Teamwork

Chapter 22 - Release

Lance watched as Oliver passed out. He had been unable to keep track of how many lashes the younger man had received this time, however, he could clearly see that Oliver would be in quite a massive amount of pain no small thanks to state that his back was in due to the whip. He noticed that Slade delivered about five more lashes before he realized that Oliver had passed out. When Slade came to that realization an evil grin spread across the Australian's face.

Lance watched as Slade coiled up the whip before hanging it from a hook on his side. The man then turned and walked towards him and Lance was a bit worried about what Slade was up to next. He received his answer when the other man came to stand in front of him.

"Well Mr. Lance." Slade said with a grin. "Have you enjoyed your time with us?"

Lance had decided long ago that he was not going to give Slade the satisfaction of getting a response from him so he determined yet again to not say a word.

"Unfortunately for you, your time with us has come to an end." Slade said just moments before he punched Lance in the face, effectively knocking him out cold. Slade then called in two men to assist him and they took Lance out of the restraints and carried him out of the room.

Thea had noticed that Slade had stopped his torture of Oliver, but she was so focused on her brother that she didn't notice what else was going on until the men began to remove Detective Lance from the room. As the door slammed shut behind them she couldn't hold back the sobs and cried until her eyes were dry.

The tension in the lair was thick. They had all watched as Slade tortured Oliver more until the younger man finally, mercifully, passed out. Felicity was furious when Slade did not realize that Oliver was out until five lashes later and probably would have killed him herself if she had been able. It was only a moment later that the video feed in the lair went out.

Felicity burst into action when her screen went black. She checked everything that she could think of to make sure that it was not something on her end. When she had exhausted all options she turned to Diggle who was still standing directly behind her.

"He's gone." Felicity said with a sob. "They cut the video feed!"

Diggle didn't know what to say to Felicity. He couldn't say that everything would be okay, because it wasn't. He couldn't say that Oliver would be fine, because he wasn't sure he would be. He wanted to tell her that the video feed would come back up, but that was not guaranteed. The only thing that he could do was pull her into a tight hug and hold her as she cried into his shirt.

It was about ten minutes after they lost the video feed that Sara noticed something on the computer monitor.

"Felicity!" Sara called to the blonde. Felicity had gone over to the couch and curled up shortly after they lost the video feed. She had wanted a few moments to herself to process things. However, as she heard the urgency in Sara's tone of voice she was up and across the lair in seconds.

"I don't believe it!" Felicity said as she pulled up her GPS tracking program.

"What is it Felicity?" Diggle asked as he recognized the program, and the alert.

"Detective Lance." Felicity said as her fingers flew across her keyboard. "His tracker just came back on."

"Dad?" Laurel asked from her seat by the computers. She had not moved since she sat down earlier as she was too drained physically and emotionally to do anything.

"Where?" Sara asked as she grabbed her bo staff.

"Um..." Felicity said as she finished bringing up the location on her computer. "I can't believe this. He's in front of the bank you guys busted the arms dealers at." Felicity said as she turned to look at Diggle and Sara. Both partners were already on their way to the door.