Felicity jolted awake, forgetting where she was for a split second. And, then she felt the bounds on her wrists and ankles, and suddenly remembered everything about the night before.
She had had a wonderful night with Ray and the investors, and then come home to be beaten across the head, and taken into captivaty, along with her mother.
She instantly began looking for her mother, searching around the darkened room to see her mother in the same bind as her. She looked like she had been crying, and she looked so weak, like she had given up hope that things would turn out okay. Her mom looked up at her, and weakly smiled at Felicity. Felicity smiled back, or at least tried to... Her face was bruised from when the person that had taken her hostage had hit her across the face hard.
She cringed at how much pain she was in, but then quickly examined her mother from a distance, trying to see if they had hit her as well. Felicity didn't mind if they beat up on her... That's what she gets for getting involved with the vigilante stuff. But, if they hit her mother, that's a different story... And, they wouldn't like the Felicity that she had become if they hurt her mother.
That reminded her.
She was in this situation all because of this vigilante business. Which really didn't make any sense, because she didn't really figure anything out about him. All she knew was what everyone else knew. She wanted to know why she was here.
Right now.
"Hello!?" She yelled, still cringing from the pain.
Her mother just looked at her wide-eyed, but she didn't care. She continued yelling at her captors.
"Hello!? Is anyone here!? Answer me, you cowards!" She yelled, again... trying to get their attention, whoever they were.
She heard footsteps nearing her, and she quickly breathed in and out. She had to act brave. She had to do it for herself, and her mother, and for getting out of here. The more she figured out about why she was really here, the more chance she would have at getting out of this situation.
"Blondie, I'm gonna need you not to yell at me." A disguised voice spoke, drawing near her.
She finally saw who it belonged to. It wasn't anyone she recognized, but the man was dressed in a mask and hood, but it was obvious that it was a man due to his build.
"What do you want from me?" Felicity sneered at the man, trying to keep her voice raised and her fake confidence high.
"Right now, I want you to shut up." He growled at her, drawing nearer and nearer to her face.
Now, he was right in front of her, and she could see the monstrous gray eyes glaring back at her. She stopped breathing for a second, afraid that if she breathed again, he might hear the fear that was dying to show. Thankfully, he didn't see it, but instead just backed away from her.
"I'll stop yelling if you answer my question." Felicity responded, glaring at him.
"If I answer your question? Sweetheart, I think that you may have forgotten who is in charge here." He laughed with no humor whatsoever.
Then, he walked over to Donna, and she began to whimper. Felicity started to tense up, getting madder and madder by the second. The masked man came behind her mother and pulled out a gun, cocked it, causing Donna to shudder, and brought it to the side of her mother's head.
"No!" Felicity screamed, trying to keep tears in.
"Haha! Yes, Felicity! You see, you keep running that pretty little mouth of yours, and your mommy here... Well, she'll get hurt." He sneered, taunting her by rubbing the gun across Donna's face.
"Fine! Fine! Just leave her alone! You want to hurt me, fine... Hurt me! But, you leave her out of this!" Felicity cried, begging the man to put the gun away.
He just laughed once more, and put the gun away, and Felicity breathed a sign of relief. But to her utter dismay, he came closer to her, and hit her across the face with the gun. She winced at the pain, but recoiled easily.
"That's for trying to challenge me, Miss Smoak." He sneered her name, and then walked back up the stairs.
She heard her mom crying.
She wanted to cry. But, she wouldn't. She wouldn't show any of them that she was afraid. She wouldn't let them have the luxury of knowing that she was fearing for her life. If these were her last moments, she didn't want to spend them afraid. She wanted to spend them remembering the good, and not the bad.
Like when Oliver first walked into her office.
"Felicity Smoak?"
Felicity looked up to see the cute guy from the picture at Mr. Queen's desk that she had seen not too long ago. She also realized that he was so much better looking now, with the facial hair, and the haircut. But, she suddenly realized that this was Oliver Queen, and she was currently staring at him like a little obsessive freak. She also realized that she had a pen in her mouth. Gross. She quickly took it out, and glanced up at him.
"Hi, I'm Oliver Queen."
And, then of course she had word vomit that just wouldn't stop. It would tend to happen around very attractive billionaires, or just men in general.
"Of course," She babbled, "You're Mr. Queen--"
"Actually, Mr. Queen is my father." He interrupted her, but it didn't matter.
Once she began babbling, it just didn't stop.
"Right, but he's not here... right now. You are..." She tapped her pen on her desk trying to stop talking, but it just didn't happen.
"Which means you can come down to the IT department... and listen me to babble... Which will end in 3..2..1." Felicity put her pen down in finality of her embarrassment, and just looked down, wishing she was dead.
Because she had already died of embarrassment...
