Chapter Text
Oliver surveyed what was left of the kitchen. The sink had a black ring around the drain. The window sills were lined with dead flies and accented with spiderwebs. Vines were starting to climb in through some of the broken panes.
He noted the empty cupboards and drawers which had been left open. As with other rooms in the house, raiders had made off with any scrap of food, sharp object, tape, alcohol, rag, and first aid supplies they could find. Hopefully they’d stopped by after Thea moved into the city. He didn’t want to think about what they would have done to his little sister if she’d been there.
It came as no surprise to Oliver when he saw the skeletal remains of a man slumped against the kitchen island. He kicked over the corpse to reveal the pockmarks where a dozen bullets had bitten into the wall. A dark maroon smear outlined where the man’s body had sat propped up for the past few years.
The number of bullet holes suggested that this was either overkill or the work of someone unfamiliar with guns. A lump formed in Oliver’s throat as he imagined Thea scared, alone, desperately shooting Walter’s pistol over and over at this stranger until the clip was empty, even several moments after the man was dead, just to make sure.
The only gun Oliver had shot when he was Thea’s age was a Nerf gun. Pelting Tommy in the face with a foam bullet was completely different from ripping through someone’s chest with a handful of metal rounds.
He’d killed for the first time when he was 22 years old. Thea had shot 3 people before she’d turned 18. What other horrors had she faced alone? How different would things have been if he’d been there to protect her?
He had failed his sister — his baby sister, his Speedy.
***
“Ollie?” Thea called as she walked through the doorway of her childhood home.
Her brother didn’t answer. She wasn’t even sure he was there. If he wasn’t, she didn’t know where else she’d look. Starling was a big city.
She hadn’t been back in three years — at least not physically. Her last day there had haunted her dreams until she was finally able to block out the memory. With every step, whatever magic her brain had used was fading more and more until she could remember all of it.
A week or so after her mom and Walter died, Thea had watched helplessly as raiders had swept through the house. Now, she could still hear the men’s voices as if she were still that scared 15-year-old cowering behind the pantry door.
The freshly opened can of Spaghettios on the counter had tipped the men off that she was still there. In fact, she’d barely had time to run from her lunch to the pantry after she’d heard the glass of one of the dining room windows shatter.
She had clutched Walter’s old gun in her shaking hands. She hadn’t known how many bullets were left in the magazine. The rest were locked in a safe somewhere. Even if she’d known where it was, she probably couldn’t have cracked it.
She had watched as the group of men scavenged the kitchen for anything they could either trade or use as a weapon. Thea had never been religious, but she had prayed none of them would open the door she’d hid behind.
When she’d thought they had moved to the other side of the house, she’d tried to sneak outside. She’d silently opened the pantry door and crouched behind the island as she inched her way toward the patio doors. Despite her best efforts, she’d made just enough noise to draw one of the men back into the kitchen.
She’d stayed hidden as long as she could until she’d had to crawl around to the other side of the counter to avoid him seeing her.
All these years later, she could still feel the way her hands had shaken as she aimed at the back of his head.
She’d pulled the trigger just as the man had turned around to face her. The bullet had missed his head and hit his left shoulder. If he’d had a gun, she would have been toast.
Acting quickly, she had stood and shot him again. This time, she had aimed for his heart, but her shaking hands threw off her aim, and the bullet had instead hit in the spot between his heart and his stomach. This had stunned the man, giving her time to run over to finish him off.
He had dropped down to sit against the cupboard as he’d urgently pressed down on his bleeding abdomen. For a split second, she’d seen a look of fear in the man’s eyes. If this had been a movie, she might have felt sympathy for him. But reality is much scarier than fiction.
She had unloaded shot after shot into the man’s chest until she was sure she had ripped his heart to ribbons. She had only stopped when she’d run out of bullets.
Defenseless, she’d run as fast and as far away as she could, narrowly dodging the bullets of the man’s companions. She hadn’t stopped running until she reached the Quarantine Zone where she’d stayed ever since.
Movement in the kitchen snapped Thea’s mind back to the present.
