Chapter Text
Inspired by: Amber Run - I Found
Chapter One
Felicity Smoak met Oliver Queen five months after she was taken to the Island.
Things only escalated after that.
That day she woke up early, just before dawn. After she dressed herself, she left her tent heading to her work station where she had to wait for the truck that would deliver supplies she needed to do her job. The sun came out for the first time in days, but the chill didn't vanish from the air, seeping into her bones through the worn black jacket she had for protection against the elements.
The camp was already busy. Mercenaries - or soldiers as they liked to call themselves - were running around, doing whatever Edward Fyers ordered them to do. The weapon supplies came first that day so most of them were unloading the crates from the trucks, doing everything perfectly so Fyers wouldn't find anything out of order. Everyone tried to please him in fear of his moodiness.
Edward Fyers was a rigorous leader, one that didn't hesitate to punish anyone who disobeyed. One that killed so many people that every few weeks new mercenaries were sent to fill the missing positions. It was understandable why everyone feared him.
Felicity didn't.
Not anymore.
At this point in her life she didn't care what would happen to her. She already knew her life would end the moment Fyers didn't need her anymore so why should she be afraid of the inevitable? Everyone on this forsaken Island would be dead at the end of this operation, and in contrary to the rest of Lian Yu's residents she didn't hold onto false hope. She understood that all of them were just pawns in Fyers' game and she took life the way it was.
Cruel.
The truck with her equipment finally came two hours later and she was checking if the delivery was correct; if they didn't forget about anything. She didn't need Fyers breathing down her neck because of another delay in his operation. He wasn't in a good mood lately and that only made the whole camp even more anxious than usual.
When everything looked like it was the way she wanted, she let the soldiers unload the crates for her. They were too heavy for her to carry and while they were being taken care of, she went back to her station to prepare it for work. The soldiers were leaving the crates under the makeshift tent she'd set up four months ago so the rain wouldn't damage her cables and electronics. It wasn't anything that could be described as a perfectly safe equipment storage, but it was the best she could get in those kinds of conditions so she couldn't complain.
Felicity stood by her station, drinking some water when she took a short break from gathering her tools on the table, the sounds of feet stomping on the ground and mercenaries talking in Mandarin making her fall deep in thought.
It was just another day on the Island - monotonous and predictable. She was alone, without anyone to talk to about her day, without anyone she could be friends with, because how could she like people who had made her the way she was now? Who had taken her away from people she loved and forced her to work for them?
She was so... tired of everything. She'd lost purpose in life months ago and sometimes she just wished they killed her after she'd woken up on Lian Yu. Death would be better than turning into the shell of a person she once was.
Felicity sighed, locking those thoughts deep inside her head.
Lian Yu was her life now. The cold, the pain. The suffering and loneliness. Those were the only things that still gave a damn about her. Remembering wouldn't do her any good.
The sound of something crashing on the ground made her come back to the present and her head snapped to the side. One of the mercenaries had lost hold of the crate and it smashed, the wood snapping when it hit the ground, the circuit boards and chips spilling on the still very wet and muddy ground.
"What the hell are you doing?!" she yelled at the soldier, her legs eating up the distance between them in three long strides. He stepped back, seeing her face twisted with anger and he started stuttering something in Mandarin. The way his eyes widened in horror, not hidden under the balaclava, showed her that he had no idea what he had done. She groaned, dropping to her knees in front of the broken crate, not caring that her pants would get messy. "Of course Fyers would give me a rookie to help."
The soldier babbled some more, but she just waved her hand at him dismissively, she didn't understand him anyway. She picked up a couple of chips to examine them and she frowned when she saw how wet and covered in mud they were. Some of them were even cracked, probably after the heavy wood had landed on them. It would be a miracle if they were still working after that kind of treatment. She would have to spend several hours, if not a few days on cleaning them up and trying to make them work again.
Felicity closed her eyes, sighing in resignation. Sometimes she just felt like everyone tried to make her job harder. Fyers would be pissed - again - and she would have to get through another long and angry argument with him. His operation would be delayed once again and this time it wasn't even her fault.
