“Don’t you touch her.”
“Not until you get here. I promise.”
Slade hung up and sent Oliver his coordinates. Then he prepared for his final confrontation with the spoiled rich kid from Starling City. After five long years, Slade would finally avenge his beloved.
25
Slade held Felicity firmly with one arm, while holding his blade against her neck with the other. He could hear Oliver’s footsteps, and spoke to him through the din of the industrial plant.
“Twitch and I will open her throat,” he said loudly, the sound echoing. “My first words to you. Do you remember? I do,” he continued. “I remember the exact moment. My blade against your neck—just like my blade is against the neck of your beloved. If only I’d killed you then, everything would be different.” Slade wasn’t wearing his helmet, exposing his face. He wanted Oliver to see him clearly, in the moment he took her life.
Oliver emerged from behind a cluster of pipes that stretched from ceiling to floor.
“Drop the bow, kid.” Oliver continued to advance with arrow nocked. Slade responded by pressing the blade against Felicity’s neck. “Do it.”
Oliver finally lowered his bow, placing it on the ground. From behind Slade, one of his soldiers brought out Laurel, clutching her with an arm around her throat.
“Yes,” Slade said. “Countless nights dreaming of taking from you all that you took from me.”
“By killing the woman I love?”
“Yes.”
“Like you love Shado.”
“Yes,” Slade admitted with uncharacteristic vulnerability. Hearing her name, he stared off into the darkness, seeing her shape just a few yards away, looking on over the scene. Her face was beautiful and without expression.
“You see her, don’t you?” Oliver suggested. His question sent Slade deep into his memory, causing him to release his grip on Felicity, dropping her to her knees in front of him. He kept his blade trained on her neck while he paced in tight, close steps, and Oliver continued.
“Well, what does she look like in your madness, Slade? What does she say to you? I remember her being beautiful. Young. Kind.” He peered intently at his opponent. “She would be horrified by what you’ve done in her name.”
“What I have done?” Slade responded, his intensity growing. “What I have done… is what you lacked the courage to do. To fight for her!” He brought his blade closer to Felicity before him. “So when her body lies at your feet, her blood wet against your skin, then you will know how I feel!”
“I already know how you feel,” Oliver said. “I know what it’s like to hate—to want revenge—and now I know how it feels to see my enemy so distracted he doesn’t see the real danger is right in front of him.”
As Slade paced, thinking the danger was Oliver, he didn’t register Felicity slowly rising to her feet, withdrawing a syringe from her coat pocket. She gripped it in her hand, gathered herself, and plunged it deep into Slade’s neck.
Then she ran.
Slade dropped to his knees, instantly feeling the cure work its way through his body, sapping his strength. As it began to neutralize the serum’s power, Slade watched Shado begin to fade into the darkness. Then she was gone.
Furious, struggling against the cure’s effects, he yelled to the soldier holding Laurel.
“Kill her!” he bellowed.
Before the solider could do anything, however, Sara emerged from the rear of the building, and hit the soldier with a cure dart. Then Laurel turned and punched him, first with a right, then a left. He dropped to the concrete floor with a crack.
“Get them out of here!” Oliver shouted. Sara gathered Laurel and Felicity and led them to safety, leaving him alone with Slade.
Oliver picked up his bow.
Mustering what was left of his strength, Slade charged him, bringing his sword down with an overhead chop that Oliver deflected with his bow. They danced back and forth, delivering strikes. Though weakened, Slade was enraged. Nevertheless, they were on even ground now, and as Slade lashed out, Oliver countered with a kick to the chest, sending his opponent backward through a glass door, shattering it.
Landing on the building’s rooftop, still gripping his sword, Slade quickly recovered and sent Oliver down with a kick. He then raised the blade over his head, smashing it downward. Again Oliver blocked the strike with his bow, then he sprung up into the blow to deliver a kick to the mid-section.
They continued to fight across the rooftop, the Starling City skyline behind them on the horizon, pockets of flame still visible in the streets below.
“The mirakuru isn’t what made me hate you.” Slade swung his blade, forcing his enemy to duck, leaving him vulnerable for a strike. He took advantage, grabbing Oliver by the throat. As he squeezed tighter, choking him, the roar of a jet engine overhead drew his attention skyward. A drone sent by A.R.G.U.S. cut through the night, its course set for downtown.
“The end is near,” Slade said, “but maybe I’ll be merciful enough to let you live and see your city burn!”
Suddenly Oliver mustered enough energy to kick himself free. The two backed away, circling each other, trading kicks and blows, Oliver using his bow as a makeshift sword against Slade’s blade, their weapons arcing around them. Oliver landed yet another kick to Slade’s mid-section, and while the armor protected him, it sent him flying backward.
Shaking his head to clear it, Slade launched himself into another attack, hitting Oliver squarely in the face with a punch. They grappled, then threw each other backward, both spent and falling to the floor.