Logically, she knew it was probably her brother, but every muscle in her body tensed, and she was frozen where she stood. She reached into the pocket of her jeans where she typically kept a switchblade, but instead, she found nothing.
Her brain screamed at her to hide, but her feet refused to move. Her lungs forgot how to breathe. The only organ that seemed to still work in that moment was her heart, which was beating loudly in her ears.
She almost screamed when she saw a man emerge from the kitchen. But she exhaled when she recognized her brother.
“What are you doing here?” Oliver asked.
“Ol-Ollie,” Thea said as she struggled to breathe.
Oliver ran over to her, wrapping her in his arms.
“It’s okay,” he said, “It’s just me. You’re safe.”
*****
They went to the front yard to talk. Anywhere inside gave Thea crippling PTSD flashbacks. Outside wasn’t much better, but she claimed that she could manage as long as they avoided places where she’d seen someone die or try to kill her.
“What’s going on?” Oliver asked once they were far enough away from the house and Thea’s shoulders finally relaxed.
“Did you talk to Roy?” she asked.
Oliver shook his head and clenched his jaw. “Did he hurt you?”
“He wants to break up,” Thea said, “He thinks he’s bad for me.”
Finally something Oliver and Roy could agree on.
“I don’t think he should be the only one to make that call,” Thea said.
Oliver wished he could shake her by the shoulders and somehow get her to understand that this might not be a bad thing.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said.
“Whose idea was it to sneak out of the Quarantine Zone?” he asked.
She had daggers in her eyes now. “Whose idea was it to get on that boat?”
“You deserve better than him,” he said. “You’d be safer if–”
She interrupted him. “Stop. Stop treating me like a kid. I’m not thirteen anymore. I am sick and tired of both you and Roy telling me what to do. How dare you say he’s not good enough for me. Were you there when I skipped class because I was having an emotional breakdown? Did you hold me when I missed my family so much that I couldn’t breathe? Did you sit with me when I wondered if life was still worth living?”
Oliver didn’t have the words.
“No. You were dead. He was here. So don’t you dare say we shouldn’t be together.”
“Speedy, I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t come here for your sympathy. I wanted to ask for your help. Obviously, that was a mistake.”
She turned to leave.
“Wait!”
She faced him again.
“What do you need me to do?” he asked.
“I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” she said. “Roy says he can’t protect me. I don’t want his protection. I need you to teach me how to defend myself.”
“Doesn’t your school do that?”
She huffed. “Barely.”
He paused as he considered his answer. If he taught her how to shoot, she would probably continue to take stupid risks. But if he didn’t—He couldn’t be there to protect her from everything.
“Okay,” he said.
*****
Thea hurried down the hallway after math class. She hadn’t seen or heard from Roy since he’d tried to break up with her two days ago.
She needed to talk to him. He needed to know she was training now and that he didn’t need to worry about protecting her. She needed to tell him they could still be together and that everything was going to be fine.
She stopped just short of their closet when she heard voices and movement from inside. If she didn’t know any better, it almost sounded like—
Her heart sank. He wouldn’t. There had to be some other explanation.
She waited, hoping that somehow the door would open and another euphoric couple would stumble out. Somehow, Roy would show up beside her in the hallway, and they would just have to find another closet. But minutes passed, and the more she listened, the more unmistakable his muffled voice was.
She didn’t recognize the other voice she heard, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. But something compelled her to stay. She needed to know which of her classmates Roy thought was a better option than her.
Sinking down the wall to the floor, she rested her head and folded arms on her knees. She closed her eyes and felt hot tears drawing invisible lines down her cheeks.
A few students and faculty members stopped to ask what was wrong, but she waved them all off. She couldn’t explain the situation without someone spreading it like scandalous gossip.
She watched as the hallway slowly emptied. The bell rang for class, but Roy and her replacement didn’t seem worried about the time.
****
This was wrong, and Roy knew it.
The girl’s name was Cindy, but anyone who wasn’t a teacher or a FEDRA officer called her Sin. The irony of her name in this moment was not lost on Roy.
