Teamwork

Chapter 16 - Taken

Slowly Thea started to come to. She opened her eyes for a brief moment but closed them again quickly as she was temporarily blinded by the light in the room. As she sat there she started to try to move but when she attempted to move her arms, then legs, she realized that she must be tied to a chair as she was sitting upright but unable to go anywhere. She then slowly blinked her eyes open so that she could take in her surroundings. 

When Thea was finally able to see the first thing she noticed was Roy in front of her. He was tied to a board that was semi upright with an IV going into his arm and there was faint bruising on his face and bare chest.

"Roy?" Thea called out to her boyfriend. "Roy, please wake up!"

Thea called out to Roy for several minutes, her voice starting to get a bit hoarse from the yelling, before she realized that he was not going to wake up and she wondered just what it was that the IV contained that was apparently keeping him knocked out. As she looked around for some way out of here she realized that they were in a small room that only contained the board that Roy was tied to, the chair she was sitting in, and a TV screen in the corner. She started to cry as she realized that there was no way that they could get out of there without help. She knew that Oliver would come looking for them and was scared at the thought of him having to go up against Slade for her, again.

As Thea sat in the silence of the little room she thought back to how she came to be in this situation. She had walked into Roy's house, eagerly anticipating seeing him alive and well after the scare of the last hour, only to find Slade there instead. Her stomach dropped as she realized, a second too late, why he was there. She turned to run out the door but was caught by a rough hand on her wrist. The next thing she knew there was a cloth being held to her mouth that smelled strange and she then fell into the Slade's arms unconscious. I should have known it wasn't Roy who texted me. Thea realized suddenly as she thought back to the text she had received from Roy's phone. He never calls me babe!

Felicity sat in the Lair typing furiously at her computers. She was furious at Oliver, for going, alone, without even his GPS trackers. She knew it had been a trap, and he did too and still he went. She knew that he was driven by the need to protect his sister and that it was eating him up inside knowing that Thea was in Slade's custody again. However, that did not stop the feeling of dread that grew by the second when she heard that he was going. She made sure to mute her mic on her comms unit so that Oliver wouldn't hear her trying not to cry and get distracted by the sound.

Felicity had pulled up the traffic camera feeds along the route that Oliver was taking to the docks so that she could keep track of him since he didn't have his GPS trackers. She watched as he sped across town to hopefully rescue his sister. On another monitor she pulled up the security cameras from the docks so that she could hopefully warn him if she saw anything out of place. She watched Oliver pull into the docks, find Slade, and dismount his bike. It wasn't until it was too late though that she saw the man that was hiding with the dart gun.

Felicity let out a cry as she saw Oliver going down and she heard his words. "I'm sorry Felicity!"

Felicity could not help the flood of tears as suddenly the cameras at the docks all went black and she lost sight of Oliver. It took her a moment before she could compose herself enough to talk to Diggle.

"Diggle!" Felicity finally managed to say into the comms.

"What's wrong Felicity?" Diggle asked, suddenly even more concerned for his friend and teammate as he heard the tears in Felicity's voice. "Are you okay?"

"I'm okay, but Oliver's not!" Felicity responded, her voice full of emotion.

"What do you mean?" Diggle asked, confused as to how she would know this.

"I followed him on the traffic cameras to the docks, and then on the security feeds from there. Slade was waiting for him, without Thea. There was a man with a dart gun who shot him and knocked him out before I could warn him. I couldn't even warn him John! I don't know what to do! What if he's hurt, or been taken?" Felicity rambled. Diggle could clearly hear the concern in her voice and was worried as well. He was happy that she had thought to follow Oliver on the cameras, but was also worried for her as she was now in near hysterics.

"I'll head down to the docks to see if I can find anything. Keep me posted." Diggle replied as he hurried to leave the mansion. "Can you see if you can find anything on the security cameras from the mansion? See if you can find out what happened to Roy?" He knew that giving her another task would help keep her from a meltdown, at least he hoped it would.

Lance groaned as he started to wake up. He was in a huge amount of pain, everywhere, and his throat was dry from the screaming that he had done. He remembered Slade whipping him with that thick, knotted whip and knew he had a whole new list of injures no thanks to the lashings he had received from it. As he slowly lifted his head to look around he realized that he was still chained up in the room with the cameras. There are too many of them to be just security cameras. He thought as he worried about what other uses they may have.

What seemed like an eternity later a man came in with a bottle of water and allowed Lance to have a drink. It didn't help with his dehydration much, but Lance was thankful that it helped alleviate his parched, sore throat some. When the man walked out Lance was again left alone with his own thoughts. I wonder how long it will take Sara and the Team to find me this time? He thought. He knew that Sara and Oliver would come looking for him just as they did last time. He was more worried this time however simply because it was Slade and Lance knew that the game had changed when the man didn't die after the last attempt on his life.

It was a relatively short period of time later that Lance heard movement outside the door. He strained to hear what was going on but was unable to distinguish what was being said. It was just moments later when the door slammed open, startling him, and several men walked in. They were dragging someone in and it took only a moment for Lance to recognize the green leather of Oliver's Arrow outfit. They brought Oliver to the center of the room and unceremoniously dropped him to the floor, before moving to Lance and releasing him from his restraints. Lance thought for just a moment that he might be taken out of the room, but was proven wrong when instead they moved him to another set of chains that they had hung during the transition.

Lance hung to the side of the room, helpless, as he watched the men remove Oliver's leather jacket and shirt before hanging him from the chains that he had just vacated. However, instead of letting Oliver hang in a way that he could still reach the ground, they raised him just enough to where Oliver would only be able to reach the floor with the tip of his boots. Lance knew that, between the fact that they were hanging Oliver in such a way, and that he was still unconscious, their chances of escape had just dwindled considerably. Come on Oliver. Wake up and get us out of here! He thought as they both hung in the room for an unknown amount of time as he had long since lost track of the amount of time that was passing.

Thea looked up from where she was watching Roy when the TV in the room came on. As she looked at the picture she could see Detective Lance hanging in the middle of the room. Suddenly the one and only door to the room burst open and a group of men walked in, dragging someone in with them. It only took a moment for Thea to realize that it was Oliver.

"No! Oliver!" Thea cried as she watched the men drop him on the floor before moving Detective Lance to another set of chains in the room. She couldn't help but wince when they forcibly removed Oliver's jacket and shirt before roughly pulling him up by his wrists, which were now in the heavy metal manacles attached to the chains. She had known that Oliver would come looking for them, she had simply hoped that he would not get captured as well.

Back in the Lair Felicity was furiously working on her computers when she glanced up to check on Detective Lance. What she saw instead caused her heart to skip a beat. There, hanging in the middle of the room, instead of Detective Lance was none other than Oliver. She knew that nothing good would come from him hanging like that and her mind went back to the last time she had seen him chained up like that and the memories overwhelmed her.

Felicity had to run to the bathroom as her stomach started to churn. Once she had emptied her stomach of all of its contents she sat on the cold bathroom floor, crying.

"I begged you not to go!"