Christine sighed in relief to have finally arrived. She turned off the engine and the tunes of the latest boyband hit that were constantly spilling through her daughter's speakers dissipated into thin air. She could hardly stand listening to the countdown of today's top twenty when if it was up to her, the songs wouldn't even have reached the top hundred, and to be honest she wasn't in the mood to flick from station to station in search of something more apt for her taste.
Christine reached across to the passenger seat and dragged her Chanel handbag onto her lap, to locate her make-up purse, confident the evening wouldn't be complete without her 'vengeful red' lipstick. She was sure that the colour made her seem more strong and eloquent, qualities very much treasured in court. When she called for order, the red made her seem more stern. She was brilliant at her job, and the little tube of red made it a bit easier, giving her a nice confidence boost. The colour wasn't inappropriate for a late dinner date either. As she glanced into her mirror, she was pleased to note that she hardly had as many wrinkles as her friends, similar in age. She smiled. She managed to remain attractive through years of a daily dosage of stress. Henry, her husband had the tendency whisper in her ear "Always the beauty". She still found it hard to stop a giggle spilling out at the sweet words.
A sudden echo of knuckles drumming against her window made her violently jump forward and drop her bag of cosmetics, putting a stop to any thoughts of Henry's charm. As she turned towards the source of the noise, she was met with a sight of a empty parking lot. What in God's name?
The fear she felt slowly dissolved into anger. Was somebody trying to play a joke on her? She once again scanned the area around her car but it was empty. Or so it seemed. Could she have imagined the noise? She was tired so maybe it was only her mind playing tricks. Her bottle of sleeping pills was empty after she forgot to fill in her prescription and so she hardly got any rest the previous night.
Frowning, she decided to call Henry to come and meet her in the parking lot. You could never be too cautious and she could have sworn that she heard somebody knocking on her window. She suppressed a shudder. She'd rather feel silly than be attacked in the shadowed parking lot. She looked inside her bag but unable to find her mobile, she realised it must have fallen down along with everything else.
Closing her eyes in annoyance she reached down, hoping nothing rolled down too far under her seat, always hating to retrieve anything from the cramped space. She pushed her hand along the carpet floor but could not find the stupid phone. How was it not there? She put her hand further down, feeling up the space around the edges of her seat, her eyes now eye level with the bottom part of her steering wheel. As her fingers wildly moved across the area, something wet and cold brushed against her hand. She froze, her heart skipped a beat and she frantically began to pull her hand out of under her seat. But she couldn't. Through the blinding panic that was making her thoughts swim, she realised it was somebody's hand and it was pulling hers back. Have to get out, get out. The woman screamed but the noise soon died down, when a metal blade slashed through her throat.
Christine's assailant proudly examined the woman slumped in her leather seat, her skin ghostly white against the striking red blood coating her neck, and slowly reached to turn on the radio. The words of 'Wicked game' blasted through the car as the figure retreated into the shadows.
The weight of her body propped on her leg against the cold floor, gradually send it to an inevitable path of pins and needles. Her breath reached her knee, and she heard herself sigh. She had been under her desk for a good half an was no thunder, nor any bad guys swaying their guns. She was not cowering in fright but connecting a bundle of cables to get her system up to it's former pristine condition. Or even better. Diggle managed to get the new software off Amanda, and she could still recall the look of surprise on 'the black driver's face' when she ran up to him and hugged him senseless.
"Don't let Lyla see this." Roy couldn't help but quip.
They were all in the midst of making the new lair since the previous has been compromised. Too many people knew about it anyway.
John and Diggle had carried in the metal table, the one which held the weight of all members including her own when Sara stitched her shoulder. However, its not that memory that made her stop in her tracks and forget about the cobalt wire in her hand.
It's not even a memory of a bleeding Oliver, although god knows that'll forever be engraved on her mind.
No, it were the words that rang in her ears.
Sedated Roy spend a good while there, on the cold surface with his eyes closed, seemingly harmless but still managing to send a bout of goosebumps each time she laid her eyes on him. When she asked Diggle, if the fact that it freaked her out a bit, made her a bad person, she received an answer that even now had her feeling uneasy.
