Nothing Left to Lose (3 page)

“Okay, so why
do I have her file?” I questioned, flicking through it and scanning
the pages. She was recently expelled from Stanford. She had
attended four other colleges in the last year and a half, and had
been expelled from every one for violence or damage to
property.

“When she was
sixteen, she was abducted by Carter Thomas. He killed her boyfriend
in a club and then held her against her will for almost a year. The
only reason she was found was because the police raided his home
for drugs and discovered her there. You do know who Carter Thomas
is, don’t you?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me.

I nodded
quickly. Everyone knew who Carter Thomas was; he was the head of a
crime syndicate and responsible for the deaths of almost a thousand
people when he’d set bombs off in the middle of rush hour in four
different subways simultaneously. Everyone knew it was him, but it
could never be directly proven, and key witnesses or evidence had a
strange habit of going missing just in the nick of time. He
regularly ran drugs and was heavily involved in human trafficking
from Romania.

“He’s currently
serving a life sentence for the murder of Miss Spencer’s boyfriend,
Jackson Roberts. She was a witness for the prosecution, and there
was also evidence that has linked him directly to the murder.
Everyone knows who he is and what he does, but he’s always slipped
through our fingers. The murder of Jackson Roberts is the only
thing that’s ever gotten as far as a trial. Him being convicted was
one of the best things for our country,” Weston said, his
expression hard.

“Okay, sir, so
what does this have to do with me?” I asked, still not
understanding why I was being told about this in the first
place.

Weston sat back
in his chair. “Well, Carter Thomas has an appeal coming up later
this year. Apparently, some evidence may have been incorrectly
collected or something. Miss Spencer was the only witness that made
it to the trial the first time; there’s a good chance she may be
called to give evidence again. There have been death threats made
against her, most of them because of who her father is, but lately
her family have been receiving threats which they believe are
coming from Carter’s organisation.”

He seemed to be
watching me, waiting for my reaction. I still didn’t get it. I’d
been selected for a special assignment, yet he was telling me about
some girl. What did this have to do with me? This wasn’t SWAT
business.

He took a deep
breath. “Okay, I’m just gonna say it; she goes through bodyguards
like you do cold beers. She gets assigned a new one, and within a
week she makes them quit. They refuse to work with her. She’s a
real livewire from what I understand, a real hard-ass bitch. But
this girl is extremely important, not only because she may be
required to give evidence against Thomas, but also as the probable
future President’s daughter. Her father has requested someone who
will be able to deal with her on a day-to-day basis. There’s a
specific age bracket because they’ll be required to attend college
with her and essentially be her shadow until the end of the court
case.”

It suddenly
dawned on me where this meeting was going. I stared at him in
disbelief, shaking my head and throwing the file onto his desk.
“That’s complete bullshit! I’m SWAT; I’m not some fucking
babysitter!” I shouted, pointing at the file distastefully.

“This isn’t up
for debate. They wanted the best agent within an eight year age
bracket, they picked the best agents across every department,
sending the top ten to Senator Spencer, and he picked you
specifically! You were the only graduate to be considered. You
should consider this a great honour,” Weston said persuasively.

I growled in
frustration. “Why are we even getting involved? If she’s the
daughter of a Senator then this should be secret service, not us,”
I countered.

He sighed.
“She’s been through most of the guys there, Taylor. Plus, there
aren’t that many agents there within the age bracket; most people
go into secret service a little further down the line in their
careers,” he explained, shrugging. He cocked his head to the side,
his eyes boring into mine. “Ashton, it’s just until the end of the
court case. Eight months, that’s all. Senator Spencer has
guaranteed you your choice of posts after that time. Anything you
want, even Front Line.”

My head snapped
up at those words. “Seriously?”

He smiled and
nodded. “I knew that would get your attention, but I need you to
understand that this is a very important job. It may not sound it,
but if she dies and the case falls apart, then Carter Thomas will
be released and hundreds, if not thousands, of people could be
killed over the coming years,” he said gravely.

