“Yeah, we’re going up, I want this to be over,” Oliver grumbled as he checked the next stairwell.

“Let’s rock,” she grinned at him, ready. Following behind him, she kept an eye on their tail, as well as randomly looking out the window for any new threats. “How’s our friends on the roof? Any signs of them waking yet?”

“Yeah but I shot them again.” Roy said, Oliver could hear that he had a big grin on his face.

She couldn’t help but smile with pride with him. “Good boy,” she replied. “Keep your eyes out. We’re going on ahead past the others so we don’t know what we’re coming up against. Do you see anything on the fourth floor?”

“Nope, the blinds are down.”

Oliver continued to go up the staircase towards the fourth floor and when he reached it, he realized that there was no safe way in from this side as the door handle was gone and after pushing against it, it wouldn’t budge. Normally he would just try to blow up the door with an explosive dart, but it wasn’t just him right now. There was Bella and Steve and his team to think of and he didn’t know what was behind that door. “This side is blocked,” he stated.

I’m already working on getting the blueprints of the building. There should be another stairwell at the other end of the hall, but you need to go back down to the second floor to access it,” Felicity voiced in.

“Thanks for telling us now,” Bella replied as she tried looking the rest of the way up the stairs as she thought about a different way. “What about dropping in from above?”

“I ran out of those arrows,” Oliver pointed out. “Besides, we don’t know what’s going on in there… Unless you want to go in blindly because then there’s a way.”

Shaking her head, there were little options. “Either way we go, we’re blind. No matter what trap they have set, it’s a better option for me to go first as it more than likely won’t affect me. What did you have in mind?” she questioned as she turned her attention back onto him.

“Go one level up and climb down, the ledges are wide enough, and then get in… Maybe time it with Steve bursting through the other door.”

Sounds like a good plan to me. Just let us get these people out of here and we’ll meet up with you. I have my climbing gear in my bag you can use,” Steve replied over their comm though it was muffled as he was in the process of getting the people they found out of the building.

“Nah, not needed but thanks,” Oliver replied as he started to climb the stairs again.

Rolling her eyes, Bella ran after him to keep up, making a mental note to herself to increase her cardio with Diggle. By the time they reached the fifth floor, she was starting to develop a bad feeling but shook it off. Taking her spot beside him, she eyed down the hallway behind them. “Nothing this way so far. I’ll clear the rooms…”

“I’ll go the other way to clear it and then we’re going to do some climbing,” Oliver grinned at her before walking into the other direction. It was weird how the entire floor was clear, it was almost as if the group hadn’t thought about securing the upper levels. “Felicity.”

“Yeah, I found something and you’re not going to like it.”

“Continue.”

“Okay, so… All the businesses targeted in this manner, one way or the other, have branches in Seattle.” Felicity spoke quickly. “This is the first time they’ve been sort of smart with their comings and goings, more elaborate, as they never get caught. The CEO of this particular branch is exploiting their people and it’s basically a strike. Just… A dangerous one.”

“Seriously?”

“Well that, and this guy is super rich. All the people he’s connected to have something to hide so maybe they’re digging for secrets? I can only speculate from here, you know.”

“Fine.”

“I checked the security feeds around the building from before the heist and uhm, facial recognition came back for Alice Cullen.”

Bella stopped as she heard the the name and looked at Oliver who had rejoined her. “You can’t be serious. I thought we would be dealing with Esme first, maybe even Edward,” she whispered to him as she tried to think of what the girl would be up to. “What the hell is that family up to?”

“Maybe they’ve been up to more than you had realized,” Oliver said as he gently rubbed Bella’s back. “Or, maybe something changed them, you don’t know until you get the chance to ask.”

Scoffing, she shot him a look that questioned his sanity. “The only thing I’m questioning them is their sizes for their prison jumpers because I don’t care for much else. That and what they did with Rosalie because I haven’t heard from her since I moved back here,”

“Well, you might get your chance to ask Alice today,” He said as he pulled her along to an office he liked because the ledge outside was slightly broader than on the other side.

“I’ll ask her then punch her in her elfin face,” she grumbled as she secured her gun at her waist after switching out the magazine for a full one. “One good thing with this appearance is that we don’t have to be sitting and waiting any more.”

“Yep,” Oliver said as he opened the window and stepped out of it before holding out his hand for Bella to come and join him on the ledge. “I’ll lower myself first and then I’ll help you down too, okay?”

