The Starling Saviour

Chapter 65

'Yes, she only just entered this... World a few months ago,' I nodded. 'Anyway, what is it you wanted to say to me?'

'I've been doing a lot of thinking about this, over the past week,' Diggle started, hesitating slightly. 'When I found out that it was Deadshot who tried to assassinate Malcolm Merlyn, I couldn't shake this... Feeling, like I was reliving my brother's death again. Losing Andy was something I thought I could never get over. But then, I finally could rest easy knowing that Oliver had killed Lawton, that my brother's murderer got what he deserved.'

'And now, it turns out he's still alive,' I immediately sympathised with Diggle. 'I'm sorry, John, that you're having to go through all this again. It's something I wouldn't wish on anyone.'

'You sound like you speak from experience,' Diggle detected. 'I'm sorry that you had to go through this too.'

'Well, it's not exactly like what you're going through, but, thank you,' I smiled, trying to focus on Diggle's troubles, not mine. 'And, that's all in the past now.'

Also, the matters surrounding Isaac's death really were different. Instead of finding out his killer was alive, I had found out that in fact, I had caused his death to happen. But I needed to stop thinking about that, now I was nearly over it all.

'So, back to what you were thinking, about the whole situation?' I backtracked to the main reason Diggle had decided to open up to me.

I could see that John longed to tell me about it all, and that it was a perfect time for him to do so during Oliver's absence. Another question we both shared was where the hell Oliver was on the opening night of the club, his club.

'Yo,' Oliver finally and rather unexpectedly joined us, not giving Diggle a chance to tell me what he had wanted to, he quickly closing the tab with the article on it so Oliver couldn't see it and then ask questions.

'Hey,' Diggle greeted his friend as he turned round from the screen. 'Where you been?'

'Well, I thought I'd give myself a rare morning in,' Oliver told us, Diggle and I both giving him a rather disapproving look. 'Don't... Look at me like that; the club is opening, finally, McKenna and I are going on date number six tonight, which is... Significant, and er, I dunno, it seemed like a good day to give the bad guys a rest.'

'I have been stressed, all morning, organising the club and booking last-minute acts, while you were having a lie in?' I became exasperated at Oliver's excuses. 'You own the club, Ollie, I only manage it!'

'Who's booked for tonight?' Oliver deflected the conversation from him. 'Were Fall Out Boy free? McKenna told me they weren't cool anymore, but I thought, since they're getting back together soon-'

'No,' I interrupted him shortly. 'But Steve Aoki is. Patrick said he owed them a few favours, and I heard you dated his sister.'

'Ah, it all makes sense now,' Oliver realised in a rather sarcastic voice.

'Anyway, before you two start arguing about the choice of music for tonight, we have a bigger problem,' Diggle announced. 'You were right about giving the bad guys a rest, 'cause it's the bad girls that I'm worried about.'

Diggle opened a shot of some monochrome security camera footage filming a scene starring someone very familiar to him and Oliver, the girl shown aiming a crossbow right at a poor guy's face.

'Helena,' Oliver uttered, his face dropping slightly.

'Yes, or as I like to call her, your psycho ex-girlfriend,' Diggle joked. 'This was taken at Alley Cats, the strip joint.'

'I didn't know you dated strippers, Oliver,' I jibed. 'Well, she does have a crossbow, I see why you liked her now.'

'She's not a stripper, that was a cover,' Oliver corrected me, looking irritated by my jokes. 'And she was the girl who was briefly on the team just before you saved me from that gang and joined the team instead.'