The Starling Saviour

Chapter 42

'L-Leyla?' I babbled uncontrollably. 'How-why-what-?'

'I can explain, my dear sister,' she smiled with the same smile she had when we were small. 'It's been too long.'

'But- but you were missing!' I gasped, barely able to string a sentence. 'Back home, they were looking for you!'

'While I was looking for you,' Leyla pointed out.

'But, why didn't you just... Text me or something?' I asked obliviously.

'You know that would've been impossible, with Merlyn and all that going on,' Leyla told me obviously. 'Yes, I know a lot about what happened to you. I've had almost ten years to do my research. And I already have tried texting, and calling, and visiting. But that assassin would not let me anywhere near you as your innocent, little sister Leyla Coleman. Little does he know who Molly Laneace is.'

'Why 'Molly Laneace'?' I asked out of curiosity while trying to process everything else that was going on. 'It's a bit... Unique.'

'It's an anagram of my real name,' Leyla laughed. 'I'd thought you would have guessed it was me; we did love our anagrams as children.'

I just nodded, the quiet making me feel slightly sane in all of this.

'I was the one who sent you your suit, in case you were wondering,' Leyla added. 'But from the expression on your face, I gather you already realised that.'

'How on earth did you get access to my suit?' I questioned with intrigue. 'I locked it away in Ted's Wildcat Lair so I wouldn't want to go back and find it, let alone anyone else.'

'Aren't you becoming a vigilante again?' Leyla reminded me rhetorically. 'Oliver isn't the only one who gets to go round fighting crime in a fancy suit.'

'He sure acts like he's the only vigilante in this city,' I remarked, not even questioning how Leyla knew about Oliver being The Hood or how she knew I had agreed to work with him. 'I'm starting to doubt him, a lot. I don't really know if I can work with him anymore.'

'He is always going to be that irresponsible, foolish boy he once was,' Leyla told me. 'Nobody can change overnight, not even someone who spent his years in purgatory. You should know that, Aria.'

'I was only on the island for about a year, though,' I remembered. 'Oliver was there for five.'

'Perhaps he experienced five years of hell, but they weren't all on Lian Yu,' Leyla mentioned controversially. 'I have my associations with a woman who goes by the name Ms Waller, who saved you from that island, and she told me otherwise. She didn't just save you, Aria, but Mr Queen too.'

'Why was she so vested in Oliver and I?' I inquired. 'I had, and still have, no idea who she was.'

However, I could remember the event so clearly. I had woken up on a plane with Amanda Waller sat opposite me, after Anatoly and I had seen the freighter explode, both Sara and Oliver supposedly being still on it. Waller had told me next to nothing about the whole situation, that it was 'classified', and had then left me in England so I could be reunited with my family once again. I still had no idea why she had taken such an interest in me though.

'The only thing I can tell you, Aria, is that she is the director of an extremely important advanced research group,' Leyla vaguely told me. 'I am unauthorised to let you know more, although I would love to.'