She picked up the other chips and circuit boards before they could get damaged even more. Her hands were full, but she still didn't manage to pick up everything from the mud. The content of the crate was lying around the broken wood and no one was helping her to clean up this mess - the mercenary who had screwed up long gone from her little station.
Great. As usual, she would have to do the job herself.
She stood up from the ground and turned, but shouts from the other side of the camp made her stop on her way to the table.
Felicity turned around to see what was happening. Two soldiers barged in to the camp like they owned it, taking the path on the side that led to Edward Fyers' tent where he dealt with everything work related. A strange man was with them, but it didn't look like he was here willingly. They were holding him down between them and that was all she managed to see before they disappeared from her sight.
Felicity frowned, intrigued. It wasn't a common thing to see someone captured by the mercenaries on Lian Yu. As far as Felicity knew, besides Fyers' team of mercenaries and the Green Archer, who probably was just an urban legend, there weren't any civilians on the Island. Hardly anyone knew about Lian Yu and the name "Purgatory" from Mandarin didn't encourage anyone who knew about the Island's location to visit. Something odd had had to happen if they captured someone.
Felicity grabbed a rag from the table and while wiping her hands, she stepped from her work station to see the mercenaries better.
And then she saw him.
A man who didn't look much older than her, with his hands cuffed in front of him, in ripped and dirty clothes that he probably had been wearing longer than few days. He could be anyone and she shouldn't care, but something about him made her pause in her track.
She only had a few seconds before they pushed him inside Fyers' tent, but it was enough to see his face. He was handsome, if you could look past the hair falling into his eyes and dirt smeared on the side of his face, but it wasn't his good looks that struck her. It was the way he was trying to look brave despite the circumstances that made her breath catch. The familiar situation that washed over her, reminding her that she didn't really get rid of the painful memories that were still haunting her in her nightmares.
Suddenly she felt like she was living through her first day on the Island again. The look on his face mirrored the one she'd masked her fear with that day when she'd realized she would never be safe again. The same wild expression that said more than it should when he looked around the camp. The same hopeful eyes which thought that maybe, just maybe someone would help him.
But she knew better.
He was in Purgatory and there was no one here to save him.
She saw all of this on his face and it was enough to strike a chord with the painful past locked under the mask she'd put on five months ago. She'd thought that she came to terms with everything that happened, but seeing someone else who would be put through the same treatment she had been opened those wounds again.
He disappeared inside the tent then and she felt like she could breathe again. But she couldn't lock away the memories, not now, when they'd broken free from their cage. A cold shiver ran down her spine when she saw them flashing before her eyes.
She was in the same tent, tied to a chair, terrified and cold. Fyers was shouting at her, the man in a black and yellow mask hitting her across the face. The cold blade of his sword touching her skin, threatening to cut. The suffocating feeling of being trapped and the unbearable pain of everything they were doing to her. Her bloodcurdling screams echoing around the camp.
Felicity hurried back to her work station, her hands trembling and heart beating fast. She threw the rag on the table and paced around the small space between the crates and her tools, trying to calm down. She felt uneasy, like her own mind was betraying her. Feelings and memories she buried deep inside her long ago coming out to attack her in the moment she was least prepared. She hadn't felt like that for months, hadn't had a panic attack in weeks, but this overwhelming feeling of injustice and hurt took over her mind regardless of how irrational all of this felt to her.
This was happening again. Someone was going to suffer and he couldn't do anything to save himself. Felicity knew all too well how this was going to go. The interrogation and torture, stripping away little pieces of his soul. If they didn't kill him in the process they would break him and turn him into one of Fyers' puppets. He would never be the same again. Felicity knew that from experience.
She closed her eyes and ran a hand over her face, breathing out long to get back her composure. When she felt like she wouldn't explode from those irrational feelings, her eyes opened and she leaned against the table, giving herself a much needed moment.
A dark chuckle fell from her lips and she shook her head on a small distressed whimper that escaped her without her permission.
