BLOOD AND BONE | rewritten

11

Dots from the cameras' constant flashing peppered Rainey's vision with white blotches, each snap echoing through the open air. Reporters shoved their way to the front of the crowd while the others stood behind, blocked by the Corps.

Sadly, all this public attention was not for Rainey.

A hand on her hip, Rainey looked for Stepanov, who stood at the top of a few gradual steps. The red building behind her had long fluttering banners with their House symbol on it. Despite the Minister's sheer smallness against the massive structure, she appeared no less imposing. Rainey liked the way she held herself as if she was unarguably the best in every room and anyone who believed otherwise was an utter idiot.

Only the red-suited security guards stationed behind the Minister's podium knew she wore a bulletproof vest under her suit jacket. Hopefully the sniper wouldn't aim for her head. Rainey wasn't looking to clean any blood spray from her clothes if the bullet wasn't stopped in time.

A tall man shifted to block her view. Cursing her height, Rainey strained on tiptoes to find the others in the crowd. The boots Hunt provided her did add significant height, but it was not enough. She caught a glimpse of Arlo's weedwacker-cut hair. He gazed around himself with vacant intensity. Rainey knew he was listening to every conversation, watching every glimpse of movement, smelling for gunpowder. Given his sense-based abilities, he would excel at locating the perpetrator before anyone else, like some sort of human bloodhound.

Despite Arlo's natural affinity for situations like this, the rest of them were assigned to scouting posts within the crowd. Because of the square's wide perimeter and the front columns caging in the Minister, the shot was going to come somewhere head on. Somewhere from the crowd. Unfortunately, it was tightly packed, making it difficult to focus on a single person. After staring too long, all the faces blended together. It seemed real life murder mysteries drew public interest like moths to a flame.

Unfortunately, Bereysk was unbearably cold for most of the year, so everyone wore heavy layers perfect for concealing guns. Anyone in the crowd was instantly a suspect.

Did Rainey care much if Stepanov was shot and killed? Of course not. But it did bring her joy to imagine being the one to thwart the terrorist's grand scheme. There were few things she loved more than ruining someone else's moment.

A woman jostled into Rainey's side, trying to get a better look at the Minister as she continued delivering her speech in unintelligible Bereyski. Looking her dead in the eyes, Rainey knocked her bag from her hand. "Oops," she said very unconvincingly.

The woman hissed what Rainey could surmise by the bite of her tone to be a curse, kneeling to pick up the contents of her bag before they were trampled underfoot. Rainey watched. Nothing suspicious.