'Business is booming,' Tommy grinned at me as we were going through some paperwork in the club office. 'And we're not doing that badly, either, according to the numbers.'
However, my mind was on a totally different plane to what was going on in the present. I hadn't been able to stop thinking about my past since Cyrus Vanch's trial, and especially after mine and Oliver's... Moment, almost like the switch on my memories had broken. I kept getting sudden flashbacks to the island, to Ivo's testing, to the fake Mirakuru surging through my veins and making me want to kill anybody and anything, but I had also been frequently thinking of my life before I had boarded the Gambit; how Malcolm had taken me from my country and given me no choice in the years that succeeded that one event.
I had touched so many lives in both Central and Starling City, causing people more pain than happiness in that. Many had suffered in my name, believing the best in me, but really, I had just poisoned their lives and then left some of them without a trace. My co-manager and ex-boyfriend who I was currently conversing with was one of them, well, he was the reason I was in Starling City in the first place, as his father had been so adamant on me protecting and watching over him. Nothing was forcibly holding me there anymore - I could've simply just walked out of the club, out of the city and flown back to my own country - but, ironically, Starling City had become my home. I never would've thought that to be the case five years back, but now, I had people, many people, I cared about in that city.
'Aria?' Tommy said to get my attention, and that he did. 'Are you okay? You look totally out of it.'
'Sorry, I just got a bit... Distracted,' I tried to cover up my emotions like I always did. 'But, I am fine.'
'Are you sure?' Tommy contradicted me. 'You don't look fine to me, you look... Shaken.'
This was the type of behaviour that made me teary, Tommy's seemingly innocent concern causing me great sadness. It wasn't a negative sadness, but a sadness that always got to me when people cared about me. I guess it upset me that people would waste their time on me, yet another thing that showed how unstable and warped I really was.
Once you're broken, you can never be fixed.
'You clearly are not okay,' Tommy pressed on the matter, leaning towards me, getting closer and closer to me when I wished he would go the opposite way. 'Do you want to... Talk about it?'
'I'm not really sure what I want to do,' I told him truthfully but I still building a wall between us.
'I can just listen,' Tommy offered calmly. 'You know I'm an open guy, I'm not like a judge and jury.'
'Well, the judge and jury are what started all this again,' I rolled my eyes, confusing Tommy slightly. 'That dreadful trial nearly a month ago, it made me... Re-experience things, things I'd buried long ago. I thought I was over the island, I thought I was strong, but it looks like I was wrong.'
'I think you still need to talk to a professional,' Tommy advised at once. 'Wasn't your attorney referring you to someone, a therapist?'
'Adrian was the therapist,' I explained briefly. 'He's not just an attorney, he's a therapist too. And I talked to him for a few sessions, but I stopped them because I thought I was fine. Clearly, I was wrong.'
'Maybe you should give him another chance,' Tommy smiled softly. 'When was he supposed to have his next appointment with you?'
'Tomorrow night,' I remembered with a nod.
'He might still be free,' Tommy pointed out. 'Give him a ring, I'm sure he'd love to help you out again.'
---
'Aria, how nice to meet with you again,' Adrian Chase greeted me with a grin as he entered Leyla's hideout, which was now starting to properly feel like my home, as I had tweaked a few things, including storing away all the strong spirits from a dangerous drunk me in case I got a bit too wasted again.
'Thank you for coming here on such short notice,' I smiled back at him, grateful for his presence. 'I realised that maybe I do need more help.'
'A lot of my clients do,' he agreed, sitting down opposite from me in the lounge area of my home. 'But usually, it takes them much longer to realise.'
'Well, I didn't exactly realise myself,' I admitted to Adrian. 'Talking to a friend helped.'
'Yes, that's good,' Adrian nodded, once again agreeing with me. 'I think, from our past sessions, you struggle to let your guard down, to let other people in. It's good to be vulnerable sometimes, especially with the people closest to you.'
'That is something I am definitely not good at,' I almost laughed. 'But, I think I need more than just letting people in. The trial that you were assigned to me for, the one where that Counselwoman accused me of all sorts, brought up a lot of things I didn't want to face. It made me relive a lot- things that happened to me the year I was missing.'
'Do you want to tell me about them?' Adrian gave me an opportunity to talk to him about my past. 'Remember, whatever you tell me in these walls is confidential.'
I longed to pour my heart out to someone, and Adrian was giving me that chance, but I didn't know whether to trust him that much. Yes, he was a professional, and he had to maintain his code, but I was still sceptical. I hadn't told anyone my full story, about what had happened to me in the ten years since Malcolm Merlyn had abducted me, but I needed to tell someone in order to keep sane.