She was acting ridiculous. She didn't even know why she reacted like this. She'd seen this man and what; suddenly her empathy came back from the dead? No one gave a damn about her when she was being interrogated and tortured. So why did she feel like she had to be different from them now? The Island didn't know kindness or compassion, if you wanted to survive on it you had to follow its rules. She had learned that a long time ago and after living through Fyers' treatment she didn't see another choice but to obey.
Shoving the odd feelings aside, Felicity decided that all she could feel towards this man was pity. Pity was a safe enough feeling to not question herself and the sudden change that bothered her.
No more than five minutes ago everything was the way it always had been. She'd lived her life day by day, doing everything Fyers told her and she'd gotten used to this life. She'd seen the way everyone was acting and she'd fallen into step, forgetting how it was to care about another human being. She had learned how to be selfish and how to not be crushed by the giants. And now, after just looking at this stranger, something awoke inside her, making her feel that the woman she had been for the last five months was someone to be ashamed of.
Felicity shut her eyes tightly, not understanding anything she was feeling at this moment and where those feelings were coming from. She was concerned about those doubts that suddenly arose inside her; it was something that could end her, this time for good. She shouldn't care about some stranger just like she didn't care about anyone else in this camp. She shook her head again, forcing herself to get rid of these feelings and this time it worked. She laughed bitterly when she felt the familiar emptiness again, not caring that some mercenaries passing by her station looked at her like she was insane.
Maybe she was; she did feel like a crazy person. Maybe after all those months the Island finally got to her. How else could she explain that one look at some stranger almost crushed the walls she'd worked so hard to put around her heart?
Yes, she was definitely crazy.
Felicity pushed herself away from the table and crouched near the broken crate, picking up the rest of the electronics. She had work to do; she didn't have time for distractions.
She was over it by the time she heard the first tortured scream. She was cleaning the chips when it fell over the camp, filling the air with pain and cold dread.
No one reacted to it. No one stopped even for a second to look with pity towards Fyers' tent. Everyone acted like nothing was out of order and for them it wasn't. Torture was a common thing in the camp, practiced when someone disobeyed. But it didn't mean that Felicity was used to it, that she was okay with it.
Then she heard another scream. The next one broke at the end like he couldn't take any more pain and that made her blood run cold. With every agonizing scream she felt like her own scars were reopening to make her feel the same pain the man in the tent was going through. Her hands gripped the table, clutching it hard.
This was getting ridiculous. Why was she feeling like this?
Another scream and she was moving before she even realized what she was doing.
She was halfway to the tent when someone's hand clamped around her forearm, forcing her to a stop. Her head snapped to the side, ready to lash out at whoever had grabbed her, but before she could say a word, she was hauled from the path to the side. She came face to face with no other than Alan Durand from the communication station, who purely hated her just because she was simply better than him at doing their job.
"You can't go there right now!" he hissed at her, his fingers digging painfully into her arm.
She snatched her arm from his grip, leveling him with a hard look, but his brown eyes only narrowed at her.
They had been playing this game of tug of war since she'd started working for Fyers, and every time they started it someone had to literally force them apart. He could easily knock her down if he wanted, she wasn't a fighter and all she knew about throwing a punch was what she'd seen while the mercenaries were training. But he never done that to her surprise and she always used that to her advantage. She might be inexperienced, but she knew how to use her words to hit where it hurt the most. That was probably the only situation when she was grateful for the lack of her brain-to-mouth filter. She thought something - she said it. In her case, words were the best of weapons.
"I need the old chips I left there yesterday. Some rookie broke the new crate and everything is screwed up for now." She took a step closer, showing him that she wasn't intimidated by him. "You don't want Fyers to be pissed about a delay. Again." She saw as his jaw clenched and she knew that she had him.
The last time the operation had beenrunning behind schedule, Alan took the blow of Fyers wrath. As the head of communications he'd failed to ensure that his team did their job. Felicity had had to fix everything, proving again that she was the best of them all and despite that Durand's new injuries hurt, his ego had hurt much more.
Alan regarded her with a look, like he was trying to read her, but if she'd learned something on the Island it was how to lie. She'd had enough time to practice her poker face to perfection.
