Sapphire (Book One, Arrow)

chapter 20 ⚔ Home Invasion

In the hideout beneath Verdant, it was mostly looking like it had before Tommy had dismantled the setup to save our secret from Lance.

John and Oliver were training.

John was punching the mats on Oliver's wrists.

I was sitting nearby. "You feel better?"

"I'll feel better once we end Deadshot," John told us. I nodded. "We have to end this guy before he makes any more widows out of wives."

"We will," Oliver told him. "Diggle, we'll stop him. I promised you we'd help take him down, and I keep my promises, but he's on another continent."

Felicity walked toward us. "Not anymore." She sat at the computer. "I thought it would be helpful to track ARGUS's manhunt for Floyd Lawton AKA Deadshot, so I decrypted their communication logs. Which means, I just hacked a Federal agency. Which kind of makes me a cyber-terrorist, which is bad because I really don't see myself fitting in well at Guantanamo Bay."

"Don't worry, Felicity," I told her. "They don't send blondes there."

"I dye it, actually," Felicity told us. "I keep your secret..."

"Hey, what'd you find?" John asked.

"Deadshot is scheduled to meet with a potential new client here in Starling City," Felicity told us. "Except the potential contract is bogus. Your friend Lyla is setting a trap for him. Lawton took the bait."

John nodded. "Great. I'll talk to Lyla, see if I can suss out any details."

"Good," Oliver told us. "I've got to have lunch with my family."

⚔

Flashback

Jill was outside in the woods by the plane hideout, looking at the picture of her family. She walked into the hideout.

Slade, Shado and Oliver were already there.

Slade looked Shado. "Rescuing your father and stopping Fyers is not going to be some walk in the park. They're not going to allow us to just stroll on into their camp."

"Which is why we'll need cover," Shado told them. 

"If both of us are infiltrating, who'll provide that?" Slade asked.

Shado looked at Jill and Oliver. "They will."

"Us?" Jill asked.

Slade laughed. "The assault rifle is flushed. It's useless."

"We have a bow, arrows," Shado told them. "We have swords and knives."

"And no one capable of using them," Slade told her. He looked at Jill and Oliver. "No offense, kids."

"I was going to say the same thing," Oliver told him.

"I think we should be spending our time trying to devise a plan, not lower our already slim chances of survival," Slade told them. 

"They'll hit their mark by sundown," Shado told him. "If not, we'll do it your way."

⚔

The next morning, I was in my guest bedroom at the Queen mansion, just getting out of the shower, wrapped in a towel, hearing the news on, walking toward the TV.