Chapter 14: The Huntress Emerges
The news broke during Ben's morning class—Frank Bertinelli found dead in his home, execution-style killing with Triad signatures—and Ben's stomach dropped into his shoes knowing exactly what came next.
"Everyone take five," he called to his students, who were still working through defensive combinations on the mats. The television mounted in the corner was broadcasting shaky footage of police cars and crime scene tape wrapped around the Bertinelli mansion like yellow ribbons on a very expensive coffin.
Ben pulled out his phone with hands that he forced to remain steady and dialed Helena's number. It went straight to voicemail.
"Helena, it's Ben. I just saw the news about your father. I know you're probably not thinking clearly right now, but please don't do anything that you can't take back. Call me when you get this."
He hung up and immediately tried again. Voicemail.
"She's not going to answer. She's sitting somewhere staring at crime scene photos or news footage, and the only thing in her mind is blood. I know how this goes—I've seen the show. But maybe if I can reach her before she makes the choice, before she crosses that line..."
Ben tried texting instead, hoping the written word might penetrate where voice messages couldn't.
Don't go after the Triad. Please. Your father wouldn't want you to destroy yourself for revenge.
The message that appeared on his screen read: Don't banana hammock the disco penguin. Please. Your father wouldn't want you to destroy yourself for banana hammock.
"Goddamn it," Ben snarled, loud enough that several students looked over with concern. The Spoiler Curse was interfering again, scrambling his attempts to warn Helena away from the path that would turn her into the Huntress.
He tried again, keeping the message simpler: Revenge will destroy you. Please don't let them take you too.
That one went through clean, but the response came back immediately: How did you know it was the Triad? Police haven't released details yet.
Ben's blood turned to ice water. He'd been so focused on trying to warn her that he'd revealed information he shouldn't have—knowledge that could only have come from inside sources or advance intelligence.
His phone rang.
"How did you know?" Helena's voice was cold as winter morning, stripped of every trace of warmth or vulnerability she'd shown in the coffee shop. "The police are saying 'unknown suspects.' The news is saying 'apparent break-in.' Nobody's mentioned the Triad except me. So how did you know?"
Ben's mind raced, searching for explanations that wouldn't expose his impossible foreknowledge. "I saw the news footage. The way it was staged, the execution style, the timing after your father's recent business conflicts—it felt like a message."
"A message."
"The kind of killing that's meant to send a signal to other people in similar situations. That's gang warfare tactics, probably Triad based on the precision and symbolism."
The lie felt like ash in his mouth, but it was close enough to logical deduction that Helena might accept it.
"You seem to know a lot about gang warfare for a gym teacher."
"She's suspicious. Of course she's suspicious. Her father just got executed and a man she barely knows is displaying detailed knowledge of organized crime tactics. I need to redirect this conversation before she starts asking questions I can't answer."
"Helena, I know you're in pain right now. I know you want someone to pay for what happened. But going after the people who did this—"
"Will what? Make me just like them? Turn me into a monster? Destroy whatever's left of my soul?" Her laugh held no humor. "My father was a criminal, Ben. He ran drugs, laundered money, ordered people killed when they interfered with his business. The Triad didn't murder some innocent businessman. They executed a rival crime boss who was cutting into their territory."
"That doesn't mean you have to become what he was."
"Doesn't it?"
The simple question carried the weight of a lifetime of conditioning, of growing up in a world where violence was the ultimate arbitrator of disputes and mercy was just another word for weakness.
"Your father taught me to shoot when I was twelve," Helena continued, her voice carrying the flat affect of someone recounting facts about someone else's life. "Said it was important for a Bertinelli to know how to protect the family interests. He taught me to fight, to read people's weaknesses, to understand leverage and intimidation. Everything I need to hunt down the bastards who killed him."
"Helena—"
"And you know what the funny thing is? I think he always knew this day would come. Not the specifics, but the shape of it. He prepared me to be his weapon, and now I finally understand why."
The line went dead.
Ben stared at his phone, feeling the familiar twist of helplessness that came with knowing exactly how a tragedy would unfold without being able to prevent it. The Spoiler Curse ensured he couldn't warn her directly about the consequences of choosing vengeance. His powers couldn't activate around grief because emotional pain wasn't physical danger. And Helena Bertinelli had already made her choice before he'd ever called.