When the man from the tent screamed again, she used that to get away from Durand and in a matter of seconds she was lifting the flap of the tent that served as a door. When she stepped inside, everyone's eyes turned to her. The sudden silence washing over her and settling heavily around her.
Fyers and the man with the black and yellow mask were the only people in the tent besides the stranger, but it was enough to make her brain finally catch up with what she was doing. She straightened her back, readying herself for what was about to come because she didn't really think this through. What was she about to do now? Why did she have to act so hastily?
Fyers watched her with a blank face, but she could see a glint of interest in his eyes. That was good, that meant he wouldn't kill her for interrupting his torture session. His curly sand hair was a little damp with sweat even if she knew that he hadn't lifted a finger during the torture. That task belonged to his most devoted mercenary - Billy Wintergreen.
Billy Wintergreen, the man behind the mask.
The man behind her scars.
She flinched every time she saw him and she could bet he was thrilled with the reaction he caused. Everyone wondered who hid underneath that creepy mask because no one had ever seen his face. He was the most ruthless and to be feared of mercenary on the entire Island, and once, before Fyers bought his loyalty, he'd been a member of the Australian Secret Intelligence Service. She heard that he'd had a partner, but he didn't join Fyers. He'd managed to escape from the camp and no one saw him since.
Billy Wintergreen was a man Felicity despised and hated because of what he had done to her and to other people like the stranger she came here to help.
If she only knew how to help him, that is.
This time she really was starting to question her sanity.
Her eyes didn't dare to move from Fyers' face, even when she felt the need to look at the man tied to a support beam. After a few silent seconds Fyers finally moved from his place by the beam and approached her. Felicity lifted her chin high, keeping her anxiety under control, but it only made Fyers smirk at her. He knew her too well. He knew how uncomfortable she really was.
"Ms. Smoak, we are a little busy here. What do you want?" he asked, his thick English accent making the words sound more threatening than they should be, but maybe it was just her fear making her think like that.
She swallowed hard before she gathered enough courage to answer him. She just needed to stay calm and tell him exactly what she said to Durand. "Something happened and it can delay the operation," she said, trying to sound more confident than she looked at this moment. Fyers lifted an eyebrow at her and she knew if she didn't explain it faster he would only get irritated with her and that couldn't end well. "One of the rookies broke the crate with the chips I needed. They were damaged, I don't know how much yet, but it will take me some time to make them work again. I need the old ones I left here so I can try to work within the schedule."
She hoped she sounded genuine because she knew that the damage of the electronics wasn't that big. She just needed to say something to baffle Fyers so he wouldn't question her presence here. She stopped herself from breathing out with relief when she saw his face twist with anger and she knew it wasn't directed at her.
"Give Mr. Queen five minutes to reconsider what we've said," he ordered Wintergreen and pulled out a knife from a holster strapped to his belt. "In the meantime we'll take care of our small problem." He looked back at her, his gaze already darkening, full of intent, and for a second she regretted that she came here in the first place. Now she could only hope that he wouldn't kill the man that broke the crate, that he would only teach him a lesson. "Take whatever you need and fix this," Fyers snarled at her and then he left.
Billy Wintergreen moved away from the stranger to follow his boss. When he was passing by her, Felicity tensed involuntarily and he stopped for a second like he wanted to taunt her even more. The blade of his ever-present sword touched her hip lightly in place where he'd left a long ugly-looking scar and it felt like the sick bastard was remembering the time when he'd tortured her. Felicity's eyes stayed focused on the table before her and she didn't twitch, not giving him the satisfaction of making her feel the distress she'd felt that night. He could terrify her, but it didn't mean that she would curl up in the corner like a scared little puppy.
After a moment he backed away from her and then he left.
Felicity breathed out heavily, realizing that she'd actually managed to deceive Fyers and Wintergreen and that wasn't an easy thing to do. She should be proud of herself; she was getting better and better at fooling people. Then she remembered why she was here in the first place and the eyes she kept focused on the table finally moved to land on the stranger who had turned her day upside down.
