Arrow: Reckoning Part 2

No More Secrets

The steady breeze blew past the bushes, rattling them as Oliver secretly hid within them. The campfires illuminated the area as the pirates continued working, some moving supplies to the caves and others sifting through their gear. The prisoners had been moved to a site near the caves that Oliver had scouted earlier, but decided to begin his attack at the beach as to cutoff the pirate's escape. He observed the small group of men and planned out his attack, waiting for them to split up again before making his move. He watched as they laughed about the prisoner's poor attempts at bribing them failed, pulling their attention from Oliver as he moved closer under the shadow of darkness. Two of the men finally collected some tools and moved off down the trail toward the caves as Oliver prepped himself for what he was about to do to the men.

The narrow staircase leading down into the Keep was much more tricky to navigate than the Foundry's was, requiring Oliver and Felicity to painfully take their time as they descended downward toward their teammates. Diggle and Roy eagerly waited beside the collection of computers, watching as their friends returned.

"Glad to see everybody's key still works." Felicity began as she greeted her two friends with hugs.

"Any word on Laurel yet?" Oliver asked as he embraced his partners.

"None yet." Diggle replied as he shook Oliver's hand, waiting for his orders.

"I guess that's a good sign. I mean wouldn't Slade be rubbing it in your face if he had her?" Roy suggested as he moved with the others toward the monitors. Felicity sat at the desk and went straight to work, bringing up every bit of information involving the incident at the prison.

"It's too soon to tell. Slade's game is much more complicated than we originally thought." Oliver replied as he stopped beside Felicity and waited for her to find something of use. Diggle took notice of his two friend's close proximity to one another, particularly Oliver's hand resting on Felicity's shoulder. He smirked at the level of comfort the two were displaying this early in their relationship.

"Where's Thea?" Oliver asked as he glanced back at Roy.

"At Verdant, she refused to miss her own reopening." Roy explained as he shrugged slightly, noting at his aggravation toward Thea's decision. Oliver nodded, knowing that he needed Roy nearby in case Laurel was in danger but fearing the thought of his sister being alone when Slade was still at large. Verdant however was most likely full of patrons and would be for quite sometime, allowing Oliver and the team a window to try and find Laurel before they would need to split up and protect each other.

"All the security feed near Slade was scrambled during his attack." Felicity began as she brought up the footage from the prison, most of which consisted of static.

"But I was able to access the outter cameras and find this." She added, playing back a video of Slade exiting the prison and disappearing into the night without Laurel. Oliver angled his brow as he watched the video and thought to himself about what could be going on.

"So Slade left alone...that's a good sign right?" Roy asked, looking to the others for a hopeful optimistic reply. Diggle looked to Oliver, knowing that things were only more complicated now. If Slade would have taken Laurel they would atleast have an idea of where she was, but now they were left with two unanswered questions; why did Slade break into prison to visit Laurel and where was she now. Oliver looked down at his buzzing phone and read the caller ID, dreading the name before him.

Captain Lance

Oliver sighed before he answered.

"Detective."
The nearby city skyline shined down on the rooftop as Lance and Warren waited for their guest. The uneasy posture of Lance let Oliver know the man was obviously on the verge of a breakdown as he approached the two men. Lance wasted no time as he turned to the Arrow and began.