"I really should have invited Batman," Jack Kadere thought, watching Green Arrow and Black Arrow wordlessly split apart to flank him. "All three graduates of the League of Assassins, together in one restaurant."
Ra's al Ghul—the ancient bastard had been soaking in the Lazarus Pit for god knew how many centuries, and what did he have to show for it? A lifelong obsession with finding an outside successor while ignoring his own daughter. First pick: Batman. Not interested. Second pick: Green Arrow. Also not interested, though he'd served a stint before walking away. Third pick: Black Arrow. Desperate for the role, but Ra's never wanted him. He'd clawed his way into it eventually, and it still hadn't lasted.
"If Ra's al Ghul had come himself, I might actually care." Jack Kadere rose from his seat, slow and deliberate. "The two of you? There's no fun in this."
Red lightning crackled through the restaurant. Between one heartbeat and the next, Jack had his arm around Thea Queen's waist and was walking toward the door.
"Let Thea go!"
Black Arrow's voice cut across the ruined ambiance. His jaw was set, bowstring half-drawn. This was his daughter—freshly discovered, but his all the same.
The surrounding assassins in League attire surged toward Jack from every direction.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
They detonated. One after another, mid-stride, their bodies burst apart like overripe fruit—wet, red, instantaneous. Chunks of flesh and shattered bone sprayed across white tablecloths and shattered dinnerware.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
What was left of them hit the floor in rapid succession.
Jack paused at the door and glanced back over his shoulder.
Green Arrow had already dropped his bow—hands open, palms out. He'd learned that lesson once. Black Arrow hadn't. He still had an arrow nocked, the broadhead aimed squarely at Jack's chest.
Jack chuckled and snapped his fingers.
The arrow on Black Arrow's string began to glow. Black Arrow's eyes went wide. He grabbed for the shaft to throw it—
BANG.
The explosion caught him point-blank. The bow disintegrated. Black Arrow went down hard, hitting the floor in a mess of blood and charred fabric.
"Let's go." Jack pulled Thea closer and vanished in a streak of red light.
The restaurant looked like a slaughterhouse. Shattered glass, overturned tables, bodies in pieces. The smell of copper and scorched meat hung thick in the air. Green Arrow stood in the middle of it, breathing through his mouth.
He looked down at Black Arrow—sprawled on his back, soaked in blood, groaning through clenched teeth. Still alive. The man who might have murdered his father. The mastermind behind everything in his book of targets. Jack Kadere's words hadn't been subtle, and Oliver didn't doubt them.
He thought: I should finish it. Right here. But not like this. Not because someone else broke him first.
Green Arrow turned away and walked out of the restaurant without looking back.
---
The hotel room smelled like stale linen and air conditioning cranked too cold. Jack stepped through the door with Thea still tucked against his side.
"They—" Thea started.
A crossbow bolt cut through the air toward Jack's head.
Thea saw it first. Her stomach dropped. "Watch out—move!" She shoved both palms into Jack's chest, trying to push him clear.
Jack's ability triggered the instant the bolt was fired—any attack directed at him registered like a tripwire pulled taut across his senses. He felt the trajectory before he saw it. One arm wrapped around the stumbling Thea to steady her; the other hand came up and snatched the bolt out of the air.
Snap.
The steel shaft cracked between his fingers. Jack smiled across the room at the woman standing twenty feet away—compact, athletic build under a fitted purple uniform, a leather eyepatch covering one eye, a compact crossbow leveled at his chest.
"How'd you find this place?"
Helena didn't answer. Her lip curled, and she fired again—three bolts in rapid succession, the mechanical thwick-thwick-thwick of the crossbow punching through the silence.
Jack's hand blurred. Three catches, quick as a card trick. He opened his fingers and let the bolts clatter to the carpet one by one.
"You know these can't kill me, Helena."
The Huntress tossed the crossbow aside without ceremony. She pulled a collapsed baton from her belt, twisted the grip to extend it to full length, and charged.
Jack shook his head. Red lightning filled the room.