“We both know there’s only one way that this can end,” Slade said, struggling to rise. “To beat me, kid, you’re going to have to kill me.” He pushed himself to his feet through sheer force of will, as did Oliver. “But in the moment of my death, you’ll prove one thing—that you are a murderer.” Strength gathered, they rushed each other again, clashing at the roof’s center, the impact carrying them over the edge and dropping them to a lower level.
Their fighting had become crude, fatigue transforming skill into primal desperation. Each reared back, throwing his full weight behind any attack, their blows slow and telegraphed. Oliver tried launching a haymaker against him, but he ducked the blow, allowing Oliver’s momentum to take him toward a pillar. Pivoting, he landed a left hook to Oliver’s face, followed slowly by another, each landing with a sickening thud. At this point, Slade’s entire goal was to cause as much damage as possible.
Momentum on his side, he rushed forward, thrusting his blade toward Oliver’s chest, intending to deliver a final death stroke. When it was inches from contact, Oliver summoned a last burst of energy, deflecting the blow with his bow, spinning away. He cracked Slade over the back with his bow, stunning him, then quickly nocked and fired two lasso arrows.
Slade was cinched tight to the column, bringing an abrupt end to the conflict.
All his energy spent, he slumped into the restraints, allowing them to take his weight.
“You can kill me or not,” he said. “Either way, I win.” Then he turned his attention toward the horizon, waiting for the drone to drop its payload, vaporizing him, Oliver, and the entire city. But Oliver ignored him. With barely enough strength left to stand, he tapped his communications earpiece, dialing into A.R.G.U.S.
“Amanda, it’s over,” he said. “Slade’s down, his army’s been taken out. Call back the drone.” There was a heavy silence as he awaited her reply. Slade felt the seconds tick, counting them with his heartbeat, wondering if the kid’s luck would save him again.
“Amanda, it’s over!” he yelled again.
After a few more tense seconds, the roar of a jet engine cut through the silence. They looked overhead as the drone returned, retracing its path back to A.R.G.U.S.
The two enemies regarded each other for a long moment, their breathing heavy and visible in the cold. Five years had led to this moment. Their long battle had finally been brought to an end. Oliver, however, looked anything
but victorious.
“So what now, kid?”
Slade watched as Oliver pulled an arrow from his quiver, nocked it, and fired.
Then, like many years ago, the world went black again.
26
Slade awoke with a gasp. “Where am I?”
His mouth was dry and his throat hoarse as he sat up. His body responded with a sluggishness that suggested he had been unconscious for a while. Disoriented, he found himself on a cot in the middle of what appeared to be a prison cell. Bars enclosed the area on three sides. However, the back wall was made of rock and the ceiling was low, like the inside of a cave. There were no windows, the only light emanating from harsh halogen lamps above.
Turning, Slade found Oliver Queen staring at him through the bars. He sat on a stool facing the cell, his face still showing signs from their battle.
“As far away from the world as I could get you,” Oliver replied. “Where you can’t hurt anyone ever again.”
“That’s your weakness, kid.” Slade finally found his footing and rose to standing, staggering closer, leaning on the cell bars. “You don’t have the guts to kill me.”
“No, I have the strength to let you live.”
“Oh, you’re a killer,” Slade said, pacing his cell, keeping his eye trained on Oliver. “I know. I created you. You’ve killed plenty.”
“Yes, I have,” Oliver said. There was an odd calm to his voice. “You helped turn me into a killer when I needed to be one, and I’m alive today because of you. I made it home because of you, and I got to see my family again. But over the past year, I’ve needed to be more. And I faltered.
“But then I stopped you. Without killing.”
Oliver stood up and stepped closer to Slade’s cell.
“You helped me become a hero, Slade.” He regarded his prisoner, meeting his gaze with sincerity. “Thank you.”
Slade came to a stop, taking him in. Feeling his rage burn bright again. Not from the mirakuru, but from the depths of his soul.
“You think I won’t get out of here?” Slade said. “You think I won’t kill those you care for?”
Oliver opened the door to exit, revealing the insignia of A.R.G.U.S. This was its supermax prison. Inescapable. Impenetrable. Classified. He turned to face Slade.
“No, I don’t,” he said. “Because you’re in purgatory.”
Slade watched as he pulled the door shut behind him, the sound reverberating throughout the spartan cell. As silence fell, he realized he knew exactly where Oliver had doomed him to exile. He was back where his journey began. Stranded on Lian Yu. A prisoner of the island once again. It was a sentence far crueler than death.
Anger boiling over, Slade shook the bars of his cell…
“I keep my promises, kid.”
His voice growing louder…
“I keep my promises.”
Reminding Oliver of his vow…
“I KEEP MY PROMISES!”
Arrow--Vengeance Page 30