Dick held his breath as one of the yokels pulled down on the mask and removed it to expose Oliver Queen's rugged face.
"Recognize him?" said the one who'd done the deed.
"Nope," said one of his companions.
"Me neither," said the other. "TOLDja he wuddn't from aroun' here."
There was a long silence. Dick felt the gag bite into the corners of his lips; it had already absorbed most of the moisture from his mouth and he longed for a drink of something cool and wet.
The men stared at the Arrow, then glanced at Grayson, then looked at the ground. Several more moments passed.
"Now what?" one of them said.
"Time to kill 'em, I guess," said another.
"We gotta mark the site first, remember?" said the third. " 'Stick to the script,'"
Dick felt dizzy as the gravity of the situation began to sink in even further. The conversation became a jumble of voices unattached to faces--faces which were hidden from view, in any case.
"Did y'all make the signs yet?"
"Naw."
"Well, how we s'posed to mark the site without them signs?"
"Hold on. I got some spray paint in mah truck."
"Run go get it."
"Don't tell me what to do, you fuckin'--"
"Brothers! BROTHERS! Now ain't the time for ..."
"Shut up."
"YOU shut up."
"Fuck you."
and so on. They continued in this vein for the next fifteen minutes while the one apparently called Brother Fox retrieved a can of spray paint and begin writing on the grass betwen the trees:
THIS IS WHAT HAPPEN WHEN YOU DONT OBEY.
This was accompanied by a crude spraypainted approximation of the logo on their robes--or at least that was what Dick assumed was the next result of Brother Fox's artistry. Grayson's attention was diverted by the fact that he was currently being beaten in the stomach with a baseball bat wielded by the goon he dubbed Brother Son of a Fucking Bitch.