He was already looking at her, his intense icy-blue eyes using the strength that was left in him to focus on her, observing her cautiously like he thought that she was here only to cause him more pain. His eyes moved down her body and she knew he was taking her in, maybe trying to assess how much of a threat she was. And she knew that with her brown hair falling messily around her shoulders, glasses and green cargo pants she was wearing she didn't look like a threat at all.
When his eyes moved back up she didn't let him catch her gaze yet, instead she assessed him like he did with her. His hands were tied above his head to the support beam and they were straining under the rope as his legs were giving out under him even more now, as the remaining of his strength was leaving his body. The worn-out blue shirt was partially open, leaving his chest bare to her eyes and she inhaled sharply when she saw the damage Wintergreen had done to his body. He looked worse than she had after two days of torture; she couldn't see a place on his chest that wasn't cut or bloodied. She didn't have to imagine how much it had to hurt, but she was also impressed that he hadn't passed out from the pain yet.
He was strong. That would certainly help him survive on the Island.
She looked at his face then and she was right before, when she thought that he was handsome. He had one of those faces you could stare at the whole day - with sharp features and stubble that looked more like a beard now - and no injury could really change that. He looked a little boyish, too, and it only confirmed her theory that he couldn't be much older than her. She thought he was tall, but she couldn't really tell when he wasn't standing straight. His dirty blond hair was messy and falling into his eyes even more than before and she felt this strange urge to brush the strands away from his face.
Felicity shook her head when she realized what she was thinking. Only then her eyes finally locked on his and for a moment he was just staring at her like he was trying to decide if she would make a move or if he should say something. Felicity sighed because this whole situation was stupid; she had no idea what she was doing.
She moved then and she saw how he tensed, readying himself for a blow or something, but she just circled him to get to the table where Fyers had his things sprawled like he couldn't simply put them on the side. Her chips were lying by the old radio that she had to fix a lot and she picked them up, putting them in the pocket of her jacket. Her excuse to come here was solid now.
When she grabbed the empty glass that stood on the table near the half empty can of soda, she didn't really know what to do next. She turned slightly to look at the stranger. His head was tilted to the side like he was trying to see what she was doing behind his back, but he couldn't get a look at her from that position. She went with her gut because that was the only thing she was sure of lately and she poured the soda to the glass. She could bet he was thirsty after that kind of treatment and it just... felt right.
In the next second she was back in front of him and she moved the glass to his lips. He turned his head, not letting her touch him. Felicity watched him for a moment and she didn't pity him like she'd thought she would back in her work station. All she felt was sadness when she realized that he didn't trust her. The way he was treated made him wary and she knew it would take a lot to trust someone again. She knew he thought that she was trying to poison him so she did the only thing that occurred to her at the moment.
"It's not poisoned." He flinched slightly when he heard her voice filling the quiet space between them. She waited for him to look at her and when he did, she took a sip from the glass, watching him the entire time. "See?" she asked after a moment when he saw that she didn't drop dead on the ground. "Now drink, I know you're thirsty."
She moved the glass back to his lips and after a second of hesitation that felt like forever, he took a sip, holding her gaze. After that the hesitation disappeared and he drank the soda like he hadn't drunk anything for days. She took the glass away from his lips only when it was empty and he sighed, relief written all over his face.
"I’m sorry, I don't have more." She looked at him apologetically, but he still didn't answer. He just kept watching her like he didn't know what to think of her.
Felicity's eyes darted back to the tent's exit and she knew that she only had a few moments left; she couldn't waste them on waiting for him to say something. Her hand moved to her back, pulling a small pocket knife from her pants pocket that was always there and when he saw it, his eyes widened in fear, thinking that she wanted to use it on him.
"Relax," she calmed him and then she snorted quietly because how could he relax when he was tied to a beam, tortured and now someone was holding a knife in front of his face. Sometimes she really was stupid.
Felicity opened the knife and slipped it inside the pocket on his backside, trying not to think too much about the fact that she was kind of feeling him up and yes, his ass was great, but this was so not the time to think about things like that. She was surprised that she didn't blush when she looked at him again.