"There's not a force on Earth that could make you a bad person."
She couldn't get those fourteen syllables out of her head. Like a reliable boomerang, they kept coming back, echoing against the base of her skull.
She realised Oliver, Sara even Roy, they all thought of her in that way. As this light unmottled by darkness.
"Should we have it here, Felicity?" she heard Oliver ask. "A bit more to the left." They moved to where she pointed and with a thud, the medical worktop legs dropped onto the floor filled with tiles that not so long ago were nothing but cement.
The stony ground covered with a layer of white dust was almost an ally in helping her read Oliver. When he performed his disappearing acts, she knew he would come here to retreat and shy away from human contact. The dust had an affinity for his leather and suit pants, so when she would see him oblivious of carrying a pattern of white particles, she knew he needed space. She'd bite her tongue and shoot down the questions that propped in her mind.
She wondered where he'll go now, once they finish taking over the new lair when he'll be in need in some alone time.
"Damn it."
She looked up to see Diggle almost ready to hop, and glaring at a box he must have dropped on his foot.
Not a bad person.
It didn't feel right, having them see her as this. She was hardly an angel. Hell, there have been plenty of times where she thought she was unscrupulous, and now to realise someone thought of her in this almost idolised way, made her stomach churn.
Without even realising it, she must have in some way, deceived them into thinking she was something she is not. She furrowed her eyebrows as she remembered how in the first grade, she pulled Johnny's chair as he was about to sit down. For the rest of the day he had to nurse a bruised pride and a painful rear.
In second, she was brought home by the police after having 'run away' when her mum said she was to blame. She only managed to walk to walk half a mile before the cop's car pulled up.
In third grade, she pulled Melissa's hair when she called her mum a drunk. A month later, she put chewing gum inside her brown locks and she had to get them cut.
In fifth, she got into a fight with a bully who destroyed her favourite book. She scratched his face and he shoved her onto the ground, leaving her with a bleeding knee.
In sixth grade, she took all the photoframes from her house with images of her father and burned them in her backyard when she realised he wasn't coming back. She blinked back tears.
"Felicity, you ok?" John always worried. She nodded.
It's the blond hair and the bright colours she wears. She is willing to bet her share of month's worth of mint chocolate chip ice cream that if they just saw her in black, they wouldn't be so quick to label her as the one with pure of hearts, she thinks almost petulantly.
The next couple of years were hardly better. In college she forwarded one of the photos of Matt's 'package' to the entire campus, the photo he kept sending her after she refused to go out with him. The guy took it upon himself to stalk her until she changed her mind. The message turned out to be enough to get him to see she wasn't interested. He left the following semester.
A year later she was was arrested when a group of friends and her took part in a protest against a company extracting coal in favour of renewable resources, who weren't skim on tax breaks either. Few months later, 'somehow' all the police records from the incidents were wiped clean giving her a clean slate.
These were small. Acts that almost signalled what she was to be. That one year she often revisited in her nightmares, the year that tarnished here beyond belief. It wasn't what she did. It was what she didn't do.
" Felicity you want something from Big Belly Burger?" Oliver's voice snapped her out of her thoughts. "Hmm, the usual." She send him a grateful smile, that he was quick to reciprocate even though his brows dipped for a second. "We'll be back in twenty" Diggle added before following the other man.
Everyone always assumed she turned down guys because she was helplessly in love with Oliver Queen. Sure, her feelings had soared past the boundary of 'friends only', but that was a relatively recent phenomenon. She only realised she was in love with him few months prior to Slade's retribution.
The 'no dating' thing she had going on, or nothing past the third date to keep it in the 'casual' business with some one night stands splattered around her calendar?
That was happening long before she met Oliver. Anything more than three dates and it would mean that it meant something.
"Blondie, you've been at this for ages. Come on, time for a break." She tensed. She forgot Roy was still there.
"I managed to salvage this from the old lair." She eyed up a piece of what once used to be part of a relatively large collection of weaponry. It was a small crossbow, that somehow ended up in the Arrow's possession. She guessed he brought it from the island, yet she never saw him use it.