And so I told him everything. Well, everything that was legal.
After I had bared my soul to Adrian, he took a few minutes to take in everything I had said, his reassuring smile not having faltered during my whole story. He had been so understanding and such a good listener, I wondered where he had been all my life.
'No wonder you are going through so much,' he finally said, taking my hand. 'You are a survivor, a fighter, Aria. You have nothing to be ashamed of. It's totally unfair that you were accused of being a vigilante just because you were on that island.'
Yes, I had left out the bits about me being a vigilante, not because of my own sake, but Oliver's. I wasn't going to be the one who would tell Adrian about his secret; if Adrian was going to find out someday, it should be off Oliver himself.
'But how do I make myself not spiral out of control again?' I fretted anxiously. 'I don't want to feel as down as I was when I was dating Marcus.'
'I actually have something on me now,' Adrian stated, taking a container from his bag, shaking it so I could hear the pills inside. 'It's a natural remedy, I bought it from the pharmacy nearby, it'll help with your flashbacks and your irregular sleeping patterns.'
'Is it safe?' I checked precariously. 'I've had a bad history with pills.'
'If you have a problem with them, fight the pharmacist, not me,' Adrian laughed lightly before he left to the door. 'See you soon, Aria.'
Adrian advised to take the pills before I went to sleep, and so that night I did just that, popping one of the white, powdery pills in my mouth. They tasted familiar, as if I had encountered them before, my eyes starting to go blurry and my pulse accelerating.
This wasn't any natural remedy I had heard of.
The lamp beside my bed was the first thing I noticed spinning in the corner of my eye, the light it was emitting now completely blurry as my eyes tried to regain focus, the whole room now spinning with me. Standing up, it was almost like I could hear beautiful music, the world seeming so much more beautiful now. I had no worries, no pain, and no flashbacks anymore.
I felt invincible.
Stammering backwards, I fell back onto my bed, a small note falling out of the pill bottle along with the only two that were left in there. Why had the bottle been barely filled? What pills had Adrian given me?
Unrolling the note, I read the madly scrawled handwriting inked on the paper. It read 'Courtesy of the Count', followed by an address in the bottom half of the paper.
Vertigo. Not again. But the feeling was so good, and I couldn't deny that I loved the buzz Vertigo gave.
And I needed more.
I quickly took the final two pills, my hallucinations becoming more extreme, as though the world around me was a beautiful place filled with fairy lights and brilliant colours. I may not have taken what I had intended to, but this rush felt better than any natural remedy could conjure up. The lights in the hideout guided me, leading me outside and plunging me into the darkness of the night. I traipsed along the road, the street lamps twinkling in my drug-fuelled mind, showing me the way to my destination, the address the Count had scrawled on a small piece of paper for me.
---
I woke in a cold sweat as the spring sunlight shone down on me, my whole body jolting as I suddenly tried to get my bearings. I was laying in an alleyway, crumpled, my clothes and hair a mess. I had been out cold for the whole night, the Vertigo virtually knocking me out when my high had plummeted. Still disorientated, I took a few breaths to pull myself together, great tremors affecting my hands and my balance as I attempted to stand up. I was unstable, and my body craved Vertigo.
I found the Count's note against the palm of my right hand, and I soon remembered why I had been venturing around the streets of The Glades in the dead of the night. The Count had certainly delivered; I was addicted to his poison, and this time, Malcolm probably wouldn't interfere after I had ordered him not to last time. I clambered to my feet, looking for the direction of the address, but I was still confused and had no idea where I had ended up, leaving the alleyway to find a road with one or two buildings scattered in front of me.
Vaguely recognising the area, I saw a small house just opposite me, its resident just outside the door in his signature red hoodie. I was looking at Roy Harper's house. But which part of The Glades did he live in? I was unable to find a street sign, so I slowly walked towards the part of the road that wasn't a dead end.
'Er, hey!' A voice shouted behind me, slightly laced with concern.
I turned round hesitantly, finding Roy walking towards me, looking like he was trying to figure me out.
'Are you okay?'
'I'm fine,' I stammered, but it appeared that I wasn't very good at lying after taking Vertigo.
'You work at that club, don't you?' He quizzed me surprisingly.
'I need to get home,' I didn't answer his question, feeling ashamed in my state.
I tripped as I tried to hurry away, losing my balance and collapsing to the ground, blacking out once again.
