𝚜𝚒𝚗𝚗𝚎𝚛

three

A pretty blonde, draped in long and covering, dark shawls slithered soundlessly through the busy crowds. Among the many, she blended seamlessly, like wet paint on a canvas.

She was a glimpse out of the corner of your eye, a trick on the edges of your vision. But to catch her in the light when she thrived in the shadows was like snatching a rabbit right out of its burrow.

One such boy, not having yet reached his sixteenth birthday, had let the beguiler catch his eye.

He blanched. The adolescent took a hard look at her stony face, quickly flicking back to her uncanny likeness painted on the newspaper pages that lay idly at his father's stall.

And he ran.

Off and into the city, to find the nearest copper there. The one thing on his mind was acquiring the hefty reward wanted for the woman he'd just seen in the market.

And when he found a man, clothed in the uniform he would usually regard with disgust and bad memories, he willingly approached him, whispering incriminating words into his ear with his mouth covered by his hand.

As soon as his words were ceased, the officer stared hard into the boys eyes and uttered a single word.

Where.

Then the boy pointed to the lithe blonde in the crowd, who had stopped, feeling eyes burning into her back. Tara paused, the feeling of being watched enveloping her keen senses like a featherweight pressing against the back of her neck. She turned quickly, eyes frantically dancing from person to person until she found exactly what she was looking for.

A young, thin boy with dirt on his face and tears in his dull rags. He stood on the other side of the wide street, next to a copper with thin, focused eyes . Both were staring right at her.

They'd found her.

A weighted shiver crawled it's way down her back, her shock slowly wearing away as she watched the stocky policeman take a heavy step forward, and then another, and two more.

Her feet moved completely of their own accord, tumbling backwards in an attempt to get away from him. The frightening officer only matched her retreat with a quickened approach. Tara watched with horror as his strong legs powered him imminently towards her.

She managed to snap from her freeze and slither away into the packed mob with the help of her thinning figure. She wiggled desperately between people, having pulled up her shawl to cover her stark blonde hair.

There were bodies pushing down on her from every angle. The air was tight and humid, shared by too many breaths. It was hot and Tara's skin had turned damp with perspiration and panic. Every now and again, when she shoved someone aside to escape her pursuer, she would be met with another shove in retaliation.

The policeman dashed over the street that had separated them and hit the crowd. With a hurried glance over her shoulder, Tara quickly realized that the officer had fallen out of his depth.

He towered over almost everyone, but his size meant the only way he could navigate this cesspool was by bulldozing through it all. It wasn't long until Tara could hear the outcries of protest behind her.

Without needing much more reason, those afflicted with the brunt of the officers elbows quickly turned on him, shoving him every which way until he could barely see the outlines of Tara's head.

"Move! Everybody move! By order of the king, step aside!"

Tara powered desperately through the crowd. The people shrouding her were becoming expressly aware of the the fleeing woman amongst them as well as the infuriated officer with an extended baton now in his hands and many began to dissipate, making it remarkably more difficult to blend in.