Oliver just raised his eyebrows and smiled at her, or at least kind of smiled. It was more a grin, like he was trying to hide it for some reason, but it wasn't working all that well... And, that made Felicity feel even more embarrassed as she felt her cheeks heat up.
"I'm having some trouble with my computer, and they told me that you were the person to come and see." He said, grinning, and giving her his computer.
She just examined it, not seeing anything wrong with it, and was about to remark on such, but he started speaking again.
"I was at my coffee shop, searching the web, and I spilled a latte on it."
Well, that was a lie.
"Really?" She raised her eyebrows at him, opening the computer to see that it worked just fine.
"Yeah." He nodded, pressing his lips together.
It was obvious that he was lying, but she didn't mind. This meant that she could sort of snoop on him, and he was actually talking to her... Which was a first. But, she just tilted her head up at him, looking at him, and he actually smiled at her.
That was a first, too.
"If there is anything you can do, I would really appreciate it." He said, with that beautiful voice of his.
She couldn't even speak, but just nodded and hummed an answer, as he walked back out.
Did that really just happen? Wow. He was beautiful. Stop, Felicity, and get back to work. Gosh. But, he was so... Damn it, Felicity. WORK.
Felicity tried laughing, but it hurt too much... but she still loved that day. The day that he walked into her life, was the day that her life would change forever, and she always loved that day. She fell in love with him the moment that he lied to her about that computer. It meant that he wanted to talk to her, her out of people, for some reason. A reason she would later find out to be that he found her intriguing and wanted to get to know her.
"God, Oliver, why aren't you here to protect me?" She whispered to herself, shutting her eyes, and finally letting the tears flow out.
~•~•~•~•~•~
"I can't believe you're here right now... Alive."
Oliver just looked at Diggle, and nodded, waiting for him to continue on about Felicity. That's all that was on his mind right now.
"I think someone took her and her mother." Diggle whispered, not wanting to Oliver to yell at him.
"She was taken!? How!?" Oliver semi-yelled at Diggle.
"I don't know, man! All I know is she was staying with us, and then she went home for a little bit, and I just figured she needed her space, because sometimes she gets that way, and the next thing I know, I'm walking into this torn up apartment, and her and her mom are nowhere to be seen." Diggle put his hands in his face, like he felt guilty.
"We need to find her... now, Diggle. This is Felicity, we're talking about. My Felicity." Oliver breathed out, closing his eyes, wishing that this wasn't real.
This couldn't be real.
"I was supposed to protect her, look after her, especially after the incident at the bar." Diggle said, still blaming himself, but all Oliver heard was the thing with the bar.
"What incident at the bar?" Oliver asked Diggle.
Diggle just sighed.
"She was drugged. At first, we thought it was just some college guy with roofies, but now... It could've been much worse than we thought." Diggle responded.
"Drugged... What? This is... This doesn't make any sense." Oliver sighed in response, running his fingers through his hair.
"She was drugged? Wow. I didn't know..." Tommy sighed in agreement.
Oh yeah, Tommy was still here. Oliver had completely forgotten.
"Yeah, Lyla saw some guy put something in her drink." Diggle said.
"Does she know or remember anything about the guy?" Oliver asked, trying to figure out anything that he could about this.
Diggle just shook his head.
"It was dark in the club, and she didn't get a good glimpse at his face. I'm sorry, Oliver." Diggle sighed, again.
Oliver put a hand on his shoulder, "Diggle, don't worry. We'll find her. We will."
Diggle just nodded, and then changed the qubject quickly.
"How are you even alive right now?" Diggle smiled at his friend, a friend that he thought he had lost forever.
"Island called Lian Yu. I was there after the crash. It kept me alive." Oliver shrugged, not really wanting to talk about this right now.
"Ahh." Diggle said, knowing Oliver well enough to know that he didn't want to talk about it, so he didn't push him.
Oliver couldn't think, he couldn't breathe. He just got up from the table he was sitting on, and paced around the room. Felicity was gone, somewhere, and she could be hurt, or worse, and he was just sitting here, doing nothing about it. And, it was killing him. It was eating him up from the inside out. He was always supposed to protect her, and now she was... She was... She was missing.
He wanted to stare into her beautiful blue eyes again, tell her that he loved that, that he needed her, that he didn't want to be anywhere else but with her, safe.
He wanted to fix it. He always wanted to fix her problems. That was just him.
Felicity was hiding something from him. He knew it, because she was jumpy, and she was sad-looking, and he hated it. He hated not knowing what was wrong, and he hated not being able to fix it. He also hated that she was lying to him, that she was trying to act okay around him when she was clearly upset and dealing with something.
I mean, they were close friends. He wanted to be there for her. He always wanted to be there for her.
