Things were busy as always at the truckers stop on the edge of Highway 125. Trucks were pulling in for a refill. Their owners going inside to do the same away from the pouring rain which made their long hours on the road even longer, blinding them with the grey and forbidding atmosphere that Earth 19 had more days of the year than not.
It was a cute diner, inside and out. One of those cozy little holes in the walls that are always a welcome sight to those driving along the highway. The outside of it was brick, but with lines of colorful flowers in red stone surrounding it up to the cheerful chimes that greeted people in. Many truckers and some people too tired to drive on would pull around to the large area in the back to spend the night, knowing that a good home-cooked meal would be waiting inside for them in the morning, after finishing a good home cooked dinner the night before. To most, it was a little oasis in the middle of vast nothingness save for rain, the road, and miles of buildings repeating so much it was nearly hypnotic.
Inside the smell of coffee and eggs filled the paneled wooden walls. Cheerful stills of Central City lining the paneling over each table that could seat at least eight at each one. Blue and yellow tabletops between wooden benches, a large sit up counter lining the opposite wall to a large window cut out to a very busy kitchen.
The "Sun Tree Diner" although ironic in its name to this dark and dismal city, was the little piece of sunshine to almost everyone around, except for the one waitress that worked there. Other waitresses just took the comments of those who passed through with a wink and a pretty smile, hoping that a little innocent flirting meant a few extra bucks on the table left behind. This one was different, the people that came in and out were enough to make her blood boil, her dark reddish skin was the topic of many conversations which made her feel even more uneasy.
"Come on cutie, I've been on the road for hours." a man sitting at the table, his hand on the thigh of a tall dark woman in a blue waitress dress in front of him.
"May I take order," she repeated, backing up slowly her very broken English bringing a sly smile to the ragged truckers lips.
"Oh, you can do more than take my order." He sneered as his fingers gripping her thigh a little tighter, laughing when she gasped and almost knocking down a chair behind her.
"Stop." she persisted, her hand on his trying to pry his fingers off of her skin right under the lacy part of her mid-thigh dress. Pressing her thumb into the weaker part of his hand she heard a pop feeling it beneath her fingers.
"Son of a …!" He exclaimed pulling his hand back to coddle it in his other one. "You little.."
He stood, a few other men looking at him but shrugging their shoulders at the commotion. They were all tired and hungry and lonely and most of them agreed that the tall dark waitress with black hair and brown eyes that shimmered in what little light they could hold was worth hitting on. Many have tried it before, many will try it again.
He grabbed her arm and she slapped him, no way he was going to overcome her here in the middle of a diner. Squealing she was pushed back against the wall, her attacker angry as a rattlesnake coming at her, his fist back ready to strike. No one was coming, no one ever did. Bracing herself she closed one eye very hard, the other one looking innocently at him. Her fingers clenched into a fist as at the last second she ducked completely down, the truckers fist smashing into a wall right over her head. She could hit him back, kick as he yelled holding his hand in pain, the crunch a moment before she knew it was his fingers he broke himself against the hardwood behind her. She was in a perfect position to…
"Are you okay?" She heard suddenly daring to look up to see a man in front of her offering his hand.
"Y..yeah." She did her best to smile, taking his fingers as he helped her up, now looking eye to eye with the man who saved her, watching a taller man rustle with her tormentor. "Th...thank you."
She felt his charcoal eyes look over her quickly as he nodded, running his dark fingers through what was left of his shaved hair.
"Hey, no problem. We almost didn't step in you gave him a Hell of a show." he grinned, his demeanor going from seriously worried about her to playful almost instantly. "I'm Jax, that big tall lanky guy is Sean."
Sean looked up and pulled his scarf down over his five o'clock shadow. Seeming to disappear for a second only to turn solid the man who was after her in handcuffs yelling and cussing as he was lead out the front door.
"Glad you're okay ma'am," he said simply.
Jax shook his head with a chuckle.
"He doesn't say much. Are you sure you're okay? We can get you to the hospital…" he looked at her name tag for her name "Amy."
She nodded slowly taking a ragged breath opening her mouth to answer him when a voice interrupted her instead.
"I'm sorry sir this woman has troubled you. Amy back to work...now. You have eight more hours of this shift or I will tell the home that you are not doing your job. You want to keep that apartment of yours, right? Get to it." a short overweight man behind him said, motioning at her as if he was frantically swatting at a bee.
"Yes sir." she smiled meekly to Jax, her eyes showing all the gratefulness in the world to him and picked up her notepad to get back to work.
"Always getting in trouble that one." the chubby cook patting Jax on the shoulder. "Hard to get help these days."
Grumbling he went back to the counter as Jax waited patiently for Amy to get done taking an order.
"Here," he whispered, holding out his hand.
Slowly she took it, shaking it cautiously as he left with a nod leaving something behind in her fingers. Looking around and turning away from any prying eyes she looked into her palm, two one hundred dollar bills and a piece of paper that just said Collection Agency with a bunch of numbers she could only assume was a phone number although she never had a phone.
Amy turned her lips parted in disbelief to thank the man that saved her, but he was gone. Running outside she looked around in the pouring rain but no sign of either man was around. Only trucks and that family with the RV that rolled in last night. Wrapping her fingers around the number and the money she slid it into her apron pocket, the white lace in stark contrast to her sky blue waitress outfit.
She was never going to forget this.
The rest of her shift went off okay despite her shaken nerves. Her mind raced about being saved by the famous Collection Agency, she heard so much about them since coming to the outskirts of Central City and knew she had seen the taller of the two, Sean, before, sitting in the corner sipping his coffee. He rarely said anything to her, today was probably as much as she ever heard him talk.
