What's wrong with us when happy hurts

If you don't pay the price, you don't live this life

Chapter 86If you don't pay the price, you don't live this life back is full of knives, I don't sleep at night, if you close your eyes, that's how people die I cannot be niceNotes:

Okay, so I didn't reread this part as often as I usually do but I really wanted to get it out and I should've been in bed at least an hour ago already so bear with me. And I also might regret that decision tomorrow when I will reread the chapter again for sure.

Also I'm kinda nervous about it... and it's another rather short one...

Felicity

Felicity was equal parts frustrated, in disbelief and worried when she couldn't detect any trace of Oliver. It couldn't be that he just vanished without a trace. That none of her options to detect his current location were working. It was as if he just ceased to be and with that, all of his electronics, too. And there was just no way. He had a freaking tracker in his boot. Even if someone got rid of his phone and earbud, there was still a way to detect him. Unless they got rid of his boots, but why would someone just remove his shoes... and even if and they'd kept them separate, she would still get a signal, but she wasn't getting anything. It was as if the tracker no longer existed. Which made no sense or meant they must have a device to block the signals, which would be really, really bad.

But she refused to give up, couldn't admit to herself that she was running out of options and ways to find him, and fast. She was going through the footage of the traffic cams right now and nothing, just like there had been nothing on any of the security cameras close by. Just nothing. It was impossible. There was no way they'd get away completely undetected. Not in a city like Star that was covered with security cameras. There were enough that she usually had no issues keeping track of Oliver when he was on the road with his bike, even when he took side alleys or went off road. So this shouldn't be possible.

She couldn't believe she lost Oliver.

There was no way. She had never just lost him like this before. How could this have happened? It was her job to always keep track of everyone on the team. She was Overwatch. She was supposed to watch over them, keep them safe, and always keep an eye on them. The dread she'd been feeling from the moment she was told that Oliver was gone, but his bow was still there, only intensified with every failed attempt to locate him. It amplified even more when the realization hit that she didn't know what else she could do to try and locate him. She'd done everything she could. This was the last straw to grasp on. If the cams gave them no clue, she wasn't sure where to go from there... well, there was one more option, but she wasn't sure if leaving her post for a couple of hours was an option or something she even wanted to do. Helix might be able to help or not. So leaving her post for what could be a waste of time wasn't something she was willing to do. Yet.

Plus, she just couldn't get Cisco's reaction out of her mind and the very valid points he's made. She'd been thinking about what they'd asked her to do and what the reason could've been for them to not want that part of the border to be watched. Could it be that Helix wasn't what Alena claimed it was? She pushed those thoughts away for the time being. She could mull it all over and analyze everything she knew about Helix once Oliver was back home. Safe. She didn't have time to get sidetracked before then. Because she needed to find him. She couldn't fail. There were too many reasons to count why failing wasn't an option. She just knew she had to find him. Partially because of the way things currently were between them right now. She wanted, no, she needed to... she hated the current situation between them. How angry he had been with her. Oliver had never before been this mad at her. Their last real, non-mission-based interaction couldn't be the last one they'd ever have, and she hated herself for the dark, pessimistic thought. But who knew what Prometheus would do to him. And she couldn't stand the thought that if they failed, she'd never get the chance to make things right between them. She'd never get a chance to explain. She'd never get the chance to apologize to him for hurting him, which she had obviously done, given his very emotional reaction. Oliver rarely showed his feelings in such an obvious way and most of the time it was when he got hurt emotionally.