She was from the Glades, and they’d grown up within a few blocks of each other. They considered each other friends, but they’d never been together like this. She was the kind of girl that might have been his type if he hadn’t met Thea; streetwise, snarky, naturally pretty, and despite her tough act, compassionate.
He’d flirted with her in the hallway and sweet-talked her into following him into the janitor’s closet with a mutual understanding that this was just for fun and had absolutely no strings attached.
If there weren’t strings, there couldn’t be knots. If there weren’t knots, no one could depend on him. If no one depended on him, no one would get hurt when he inevitably let them down.
Sin rested her hands on Roy’s chest, but he couldn’t help thinking about the way Thea would hold his face.
He tried to push the thought of her away. He needed to do this. It was the only way she’d leave him. He’d tried breaking up with her. He’d thought that crushing her heart would make her stay away, but she’d persisted. He had no other choice but to make her hate him.
Thea would come looking for him after class, and she’d catch them. He was counting on it. He hated the idea of making her cry, but he was bad for her, and this would prove it.
“What’s the matter?” Sin asked, looking into his eyes with concern, “You don’t seem like you’re having fun.”
Roy tried to shake off his guilty conscience.
“I’m alright,” he said, “I just can’t get out of my head.”
“You’re thinking too much, Abercrombie,” she whispered.
The nickname made Roy roll his eyes, but feeling her hot breath on his lips suddenly stirred something inside of him, and an invisible magnetic force pulled them together with a hot yet hollow passion.
Maybe this was just the kind of person he was. Selfish.
He roughly pushed Sin up against the wall, accidentally sending a mop and a bucket crashing to the ground.
This was all he deserved. All he was good for was temporary thrills. Sin was a great person, but they both knew this didn’t mean anything. Roy wasn’t sure he was worthy of love.
His lips explored her neck until he found a soft spot of skin just above her clavicle. He was about to give her a hickey, but he paused when he remembered the way Thea would hold her hair away from her neck for him.
Love bites had been a regular part of their intimate routine. Once the previous bruise had faded, he’d replace it with another one nearby the recently healed skin, like touching up the ink of a tattoo.
He switched to nibbling on one of Sin’s ears instead. She was ticklish but insisted that he continue.
He hated the part of him that was enjoying this. His mind was wrestling with his conscience, begging his hands and lips to stop, but they continued. If embracing the chemicals flooding his brain made it easier to drown out the guilt, why shouldn’t he?
The only thing stronger than his impulses was the sound of crying he heard from the hallway. He paused immediately when he recognized Thea’s voice. Her sobs snapped him back to reality. This was the stupidest thing he’d ever done, and he had quite the record.
He wanted more than anything in that moment to run to her, scoop her up into his arms, and wipe away her tears as he begged for her forgiveness.
Sin pulled away and said, “She sounds really upset.” Then, she cracked the door open just enough to see who it was. She didn’t seem to recognize Thea curled up with her hands holding both sides of her head. “Do you know her?”
“She is, was, my girlfr–.“
Sin interrupted him by slapping him across the face. “You said you were single.”
“It’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated about it? There is a girl out there who is crying her eyes out because of you, and you’re in here sucking face with me.”
“I’m bad for her. This is the only way she’ll finally see it.”
“That’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard,” she said. “I’m all for having a good time, but not if it means hurting someone.”
“Thea won’t —“
She looked like she was going to slap him again, and Roy was surprised when she didn’t.
“Thea Queen’s your girlfriend?” The revelation added a layer of hurt to the anger in her eyes. “You’re telling me you broke the heart of the most genuine person left in this school just because you’re scared of commitment?”
He didn’t argue. He deserved this reprimand.
“I used to look up to you,” she said before throwing open the door and stepping into the hallway.
*****
Thea looked up when the closet door opened and a girl stepped out.
Sin? That’s who Roy was cheating on her with? Cindy Simone? There were so few people their age who had survived this far into the apocalypse that good people were hard to find. She and Sin had a few classes together, and Thea thought they were friends.
“I’m so sorry,” Sin said, “He didn’t tell me—“
Thea stood up, barely able to look at her, let alone make eye contact. This kind of betrayal felt so out of character for both of them, which only made the pain worse.
