"Oliver!" she cried as she ran through the nearly empty streets of Starling City's finest ghetto. "Oliver, come back here this instant!" The anger in her voice grew as her breathing became more laboured from the exertion. "It's too late for this crap! Come back!" she turned down some unmarked alleyway she had seen him disappear off into. The five-inch pumps she was wearing were not ideal for chasing down any one, let alone her over stimulated blue nosed pitbull, over poorly paved streets. One of the heels caught in a crack and she tripped, sending her flying into the pavement.

Pushing herself up with a grunt she winced slightly at the stinging in her palms.

"Not a good start." She muttered to herself as she inspected the small cuts she got in the fall. "Oliver, you big baby, you are supposed to by my guard dog! It was a freaking cat!" She yelled again this time seeing the dog hiding along the shadows of the brick building only a few feet ahead of her.

Oliver whined slightly before giving her a look that clearly said 'this isn't home that that was a big ass cat'. Isobel just laughed at the poor dog's expression and beckoned him closer as she stood up. Oliver was comically large for how scared he was of his own shadow. He wouldn't win in a fight but most dogs and humans alike just left him alone due to his sheer size. 'For protection' her father had murmured when he gave Oliver to her as a birthday gift. He had raised the dog himself leaving Isobel with only the task of feeding him and taking him on walks. That had been six years ago when she was still living in Blüdhaven, before it became a war zone, before she lost everyone.

It was just her and Oliver now, and she had made every attempt to get as far away from that toxic place as she could. There hadn't been a funeral for her loved ones; there hadn't been a body to have a funeral for. Instead she just left moving across the country as she could afford it, until she was as far west as she could get without leaving the country.

That was how she ended up running around the ghetto, or The Glades as people around here liked to call it, chasing after a dog with no bite, in clothes intended for an interview she'd had that afternoon.

"Come on Ollie, let's go home." She muttered, picking up the dog's leash that had escaped from her grasp when a cat crossed in front of them.

The walk back was much less eventful but Isobel was shocked by just how far Oliver had managed to run before she caught up with him. Several times she thought she felt someone behind her but every time she looked there was no one there. It left her on edge and forced her to keep a brisk pace until she reached the gate to her apartment, one she could not afford if she didn't get that bartending job she had applied for. Even then she didn't let her guard down until she had locked the door shut behind her. She had lived in a refuge camp for too long to ignore when her gut told her something was wrong.

Inside Isobel kicked of her heels and started sorting through some of the boxes she had brought with her, things she had collected in her inadvertent trip across the states, looking for Oliver's food. She swept her hair up into a messy but and set about organizing her home, checking her phone like a madman hoping for a call from the bar that she had gotten the job. She had just cracked open a bottle of two-buck-chuck, the kind with a screw on cap, and poured herself a glass in a ceramic Santa mug when she felt it again. The nagging feeling that someone was watching her made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Isobel moved to the window, looking out on the unlit street. The closest street lamp as broken and the one two blocks down flickered sporadically. Only the moon provided any light to see anything by and from what she could tell the street was deserted. Unable to shake the feeling that someone was out there watching her she closed the blinds with one final glance around.

If Isobel had looked up along the roofline she would have seen it, a man in a green hood following her home and watching as she went about her life.

She thought about her interview and grimaced as she pointed out every flaw to herself. The woman running the interview looked younger than her and her attitude, while a well trained polite, was dismissive. Ms Queen made it clear that she didn't have time for people that weren't well trained. Isobel had laughed when the girl said it but shut up when she realised she was being serious.

'Well, I've worked in a bar before.' Isobel assured before smirking. 'And I can juggle whiskey bottles.'

'Excuse me?' Ms Queen asked with a doubtful expression.

'Well not just whiskey, would you like me to show you?' She pointed out to the bar.

'Please.' The brunette made a sweeping gesture but it was clear she still didn't believe that Isobel could do it. 'But if you break it you buy it.' she warned.

'Alright, what would you like to drink?'

'How about a Long Island Iced Tea?' a man's voice called from the doorway. 'Thea, are you giving away my job already?' a boy in a red hoodie walked up to them and but his arm protectively around Ms Queen's waist.