Grimacing as she looked out the window and down to the street below, she wasn’t very keen on the idea anymore. “Whose idea was this again?”

“Don’t look down, look at me.”

She dragged her eyes towards him. “Yeah, still have some issues we need to work on here. Add it to the laundry list of things to deal with.”

“Noted,” Oliver smiled at her, still holding his hand out to her. “Don’t worry, I won’t let anything happen to you.”

Don’t tell me she still has issues with heights…”

“She’ll be fine,” Oliver said to Steve on the feed. “She’s brilliant.”

Taking a deep, Bella nodded and smiled back, ready to continue. “Of course she is. Just kick her in the ass and get moving. The last civ is out. We’ll be heading up the other stairwell in two minutes.”

“You both are assholes sometimes, you know that?” she commented as she climbed out the window and stood with her back as close to the building as possible. Her hand that continued to hold Oliver’s was tight as it gripped his, knuckles white from the amount of pressure she was exerting, but her breathing and overall appearance remained neutral.

“See? Not so bad,” he smiled at her. “Keep your eyes on me, don’t look away from me.” Oliver said as he squatted and then started to lower himself down the ledge.

She could only continue to nod as she followed him. Moving just behind as they worked their way down to the floor below. She knew she would be sore from this the following day, but nothing like the workouts she had put herself through. This was simply using her muscles in a different way than she was accustomed to as he helped her feet catch the landing again. “I’m going to peel that bitch’s skin from her body and enjoy every moment,” she muttered, careful to keep her eyes away from the street and on her Oliver.

“That’s great, well done,” he smiled as they were standing on the ledge below the one they started at. “Steve, we’re close to your stairwell, say the word and we’ll shatter the window and head in.”

Yeah, hang on. Having trouble getting through the door here. Looking like we’re going to have to blow our way in…I know I had some C4 in this vest…”

“Cool,” Oliver grinned as he held on to Bella.

“We’ll enter on the explosion. It’ll be distracting enough and likely disorient anyone on this side that we can take them down quicker,” she commented as she tried to peer around the drawn blinds.

Beer afterwards?”

“Tequila.”

I don’t think so. Man, keep your girl away from Jose. She’s a bitch on the worm.”

“Fine. Coronas.”

“Whatever she wants, she can get,” Oliver said as he looked at her with a smile on his face. “It’ll be fun.”

Steve chuckled over the comm. “You’re the one sleeping with her. Your funeral but it was nice knowing ya. We’re set here. Fireworks in 3…2…1…”

The rumble from the explosion nearly knocked Bella off of the ledge and if Oliver hadn’t already had a firm hand holding her, she would have gone over. Gripping the sill as they rode out the initial blast wave, she pulled out her gun and banged the handle on the glass of the window, searching for the weak spot before firing a single round into it. As it shattered, she pushed the sheeted glass away so that they could climb in, finding the room empty, but filled with smoke.

Coughing, Oliver took Bella’s hand and started running to the next office in the confusion where there was less smoke and a better vantage point to shoot at people. He quickly fired off a few arrows at the sound of gunfire, obviously the raiders were unable to see until the smoke cleared at least a little, but the sound of them yelling at each other gave them away too.

Bella had her gun aimed, more hesitant as she was having difficulty with the smoke clearing from her own vision. Firing only when she was sure it was the enemy, she had hit them as they were closer, taking them one by one, staying close to her partner. “Complications, but dealing,” she reported to him as she fired at another since he was busy as well.

He heard the sound of breaking glass, people were getting air into the level so that the smoke would disappear. The gunfire had stopped, but he could hear how people were scattering. “Where are you guys going?”

Offices.”

“Okay,” he said before turning to Bella. “I’m out of arrows, I’m going in.”

“Wait,” she said as she reached into her boot to grab her other handgun and magazine. “I don’t want to hear any bitching. Do what you need to. I’ll be behind you in a minute.”

Shrugging, Oliver took a few steps back and then noticed some shadow in the smoke. He ran towards his target and knocked it out with the bow before noticing someone else behind him and took a swipe at the legs. He turned around on his feet and hit that person with his bow as well.

Bella followed after him, joining in as she pulled out her bo-staff and striking the first assailant as they went to stand back up and retaliate when he wasn’t looking. While they were distracted by the two, a small figure stood in the doorway with an amused look on her face as she watched, clapping as if it had been the greatest show ever.

“Bravo!” she cheered.

