Balance of Two Lights

Inclined to Love: Part One

Time seemed to be passing by slowly.

Each step that he took felt like his boots were buried in quick sand. It took every ounce of strength to pull himself through and make another stride. Even though the trees were beginning to pass by him at a quicker pace as he had entered into a full on sprint, he felt trapped in a time void. The closer they got to the origin of the gunshots, the slower the world seemed.

All of the worst thoughts had been running through his mind. Kara shooting Tommy. Tommy bringing Alex and Barry out of the plane and aiming the gun at one of them. Tommy had been unpredictable since the moment he made his first kill. And that is what unnerved Oliver the most.

The scene seemed rather harmless upon Laurel, Adrian, and his exit out of the wooded area and onto the shoreline of the lake. Oliver was scanning the area for any sign of life— Kara, Tommy, anyone he might have brought with him. His initial fear surrounded the possibility that Tommy and Kara had moved on from the site surrounding the plane.

But his newfound debilitating fear wasn't rooted in his own observations. No, it came from the cry of Kara's name escaping Adrian's lips from behind him. The anguish within the realization as Oliver's eyes laid on to the same sight.

There was no way.

Kara laid on the sand, a stain forming in the abdomnial area of her suit as her hand was covered in the blood seeping from it. The capillaries and arteries in her neck and head were pulsing through the green glow in her veins as she was struggling to catch a breath.

Oliver didn't even take a moment to try to catch his falling heart. The wind was cold as it rushed against his glassy eyes as he charged Tommy, who had been kneeling next to her. The smug grin as he made eye contact with Oliver only sent his fury into a seething rage as he drove his toes off the ground with more force than he ever had.

He began to aim his bow before Tommy stood up, locking Kara in an inescapable chokehold that forced Oliver to stop in his tracks. The only thing that he could feel were his labored breaths struggling to evade the lump in his throat. He kept his bow aimed at Tommy's chest, despite Kara's head being right underneath it.

Tommy was clearly struggling too. Blood was trickling both sides of his face. His eye was beginning to swell as the bluish tint within the inflammation was beginning to show. His breaths were as labored as Oliver's were— except they weren't constricted by an emotional reaction. He was physically struggling to breathe.

"I told you, Ollie," Tommy chokes through a chuckle. "I fucking warned you that I would test whatever strength you were trying to prove to me that you had. . ." He trails off as he pulls out the gun that Oliver could only assume he had already shot her with. He puts the barrel along her temple as he continues. "She's what makes you feel human, right? She's what drives you to be better, makes you feel alive— take her away, and what are you? What are you going to become if you make me pull this trigger?"

Oliver begins to shake his head, feeling his chin graze the fingers from his bow. He can feel a steady stream of tears glide down his cheek as he watches Kara struggle for every breath. He knows the ability he has to deliver the arrow waiting on his trembling drawstring in a line drive through Tommy's heart. He recognizes the burning desire within him to do it. But something was still stopping him.

"Why'd you bring her into his?" He says through a quivering lip. His words strengthen into a rage of steel as he yells, "She had nothing to do with what happened with you and me. She played no part in your father's death, who I became, who you became—-"

"Look at her!" Tommy screams as he tightens the grip around her neck, causing her to grimace. Oliver reenforces the aim of his bow as he watches, getting a firmer grip on the drawstring as he takes a step closer. "She's already suffering, struggling, because she's been poisoned by the one thing that can destroy her. And that's not Kryptonite, Ollie. That's you."