Poison
Chapter 4
Chapter 4
Chloe awoke to find herself on the couch. She didn’t recall getting up and going to it, but evidently she must have. It was daylight, early morning. How long had she slept? Her disorientation short lived, one word shot through her mind. Oliver! She sat up abruptly, hastening to his room to find the bed void of any occupant. Chloe then went through the other rooms, calling for him. He was gone. Moving over to the desk, she picked up her cell phone, preparing to dial Clark and the others when she heard the sound of the elevator.
Soon, Oliver entered the penthouse, still dressed in his Green Arrow gear. He’d taken down his hood, and had removed his dark glasses. But something wasn’t right. There was something different about him. She thought she saw what appeared to be blood on his hands. What had he done? What had happened? A wave of apprehension swept through her, and fear knotted in her stomach. Chloe ran to him. “Ollie, are you all right?”
He looked at her, his eyes vacant and distant. “I’m fine, Chloe,” he said, his voice hard as he brushed past her.
“Oliver, what happened? Where have you been, we’ve all been worried. I’ve been worried.”
“Nowhere, leave me alone.” He went to his room, slamming the door.
His appearance and behavior immediately sent alarm bells ringing, but she didn’t know what to do. How could she help him? She needed to find whoever this Dr. McClellan was and see if he’d help her. It was the only way. If he were on Lex’s payroll, he may not help her at all, but it was a chance she was willing to take.
Chloe thought she heard the shower running, then ten minutes later, the sound of something crashing and breaking. She went to the door. “Ollie?”
There was no answer, and she tried the doorknob, but it was locked.
Moment’s later he emerged, dressed in his leathers again. “Oliver. We can help you.” He ignored her, pressing the button that opened the wall revealing his Green Arrow room. She followed him. He was collecting arrows, and looked as though he were making ready to leave again. “Oliver. Please stay here.” She tried to get him to look at her, moving closer still. “Ollie.”
Abruptly he turned to her, grasping her shoulders in an iron grip, his fingers biting into her flesh, causing her to gasp. He didn’t seem to notice the sound, or her look of surprise and terror. Chloe searched his eyes. He was her Oliver, and yet he wasn’t. “Leave. Me. Alone.” He shook her with every word spoken between clenched teeth. “I’ll come back for you later,” he growled, a sudden thin chill of foreboding hanging on his words. He then pulled her to him roughly, forcing Chloe to endure his hard, punishing kiss. She whimpered and shoved at his chest in a futile effort to push him away, but the more she did, the more savagely he kissed her, biting her bottom lip so hard, a cry of pain escaped her, muffled against his mouth, and she wondered if he’d drawn blood. Finally he released her with a shove, causing her to stumble backward. He turned away from her then, and walked toward another part of the room gathering a few explosives.
Chloe touched her lip as she recovered, no blood, but panic was rioting within her as she watched him remove explosives from their hiding place. She had to stop him somehow, and followed him. “What are you doing, Oliver?”
Again he ignored her, and made his way toward the elevator, stepping inside. As the grate closed he looked at her. His eyes had a burning, faraway look in them, as she watched him set his dark glasses in place. He raised his hood, and even through the disguise Chloe could see the hardness in his features. His voice distorter seemed to add to the cold hostility in his voice. “Finishing what we started.”
“No, Oliver, wait! Please!”
Chloe ran to the desk where she’d left her cell phone. Tears stinging her eyes. “Clark! Ollie’s in trouble. Please get here as soon as you can.” She then called all the other team members, then busied herself checking the whereabouts of Dr. McClellan, dialing the home pretending to be an assistant at Cadmus, asking when the doctor would be in.
Bart was the first to arrive, and soon the others had gathered. Chloe explained briefly what had happened.
“I think he’s headed for the Cadmus Lab facility. He said something about finishing what we’d started. We have to get there before he does. There are people inside, lives at stake.”
“Ollie wouldn’t kill anyone, he wouldn’t go off on his own like that.”
“He’s not himself, Bart. You didn’t see how he was. He’s cold, almost unfeeling. He’ll do it because he’s not thinking like himself. And we’re wasting time. I need to get to Dr. McClellan somehow. We need to stop Oliver, before anyone gets hurt.”
“Too late for that,” Victor said. “After you called, I accessed police reports. A few people were hospitalized very early this morning. I didn’t want to believe it, but a witness claims a man in a green costume beat two other men, down in Suicide Slums. One man had minor injuries but two others are in serious condition.”
Chloe buried her face in her hands. “Oh my God,” she breathed. She then turned to Bart, pulling out a slip of paper from her jeans pocket as she did so. “This is where Dr. McClellan lives. At this hour, he’s still home, I’ve already checked. I need you to get me there, Impulse.”
Bart nodded, realizing the situation was worse than he’d thought. He opened his arms to her, and she stepped into them. “Hold on tight, señorita.”
“Meet us at Cadmus Labs,” she said to the others as she wrapped her arms around Bart’s neck. “We’ll be there after talking to Dr. McClellan.” And then they were gone.
“You okay?” Bart asked concernedly, seeing Chloe looking a bit like her boyfriend’s favorite color.