"I'm sorry they hurt you like that and I don't know if this will help you, but when they cut your bindings you should use the knife. Who knows, maybe it will save your life." She watched the stunned expression on his face. He looked like he thought he was dreaming this moment, that she wasn't really here and she wasn't helping him. "Just don't lose it; it's my favorite."
She gave him a small reassuring smile and then she moved away from him, hearing Fyers' voice, yelling close to the tent. She palmed her pocked; checking if the chips were still there and then she took a step to the exit. The stranger's raspy voice stopped her before she moved the flap of the tent to step outside.
"Why are you helping me?" His voice was weak, but she could easily hear the curiosity in it. He needed to know why she had showed him kindness, but she couldn't think of any explanation she could offer him.
She didn't have one.
She tipped her head to look at him and being true to herself, she said the first thing that came to her mind, "I guess it's just those blue eyes of yours."
He looked even more astonished at her reply and it pulled a smile out of her, making her brows furrow in surprise at how effortless it happened.
Before he could say something else she moved the flap away and left the tent before she could start questioning herself again.
Later, in the middle of the night, while she was lying wide awake on her cot in her small tent, she realized that the reason she'd helped this stranger wasn't because she'd felt bad that he had to experience the same things she had. Yes, it was a big part of her reason, but the real important thing was that he'd made her realize that the Island hadn't taken away all of her humanity yet. That deep down she was still the same Felicity she had been five months ago.
All this time what Fyers had done to her was an excuse to give up and become whatever he needed her to be. It was an excuse to bury her head in the sand where she could pretend that everything was forced on her, that she had done everything she could to fight for herself.
And she had done none of that.
Maybe in the beginning she'd been reluctant to let go of her free will, but with time it was easier to give up than fight a war she knew she could never win. She'd just let herself go and embraced the fact that she was weak, letting Fyers and the Island decide for her.
The stranger was her warning sign that maybe she should think twice about what she had been doing to herself this whole time. Because she hadn't always been like that. There were times, times that felt like a lifetime ago, were she'd looked at her life and saw perspectives. She had a plan, a big and beautiful plan that had been coming to life and all of her dreams had been just within her reach.
She'd gotten away from Vegas - her own personal hell that could have trapped her in its depths forever, but it didn't because she'd fought hard for her dreams. She'd gotten to MIT and studied Cyber Security and Computer Sciences, finished the first year with honors and she'd gotten a summer internship in Hong Kong, in one of the most successful companies in the world. It would seem that nothing could stop her from reaching the top.
If she had known that accepting the internship would change her life forever she would have stayed in Boston and she would have worked at the local café not far away from the campus. Cleaning tables for the summer suddenly felt like a better choice than flying to Hong Kong for the internship.
It had started innocent, completely perfect. The apartment MIT had rented for her was small, but cozy; she'd had a reasonable work schedule that let her go out to discover the city and meet new people. She'd used that opportunity, she was nineteen and she didn't want to spend her free time hiding inside her apartment.
One of those nights she'd met a young woman. Shado was Chinese and just a few years older than her - a lawyer with a pre-med degree. She had perspectives too. In a short time they had became great friends, but there was something about her that worried Felicity. This darkness clinging to her and the sadness present in her eyes. Felicity had this bad feeling that didn't want to leave her alone. It hadn't been long after that when she'd learned the cause of her friend's distress.
Her father - a Chinese general - went missing years ago after he'd been framed in massacring innocent people that in fact the Chinese military had murdered. Shado hadn't been able to find him anywhere and she was losing hope after all those years. Felicity being who she was had decided to help, thinking that maybe her hacking skills she had polished at MIT would help to find something that her friend hadn't been able to get access to. Maybe she could find him - do what the police had failed to do so long ago.
Maybe became certainty when Felicity had hacked Chinese military files, learning that Shado's father had been sent to a prison on a deserted island to answer for crimes he had not committed. The island hadn't been named in the files, but Felicity knew that with a little bit of digging she would find the prison's location. There was still hope to find him and Felicity couldn't be more proud of herself when her hacking skills proved that she could use them for good.
