Signal Fire
Chapter 8
Chloe stopped struggling within Philip’s grasp long enough to mutter in his ear. “This is the animal you work for. You’ve sold your soul,” she ground out. “How can you live with yourself?” The accusation in her voice stung him, but he held fast to her as she wept at the sight of Oliver, chained up against the wall. “I’ll do anything you want, Lex…” she called to him. “Just please, don’t hurt him anymore,” she shouted.
Lex was unfazed. “Torture was frequently employed in the Middle Ages to punish criminals and extract confessions.” He moved about the room, as though he were an instructor carrying on a university lecture. Tess was mesmerized. The way he carried himself, so self-assured, so calm and relaxed. She admired him. “Many castles had torture chambers,” he went on. “Torture methods are still used today of course. Granted, we’ve come a long way since the Spanish Inquisition, drawing and quartering, the rack and the Iron Maiden, but,” he paused gazing pointedly first at Oliver, and then at Chloe. “I’d like to welcome you to my dungeon,” he said, sweeping a hand around the room.
Oliver lifted his head, tipping it back to rest against the hard concrete. “Anyone ever tell you, what a sick bastard you are, Lex?” his voice sounded from the wall.
Chloe’s eyes followed the sweep of Lex’s hand, and for the first time she noticed the table in the room laden with weapons; swords, guns, knives, a whip, and some odd pieces she didn’t recognize. Panic rose in her breast, and without thinking, she sprinted toward it, thinking to knock it over, create some type of diversion, anything to delay what was to come. Philip was there once again, scooping her up, restraining her. “No!” she screamed, flailing about and bucking against him.
“Get your hands off of her!” Oliver shouted weakly, as Philip picked her up off her feet and gathered her closely, dragging her back to their original position.
Lex moved to stand in front of Oliver. “Oliver Queen, also known as the Green Arrow; you’ve committed acts of terrorism against me, my company and my employees,” he spoke as though uttering a decree; thoroughly enjoying the position he was in. “And for those crimes, you are to be punished.”
“Ollie!” His name was a strangled sob on her lips, as Chloe continued to struggle against Philip.
The sound of her cry and the tears streaming down her face tore at his heart. Philip wouldn’t let her go. “Get her out of here,” Oliver growled harshly. It hurt to breathe in this position, the pain in his side stabbing him with every breath he took. “Have your sick fun, but get her out.”
Lex ignored him. “Tess? Which would you care to start with? The cat’s paw?” Lex picked up an object from the table. It was a long wooden stick with a steel claw-like object on the end of it. “This device flays the skin from a victim’s body,” he said matter-of-factly, holding it up for all to view.
“Stop it, Lex!” Chloe shouted. “Not even you are that twisted.” She’d only discovered that he was among the living a day ago, and had yet to have any real interaction with him. She wondered what had happened to him in the year he’d been missing. She knew he was capable of horrendous atrocities, but the entire scene was too surreal, even for Lex Luthor.
“Or there’s good old-fashioned flogging.” Lex picked up the whip, testing the weight of it in his hand.
Tess stepped toward the table, eyeing the various pieces laid out, finally picking up a knife. She ran a finger appreciatively down the blade, so sharp that it nicked her. She placed the finger in her mouth to suck away the blood. “I’ll start with this.”
Lex stepped aside. “I’ll leave you to your work, then.”
She stood before Oliver, the glint of the blade reflecting briefly from the light. Her eyes traveled down his sculpted torso, admiring him as she lifted a palm to stroke his skin. He was warm, smooth, hard. He was masculine perfection.
Her touch left him cold. Oliver’s breath stuttered, waiting for the instant she’d plunge the knife into him. His eyes bored into hers, a glint of defiance darkening them. “What are you waiting for? Do it.”
“Seems a shame to mar such perfection,” she whispered, as her hand moved over him. “But I know you’re far from perfect. I may have been gone awhile, but I still remember the island and everything that happened there.” She lifted the knife, the sharp point tracing his pectoral muscle lightly. “Do you know what the islanders did to Hackett after you left?”
Hackett was Oliver’s bodyguard, and Tess’s friend. Oliver was unaware of Hackett’s plan to abandon him on an island and steal his boat for use by drug runners at Tess’s urging. After Oliver incited a rebellion of the natives who had been used as slaves there, Hackett and the drug runners had been killed. Oliver felt the edge of the blade pierce his skin as she raked it slowly across his chest. He bit back a small grunting sound. The warmth of his own blood began dripping down past his sternum and stomach.
