Sapphire (Book One, Arrow)

chapter 5 ⚔ Damaged

Six Years Ago

Jill pulled herself up onto the beach of Lian Yu, breathing heavily, lying on the wet sand for a moment, exhausted and devastated to be alone. After several moments, she was able to push herself up, and start stumbling forward, along the beach, into the woods. She was starving and thirsty and weak, and barely able to walk straight without falling to her knees. She stumbled, tripping, falling to the ground. She groaned in pain and annoyance bringing herself up to her knees. She started to cry out of realization that she had nothing left, screaming in angry, devastated agony, physical and emotional. She once again became silent, crying. She thought that she was going to die slowly, painfully and agonizingly, lowering her head to the ground, clutching at the grass and the dirt for something to hold onto with the realization that she was completely and utterly alone.

Men in black army suits arrived, two of them pulling Jill from the ground, holding a hand over her mouth to muffle her screaming. 

The third man lifted a trap in the ground.

The other two men put Jill inside.

Jill looked around the trap, seeing that it was a dark, small hole.

The men above closed the trap above her ensuring that she couldn't get out.

"Wait," Jill told them. "Wait. You can't leave me here. Don't do this to me, please!" She grabbed at the wooden gate above her that prevented her from getting out. One of the men used the butt of his gun to hit Jill in the head through the bars, making her let go and fall the short distance to the ground underneath her. Jill continued to plead. "Please! I didn't do anything!"

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Now

The police thought that they knew who Oliver was. They thought he was "The Hood". The man terrorizing the city's criminals. 

They also thought they had him trapped. That he had no way out.

They were only half right. 

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The police was questioning Oliver at the police station, interrogating him, because they had circumstantial evidence against him, like seeing him pull on a ski mask in Iron Heights from security camera footage.

Laurel had seen Oliver in a security guard uniform and a ski mask.

Police were questioning me from the Queen mansion because they didn't have any evidence against me.

Lance's partner Hilton was here. "I'll be asking you a few questions, standard stuff for the report. Have you been arrested before?"

"No, I haven't," I answered. "This is a mistake. I don't know who you think I am, but Oliver is not who you think he is. The guy in the hood is a dangerous menace who doesn't care about who he hurts, and the girl in blue is a lunatic with knives and swords."

"I don't know who you are, Miss Wright," Hilton told me.

"Let me tell you what I know, Detective," I told him. "I know that your partner, Detective Lance, hates the Queen family. I get it. And he probably hates me because I'm living in their household, and because I'm the girl that came back with him from the island instead of his daughter Sara. I'm the mystery girl that no one knows hardly anything about. And thinking that Oliver and I are the vigilantes just make it easier on himself and easier on everyone else. See, I also know that if you had any real evidence against him, Oliver would be locked away in a cell by now and not sitting in an interrogation room, and if you had any evidence against me, I would be there with him."