Wiping down the rest of the tables, she nodded her goodnight to Frank, the chef, and her boss. He worked hard, and he was willing to take her in and give her a job. He was hard, very hard, on her but as long as she stayed out of trouble and the patrons happy, he let her keep her tips and gave her a fair wage. He also signed her apartment for her since the place she rented from refused to rent to someone with no bank account, no job, straight out of a family home.
Life was hard, every day for her was a struggle. She never had a place to belong but she was finally making herself a life. Working for various people since the age of thirteen, she was used to the work, used to how people treated her and although she never gave into them often it wore on her like water over a rock.
It took another hour of classical music playing from the little radio on the counter and a mop before she was satisfied it was good enough to go home. She looked at the numbers in a circle on the wall, but they meant nothing to her so instead leaned on one of the freshly cleaned tables she looked up at the moon struggling to peek its way out of the clouds. It was about one in the morning. Time to go home, take a shower and collapse face first on the mattress. So glad tomorrow was one of her precious days off.
Getting her arm into her sweater and finding her keys she turned off the lights, looked around once more as her fingers flipped off the radio and stepped out of the back door that automatically locked behind her.
It was cold out here this morning, rain sticking to the parking lot and streets with icy fingers as the wind howled like a lone wolf through the buildings ahead. The trucks sat in row upon row like silent metal beasts in low rumbles, their engines running to keep their drivers warm. She stopped and picked up a few cans and as she went to toss them in the big dark blue recycling bin at the edge of the parking lot, one of the beast's eyes opened. She put her hand up to stop the high beams to keep from blinding her hearing footsteps of more than one coming toward her on the wet concrete.
"Going somewhere?" a rough voice rang out over the rain and the blinding light.
"I go home. Food in the morning," she replied as the bright light was silhouetted by one big dark shadow, a chain or something large in his hand trailing on the ground.
"Oh..." a sadistic chuckle came from the shadow, the chain raising a bit as another shadow joined on one side, and a slightly smaller shadow joined him on the other "We aren't hungry..."
"For food at least," a smaller voice said from the left as she backed up, realizing she was almost completely surrounded.
A firm arm around her waist from behind confirmed that this was something her self-defense know how was going to get her out of. The world started to slow down, to blur around her as she struggled, doing her best to fight off those that circled around her, cat-calling and taunting her. Laughing at her fear that had to show in her eyes. No heroes were around this time, it was her and them.
Closing her eyes she decided she was going to survive this. Maybe she would be in the hospital but she was not going to let them take her without a fight. She gave a little to the arm around her waist the man digging in her apron for her money and in that give the grip relaxed. Slamming her foot down on his he gave out a yell, releasing her enough she could spin out of his fingers. Another firm hand on her arm this time, ignoring the bad words that were being thrown at her with a side-step as a fist came rushing past her face she twisted her arm now holding his, using him to lean on, her sneaker going right into the unpleasant place of the man who was rushing toward her. Gasping he fell to the ground, hands between his legs rocking back and forth. There was a break as the other men all turned their attention, grimacing for a moment at their fallen partner. This was the time to run, and she did. She used all her strength and put her full adrenaline into a sprint, ignoring the gripping fear she had as a thunderous noise started coming up behind her, headlights casting her shadow before her.
Her fingers gripped a light-post, using it to almost hurl herself ninety degrees from the path of the semi, her sneakers squeaking on the wet pavement. If she wasn't a scared rabbit being chanced by a pack of wolves she would have remembered to go down the alley where the semi wouldn't fit. In her panic, however, she kept running, crashing into a door to a gas station she thought was open but it was locked up tight. Bouncing off of it, her nose bleeding everywhere she banged on it, her perusers catching up quickly.
"Nowhere to run you..."
Closing her eyes she raised her hands, not realizing the cut-off sentence was because there was suddenly no one behind her. In the glass reflection she thought she saw lightning, but with the beautiful weather in Central City it didn't come to much of a surprise until she swore it came back up to her, the floor and inside of the store glowing a beautiful shade of purple.
"Are you okay?"
The voice coaxed her around, with gentle two gloved hands on her shoulders nudging her to face the man who was suddenly there.
Putting a hand to her nose she nodded, looking straight forward into the dark red jacket of a man she just met hours before, following his red scarf up to his face her hand dropped as he pulled his white face covering down his blue eyes focused on her.
"Are you okay?" he repeated.
Amy nodded slowly. She wasn't sure if she was okay but as long as those men didn't come back, she was okay. Maybe this man would stay with her. She felt safe with him there.
"How did you find me?" she stammered around his hand trying to tend to her nose as two jet flames streaked across the sky landing a safe distance away from the gas station.
"You set off the silent alarm when you hit the door, Felicity saw you on the monitors and sent us out." He simply stated.
"Felicity?" she watched as the streak manifested itself to be the same kind man who came to her before at the diner.
"She runs the police monitor and has other...jobs." Sean started.
"Oh god look at you." Jax comforted putting his hand on her shoulder giving Sean less room until his follow hero nudged him to get out of his way. "I told you we should have walked her home."
Sean only grunted a small noise as the red and blue lights of the police car and an ambulance he called as he was taking her attackers for a nice overnight visit to the CCPD.
"She's brave." he only replied to him as the EMS came.
"I can't afford hospital" Amy replied, her big eyes looking up at the two men she trusted from the start.
"Don't worry about that girl, just go. We have you covered." Jax said motioning for them to take her and tend to her nose. "We will meet you there once we go through what happened here."