“Stop! Please stop!” Chloe’s voice. Even Philip couldn’t believe what he was seeing, and attempted to turn Chloe around in his arms so that she’d not have to witness the sight. Lex grasped her arm, dragging her forward. He wanted her to watch.
“They mutilated his body after he died,” she whispered. Tess ran the knife over him again in the opposite direction, this time slashing deeper into the muscle, splitting his flesh open wider. “He was like a brother to me. Did you know that?”
Oliver breathed erratically, sweat beading his brow as he pressed his lips together, in an effort to keep any sound from escaping. He wouldn’t give her or Lex the satisfaction.
“At least I didn’t have to hear his screams.” She brought the knife down harshly, slashing him again on a diagonal, a red line forming from breastbone to opposite hip. “I’d like to hear yours, Oliver.” She hissed, bringing the knife up to his face, carving thin lines down either cheek. “Can you scream for me?”
“Enough!” Chloe shrieked, as Tess slashed him once more across the stomach.
Oliver gritted his teeth, a groan escaping his throat. “Go to hell,” he panted, his head dropping forward.
Tess turned abruptly, allowing a disheveled, horrified Chloe, full view her handiwork. Oliver’s chest and torso were sliced open in various directions and covered in dripping blood. “He’s not so perfect now, is he Ms. Sullivan.” Tess lowered the knife, slipping the flat of the blade into the rim of his leather pants. “Shall I geld him for you?”
Oliver was dizzy, yet he shivered at the cold steel sliding against his groin. His ankles were chained where he stood, and he felt as though his knees were about to give way.
“I can turn him into a eunuch for you, Ms. Sullivan. He’d never look at another woman. What was her name? Ah yes, Adriana. I don’t think Adriana will be interested in him now, do you? Just say the word, and I’ll take care of him for you.”
Her vision blurred from tears, she could barely speak. “Please, no more… no more,” she cried, the constricting of her throat made her voice cracked and faint. “Let him go… I’ll do whatever you ask… just let him go… stop… please…” she wept, nearly crumbling to the floor. Philip lifted her, grasping her other arm.
“Very well,” Tess said, turning once more to Oliver. She grasped his chin, lifting his face. “Ms. Sullivan wants me to end this. It will be my pleasure.” She wanted him to cry out, to beg, but saw only anger and defiance in his eyes. “This is for Hackett,” she whispered close to his lips, then in an instant Oliver felt the knife removed from his pants and plunged into his stomach. This time he did make a sound, emitting a strangled moan.
Chloe shrieked in protest. It was all he heard. He felt the knife again, this time entering his chest, before his legs would no longer hold him. His body came away from the wall, hanging from his wrists by chains that kept him upright. And then he felt nothing. There was nothing but the sound of Chloe’s cries, her voice calling his name, like a keening wail, that became a whisper in his ear. She was whispering his name in his ear, and there was nothing but Chloe. Nothing but Chloe… Chloe….
Tess gazed coldly at Oliver’s body suspended from the chains. His head slumped forward. “Take him down,” she ordered, tossing the bloodied knife onto the table.
Men moved to do her bidding, releasing Oliver’s wrists and ankles, his body slumping to the floor in a bloody heap as they did so. They rolled him onto his back.
“Leave him there,” Tess instructed, and the men moved away. Chloe continued to wail and carry on, something Tess found quite annoying. She turned to Philip and Lex. “Let her go.”
Tess expected Chloe to run immediately to Oliver’s side, but instead she found herself on the receiving end of an unexpectedly powerful right hook to the face, followed immediately by an upper cut to the chin and a kick to the midsection. “You sick bitch!” Chloe screamed, and proceeded to kick and punch and claw at Tess, until they were like two alley cats, growling and snarling at one another, and had to be separated. Lex and Philip restrained Tess, her nose and lips bloodied from the force of Chloe’s fists. Chloe was panting, red-faced, her entire body trembling with rage, tears streaming down her cheeks as she shoved off the men holding her. Lex allowed it, motioning for her to see to Oliver.
“This is your entrance, Chloe. Act two.”
She glared at Lex momentarily before turning numbly to gaze down at her Oliver lying in a growing pool of his own blood; the light fading from his deep brown eyes, as they grew sightless. She continued to sob, unable to wipe the tears from her cheeks fast enough before new ones replaced them. Breathing heavily, she knelt beside him, then lifted a knee, moving over him, straddling his hips. Now she understood the game. This is what they wanted. This was how Tess and Lex would hurt and terrorize them both. Over, and over again.