Bart was much faster than Clark, and she clung to him for a moment to get her bearings. Not that Bart minded.
They were already standing near the front entrance of the doctor’s home. It was a huge older home, with a large wrap-around porch and a turret. “Yeah, I’m okay,” she offered him a smile, then, glanced around. There was a tricycle and a mountain bike on the far corner of the porch. A large swing, a small table and two chairs sat opposite. Just as Chloe was about to knock, the door opened, and an unsuspecting, dark-haired forty-something man, dressed in a gray suit emerged, carrying a briefcase.
“Dr. McClellan?” Chloe had no time for pleasantries, and as soon as the surprised man nodded in the affirmative, she let loose. “I know about what happened last night at Cadmus. I know that you are on Lex Luthor’s payroll, I know all about Project Kratos and the drug you’re developing. But none of that is important to me right now. I need your help.”
“Who are you?” the doctor asked, his blue eyes squinting, his expression cautious.
“My name isn’t important either. What you need to know is that a good and honorable man has been infected with your drug, and he’s begun to terrorize and wreak havoc. And if we don’t stop him with some available antidote immediately, the lives of others and your coworkers at Cadmus are in terrible danger.”
The doctor shook his head. “Miss…. There is no antidote.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, the drug must wear off, it may take days. And when it does, the prognosis will not be good for your friend. He’s one of the one’s who broke in last night?”
“He’s one of the good guys, doctor. Trying to prevent people like you from harming others with your unethical experimentations.” Chloe cast a glance to the far end of the porch, then back at him. “You have children, doctor?” She pressed her lips together briefly forming a small frown. “I feel sorry for them,” she said, her voice sincere. She stepped away from him then, and Bart followed her.
“Miss! Wait.”
Chloe stopped at the bottom of the porch step, half-turning toward the doctor.
“Come with me, please. Just for a moment.”
Chloe glanced back at Bart. He shrugged as if to say ‘why not?’ And they followed the doctor around to a side entrance of the home. They stepped into what appeared to be a small office that connected to an examination room. Despite some modern equipment, and updated facilities, complete with hospital bed and private shower, it reminded Chloe of an old-time doctor’s office that she’d seen in movies where the kindly old white-haired doctor used a section of his home to see and treat patients.
“This was my great-grandfather’s home,” he explained as Chloe and Bart took in the rooms, glancing around, noting Dr. McClellan’s framed certificates and aged photographs on the walls. “He was a country doctor. Treated patients here. And sometimes I do as well,” he said as he placed, gloves over his hands, and began to fill a syringe from a small bottle. He capped the needle, then handed it to Chloe. “If you can get close enough to your friend, administer this.”
Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What is it? And how do I know I can trust you?”
“Mr. Luthor and I have not seen eye to eye on any aspect of this project since its inception. And I’ll freely admit… it was the money that foolishly lured me… my children...” He shook his head, waving off whatever he was about to say next, then showed her the bottle. “It’s a sedative. It should knock him out safely for a while. Long enough for you to get him back here, or to the nearest hospital. I’m saying I’ll help you. He’s going to need medical care, Miss…”
“Sullivan,” Chloe finally supplied.
“Miss Sullivan. Your friend is in great danger of suffering massive coronary failure or stroke. Get to him, and then get him to a hospital.”
Chloe swallowed the painful knot that had formed in her throat, blinking back tears. “Thank you,” she whispered.
The doctor nodded. “Please keep me informed. You have my word that Mr. Luthor will never know any of this.”
Chloe glanced back at him as she turned to leave. “Sometimes our word and our honor is all we have left, doctor.”
Once outside, a safe distance away Bart finally spoke. “Don’t worry, bonita. Ollie’s gonna be okay. Let me do it.”
“Do what?” she asked, sniffling.
“I’m the only one who can get to him fast enough, give him that sedative, and be gone before he knows what hit him.”
“Oh Bart..” she blinked back tears. Then kissed him on the cheek, causing the young man to blush, a dreamy-eyed grin appearing on his face. “Thank you.”
“He means a lot to me too, Chloe. He’s done a lot for me.” Bart then wrapped his arm around her. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
In seconds they were at the rendezvous point. The new Cadmus facility had been built in a rural area, mostly flat land, but there were a few widely spaced trees and tall grass that offered some cover. Victor had already spotted Oliver on his way to Cadmus. “He should be here any second.”
“There he is.” A.C. said. “Looks like he’s taking things off the pack on his bike.”
“Explosives.”
Oliver had stopped his bike a short distance away from the facility, pulling over onto the side of the road. He was about to attempt to blow up an occupied building, on his own, in broad daylight, dressed like the Green Arrow. The absurdity of it all seemed to hit each of them at the same time, and they all looked at each other. His movements were purposeful, almost mechanical, determined, as though he knew exactly what he was about to do, despite the absurdity.
Chloe handed Bart the syringe and he removed the cap, pushing the liquid up to the tip until a drop escaped. “Do your thing, Impulse.”
Chloe didn’t even see it happen. The next thing she knew, Bart was crouching next to her again. They waited, watching.
“Now. Now! There he goes.”
Chloe’s heart wrenched as she saw Oliver stagger, and then fall to the ground.
End Chapter 4
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