Oliver had a dart still on his sleeve with sedatives in them and threw it at the person before getting up from the unconscious person underneath him. He was surprised he had missed, or had that little imp simply dodged it?

“Missed me you overgrown ape,” Alice sang as she left the room.

Bella had stared at her in shock before her anger set in. “Do you have any more on you?” she asked, as she helped push the body off to the side. Checking to make sure the guy was still alive, she left him on the floor and went to look for the dart that had missed the midget witch.

“Yeah, the last one, want it?” Oliver asked, knowing how much she wanted to hurt any Cullen but Rosalie.

“Yes,” was all she said as she located it in the wall and yanked it out roughly. Tucking it in her uniform, she had her bo-staff out and ready as she went to the door. “You coming?”

“Yep,” he said with a nod as he jogged after her. “Just a reminder, we want her alive so we can get information out of her.”

Bella didn’t look at him as she wasn’t sure she could promise that. A low growl came out from her at his words expressing her displeasure with the request, knowing it was more an order. “I’ll let her live,” she sneered. “For now.”

“Good,” Oliver knew that this was going to be hard for her, but information was more important than her revenge – for now. “I’ll follow your lead on this one.” Oliver followed Bella through the building as she was chasing Alice, trying to make sure that she wouldn’t do anything stupid in her anger. He heard some noise coming from upstairs, knowing that Steve and his team were taking care of the rest of the people Alice was with.

Even though he didn’t want to deny Bella her revenge, there were plenty of opportunities for him to throw another dart at Alice as they were chasing her and he was going to if Bella didn’t make the move on her own. “Calm down, focus,” Oliver said calmly as they kept running after Alice. Where was she going?

Bella huffed as they ran into another office, only to find it empty. “The little bitch is playing games with us. I swear I will pull her hair from her body strand by strand then burn her clothes while she’s still wearing them,” she threatened as she paced the room, trying to look for how the girl had escaped, knowing that Bella had witnessed her enter ahead of them. “She has to be here!”

Oliver looked around and thought he heard something from above them. “She might be between floors,” he said as he pointed at the removable ceiling tiles. Alice was small enough to pull it off.

She moved under the area where he was pointing as she stared silently, waiting for her to make some sort of sound to give her position away. Sure enough, after a few moments, there was a small scuffle on a nearby ceiling tile that also jostled. Grinning, she looked over at Oliver as she pulled him back. “Steve – be advised. There’s rats in the walls.”

10-4. On it,” he replied.

It took a couple minutes but an unmistakable odor of something foul could be picked up and Alice, in her attempt to get away from it, tumbled through an unstable ceiling tile that broke under her weight. When she looked up after gathering her bearings, she found that she had the two hooded vigilantes standing over her with one of them having their gun trained on her. “Oh, well this isn’t fun anymore…”

Oliver carefully looked at Bella, who seemed to keep her anger under control – for now, and then looked back at Alice. “I know who you are, now tell me why you’re here.”

“Like I’d tell you! Although you’re kinda hot in that…wanna have some fun?” she grinned maliciously. “I know someone we can go to and thoroughly annoy together. She wouldn’t even know what hit her.”

Oliver thought for a moment and smirked as he crossed his hands over his chest. “Depends. Who is this person?” If Alice was being playful, so could he.

Alice smirked back as she sat up. “Lose the bitch with you and maybe we can talk.”

“Oh but she and I are a two for one deal, you have no idea how talented she is,” Oliver replied as he kept his eyes on Alice. “So, talk. Why are you here?”

Pouting, she eyed the female figure apprehensively. “I’m sure she is but I don’t quite swing that way. Anyway, why should I talk to you now? You’re going to end up hauling my ass to prison anyway whether I talk or not. I’ve seen it and I know you’re lying about wanting to play with me. I just don’t understand this one. I can’t see her…Odd thing really.”

Oliver listened carefully and then looked at Bella. “New thing?” He muttered as he pointed at Alice.

Bella shrugged, not speaking as she never adopted a voice modifier. She waved her finger around at her head, indicating she only believed that the girl may have gone a bit crazy in the time that she had stopped speaking.

Oliver shrugged as he moved a little bit. “What do you mean, Alice?”

The girl rolled her eyes as she tried to move to stand up but Bella pushed her back down into a seated position each time. “Bitch,” she muttered. “I can see the future. Only started in the last year or so. Why do you want to know?” she questioned, focusing on him as she attempted to get a read on his intent but the female with him had moved over and did something as she touched him, blocking any further reading. “What are you doing?!”