When she had gotten a lead on his whereabouts and she had been on her way to tell Shado about it, two men in ski masks had barged into her apartment. She couldn't fight them; she couldn't do anything besides screaming when they had grabbed her and then sedated her. She had been so stupid to think that she could hack military files without tipping anyone off. She'd brought this on herself and now they were going to kill her and no one would know what had happened to her.
When she'd woken up on Lian Yu she was surprised that she was still alive. But then a cold dread filled her body when she'd realized that they hadn't killed her because they had different plans for her. Death would be an escape from what they wanted to do with her.
She had been tortured for two days. Fyers wanted to know everything she had found out about general Yao Fey and who she had told about him, and Billy Wintergreen had known how to make someone talk. When he had been done with her, her body was covered with jagged scars and her mind was damaged just as much. She'd been powerless and when Fyers threatened to kill Shado and her family, she hadn't had a choice but to tell him everything. After that she'd just given up, hoping that Fyers would finally kill her, making the pain and guilt of telling everything stop once and for all.
But Edward Fyers had let her live.
Apparently she was better than any of his mercenaries he'd hired to do the technical job in his operation. And now she was his puppet to fix things, build communication systems and other things Fyers told her to do. She was a puppet and she couldn't do anything to change that. She had tried.
To this day Fyers hadn't told her everything about what he was doing on Lian Yu and how exactly he was involved with Yao Fei, but she had heard enough among his mercenaries to understand that it wasn't anything good. The work he ordered her to do couldn't be anything good either because the last two months she had spent on rebuilding very old circuit boards and rewiring cables she could swear were old enough to come from World War II. She'd suspected they were just pieces that were important to activate something bigger and when a month ago a missile launcher had been delivered to the camp suddenly everything made sense.
Fyers was planning something big, something that was bad if it involved a missile launcher. His frequent talks with some mysterious man through a satellite phone she'd had to fix a couple of times were only confirming her theory. It made her also think that he wasn't working alone, that he had been hired to make this operation happen.
That's why, when she'd realized that she was the key to make the missile work she decided to slow down the operation. If she worked slower the operation would be delayed and maybe somehow she could stop it. She couldn't be responsible for something terrible to happen.
For now it was working, she did things slower without making it look suspicious; sometimes she broke something and made it look like it already had been this way when it was delivered. Sometimes it would give her a few days and sometimes even a week so the final day of the operation was moving further in time. She didn't know how long she could drag this out without being made, but for now she was just happy that she could cross Fyers' plans a little. He wasn't that pleased though, and only thinking about what he would do to her if he ever found out that it was her fault made her scared. She could bet it wouldn't end well for her.
Felicity turned on her side and pinched the bridge of her nose in exasperation. Why couldn't she just fall asleep? Why did she have to think about all of this? It was easier when her emotions were shoved to the side, when she didn't have to worry about her morality. Maybe trying to make things better wasn't a good idea. Maybe helping the stranger was not one either.
The answers she desperately needed to find a solid ground again weren't there and more question were only piling up inside her head.
She didin't know what to do.
And she wondered where the stranger was now.
Not so long after she'd left him in the tent, the Green Archer came to his rescue, killing few mercenaries and escaping from the camp before anyone could really react.
Felicity was stunned. She really had believed that he was just an urban legend told around the camp. Everyone talked about him like he was the Island's ghost – with fear, but also with curiosity and admiration. If she hadn't seen him today she would still think he was made up by the soldiers.
And with the Green Archer's help, the stranger seemed even more interesting. How did he know him? Were they friends? Who was he, the mysterious Mr. Queen, as Fyers called him?
The way Edward reacted when they escaped told her that both of them had to be important - Fyers wouldn't sent a search party after just anyone. There was more to it than she knew and it only made her want to learn everything more.
She hoped that the stranger was safe somewhere out there in the woods. She hoped that he would never have to be treated like that again and she hoped that somehow she could meet him again. She tried to convince herself that she only wanted her knife back - it was her favorite after all - but there was a small part of her, a part she tried to shove to the back of her mind, that wanted to get answers to every question that popped inside her head since she had met the stranger.
Because Felicity hated mysteries and they needed to be solved.