I found myself in the interior of a house, Roy present in the room. He was rummaging through a pile of clothes and turned to me as soon as he heard me stirring.
'You okay?' Roy asked me the same thing he had earlier out on the street before I had passed out yet again. 'You fell to the ground, I didn't know where else to take you.'
'I'm surprised you didn't take me to the Memorial Hospital,' I was now more alert than before, starting to feel myself again.
'I've found that doctors don't take overdosing well,' Roy remarked back.
'Fair enough,' I nodded in agreement. 'Wait, how did you know?'
'What, that you had taken Vertigo?' Roy answered back slightly snarkily. 'In the last day or so, loads of people have been getting Vertigo from somewhere. I thought The Hood had defeated The Count, but the pills are coming from somewhere.'
'Why did you help me?' I questioned him further. 'You don't even know me.'
'I know who you are,' Roy explained. 'You manage the club, the one Thea's brother owns. I saw you there, after The Hood saved me.'
'You know about a lot of things, Roy,' I picked up on his extensive knowledge.
'I live in The Glades, I have to,' Roy shrugged. 'And, by the sounds of it, you know who I am.'
'I saw you nearly die on the news,' I pointed out to him, making him smirk at my boldness. 'Well, I'm Aria, Aria Coleman.'
'That's why you work at the club,' Roy realised something. 'You're friends with the Queens, aren't you? I've heard a lot about you.'
'Oh, I hope it's not anything bad,' I smirked back at Roy.
'Everyone in The Glades knows who you are,' Roy told me, briefly taking me aback. 'You saved us all from that Culebra Gang a few years back, and you were recently kicked out of the SCPD for shooting the Dodger.'
'How does everyone in The Glades know I killed the Dodger?' I panicked, shocked that something like that could happen. 'In my defence, I was protecting myself.'
'Everyone here thinks you're a hero,' Roy sounded impressed at my murderous feat. 'And word gets round here, fast. You just have to listen.'
Turning to stand up from the bed I had been passed out on, I spotted an empty syringe on a surface nearby, a small, red spot on my arm to match.
'What did you inject into me?' I exclaimed at once, slightly horrified. 'I did not give you permission to stick needles in me!'
'Hey, don't get all stressed, I did it to help you,' Roy stepped back to defend himself. 'It's Naloxone, it reverses the effects of an overdose. You would still be spinning if I hadn't given it you.'
Roy chucked me some articles of clothing from the pile he had been rummaging through earlier, a hoodie and some sweatpants in the mix, as well as a can of deodorant and a hairbrush.
'No offence, but you smell really bad,' Roy interjected, scoffing. 'And your clothes are too ruined for you to actually walk about in, you must've been really high.'
'Thanks,' I rolled my eyes, changing immediately after spraying a fairly large amount of deodorant on my body.
As I went to the door, I looked back at Roy, feeling like I had just used him, and had done nothing for him. He had saved me, after all, and I felt like I needed to repay the favour. But, I had helped Oliver save him from Joseph Falk, so maybe we were even.
'Thank you, again, Roy,' I smiled at him gratefully. 'Not many people would stop and help someone who was ODed on the streets, I know a lot would've just passed me by and left me to deal with it on my own. If you ever need help with anything, Roy, just find me at the club, or at my home.'
'Where is your home?' Roy inquired at once.
'Leyla Coleman's place,' was the last vague thing I said to a rather bewildered Roy.
---
Pouring some drink out into a glass for a customer at the club, my hands violently shook, my tremors getting worse by the hour. It had been a day since I had overdosed on Vertigo, and I was deteriorating as time went on.
'You looked like you were struggling,' Tommy commented as he joined me behind the bar. 'Are you okay? Did your meeting with your therapist-slash-attorney help?'
'One question at a time,' I remarked to him, but that was purely for show as I tried to control my erratic behaviour. 'I don't feel very well, Tommy, do you mind if I go outside for some fresh air?'
'Sure,' he nodded with understanding.
Letting myself out of the back doors of the club, I felt myself stumble further towards the ground, my brain whirring as my sight became blurry. Lightheaded, I clutched onto the wall next to me, doing my best to try to focus on my surroundings, but I knew why I was feeling this way; it had been required for everyone on the forensic science course I had taken to learn about the effects narcotics had on the body. I was suffering from withdrawal symptoms, from the one drug I had been determined to avoid after my last incident with the poison, when the Count had injected his version of Vertigo into my system.
The only way to stop the pain I was going through would be to take more Vertigo.