The room grew still and silent as she wept over his body, everyone waiting, watching. Well, she’d give them a show, but this would be a one night only performance, because she and Oliver would escape, run, get as far away as they could before anyone would torture and kill Oliver again, and again only to have her heal him each time.
She lowered her head next to his. “No more, I promise… no more,” she whispered, her voice squeaking in his ear on a shaky breath. “I love you.” Chloe pressed her lips to his, as her trembling hands covered his chest. Chloe felt his pain enter her, eyes squeezing shut.
No one knew what to expect, and when bright, colorful light seeped faintly from every part of her body that touched him, a few of the men murmured to one another. But moments later, when the entire room was suddenly engulfed by light so blinding, they’d had to cover their eyes, a collective gasp and resounding confusion filled the room. Just as suddenly, the light was gone, and when their eyes adjusted, they found Chloe lying sprawled, limp over Oliver’s body.
They waited. His bloodstained hand rose slowly, covering her back, palm moving over her gently. His arms enfolded her, clutching her to his chest. Oliver heard some of the guards speaking softly to one another.
“Holy shit, how did she do that?”
“Amazing.”
“Unbelievable.”
“My God,” Philip uttered, as he stared dumbstruck.
Oliver rose to a sitting position, holding her limp body against him just as she was, her thighs on either side of him. He cupped the back of her head with one hand to keep it from lolling backward, nestling her cheek against his throat. He sat this way, his head bowed for long moments holding her through the silence in the room, half expecting someone to speak, or take her from him. No one did. After a time, he adjusted her body in his lap, shifting her legs so that he cradled her. They watched as Oliver gazed down at her, smoothing the hair back from her face tenderly, fingertips stroking her cheek, brushing away her tears. No one spoke. Finally, he lifted his head. There were no marks on his face where Tess had cut him; they simply weren’t there. Only faint smudges of blood remained. His dark eyes shining, blazed with a burning hatred of everyone in the room, so potent that for a few moments, no one dared to venture too closely to him.
Lex was the first to speak. “Clean them up and examine them both.”
No one moved.
“Do it!” Lex ordered, and two men and a woman dressed in medical scrubs Oliver hadn’t seen before stepped forward hesitantly, either Oliver’s glare, or the shock and fear at what they’d just witnessed making them skittish. They knew he wouldn’t give her up that easily.
The woman turned away, speaking quietly to Lex, and he nodded, she then knelt next to Oliver. “I’ve been with her for the past two days,” the woman said gently. “I’ll take care of her, and see to it that she’s returned to you.”
Oliver said nothing.
“You can trust me,” the woman whispered. “No harm will come to her.”
Finally Oliver moved, shifting Chloe’s body in his arms and rising to his feet with her. “I’ll take her.”
Lex allowed him to carry her to an examination room under armed guard. He knew Oliver wouldn’t try anything with Chloe in her current condition. Everyone watched him leave with Chloe in his arms, amazed that he simply stood up and walked at all. After Oliver placed her on the table, he was instructed to shower quickly and change into a pair of black uniform pants the guards wore, along with a pair of boots. No shirt was provided, and Oliver thought it was so that they could examine him as well, or perhaps it was easier for Tess to inflict more injuries that way.
The doctors didn’t tell him anything he didn’t know. Chloe was dead, and he was perfectly healthy; not one mark from the knife existed, even the bruises he’d had prior, and the pain he’d felt at his ribs was completely gone. She’d healed him of everything.
They interrogated him, asking him questions about Chloe’s ability, how she came to have it, asking him to describe his experience as she healed him. He wasn’t really listening to them and every question they asked, his answer was the same. He told them he didn’t know. He’d never tell them anything.
Oliver felt completely numb. He was escorted back to a room in the facility with a bed fitted against the wall, a sink, a chair and a separate bathroom and shower. Better accommodations than the last place we were in, he thought wryly, recalling the last time he and Chloe had been captives of Tess. They wouldn’t be here long, or he’d be dead; either way it wouldn’t matter. He asked for Chloe, and they brought her body to him, laying her on the bed. They’d washed his blood from her and changed her jumpsuit, trading it for a black outfit. He wondered vaguely at the wardrobe choice. They must have an overstock of black fatigues here. Oliver knew they’d be watching, waiting for her to come alive once more, but he didn’t care about that, he wanted to be with her if and when she awoke.
He removed his boots, turning off the main light, leaving only the small lamplight from the bedside table. He sat on the bed, his back against the wall, lifting Chloe in his arms, laying her head and shoulders on his lap. It was then that Tess and Philip entered the room. He didn’t want to see them, didn’t want to deal with Tess right now. He wanted to be left alone with Chloe until she awoke, if she awoke.