Roy handed it to her and her eyes were instinctively drawn to the intricate carvings along the shaft. Someone put a lot of work into making it. It was an entangled mass of symbols, so delicate she was having a hard time distinguishing where each one ended, and the other began.
"That's unusual." Her voice was quiet, almost inaudible.
"My thoughts exactly."
"I guess I know what the first thing I will get down to, once I set this running." Felicity heard herself say as she send a look at the new TX52 system.
She placed the bow on the table adjacent to her desk, careful not to drop it.
"Speaking of which, I kind of want to get this sorted. The others will be back soon so I'll take my break then."
Roy shrugged his shoulders, and she tried to hide a smile. He still wore that red hoodie, but somehow the misplaced anger that she associated with it, dissipated completely after giving him the cure. Now, she just saw a cute youngster who was thrown into mayhem and came out of it stronger than before.
She ambled back to her previous spot, crowded with boxes, tools and a stream of wires that made Roy's head hurt just by looking at them. Moments later, she was sitting down with her head drawn down, once again raptly focused on her new computer.
Felicity's high stilettos clicked against the pavement as she hurriedly moved one leg in front the other. Earlier she decided she didn't have time to go change her shoes to her panda flats, a decision she now regretted especially since she had quite a distance to walk to her car - a result of running late, and some red Mercedes owner seeing this as an opportunity to take over her usual parking spot. Except for the leather that uncomfortably rubbed against the skin on her feet, the walk could be considered pleasant she thought. The air was crisp yet warm enough to be out without a coat. She took a deep breath and stretched back her shoulders a couple of times, letting the tension that build up during the day slowly roll away, making her steps somewhat lighter.
In the jungle, the mighty jungle the lion sleeps tonight…
She almost missed her step and had to catch the wall to keep her balance. The shrill sound of what seemed to be her new ringtone as of today - damn Roy for changing it again - rang out through the empty road. Felicity quickly opened her handbag to retrieve it. Julia. She smiled and pressed the green receiver button.
The door opened with a thud as she drunkenly stepped inside, barefoot and clutching her shoes, hard light hitting her eyes. As through a fog she thought that it was almost odd since she was not the one to forget to switch lights off, but with the hectic morning she had she guessed it was not too surprising.
She disregarded her clothing as she walked towards her bathroom, heading straight towards the sink. She was too tired to shower and opted for only brushing her teeth and removing her makeup to be prevent a full blown catastrophe where she wakes looking like a panda and with smears of mascara on her pillows.
Slowly, wary of all the sharp corners of her furniture she walked in search of her bag. She found it hidden under her dress, and quickly grabbed her phone to set an alarm an hour early than usual to have the enough time to make herself look presentable in a few hours. She hardly wanted another today or rather yesterday where a red Mercedes holder again stole her parking spot.
As she unclasped her bra and let it fall unceremoniously onto the ground, she got an uneasy feeling as if she was being watched. Felicity reached for her pyjamas with one hand but with the other she looked under another pile of clothing for the cold metal item. Grabbing her .38 glock, she swirled around to see nobody there. But the feeling of unease was still present so she moved through her house, scanning the place for intruders. Nada. She let out a loud laugh realising how ridiculous she must look. With alcohol on her breath, pretty much naked and a gun between her hands looking for whom? An imaginary masked robber to explain some gut feeling? She shook her head, put on her pyjamas and fell onto her king sized bed. She needed sleep, there was no question about it, she pondered as her heavy eyelids slid shut.
Four hours later she waited for her coffee to brew and switched channels to watch the early morning news. She yawned and straightened her right hand still holding onto the remote.
"Last night the fifty-eight year old Christine Barrismore…"
Felicity frowned at the mention of the name, realising it sounded familiar.
".. the judge was found dead in her hometown. Investigation is in process to rule out any possibilities of foul play. James handing over to you -"
The TV screen changed to a photo of a woman with a mass of red, curly hair. She gasped and the remote almost tumbled onto the floor. No wonder the name struck a chord. She looked exactly like seven years ago except the hair appeared to be a bit thinner yet still abundant, and the skin not as elastic, hoisting several green eyes gleamed just like on day when she announced the verdict as Felicity sat in the audience. Guilty.