By now, I could remember what the address of the location Vertigo was being sold was after looking at it so many times, and so I ventured to the spot, it being not too far from the club. The darkness outside made it possible for the trade to happen, many people loitering around the area rather conspicuously, the most vulnerable of Starling City making up the group. Drug-lords were renowned to prey on the weak and desperate, and it turned out that I was slowly becoming one of them. Nobody would ever suspect that I was a vigilante by the state I was in.
Before I could reach Count Vertigo's personal drugstore, I was approached by an especially shifty-looking male, some sort of intent plastered on his face. He could tell I wasn't completely with it, and so he followed me. Trying to escape from his path, he just pursued me closer, another man with the same expression joining him.
'You don't look so good,' the first one jeered, too close for comfort.
'What's a girl like you doing out all alone in the middle of the night?' The other one continued taunting me.
'I need to get somewhere,' I said back angrily, not wishing to get into a fight when I wasn't myself. 'Get out of my way.'
'I'm sorry, but we can't do that,' the first one struck out to grab me and render me defenceless.
I thought I would've been helpless against them whilst I was weakened by a lack of Vertigo, but surprisingly, I could still fight. Twisting away from the man, I turned to find Roy stood behind me, his red hood pulled up onto his head and his stance strong and domineering.
'Get lost,' he growled, but the two men just chuckled at the boy, he being smaller and younger than him.
'At least you won't be able to notice bloodstains on that hoodie,' the second man spat, taking a knife from his jacket and turning on me. 'Give us the money you were gonna buy Vertigo with or you won't live to see another day.'
'I doubt it,' I managed to retaliate, my symptoms dropping as my adrenaline heightened. 'You made a mistake to target me.'
'What you gonna do, girl?' One of them underestimated my abilities just because of my gender. 'You work for Oliver Queen, don't you? I bet that brat has a lot of money he'd love to give us if we opened fire at his club.'
'You won't get the chance,' I remarked, dodging the unarmed man's punches and kicking down the one with the knife.
As I demonstrated my capabilities to the two, they went on to fight Roy, his fighting less refined than mine. His odds weren't in his favour, and he had a large possibility of being stabbed by the armed man. I wasn't going to let him die under my watch. Quickly, I twisted the arm which wielded the blade as the metal was about to enter Roy's skin, taking them all by surprise, and thus our opponents decided to stand down, running off into the distance.
I helped Roy up from the floor, the knife's aim having caused him to fall backwards in order to avoid being stabbed.
'You really are good,' Roy complimented me, once again impressed by my fighting skills. 'Where'd you learn how to fight like that?'
'Self-defence classes,' I shrugged with a smirk, playing my vigilantism down with that clichéd saying I always seemed to revert to.
Roy didn't need to know who I really was.
'How did you know I was here?' I suddenly realised the strange coincidence that he had come to my rescue at the right time.
'I thought you'd come here,' Roy said, sending me a knowing shake of the head. 'You're already addicted to Vertigo, whatever the Count put in his new batch must be really strong.'
'I am not addicted!' I protested, but I couldn't deny the truth. 'But I only took like, three pills, I shouldn't be hooked after only a couple, should I?'
'Vertigo is the most addictive drug I've ever seen,' Roy explained with concern. 'You need to stop, before your body gives out. No more Vertigo, okay?'
'It's not like I have a choice in this!' I exclaimed in response to Roy's instructions. 'I need it. I crave it. I can't cope anymore, the only way I can stop this pain is to take more.'
'That's what they all say,' Roy sighed frustratedly. 'Look, I'm trying to help you. You need to kick it before it's too late to get back off it, before you walk out into the road and get hit by a truck.'
'Then what am I supposed to do?' I caved with despair.
'Go speak to a doctor, or a therapist, or someone,' Roy told me sincerely. 'I don't usually help people, you know, but if I help you, I'm also helping out the city. Two vigilantes aren't enough against the crime in The Glades, and if people like you can fight like that, we can help them out.'
'You're really interested in helping the city, aren't you?' It dawned on me what Roy's motives were. 'But that's not your battle to face, Roy. You need to stay safe, away from guys with knives like that one we just met. You're not superhuman.'
'The vigilantes aren't either,' Roy argued very validly, he realising something himself. 'Do you... Know The Hood? The Sapphire Saviour?'
'Roy, going down this path you seem to be aspiring to, helping the vigilantes, all it will do is bring you suffering,' I said wisely.
'You really sound like you know them,' Roy carried on theorising.
I couldn't exactly lie to him. Roy had been so nice to me and had risked his life to save me.
'If I did, I couldn't tell you.'