The Starling Saviour

Chapter 60

We took the stairs to a dead part of the museum, the room clear of any people except from Felicity, who appeared to have carried on ahead of Oliver and Diggle as soon as she acquired the bomb collar.

'Get away from me,' Felicity pleaded, freaking out as she hurried away from us. 'If this thing blows...'

'It's not going to happen,' Oliver said firmly, certainly sure of himself.

'The Dodger said if I call the police he... I'm gonna get decapitated, aren't I?' Felicity freaked out some more as we closed in around her, Diggle trying to find a pen to de-wire the collar.

'Alright, tracker's on the move,' Oliver told her as quickly as he could. 'If I find him, I can get him to disarm it. Talk me in. Stay calm.'

'Too late,' Felicity fretted.

Diggle managed to open up the casing that covered the wiring, it looking complicated to say the least.

'Go,' Diggle said to Oliver supportively. 'Just go.'

'I'm coming with you,' I insisted as I followed Oliver to the nearest door.

'No, you need to stay here and help calm Felicity down,' Oliver denied my involvement yet again.

'I'm not giving you the choice,' I said firmly. 'This is my mess, and I have to clean it up.'

'What?' Oliver questioned me in the midst of the madness of the situation.

I had to tell him, even if the timing wasn't exactly perfect.

'I was targeted recently by the Count, and then by Vanch, and now by the Dodger in a very short space of time,' I started as quickly as I could amidst our crisis. 'They were working together, all three of them, plus that Counselwoman at the trial. And they know too much about my life, about yours, and for some reason they had it in for me. The Dodger is using Felicity to get to me, to put me through more pain for my actions against the criminals in this city.'

We were now outside the museum, Oliver taking a moment to process what I had just said.

'Why didn't you tell me this earlier?' He asked softly but remaining serious and driven.

'I didn't want to put anyone else in danger,' I described what I had thought. 'I didn't want to bring you into this. But now Felicity's life is in the balance, and God knows who else the group the Dodger was in with the Count and Vanch, the Renegades, will target next.'

'Talk to us, Felicity,' Oliver instructed through his earpiece as we hurried down the road, waiting for our directions, Felicity about to tell us through her earpiece what was happening on the GPS app on her phone.'Talk to us.'

'Heading towards Adams and O'Neal,' Felicity informed us through our earpieces, and so we carried on to the streets we had been provided the names of. 'At the clip he's going he's gotta be in a vehicle.'

'We can't keep up with him,' I voiced, dismayed. 'We're too slow.'

'Maybe not,' Oliver uttered slowly, looking across to a man about to get on his motorcycle on the pavement ahead.

'Hey,' Oliver started as we approached the bearded and menacing-looking biker. 'We need your bike.'

'Are you kidding me?' The biker confronted us, not wanting to budge.

'No,' Oliver merely said as he kicked the biker to the floor, rendering him unconscious and taking his helmet.

'Oh, no,' I muttered as I realised what Oliver wanted us to do, him putting the helmet on his head an obvious sign of the inevitable.