Running From The Law

Chapter One

Oliver Queen pulled open the door to a small diner in the middle of nowhere. The place was quaint and quiet. There were only seven people in the diner. Two blonde haired waitresses behind the counter, cleaning the counter with cloths. A little boy, who Oliver assumed to belong to one of the waitresses, was sitting at the counter scribbling in a book. He was about eight years old. There was a boy, about the age of one, Oliver assumed this little boy also belonged to one of the waitresses too, sitting in a high chair beside the counter, playing with a toy train. An old man sat at the back of the diner, staring out of the window at the emptiness around the diner and nursing a mug of coffee, he had a newspaper sitting on the table beside him. There was a young couple, a blonde haired girl and a dark haired man, sitting in a booth by the window, eating a meal in silence.

Oliver watched them all for a long moment. The place was silent, except for the static sound coming from the broken television in the top left hand corner above the counter and the sound of the two waitresses wiping the counter with cloths. The two women moved with synchronised motions, like cloans. Oliver cleared his throat and moved to a booth. He slid into it and lifted a menu from the holder. He opened it.

No one seemed to have noticed Oliver come in. He hoped - prayed - they wouldn't recognise him, but he gathered from the way the television was that it had been that way for a while and he assumed the two women who were working lived in the apartment just above the diner as there was no houses close to the diner for them to work here and there was only four cars, including his 'borrowed' one, in the car park. The television signal was atrocious, Oliver couldn't even get a signal on his phone. He hoped this television was the only television in the building. He hoped the television had been broken for a while and hoped none of the people in the diner had seen a news report in the last few weeks.

Oliver hid his face behind the menu as he read it. He glanced up at the two waitresses. One of them was now talking to the young boy at the counter and the other was trying to get the television to work. He swallowed and watched the waitress and the boy. He watched the way her mouth moved as she formed words to talk to the boy. Oliver assumed she was his mother, although he thought she looked too young to have a son his age. Oliver watched the way she smiled at the boy, the way she pushed her hair out of her face and the way she pushed her blackfraimed glasses up her nose.

Eventually, the other waitress turned to the blonde he had been watching. "It's your turn." She nodded in the direction of Oliver.

The younger blonde stood up right. She took a deep breath and lifted her notepad and pen off the counter. She stepped out from behind the counter and made her way over to Oliver.

"What would you like?" The girl asked. She held the tip of the pen to the notepad.

Oliver's heart sped up in his chest. Her voice... it was like silk. It was soft and sweet and innocent. It made him want to ask her to sit down and talk to him for hours.

Oliver looked her up and down and noticed the name on her name tag. Felicity. He smiled and looked at the menu. "I'll have the chicken burger with fries and a coffee, please, Felicity."

Felicity wrote down his order and the table number on her notepad and then looked up at him as if a customer had never said please when ordering. "I'll be right back with your order." She left the table.

Oliver watched her move to behind the counter. He watched her slim fingers delicately rip the sheet of paper off the pad and put it on the order mobile. She turned the mobile and pressed the bell.

The chef made his first appearance through the hole in the wall. He had an ugly fat face and looked drunk. He winked at Felicity and she rolled her eyes, turning to the boy at the counter. He stood for a moment in the window, staring at Felicity's bottom with lust in his eyes before disappearing.