“Nothing,” Oliver said with a shrug. “I think you’re very special, Alice,” he said with a smile in his voice. “Maybe we will be able to work together because you’re too special to take to prison now. You know that, right?”

“I’m not stupid. Just because she’s somehow able to shield you from me, doesn’t mean that I can’t see past you lying. If you think that this little stunt today is the start, then you have no idea of what’s coming because I’m only the tip of the iceberg. The rest of my family is coming and trust me, what my brother can do, you cannot fight,” she said with an evil grin. “So you may as well take me away. My father will have me out in a few hours but just know that it won’t be the end.”

Bella had struggled to remain impassive as she looked up at the Arrow, keeping her back to Alice after handing Oliver her gun as she couldn’t allow Alice to see the concern on her face.

Oliver looked at Bella. “What do you want me to do? I mean, I don’t want her falling into the wrong hands, you know what they would do if she really can tell the future…” he asked softly. “Handing her over to Lance will get her released back to her family and she’ll be a danger to us if what she tells us is the truth.”

“She can’t seem to see me,” she pointed out,whispering so that Alice couldn’t hear their discussion. “Call them. We’ll just have to be careful because she can see you it seems so we can assume she knows your day job.”

“Again, if we hand her over to them, she’s going to pose a threat anyway.”

“Are you giving me permission to kill the bitch? I’ll gladly do it,” Bella said, a grin on her face.

“Have you taken a life before?” Oliver raised his eyebrow. “Someone who used to be close?”

She nodded slowly. “Not like this, no. If you think I won’t be able to handle it…”

“I know you really want to and you’ll be able to, but killing someone like this… I don’t want you to deal with the fall out.”

Um, I could use an extra pair of hands down here if one of you could make a decision…” Steve piped up, offering a bone. “Some of these perps are getting a bit irritating.”

Rolling her eyes, Bella nodded. “Fine. I”ll go help. Just – make sure she knows what the hell she was dealing with up here,” she said to Oliver as she let go of him and headed for the door. “Uncle Gordon is really going to hate you for this one, you know.”

Now knowing that Alice could read him, Oliver tried to keep a blank mind as possible as he looked at Alice. “No, not really. Self defense.” Oliver said as he watched Bella walk out. He then looked back at Alice. “What happened to Rosalie?”

“What do you want with that bitch? She’s nothing but a traitor to the family,” Alice scoffed, resigned to her fate as she leaned back against the desk with her eyes closed.

“Tell me what happened to Rosalie,” Oliver repeated. “Because I could do this the quick and easy way or the long and painful way.”

She opened her eyes to look at him, searching his decisions before grimacing. “She’s alive, not that it matters. My father and brother have her somewhere. Why do you care so much about her? What’s she to you if you have that one? Stepping out? She seems to be the type that would feed you your own dick if she caught you with someone else. Especially someone like my dear sister.”

“Where is she?”

“How the fuck should I know? I just follow orders! You know for someone hot, you sure are an asshole!”

“I know,” Oliver said as he took his last explosive dart, seeing as he didn’t have any arrows left. Alice Cullen deserved to be splattered all over this office. He knew that he had made a vow that he wouldn’t kill anymore, but she deserved it. Her whole family deserved it for hurting Bella. Yes, this was revenge, not justice.

And he owed Bella to get that revenge. He had to kill Alice Cullen because she would pose a threat in the future to him and his, A.R.G.U.S. would most likely put her on the Suicide Squad and make them even more unstoppable. So this was a justifiable kill. She wasn’t an innocent and she was dangerous.

But it still made him feel sick to his stomach, fed up with himself, with his life. This was one of the reasons why he had vowed not to kill anymore; Tommy’s death had been the catalyst, but ever since that vow, he had felt as if he was a better person.

He backed away from her and looked at her from the door opening. He could have used the gun, make it a clean kill, but she didn’t really deserve that.

She stared as he stepped away, suddenly seeing the change in her future, or lack there of. “What?! No, please! Don’t do this! I’ll tell you everything! I swear! Please! I’m not the last one coming!”

“And you won’t be the last one to die,” Oliver spat at her.

“Edward won’t give up until he finds the girl! You won’t be able to stop him!” she called back, running to the door as she attempted to push it open more to squeeze through.