Right, okay,
I get it. Do a good job babysitting for eight months, get dream
job. Done!
“Okay, I understand, sir.” I was smiling now.

“You can’t tell
anyone about this. You’ll need to say you’ve been assigned
somewhere out of state. You’ll be undercover with her.” He picked
up the file that I’d tossed onto his desk and handed it to me.

I flicked it
open again and looked at the picture of the girl.
Fuck, I sure
hope I get undercover with her!
I mused. She was just my type,
dark hair and dark eyes, and she was the prettiest damn thing I’d
ever seen. I couldn’t tell what her body was like because she was
wearing baggy jeans and a hoodie, but her face was so beautiful
that she could be a supermodel.

“Okay, make
sure you read the briefing file. There’s a DVD in there too, which
is the security footage of her old school and the reason she got
expelled. Like I said, she’s kind of a badass; the reasons for it
are in the file, which doesn’t make for good bedtime reading.” He
grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck as he said it. I looked
down at the file nervously, wondering what could be so bad that
Weston was all jittery and uncomfortable about it. “Right, well I
guess that’s all. I’ve mocked up a fake assignment for you in case
people ask. A flight has been booked for you for tomorrow morning
and your tickets are in the back of the file. Pack casual; they’ll
have stuff waiting there for you too, so don’t go too overboard
with the clothes. Only a few people are in the loop on this due to
the sensitivity of it; they’re not sure if there’s a leak in one of
the departments, so if you need anything, you call either me or
Commander Erikson. His details are in the back of the file. Good
luck, Ashton,” he said finally.

He stood up,
holding out his hand to me; I shook it then saluted him
respectfully, before walking out the door. Heading around the
corner, I pulled out the mock assignment, memorising all of the
details before I went to join the party with the other
graduates.

I didn’t stay
out long with the other boys; my flight was due to leave at eight
thirty the next morning, so I had to pack and make sure I was ready
to leave. Once in the solitude of my bedroom, I grabbed the file
and stretched out on my bed to read it. As I was expecting, it was
pretty harrowing.

Annabelle had
been held by Carter Thomas for just over ten months. He had thought
of her as his girlfriend, even though he was nine years older than
her. She hadn’t been allowed to leave his house and he would beat
her and mentally torture her. She had tried to kill herself by
slitting her wrists when she was first taken and had been found
locked in a cupboard – bruised, broken and almost catatonic. She
had refused to speak to anyone for two weeks after this, and then
her first words were to a police officer, begging him to kill
her.

I gulped and
flipped to the next page, which showed photos of her the day she
was found, and her injuries for the police file. They weren’t nice
to look at. Bile rose in my throat at the sight of her swollen and
bruised face and arms. The medical report showed she had a freshly
broken rib and finger, and old, healed fractures of her ribs, wrist
and collarbone.

My heart was
beating out of my chest, grieving for the sixteen year old girl who
witnessed her boyfriend’s murder and then was abused physically,
mentally, and sexually for over ten months.

Three and a
half years on, the nice, young girl that everyone loved had turned
into a bitter, nasty bitch. She was socially alienated, shying away
from all relationships, and emotionally cutting herself off from
her friends and family. I wasn’t allowed ‘under any circumstances’
to touch her, unless the need arose in a combat situation. She had
attempted suicide on two other occasions, both times by swallowing
pills, but someone had found her in time. Both attempts had been on
her birthday. I glanced at her date of birth and saw that her next
birthday was in six months’ time. I made a mental note to be extra
vigilant.

It appeared
that Annabelle got into trouble a lot. I pushed the DVD into the
player and sat on the floor to watch it, eager to see the reason
she was excluded from her last school.

The footage
came on, and a classroom came into focus. People were sitting
around on desks, talking, obviously waiting for their lessons to
start. I spotted her immediately; she was wearing baggy jeans and a
baggy sweatshirt. As she walked past a guy who was laughing with
his friends, he slapped her ass.