Today, she was distant, and teary-eyed, and Oliver had had enough of it.
"Felicity... Fe-li-ci-ty." He emphasized every syllable of her name, trying to get her attention.
But, she was still walking away from him, so he grabbed her forearm, letting it slide all the way down until his fingers had brushed hers. He ignored the weird tingles that shot through him when they touched, but instead just focused on the problem at hand.
"What is going on with you? And don't say no--" He started to sternly speak at her, but she interrupted with yet, another lie.
"Nothing--" She looked away.
"Don't say nothing! The truth please..." He growled, tired of her lies.
But, then when he saw how hurt she looked, and how tired she looked, he felt bad for letting his anger get the best of him. He just looked at her with sympathy as she began to speak.
"You might have noticed that I talk a lot." She laughed, humorlessly.
That saddened Oliver, that she was to that point, but he went along with it.
"It has not escaped my attention." He tried lightening up the mood, but he failed... miserably.
"You might have also noticed that I don't... talk a lot... about my family." The words came out of her mouth like it pained her.
"I have noticed that." He spoke gently, allowing his hand to touch her forearm once more.
She breathed in and out, trying to gather her thoughts. And, then she responded.
"My mother is... She... She's my mother." She spoke in disgust, almost, and that was strange to Oliver, that her and her mother weren't close.
He just nodded, letting her continue.
"And, I don't really know what my father is... because he abandoned us." Felicity's voice broke as she spoke.
Oliver felt himself reach for her.
"I was young when it happened, but it still hurts, you know? And, I don't know, sometimes I just wish I had a real family." She cried.
Oliver just tightened his grasp around her arm, letting her know that he was here for her. That'd he always be there for her. He ended up putting both of his hands on each of her shoulders, and she ended up just letting it all out, crying right then and there, and he just pulled her into him and let her cry.
"You have me, Felicity. You'll always have me. I'll never abandon you." He whispered into her ear, and hugged her even tighter, wishing that he could have protected her from the pain that she was in.
So, he vowed from that moment on to always protect her.
"Oliver?"
Diggle's voice brought Oliver back to reality, as he realized that Diggle had turned the TV on to reveal that the hostage crisis had already started broadcasting.
"How did the news outlets already get ahold of this information?" Oliver asked, and saw Tommy just look at him, and Diggle sigh.
"The guy that took Felicity wants you." Diggle said.
"What? Why?" Oliver was furious, absolutely, 100% furious.
"I'm not sure, but he's the one broadcasting this, and the news is just covering it. He's trying to draw you out into the open." Diggle answered, looking back at the TV.
"Starling City holds its breath as the hostage crisis unfolds."
Oliver was holding his breath, especially when he saw the raw footage that the captors had broadcasted. The footage that showed Felicity tied up to a chair, hurt and in pain.
He wanted to throw something, but instead just completely threw everything off the table next to him. He just yelled in frustration.
"You still love her, don't you?"
He didn't even recognize who had asked the question, but it was a dumb question nonetheless. Of course he loved her. He loved her with everything he had left in him.
"It doesn't matter how I feel." He didn't look up as he spoke.
"Because of what I do... I could never be with her." Oliver whispered, feeling the reality of it all sink in, and grasped the table with his hands and looked down at the ground.
She wasn't his anymore. He could never be with her. But, it wasn't his happiness that he was focused on right now. It was her safety.
He looked up at Diggle and Tommy, who were both just staring at him.
"I'm going to go save her. If this guy wants me, then he can have me. But, he will never lay another hand on her again. Now, are you guys in or out?" Oliver asked, looking at both of them sternly.
"In. Definitely in." Tommy nodded.
Oliver looked to Diggle.
"It's Felicity. Of course I'm in."
"Good. Now let's go get this son of bitch." Oliver growled as he reached for his bow and arrow.
Hey guys! Because of the amount of love I have received over this book and my writing, I uploaded early! I hope you enjoyed this chapter as much as I enjoy each and every one of you guys that read and comment and vote.
It literally makes my day, so keep it up :)
Anyway, this chapter is super super important, because now you know that Felicity is hurt, and Oliver is furious. Ooh, ahh. Also, Diggle! Diggle's involved, and I'm so happy because yay! More Diggle! :D
Next chapter you'll find out why exactly Felicity was kidnapped, and the rescue (probably)!
So, this was just a lot of background stuff that needed to be said and stuff, and plus I gave you guys two flashbacks, so be happy! Woo :) Cause, you know... They were cute flashbacks. Olicity before dating is super cute. But, ya know dating Olicity is super cute too. Olicity is just cute in general... :)
So, I added le super cute gif. :) EEP. Love it.
Love you guys.
A lot a lot. <3
-- Alayna :)