"She's going to become the Huntress. Tonight, probably. She'll start with the Triad soldiers who actually pulled the trigger, work her way up the chain, and somewhere along the way she'll discover that the line between justice and revenge isn't as clear as she thought. By the time Oliver encounters her, she'll be fully committed to a war that will consume everything she used to be."
Ben dismissed his class early and walked home through streets that felt heavier somehow, weighted down with the knowledge of violence that was already in motion. His phone buzzed with text messages—Sin asking if he was okay, Marcus wondering about tomorrow's schedule, Tommy Merlyn following up on their conversation from the gala.
But nothing from Helena.
POV: Helena
Helena Bertinelli sat in her father's study, surrounded by the tools of his trade—safes full of cash, weapons hidden behind false panels, ledgers documenting transactions that would never appear on any legitimate business records. The crime scene photos were spread across his mahogany desk like a tarot reading predicting her future.
Three bullets to the chest. One to the head. Professional work, the kind that left no doubt about the message being sent. The Triad had come into Frank Bertinelli's home and executed him like a dog, and they'd done it with the casual efficiency of people who'd performed this particular ritual many times before.
Ben's warnings echoed in her memory, his obvious concern and desperate attempts to talk her away from the ledge. He understood loss in ways that most people didn't, carried trauma that had shaped him into someone who recognized the signs in others. His story about dying and coming back broken had resonated because she could see the truth of it in his eyes.
"He's trying to save me from becoming what he became. From letting grief and rage turn me into something that would horrify the person I used to be. But what he doesn't understand is that the person I used to be was a lie. A performance put on by someone who thought she could stay clean while benefiting from dirty money."
Helena opened her father's gun safe with the combination he'd taught her years ago—her mother's birthday, because even criminals sometimes had sentimental weaknesses. The weapons inside were quality pieces, maintained with the care of someone who understood that his life might depend on their reliability.
She selected a Beretta 92FS and checked the action with movements that were automatic after years of training. Her father had been thorough in his education, preparing her for a world where survival required the ability to inflict precise, overwhelming violence.
The Huntress gear was already laid out in her bedroom—purple leather and tactical equipment ordered months ago when she'd first started planning her father's enemies' destruction. She'd known this day would come eventually. Frank Bertinelli had lived by violence for too long to die peacefully in his sleep.
"Ben thinks I'm choosing vengeance over healing, destruction over justice. But what he doesn't understand is that some things can only be balanced through blood. My father's killers are going to learn what it means to threaten a Bertinelli. And if that turns me into a monster..."
Helena strapped on the crossbow that would become her signature weapon, feeling its weight settle across her shoulders like destiny accepting an invitation.
"Then at least I'll be a monster with a purpose."
Ben made it home just as the sun was setting behind Starling City's skyline, painting the Glades in shades of gold and blood that felt too appropriate for the day's events. His apartment felt smaller somehow, cramped with the weight of knowledge he couldn't act on and connections he couldn't protect.
He pulled out his coded journal and tried to document what had just happened, but the words felt inadequate. How do you record the moment when someone you care about chooses to become a killer? How do you document the failure to prevent a tragedy you saw coming months in advance?
"Helena Bertinelli died today along with her father. What's being born in her place is something harder, sharper, more dangerous. The Huntress will be a force for vengeance in Starling City, and eventually she'll cross paths with Oliver Queen. Maybe he can reach her in ways I couldn't. Maybe together they can find something that looks like redemption."
Ben's knuckles were bloody from punching the wall, a sharp counterpoint to the helplessness burning in his chest. The pain was welcome—a reminder that he was still human, still capable of being hurt by the suffering of others.
"Or maybe she'll pull him down into the darkness with her. Maybe the Huntress will be the thing that teaches Oliver Queen that some people can't be saved, only stopped. Either way, Starling City is about to become a more dangerous place, and I couldn't do anything to prevent it."
Outside his window, sirens wailed in the distance—police responding to the first in what would become a series of brutal executions. The hunt had begun, and Ben could only hope that when it ended, there would be something left of the woman he'd met in a coffee shop who'd understood grief well enough to recognize it in a stranger.
But hope, he was learning, was a luxury he couldn't afford in a world where the future was written in blood and every attempt to change it came with a price he wasn't sure he could pay.
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