When the light died, Helena was sitting in a wooden chair across the room—wrists bound behind the backrest, legs tied at the ankles. Her purple uniform, her crossbow, her baton, her belt and holsters, all of it folded in a neat stack on the dresser beside her. She was completely naked, chest heaving, dark hair falling across the eyepatch, fury radiating off her skin like heat from a stove.
"Oh my god." Thea Queen's hand flew to her mouth. "You're the Huntress? Helena Bertinelli is the Huntress?"
The name had weight in Starling City. Thea had heard the stories—the masked vigilante who tore through her own father's criminal empire, who'd spent years trying to kill Frank Bertinelli even after the courts put him away. The daughter of the mob boss, waging a one-woman war against her own bloodline.
Helena's jaw tightened. She didn't look at Thea. Her one visible eye stayed fixed on Jack, black and venomous.
Jack walked to the foot of the bed and sat down, legs apart, elbows on his knees. He studied Helena with the comfortable ease of someone examining an old photograph.
"You hate me. You want to kill me. I get it—I'm the one who pulled the rug out from under you right when you were about to finish it. But let's not rewrite history." His voice stayed light, conversational. "We got along just fine at first. You're the one who played me. I told you I'd let you taste hope before I buried it. I'm a man of my word."
He paused, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
"For what it's worth? I still remember the good parts. Vividly."
"I will kill you," Helena said. Her voice was flat, controlled—the kind of cold that doesn't need volume.
"How about a deal instead?" Jack leaned back on his palms. "I just sent Black Canary chasing something shiny, and Starling City's about to have its hands full with other problems. That gives you a window to do what you've been trying to do."
Helena went still. Her breathing didn't change, but something behind her eye shifted—calculation replacing pure rage for half a second.
"And if I refuse?"
"Then I take Frank somewhere you'll never find him. Simple as that." Jack spread his hands. "All I need from you is a set of photos. That's the price."
Silence stretched between them. Helena's bound wrists flexed once against the restraints—testing, not struggling.
"Untie me," she said. The ice in her voice hadn't thawed, but the answer was clear enough.
Jack tilted his head toward Thea.
Thea blinked. Me? He wants me to untie her?
She hesitated, glancing between the two of them, then crossed to the dresser and found a small blade among Helena's gear. She knelt behind the chair and cut the bindings. The rope fell away and Helena rolled her wrists, the red impressions already darkening on her skin.
Helena stood. She looked down at Thea—a full head taller, naked and unselfconscious about it, her body lean and scarred in ways that spoke to years of violence. A knife-wound across her left hip, faded white. Shrapnel pitting along her right shoulder blade. The kind of body that had been used hard and kept sharp regardless.
"A word of advice," Helena said, her voice dropping to something almost intimate in its contempt. "He collects women. Doesn't matter how you met him or what you think this is—you'll end up the same as the rest. Completely under his thumb and grateful for it."
"Does that include you?" Jack said from the bed.
"I'm talking about the Birds of Prey." Helena's sneer deepened.
Thea's eyes went round. "The Birds of Prey? You've got the entire Birds of Prey—" She turned to Jack, mouth hanging open. "You're worse than my brother."
"Hardly." Jack's modest shrug fooled no one.
Red lightning flickered. A camera materialized in Jack's hand—not the room's, brought from elsewhere in a fraction of a second. The hotel room wasn't the Aerie, but it would serve.
Helena took a numbered placard from the dresser and held it up, waving it once at Thea with a mocking flourish—see what he makes us do?—before walking to the far wall. She positioned herself against the flat white surface and held the placard at her hip, chin lifted, expression carved from stone. She followed Jack's directions without protest: turn, shift, hold. Clinical. Efficient. The shutter clicked in steady intervals.
When the last shot was taken, Helena moved immediately for her clothes on the dresser.
Jack stepped into her path.
She stopped. One eye, dark and unreadable, met his.
"I know what you've been through." Jack's voice had dropped—quieter now, the amusement gone from it. "All of it. These past few years."
"What's your point?" The cold in Helena's voice didn't waver, but she hadn't stepped back.
Jack didn't answer. He lowered his head slowly, closing the distance between them, and pressed his mouth to hers.