Tess stood momentarily watching him, as though she were waiting for him to speak first. But he didn’t speak, only glared at her, as his hand continued to caress the golden head of the woman he cradled. “You once offered your life to me in exchange for hers,” Tess said, stepping closer, but not too close, as though she too had been frightened by what she had seen, not fully understanding Chloe’s power. She stood here; talking to a man she had killed. She watched him die, and something about witnessing his resurrection at Chloe’s hands sent a shiver through her.
Oliver said nothing.
Tess watched the play of muscles beneath his smooth skin, cast golden by the dim lamplight as he moved every time he touched Chloe, watched as his fingers splayed, threading her hair. The hint of jealousy she felt at the sight of him with Chloe, transformed as she watched him, making her angry, not only with them, but with herself as well. She didn’t like the feeling. It made her feel weak. “Now you can die over, and over and over again. Every time she restores you, I’ll take such delight in torturing and killing you again in front of her in as many different ways as my imagination allows. And believe me, where your death is concerned, I have quite an active imagination.”
Oliver finally spoke. “How’d you get that busted lip?”
Philip lowered his head, stifling a grin at the unexpected answer, but kept his composure, his expression stony.
Tess scowled at Oliver.
“I hope she used the moves I taught her,” Oliver said.
Tess wouldn’t be thwarted; his disregard for her threats fueling her anger. “How does it feel? Dying?”
Oliver clutched Chloe’s limp body to his chest, lowering his head in an effort to hide his emotions. He lifted her in the crook of his arm, burying his face against her neck. He inhaled a shaky breath, breathing deeply of her as he had done so many times before, the familiar, faint scent of her filling him. It was odd how that simple act could somehow send a rippling wave of comfort through him, as though now that she’d healed his body, she was still healing his soul with her essence, her nearness. “Let her go.”
His displays of affection for Chloe unnerved Tess. “So many methods of torture, ways to kill a person. The possibilities are endless. Until I grow tired of you, of course. But first, some fun is in order, wouldn’t you say? I’ve been away a long time.”
Oliver kept his face buried in Chloe’s hair. “That’s your game? That’s what you want? Your hatred for me has become this twisted?”
“I wish to watch you die. And kill your spirit. Many times over,” Tess felt emboldened now that she had his attention. She moved closer to the bed. “Every time she dies for you, you die a little inside, don’t you? Every time she heals you, it hurts doesn’t it? You’ll both get to watch each other die. It’s perfect. Thanks to the incredible ability of your lover, my wish is granted, many times over.”
Oliver lifted his head, brown eyes glistening, yet hard as they bore into Tess. “Torture me, kill me. She won’t heal me again, I won’t allow it. Game over.”
“You think she’ll listen to you? I warned her once that you were her weakness, and she your downfall. She won’t allow you to suffer if she can help it, and you know this as well as I do.” Tess, confident that she’d scored the last point, cast a glance over her shoulder at Philip, who stood silently, still slightly dumbfounded over the entire scene he had witnessed earlier. “Guard them until she wakes up. Advise me immediately when she does. I’ll be ready for the next round. Next time it won’t be as quick.” She then swept from the room, the metal door sounded heavily as it closed, an iron cage slamming with finality, imprisoning them.
Oliver didn’t notice, didn’t care that Philip stayed behind, watching. Philip had to know that he wouldn’t try to escape, not without Chloe. He didn’t care what Tess said. He’d not allow Chloe to heal him again; had to make her promise not to do it.
Time seemed to pass slowly, the long, awkward silence in the room was deafening. Oliver remained with his back against the wall, dark eyes thinned, watching from his perch on the bed. Chloe’s head and shoulders still cradled in his lap. Every so often the fingers of his free hand threaded through her hair, or drifted over her pale cheek, trailing down the side of her throat to test for her pulse, as Philip paced not ten feet in front of him. Over the past hour, Philip had alternated between sitting in the chair on the opposite wall, to pacing up and down the length of the small hospital-like room. Another hour passed. Oliver, ever watchful of him.
“So…” Philip stopped pacing momentarily, growing uncomfortable with the silence, and the hard stare of Oliver Queen. “How long does this…” he gestured toward Chloe. “Last. When does she wake up?”
“Where’d you learn to fight like that?” Oliver responded pointedly, his voice rough, ignoring Philip’s question. “Military?”
Philip didn’t answer, merely crossed his arms over his chest and leaned a shoulder against the wall.
“That was you in the house, wasn’t it?”
