Getting back to "Normal" | Rhekker

Chapter 61- Food

"Ava?"
Ava looked up following the voice.
"Aaaava"
"Aves" a shout came from next to her, Ava got up following the voice.
"Aves"
"Connor?"
"Connor!" She began spiriting, moving quick long through the darkness.
"Ava"

Ava opened her eyes before closing them again, curled up on her side holding her stomach as another ache ran through her.
"You good girl?" May asked a few feet away from her.
"Fine" Ava breathed roughly through her nose, rolling onto her back she stretched out her legs.
"Talk to me"
"What?" May asked.
"Talk to me, I need a distraction" Ava closed her eyes and exhaled.
"Umm, about what?"
"Where are you from?" Ava cut her off.
"Las Vegas, originally. Moved north a few years ago. Nashville"
"Is that where..."
"Yeah" May answered, I owed some bad people money"
"Why travel from Tennessee and Missouri to Chicago?"
"People ask questions if lots of people disappear from one place"
"You got anyone that'll miss you?" May looked at her in the dark.
"I think so, I've got someone looking for me" Ava muttered.
"That must be nice"
Ava's vision went blurry after that and she could no longer hear May, only feeling the ground moved beneath her.

Ava had a strange dream, they were stopped and their were people moving around her, talking but Ava was too dizzy to make out the words. The door closes and everything was dark again.

Ava woke with a start as the container was flooded with light, she pushed up on her palms to look around.
"Here" a hand pulled to her to standing position, and Ava stumbled with them, tripping over her shoe laces.
She rubbed her eyes, finding herself in a passenger side of a car once more.
The drivers side door opened and a different man from before hopped in. He pulled out of the driveway quickly and Ava scrambled to put her seatbelt on.
"Where are you taking me" she asked, but recivied no response.
Ava watched the roads signs, still not recognising any, but finding comfort in the "Land of Lincoln" liscnene plates that were all around her.

The car stopped suddenly as they swung into a gravel car park. "STACY'S DINER" light up in neon lights.
"You're only here because you came the day after we fed the others. And you're no use to us dead"
"Oh," she said, as something cold pressed through Ava's leggings into her leg.
"You run, you die"
Ava's eyes met the sharped switch blade that shine was dulled from the times it had been used.

He got of the car without another word and Ava followed behind him to the front door. They took a booth in the corner far away from the door. He picked up a menu and started scanning it as Ava did the same with the room. They were the only ones in here bar the waitress and an elderly gentleman at the far end of the room by the door. They place was dusty, despite the low spinning fan in the ceiling.

"Hi, what can I get for you"
"I'll take two cheeseburger, a coke for me and a water for her" he sniffed.
"I- I don't eat cheese" Ava piped up suddenly, thinking it beset not to explain to no dairy and meat combo.
"That's fine sweetheart, we can do yours plain" she smiles.
"And would you like some french fries?"
"No thanks" he dropped the menu to the table.
"Are you sure, they come free?" She told him.
He paused, "fine then, two sets of fries"

She walked away and Ava watched her go, her eyes darting around the room.
"Stop looking so twitchy, you're freaking people out" he hissed.
Ava traced the rim of the table with her nail, running it back and forth. She watched the waitress move around the diner, talking to the elderly gentleman as he came off his flip phone.
She studied the floor, counting each tile on the floor twice as the man before her scrolled on his phone. She saw the waitress approach with two meals and Ava's stomach growled lowly.
"Burger" she placed Ava's one first, "and fries"
"Enjoy" she smiled before walking away.
Ava watched her go, looking between her burger and the table in front of her.
The man had started eating before meeting her eye.
"What, you're not going to eat now?" He rolled his eyes.
Ava grabbed her burger, taking the biggest bite she could before another until she had to swallow.
"Jesus" she said under his breath, "try make it seam like you've eaten in the last week"