“Please, just leave me alone,” Thea begged, holding up a hand as if signaling her to stop.
Thea turned and started to walk away but paused when she heard the door open again.
She couldn’t look back at Roy even though she could feel him looking at her.
After a silent moment, she ran down the hallway, not giving him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
She wanted him to run after her. She wanted him to beg her for forgiveness and admit that he was wrong. She wanted him to say it was all a massive mistake and that whatever he was doing with Sin meant absolutely nothing.
Instead, he was silent. And when she eventually turned back around at the end of the hall, he was gone.
*****
Laurel and Tommy looked up at the gallows that had a permanent home downtown where a beautiful city park used to be. Neither of them wanted to watch, but it was like a car accident that they couldn't look away from.
“Is that Mr. Carter?” a high school-aged girl standing a few feet behind them asked.
“What did he do?” another teenager asked.
“He started teaching us actual history,” a third person said, “and now they’re accusing him of being a firefly.”
Laurel couldn’t tell if it was morning sickness or the recognition of one of her former high school teachers standing on a platform as an officer tied a rope around his neck, but she felt like she was about to throw up.
She couldn’t focus on the charges his executioners listed as reasons he “deserved” to die.
She was never a fan of his teaching style, but he had still been her teacher while she was in high school.
Teaching FEDRA’s version of history must have been agonizing for him. Laurel admired his convictions, but it seemed like only person who learned from history was doomed at the hand of those who were eager to repeat it.
Tommy grabbed her hand as he said, “Let’s go.”
But as they turned, a FEDRA agent stood in their way.
“Excuse us,” Tommy said, trying to step around the man in uniform.
The officer didn’t budge. “You can’t leave,” he said.
“Why not?” Laurel asked.
“I don’t make the rules,” he said, “I just enforce them.”
“Please,” Tommy said, “My wife’s pregnant, and we need to get home so she can rest.”
For once, Laurel appreciated his inclination to treat her pregnancy like a debilitating illness.
The officer shoved them back.
“Tommy, don’t!” Laurel begged as he let go of her hand and stepped forward. A sense of dread filled her gut as she watched him set his jaw and curl the fingers of his right hand into a fist, waiting for his opponent to make the first move.
The people around them also backed away, shifting their attention from the swinging corpse of a history teacher to the fight that was about to start between a FEDRA officer and an unarmed man.
The officer took a swing at Tommy, but Tommy barely dodged him.
Tommy clocked his opponent in the nose but in the process scraped the top of his hand on the edge of the officer’s helmet. Blood was smearing over his knuckles, leaving a bright red stamp on the other man’s face.
In a rage, the officer barreled into Tommy, knocking him to the ground and punching him until his nose and mouth were bleeding.
“Stop!” Laurel begged, “You don’t have to do this! Just let us go!”
The officer continued his assault without acknowledging her desperate pleas.
This was disgusting. There was a crowd of people watching this fight. Why wasn’t anybody doing anything? She couldn’t just stand there.
She ran forward and tried to shove the man off of her husband. She was successful at first, but this only changed the man’s focus to her.
He backhanded her across her face. Laurel felt the rigid plastic of the knuckles of his tactical gloves slice her cheek.
Ignoring the pain, she returned the favor with a solid uppercut to his jaw. Her wrist felt like she’d punched a brick wall, but it worked. The man was momentarily stunned, allowing Laurel to land another hit, this time to his throat.
Struggling to breathe, the officer reached into his belt and pulled out a gun.
Laurel and Tommy froze. She squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself for the shot.
Instead, she heard her dad’s voice yell, “That’s enough! Put the gun down!”
She opened her eyes to see her dad in his FEDRA uniform with his own handgun trained on the other officer. Laurel never approved of her dad’s choice to join FEDRA, but his higher rank had just saved their lives.
The other man slowly set the gun on the ground and raised both hands above his head.
Quintin walked forward, picked the gun up, and instructed two other officers to escort the man elsewhere.
He turned to Laurel who immediately wrapped her arms around him and started crying.