Oliver pushed her back with his bow. “Bella says hi,” he said as he threw the dart against Alice and made sure he was out of the blast radius before it exploded. When it did, the whole floor shook and he took a deep breath. It was easier for him to kill someone, he’d done it before, he would do it over and over again if that meant protecting his friends and family. It didn’t mean that he was unaffected by it. After some of the smoke had evaporated, he got up from behind the desk he was hiding behind and walked back to the office, making sure that Alice was dead.

The explosive in his darts was usually potent enough to open a locked door or blow up a power station so he wasn’t surprised that he found several scorched and bloody body parts all over the office. Blood was everywhere, on the floor, dripping from the walls, windows and ceiling. As expected, her head had come off of her torso, surprisingly it had ended up in the waste basket, there was blood all over the items left in it. If he hadn’t been so sick with himself, he might have found the humor in that.

As he looked around, he could see Alice’s bag nearby and lifted it up with his bow, careful not to walk into the bloody mess knowing that it would identify him as her killer. Not that Captain Lance wouldn’t realize that it had been Oliver, all he had to do was identify the body and connect the dots. He went through Alice’s bag and found her phone. He turned it off and pocketed it, maybe Felicity could do something with it.

Tossing the bag back into the office, he turned around and walked away to rejoin Bella. “She’s gone,” he muttered. “What do you need me to do?”

She eyed him carefully for a moment before nodding. “Okay,” she said simply, knowing that this wasn’t the place for such a discussion. “We knocked out the rest of her group with the sedative darts for the rifle because they were getting a bit out of control. Let’s let Steve handle the rest of this for when Gordon shows up. Just give him the heads up for whatever was used with her so that he can bullshit something. Chuck and I will meet you by the bikes?”

Oliver nodded as he looked at Steve. “A dart with a small amount of C4. Left her bag with her for ID.”

Steve nodded in return.

Oliver then followed Bella out and took a deep breath when they were outside. “Rosalie is still alive,” he said to her as he rolled his shoulders to try and relax. “She’s being held somewhere.”

“Figured as much. They can’t let go of shit,” Bella said as she headed straight for the alley where their bikes were stashed. “Did she say if anyone else was in town? Maybe we can get information on the possible location?”

“We already know that Carlisle is trying to sell his house, no doubt soon everyone will be in Starling City. Felicity is on it, don’t worry.” He picked up his helmet and nodded a greeting to Roy. “You did great, both of you.”

The kid nodded his thanks as he handed off Bella’s bag to her that contained her rifle kit. “So good news is that we’re down another Cullen, right?”

“That’s the way it looks. You do know that I’ll be inspecting this when we get back, right?” she pointed out as she pulled it over her shoulders, trying to keep the smile from forming at the corner of her mouth.

“Of course,” Roy grinned as he put his helmet on his head. “See you back at the club,” he said as he started his bike and drove off.

“Ready?” Oliver asked Bella as he secured his helmet on his head and got on the bike.

“Is that rhetorical? Because I don’t think we can truly answer that question and be honest,” she teased as she closed the faceshield of her helmet and wrapped her arms around him. “Onwards pony!”

Oliver snorted as he started the bike and drove them back to Verdant.

Hey, while you guys are on the way, Diggle picked up some celebratory coffee for a job well done… I stole a bottle of Jack from the club to add a little something something to it.” Felicity’s voice sounded.

“That’s good, Felicity,” Oliver responded as he turned a corner. Not that he was going to have some. He needed to do something to get rid of the sedated feeling in his system. The kill had been a good kill because Alice would pose a threat either way, he needed to get that thought in his head because he did feel a little bit guilty and that wasn’t good enough. He shouldn’t feel guilt.

Bella tightened her arms around him as she felt his detachment. “You know, I think I could use some quiet. Would you mind if we headed back to the house after we drop the bikes off and changed?”

He breathed a sigh of relief. “I think that’s a good idea,” he replied as he tightened the grip on the handles and sped up a little bit.

She would deal with their friends if they gave them a hard time but she was sure that after everything, it wouldn’t come to it. They needed some time to decompress and come to terms with what they had learned. For months the team had been trying to learn what the Cullens were planning and in one day, they got more than they anticipated. Still something bothered her about it but she wouldn’t let herself dwell tonight. Bella had a boyfriend to care for that had sacrificed a piece of his soul so that she didn’t have to. For that, she would give him whatever he needed.

Untitled-1

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.