“Where’d you learn to fight? And shoot an arrow like that?” Philip countered.
Oliver’s expression remained unreadable; his stare frigid. “My nanny taught me,” he quipped, but there was no trace of humor in his tone, only sarcasm. “Right after she fed me with a silver spoon.”
Philip knew he wouldn’t tell the truth and wondered why he bothered asking.
Silence hung heavily in the room for another half hour.
“You were right,” Oliver said quietly, breaking the long silence.
Philip lifted his head at the sound of Oliver’s voice.
“I have to let her go.”
Philip nearly snorted. “I’m not stupid, Queen. You’re not giving her up.”
“I am. Entanglements, relationships,” he shook his head sadly. “I can’t do it. Because of who I’ve been, what I am. It was so much easier to go through women… when it meant nothing. When it didn’t hurt this much.” Oliver was quiet for a moment, and Philip wondered where he was going with this. “You were right,” he admitted sadly. “I’m just a spoiled, rich, womanizing bastard, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”
Philip wasn’t swayed.
“Look where this got me,” Oliver began once more, then gazed down ruefully at Chloe’s ashen, sleeping face. Philip watched Oliver’s fingertip trace her bottom lip as he studied her with great sadness, then outlining her features as though attempting to commit her every feature to memory. “Look what it brought her. Nothing but heartache, pain. For both of us. I can’t live with it.” Oliver lifted his head to stare ahead unseeing at the opposite wall. “I’d rather be alone, or with a different woman every night, anything than suffer though this. We’re better off without each other. And when she wakes up, I’ll tell her it’s over. If I get out of here alive, I can’t be with her. And if I don’t… it won’t matter.”
Philip’s eyes thinned suspiciously. “You can’t mean that.”
Oliver turned his head in Philip’s direction as he slipped his fingers into Chloe’s hair, caressing her scalp, then clasping a handful of the soft golden stuff in his fist. He didn’t think he’d ever get enough of touching her as long as he lived, and he didn’t know how much time he had left. He’d spend every last moment he could near her. “I do. What would you do if she were yours? Would you want this kind of life for yourself? For her? I’ve put her life in danger too many times.”
Philip’s gaze softened as his eyes traveled over Chloe’s petite form lying on the cot across Oliver’s lap, considering his words. “But….”
“I have to let her go,” Oliver interrupted. “She has to forget me. You said it yourself; she’s better off without me. And if Tess gets her wish, I’ll be dead anyway.”
As he spoke, Queen handled her tenderly and gently, yet with an ease of familiarity that only lovers shared; absently stroking her hair, her face, running fingertips down her arm. It struck Philip as something utterly possessive and intimate, and he looked away, feeling as though he were an interloper invading their privacy. Queen said he’d been right about him, he claimed it was easier not to care, easier to have meaningless flings, but Philip didn’t think Queen believed his own words. He loved Chloe, was devoted to her; Philip could see that now, and Tess was using it against him. ‘Find your enemy’s weakness’. Well, they’d certainly found Oliver Queen’s.
After another silence pervaded the room for an interminable time, Oliver finally spoke again quietly. “It depends.”
“What depends?”
“It’s different every time,” he went on. “But she feels the pain. Sometimes it’s hours. A day. Sometimes she’s slightly weakened. It depends on the severity of the injuries she’s healed. Her body needs time to recover. You could be in here all night.” Oliver stopped for a moment, swallowing harshly before he continued. “But we don’t really know everything about her ability. Any time she heals someone from near death, it could be the last.”
“She could die?”
“She could die.”
Philip lowered his head, turning away. He suddenly felt tired, and dropped down onto the chair. Unfolding himself, he stretched his legs out in front of him, crossed at the ankles. Oliver shifted his position, stretching out against the wall to lie beside Chloe on the bed meant for one, leaning on an elbow, his head resting in his hand.
“She’s… healed you before?” Philip asked.
“Even when I don’t want her to.”
“She’s stubborn.”
“That she is,” Oliver murmured, eyes caressing her face, his lips curving in a small smile as he fought the urge to press his lips to her forehead. He wouldn’t do it though, not in front of Philip. It was none of Philip’s business, and he’d shared enough of himself.
“How… how does it feel, when she does it?”
“It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before.” Oliver looked down at her once more. She gave him a part of herself; part of her essence filled him every time she healed. It was the most beautiful thing he’d ever experienced, and he hated it. Hated what it did to her. Tess was right. Every time she healed him, it tore him up inside. His only hope, was that Chloe would awaken soon. He’d planted the seed, and hoped that his plan for Philip would work.
End Chapter 8