She practically
jumped a mile into the air before rounding on him. “Don’t touch
me,” she spat harshly.

“Sorry,
princess,” he laughed, holding his hands up innocently.

She flinched as
if he’d hit her. “Don’t ever call me that again,” she said quietly,
looking both scared and angry at the same time.

“Call you what…
princess?” he mocked.

She flinched
again before her expression turned hard. “If you call me that
again, I’m gonna break your nose and your balls,” she retorted.

The guy and his
friends just laughed at her threat. She smiled sweetly as he bent
his face close to hers. “Okay, princess,” he said
sarcastically.

Before he could
even flinch, she punched him in the stomach then kneed him in the
groin. As he bent over in pain, she grabbed the back of his hair
and smashed his face into her knee, breaking his nose easily. He
slumped down to the floor, crying in agony.

She patted him
on the head, still smiling sweetly. “Told ya,” she chirped, before
grabbing her bag and storming out of the room with everyone
watching her in shock.

I burst out
laughing. She definitely was a badass.

I flicked
through the rest of the file. Apparently, she didn’t have friends
anymore, didn’t date, and didn’t go to parties. The notes said that
she didn’t trust anyone and was extremely suspicious. She was
bordering on depression and suffered from recurring night terrors.
In the last three years, she had become totally focussed on martial
arts and was well trained in self-defence, karate and
kickboxing.

On the last
page was my brief. I was to be posing as her boyfriend. I groaned
out loud when I read the B word. I was to amend my age from my
actual twenty-one to nineteen – the same as her. We would be doing
the same college classes, which were Art and Graphic Design. I
sighed deeply and carried on reading. I was to live with her on the
college campus in a two bed apartment. I wasn’t allowed time off
apart from the scheduled college breaks, at which time she would go
back to the family home, and I would be allowed to do as I pleased
because she would be protected by other agents.

There would be
one other bodyguard in full uniform, which was the standard secret
service bodyguard that they assigned to close family members of the
Senator. The guy’s name was Dean Michaels. Apparently, they would
assign a night guard to watch the building while we slept. I was to
remain undercover at all times, which meant no dating and no sex
for eight months. I groaned at that.
This is going to be the
longest eight months of my life.

Upon my arrival
at the airport, I was to be collected by helicopter and taken to
the Senator’s summer residence, where we would stay for almost a
week, getting to know each other, before moving to the apartment
for college. According to the file, Annabelle didn’t know about the
death threats against her; she was just told that they were beefing
up her security due to the upcoming election.

I stored the
numbers of Officer Weston and Commander Erikson into my cell phone,
and then started packing casual clothes for college. Afterwards, I
crawled over to my bed in my crappy, little apartment that Nate and
I rented together and climbed under the sheets. I’d said goodbye to
the guys already. I was really going to miss Nate; we had become
great friends during the last four years’ training. He was more
like a brother to me in some ways.

I didn’t have
anyone else to say goodbye to. I had no family; my parents had died
in a car accident when I was ten, and I had bounced around from
foster home to foster home until I was seventeen, when I had
finally gotten a place of my own. I closed my eyes and willed
myself to fall asleep quickly because tomorrow was going to be a
long day.

The flight was
good. It was only for two hours but they still put me in first
class and I dozed off for almost the entire trip. I hadn’t slept
well the night before. Every time I’d shut my eyes, I had seen
Annabelle looking at me with her cold hard eyes, begging me to help
her. Then I would pull open a cupboard to see her beaten and broken
on the floor and I would jerk awake in a cold sweat. I had a
feeling that this was going to be a harder assignment than I had
first thought. I hadn’t even met her yet and already I wanted to
protect her.

When the plane
finally landed, I was ushered through the checkpoints to a private
helipad on the other side of the airport. A tall guy in a black
suit held his hand out to me; he was probably in his mid-thirties,
with sandy hair and brown eyes.