Write On Edge: Rain Challenge

Red Writing Hood gives us 400 words this week and the prompt is Rain.

I harken to the phrase: When it rains, it pours. I'm going to whine for a moment and tell you that it's pouring in my insignificant world. I've lost track of time and missed a valuable deadline, I'm packing to move, I'm suffering from lack of ideas, behind in my NaNoWriMo...whine, whine, whine...

But I'm a fighter. When life gives me lemons, I make fertilizer.

Ivy Tanner does the same. For those of you who have read Write On Edge's Precipice, you may be familiar with Ivy and Mitch.

I offer you the following in response: The Driving Rain

Senator Mason approached her as she watched soldiers march through the mud. “When it rains,” he started.

Ivy barely acknowledged him. “It pours.”

He sat beside her on the bench, closing the standard black umbrella that all denizens of D.C. seemed to own. “Look, Miss Tanner, you know what you’re asking. Favors like that go beyond friendship.”

Lightning flashed, ushering in another deluge of precipitation. The boys in uniform seemed impervious to the weather. Ivy cast a weary glance to the overhang shielding her from the drench. “You’re right of course, Senator. But I’m not asking for a favor.”

He shifted. “No?”

She turned, returning the cold glare from his bloodshot eyes. “The Hill is full of skeletons, Senator. I’m going to shake the trees until I stir something up. I’m giving you the option to be first to the trough, because you’ve always been so kind to me.”

He chuckled and stood, slow as if the rain had soaked his joints. “You won’t last three seconds in that forest, Sweetheart.”

“I’m not your sweetheart, Senator, but if you don’t find a way to send a team to extract Mitch from Equator, I will become your personal poltergeist. Everyone you know will watch you burn, and when I’m through, you’ll be lucky if you can find a position in Moosejaw Alaska.”

He opened his umbrella. “Extortion isn’t your style Miss Tanner. I believe we are done here. And if you so much as step foot near my offices again, I’ll bury you myself.”

She allowed him to retreat a few feet before she called out, “Senator Mason, you want to hear me out. You see, I got to thinking…how is it that Tobago has managed to elude all the operations against him on his own soil?”

Thunder interrupted her. He stopped, turning around, his face stone despite the wind driving rain in his face. “You’re a reporter. I’m sure you have a million fabricated stories to support any number of theories.”

Ivy snorted. “Of all the professions on the bottom of the trust scale in America, people still trust their reporters more than they do politicians. You know why? Because people like you are in bed with unsavory people like Tobago. Reporters? We just get shot at on foreign soil for taking a few pictures.”

His face darkened. “I hope you’re prepared for the storm.”

“You as well, Senator.”