Ms Queen smirked but didn't answer as she looked at Isobel to start. She made it clear that she wasn't going to introduce them Isobel took the task upon herself.

'Well sir that I can do.' She smiled warmly. 'Name's Isobel.' She talked as she picked out the right combination of alcohol bottles. 'Now, am I making two or are you drinking solo?' Isobel tried her best to be friendly without being flirty, the last thing she needed was to not get the job because some teenage boss-lady thought she was trying to pick up her teen-bop boyfriend.

'Roy,' he pointed to himself and Isobel was reminded of a caveman for a second before he kept talking, 'and just one.'

'You got it.' She took the first bottle and spun it around in the palm of her hand before tossing it in the air and catching it behind her back. She continued throwing bottles in the air and making a spectacle of herself until the drink was poured. She placed the garnish on top and put it on the bar in front of her.

Roy took a sip and nodded over to his girlfriend with a look.

'Thank you for coming in, I have your number, I'll give you a call once we have made our decision.' Ms Queen ended the interview abruptly.

'Right.' Isobel nodded before stepping out from behind the bar. 'It was a pleasure to meet you.' She held out her hand, keeping eye contact with Thea Queen. Her look was clear; Ms Queen and Isobel both knew that she was the most qualified for the job. It was in the boss-lady's hands now and all Isobel could do was wait for an answer.

Serving drinks was Isobel's one chance at a job here. Other than her ability to throw bottles of booze around she didn't have too many marketable skills. She had dropped out of high school when she was sixteen because the bank was going to foreclose on their shack of a house and she had to get a job. She had found one at a seedy bar on the edge of town, cleaning glasses and wiping down tables. She was seventeen the first time she saw someone die, in the bar on the pool table; he had bled out from a gunshot wound to the stomach. She would have liked to say that was the last time she had seen death but in reality it was only the beginning.

She had seen shopkeepers shot in the head for little more than candy bars, girls younger than her climb into cars with horny men and never come out, fathers develop drug problems and left on the streets with drool still coming out of their mouth after their pulse had faded, mothers drinking families out of house and home leaving their children to starve. And then the day came, the day when it didn't matter anymore; it didn't matter if you spent the last of your money on a syringe hitting your arm, because you were all dead. Chemicals filled the air and no one was safe. A homegrown Chernobyl, killing thousands and those that it didn't kill were left with the scars to prove they had lived. They were the lucky ones.

Isobel had been lucky; in fact it was probably the only good thing about working in that bar. It was so far on the outskirts of town that the radiation was less intense. Of course that didn't make it any less deadly. Men still died, mostly the older patrons, but Isobel watched as she saw a few of the regulars keel over and take their last painful breath. That was when she knew to run, as far and as fast as she could, so she did. She didn't have to think twice about it as she ran to the cash register and pulled out everything she found, easily over four hundred dollars, and smashed it into her bag before running. She could feel the chemical's clinging to her throat as she ran. Tears were pouring down her face but all she could think of was to get out. She made it; she was one of the lucky ones.

In the days that followed there was chaos, she was alone and scared. Part of her hoped that her father had made it; the other part of her knew that he hadn't. Her sisters, her aunt, her childhood friends, they were all gone, and she was alone. Some politician decided to create a wall around the radioactive ghetto and within six months the project was completed. Camps littered the base of the wall, survivors.

Isobel was in one of the nicer ones, the one set up by the government for women and children, there was less crime but there were also fewer opportunities. They were more likely to starve; government handouts were sporadic at best and sometimes the food they got was rotten by the time it was distributed. She lived like that for months before she found him almost starved to death. She didn't know how he survived but he had. Oliver was a fighter and since that day they had gone everywhere together.

Isobel was so concentrated on her thoughts that the next time she looked at the clock it was a quarter past three.

"Get your life together Isobel!" she scolded herself as she got up and turned off the lights before moving to the back room and flopping onto the twin futon she had stuffed into the back of her pickup truck.

It wasn't until he saw the lights go out that the man in green abandoned his perch from the apartment building across the street from Isobel's.

AN: Hi readers! I'm on the fence about this one but I was looking for just the right story and I couldn't find it so I tried to write it. Tell me what you think and if you like it I'll post more.