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☠️ / PROLOGUE: an empty casket
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Maya Black taps her nails on the steering wheel. Her baby blue polish is tarnished and she makes an absent-minded mental note to get them repainted as she gazes out at the road before her, waiting for the traffic lights to turn green.
There is an edge to the air, a coldness that nips at her skin and makes the hairs of her arms stand on end; whilst she would not call herself a particularly superstitious person, she's never been able to shunt the simple method of trusting her gut – and any other day, she would heed that feeling – but today is Oliver Queen's surprise birthday bash.
The crush she has had on him since she was eleven aside, Oliver is Ethan's best friend and Ethan is Maya's big brother. This means her promise of throwing a fantastic party is twice as important, twice as extravagant as it need be and twice as likely to get her relentlessly mocked should it go pear shaped. So she's pressing a little harder on the accelerator than she normally would.
The friendship between Oliver Queen and Ethan Black had been an odd occurrence. Two years apart, they had only run in the same circles in the sense of their familial status, but a well-timed charity fundraiser had resulted in Oliver and Ethan becoming fast friends at the age of thirteen and fifteen, respectively. Thomas Merlyn became a later addition and a happy upgrade from a dynamic duo to a golden trio.
A golden trio who, for all their fondness of Maya, would not hesitate in ridiculing her should the party not be deemed a success.
Everything was in hand, all was on track and on time and Maya was one All good! text from Ellie away from calling the set-up a success, but the next text she got from Ellie is, rather: Bad news my car got towed outside the cake shop so I'm stranded, and now Maya is trying her very best not to break any traffic laws as she attempts to get from one side of Star City to the other in enough time to get back for the birthday boy's arrival in forty-seven minutes.
The plan is for her to meet him for lunch at his favourite restaurant in Orchid Bay, only a short walk from the old Queen Industries steel factory on the industrial complex a few blocks away. Originally, she was going to make up some excuse of seeing Ethan to get him there, but in all honesty, she knows her plan is hardly thought out.
