Recap: Stephanie spots a man in the crowd with a SS tattoo, and sees a gun right as he raises it. She jumps on him, the gun goes off, and she's thrown to the ground as the crowd panics.

Stephanie

I landed hard on the concrete, scraping my hands and banging my head on the bike-rack barrier. The crowd surged around me, and in the maylay someone stepped on my leg, but I scrambled to my feet, pulling myself up using the metal guard. The pain should have been excruciating, but with all the adrenaline pumping through my system I didn't register any of it. Agents swarmed my area, and in the frey I caught a familiar face.

"Agent Mankiller!" I yelled, pointing frantically. "That one! In the blue cap!"

She nodded, and the man was swarmed by Secret Service agents like fire ants on a racist jolly rancher. Let's see how he liked that SS.

I turned in the direction the POTUS guards had gone in. There was a push of people scrambling to get away. Not surprising, considering the thousands of folks in close proximity to the gunshot. I couldn't see anything through the throng, so I stumbled over to Agent Mankiller.

"What happened?" I begged. "How is the President? How is Ranger?"

She turned to me right as I heard an almighty groan of metal.

Bobby

In combat things can change in a split second. It's a known risk, and to a certain extent you expect the unexpected. Not in the civilian world though, here on a Fall day in Philadelphia I expected heatstroke, fainters, and Senior Citizens who needed to sit down. The worst I expected was a bee sting on someone allergic. Luckily I plan for the worse and hope for the best.

When the gunshot went off the crowd stampeded. I rushed to the entrance of the tent to see what was going on. People scattered in every direction and pushed against the barriers set up around the park. Luckily the entrance to the tent wasn't in the direct path of any exits so we weren't swarmed. Still, I stepped back inside. "Get ready everyone, we may have trampling inju….What the hell?" I yelled as a crashing sound filled the air.

Ranger

Everything was moving in slow motion from the moment Stephanie called my name. I saw her fly into the air, saw her land on the back of a man lifting his arm holding something white in his hand. "Gun!" I yelled as I tackled the President to the ground.

There was a flash of light I saw out of the corner of my eye. The tell tale BOOM of a bullet being fired. I couldn't worry about that now. Both POTUS and I were yanked up by the other members of his protection detail, and I scrambled to get my feet under me. I maneuvered myself into position in the tight protective phalanx we made around him and we rushed/shuffled back to the scaffolding, the only goal we had was to get POTUS into The Beast, the tank-like limo parked at its base.

A few things happened all at once. The crowd off to my right was pushing past the barriers to escape the gunshot. An agent standing by the car had opened the door and was frantically waving us in, as if his hands would speed us up. We had just pushed President in when there was a shudder and a quake around us. The metal beams around us shifted and groaned, and the whole team dove to the car as the scaffolding collapsed around us.

I know, short chapter, but this felt like the right place to put a cliffhanger.