No one questioned her as she walked down the hallway. Beige walls, pastel artwork in blond wood frames, and tile on the floor a pale eggshell-and-sage-green speckle turned off-white from the cast of the fluorescent lights above. Everything seemed bland, muted, designed to keep people calm in uncalm times.
Until she reached the uniformed Star City police officer reading a magazine outside room 623 of Starling General. He was lanky, stretched tall, all knees and shoulders in the chair he sat in. He had the sleek otter build of a swimmer. He stood out, his dark blue SCPD uniform a harsh contrast as it ate the light.
He didn’t stand as she approached, but he did give her the once up and down, his eyes flinty, checking to see if she was a threat. He seemed to dismiss the notion, then gave her another up and down look over, this time with a cocky grin and a sparkle in his eye.
She shrugged as she drew near, moving the hem of her short-cropped leather jacket.
Exposing her badge.
The cocky grin disappeared as he jumped to his feet.
She raised her hand, reassuring him. “It’s alright, Officer—”
“Kannan, ma’am.”
“Drake, Dinah.” Her hand went out between them. It took a moment for him to reach out and shake it, and when he did it only lasted a second. She noted that he didn’t give his first name as she had.
“I’m here to ask our suspect a few questions,” she said.
“I thought he was the victim of a crime?” Officer Kannan scratched the bottom edge of his jaw. “He took a real beating from the Arrow.”
“I think they call him Green Arrow now.”
“Green Arrow, Blue Arrow, Purple Arrow,” he said, his voice harsh. “It don’t matter what they call him.”
Great, she thought, this guy doesn’t like vigilantes.
Then again, neither had she once.
Before she became one.
“We have two eyewitnesses who put him as part of a crew called ‘the X gang,’” she replied. “They tried to rob the Cashmere Club. He’s not just some civilian who got jumped.”
“He looks like he should be dead,” Kannan said. “Nobody should’ve lived through a beating like that.”
“I’ll see that when I go in.”
Officer Kannan nodded. “You want me to keep my place? ’Cause I could go take care of some business.”
“Go stretch your legs, do your business, get some air and some coffee.” She waved him off. “I’ll handle this for the next half-hour, so be back before then.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” He touched his fingertips to his brow in a salute.
Dinah watched him walk down the hall, pausing to check the nurses’ station. She allowed a tiny smile when all the nurses ignored him completely, and he kept going.
Once he’d rounded the corner, she pushed the door open.
* * *
“Tell me if this hurts, and how much.”
The doctor’s thumb pressed deep alongside the thick scar, digging underneath it. Diggle watched it happen but there was no sensation, not even pressure. The area felt numb, as if it had been anesthetized. That sent his mind back to some of the things Oliver had shown him about pressure points. There was a nerve bundle where the doctor was applying pressure. He should have had pain shooting all the way up into his neck, making his jaw clench and his eyes water as the muscle chain spasmed.
Instead he felt nothing.
“Now, don’t be stoic, Mr. Diggle,” she said. “I need honest feedback to this, that’ll get us nowhere.”
“I’m not being stoic, Doc.” He took a deep breath, trying to clear some of the bitterness out of his voice. “Nothing is happening.”
Dr. Schwartz moved her hands, using her fingertips to feel along the edge of the scar. “I know it can be frustrating, Mr. Diggle.”
“That’s not as comforting as you think it is.”
“Have your symptoms gotten worse?”
“That’s why I’m here,” Diggle said.
“What are you experiencing? Besides frustration, that is.”
“I can’t feel my hand,” he said. “It’s like it’s asleep all the time, and sometimes it goes into spasms, and I can’t control it at all.” The very thought made him grimace.
“Have you noticed any triggers to the spasms?”
Only that it happens when I need to pull the trigger, he thought.
“It’s random,” he said instead.
Dr. Schwartz frowned and stepped back. “You know, neurological conditions that result from injury are almost impossible to pinpoint. Oftentimes the best thing we can do is observe the symptoms, and treat those as best we can. It can be a long process of elimination.”
“Afraid that’s not an option, Doctor,” he said. “I need some kind of treatment to fix this now.”
She sighed. “I know why you want to rush this, but don’t you think you should use this as a reason to step back and allow yourself to heal?”
“That’s not how it works, Doc.”
“That’s not how you want it to work, you mean.”
He didn’t respond, just stared at her. He wasn’t going to argue the merits of what he did as Spartan. It was a thing that spoke for itself.
“Okay, Mr. Diggle, be stubborn.” She picked up his chart and began writing. “For now, I’m going to raise your dose of Neurotin, and we’re going to set up a regimen of aggressive e-stim treatments, alongside acupuncture.”
“Still sounds like you’re just treating the symptoms.”
She dropped the clipboard down, giving him a hard look. “It’s what we can do right now. There may be another option available to you because of your A.R.G.U.S. connections, but I’ll have to make some calls before we can even discuss it.”
“I don’t want A.R.G.U.S. brought in on this. That’s why I came to you.”
“Do I have to tell you how many options you’re cutting off by doing that?” she said, holding his eyes with hers. “I might not even be able to fix you.”
Diggle chuckled. “I mean what I say. Honor my doctor–patient confidentiality.”
Dr. Schwartz frowned deeply, but nodded her assent. “Then forget it,” she said curtly. “Until I find out more, we do the e-stim, acupuncture, massage, and medicine regimen.” She put his file down and stepped away. “For now, however, the best you can expect is improvement. You need to adjust your expectations.”
He thought about her words, and they weighed heavy on him. He was unreliable in his current condition—and unreliable in the field was a way to get hurt.
He’d have to be vigilant to make sure that didn’t happen.
“Can I put my shirt back on?”
“Yes, Mr. Diggle, you may put your shirt back on.”
* * *
The room was dark, lit only by a low bank of lights from behind the bed. On it lay a man wrapped in bandages. Tubes ran to bags of fluids hanging from a tall stainless-steel IV rack. Wires connected to ECG electrodes wound together in a thick, multi-colored cable across the man’s chest, trailing off to connect him to the machines that beeped and buzzed and hummed, tracking his vital statistics, watching over him even when he was alone in the room.
She moved to the side of the bed and spoke low, just loud enough to be heard over the machinery in the room.
“Chavis.”
For a long second the man on the bed didn’t stir, didn’t move, and she was unsure if he had heard her through the thick layer of gauze swaddled around his head. This close, she could see a thin strip of stubbled skin just below the edge of the bandage, where they had shaved his head to do surgery.
Under the stubble the skin was bruised violet.
It matched the rest of his face.
Chavis looked like he was wearing a mask that had been melted in an oven. His left eye was swollen shut and so purple it looked black, puffy and grape-skin thin, as if the smallest scratch or puncture would cause it to pop and gush. His bottom lip jutted out, chapped and split down the center and stitched back together with small clear sutures. Bruising continued on his chin, and she could see the right-angle check marks that indicated the bottom of a clip in a pistol grip.
His breathing was ragged, dragging in and out of his lungs. He wasn’t on any type of respirator, but just struggled to capture oxygen. For a moment she almost said his name again, and then his head moved slightly and he made a small noise. She couldn’t tell if he could see her through the swelling in his eye.
“Who?”
“Lieutenant Dinah Drake,” she said. Looking at him, she felt bad about her harsh judgment, and understood the officer outside and his view of Chavis as a victim. This was a man who had suffered a horrendous beating, and he truly looked as if he should have died.
“I already talked to the cops,” Chavis rasped.
“I have a few more questions though,” she said.
“I don’t know…”
“It won’t take long, Chavis. I’ll be out quick,” she promised.
“Okay.”
“Why were you targeted?”
“What? What do you mean?” he asked. The monitor connected to his heart began to beep faster.
“Why did the vigilante come after you? Do you know him?”
“Know?” Chavis pulled on the thin blanket draped across him, clearly growing agitated. “Why would I know the Arrow guy?”
“Green Arrow?” Dinah asked. “You think the Green Arrow did this to you?”
“Had the hood.”
“But he pistol-whipped you.”
“It was the Arrow guy.” Chavis shook his head and moaned from the pain it caused. “I don’t know him.”
“But you’re certain it was him.”
“Who else? He’s the Star City guy.” Chavis shook his head as much as he could. “I should’ve stayed in Blüdhaven—at least there our masks have rules.”
Dinah dropped the tone of her voice, using it to create a rapport with the man on the bed. She knew it might not work, that he might be too terrified after what happened to him, might be in too much pain or on too many drugs, for it to work.
“We’re almost done here, Chavis,” she said. “You have a little more in you for me?”
He considered it. His face turned more toward her and his eyes moved up and down.
“Yeah.”
“On the footage we have, it looks like he was asking you something. What was it?”
“He kept asking about the drugs.”
“Drugs? But you were performing armed robbery, nothing to do with drugs.”
“I know. I mean, I might smoke a little, but I don’t mess with moving any weight like that.”
Yes, you’re just an armed robber.
“What did you tell him to make him stop assaulting you?” she asked.
“I gave up a dealer I know, someone big enough to put a stop to him.”
“I need a name.”
“Cross.”
“Manny Cross?”
Chavis nodded weakly. “He runs the Skulls. He tried to recruit me when I came to Star City but I took a pass.” Chavis closed his eyes, “I’m glad I did. This guy took a bunch of them out not long ago, but then he was still using the bow and arrow. Not like when he got me.”
She could see he was fading, worn out from the pain and the meds. She gently patted his arm.
“Thank you for your help.” She turned to leave.
“Lieutenant Drake?”
“Yes.”
“He didn’t stop beating me because I gave him the answer. He did it because he thought I was dead.”