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.

“Hi, I’m Dean Michaels, Miss Spencer’s far guard,” he greeted me as I shook his hand.

I smiled politely. “Ashton Taylor. Nice to meet you.”

He showed me to the helicopter and we put on our headphones. “The trip’s about thirty minutes. You’ll like the summer house; it’s nice, and right on the lake,” he said, smiling.

“Right, sounds good. So, what can you tell me about Annabelle?” I asked, watching his face closely for his reaction.

He frowned before speaking and seemed to be choosing his words carefully. “Miss Spencer is very… difficult. You need to watch her all the time; she can get in trouble easily. She’s had twenty-three near guards in the last three years; the longest one lasted just over three months. I’ve worked as her far guard for a year and a half, and the only reason I’ve managed to last so long is because I don’t have regular contact with her.” He shook his head seeming a little annoyed.

“The near guards get fired within three months?” I asked, slightly panicky. If I couldn’t last the full eight months, I wouldn’t get my choice of assignments.

“No, man, they quit! She makes it her personal mission to make them leave. I think she sees it as some sort of challenge. Her record so far is four days,” he laughed.

A lump formed in my throat, so I quickly swallowed it. “So, she doesn’t want a near guard, or what?” I asked. What is it with this girl? Maybe she needs to know about the threats against her so that she’ll be easier to protect, because there is no way I’m quitting.

“Nope, she doesn’t want any guards at all. I think she tolerates me because I stay out of her way and keep a distance. She doesn’t like company; she’d rather be on her own. She’s been through a lot, and it’s changed her,” he replied casually.

“Does she know I’m coming?” I asked, looking out over the fields that we were flying over.

He laughed quietly. “Yeah.”

I looked back at his face; he shook his head and laughed again. I smiled in understanding. She didn’t want me there – that much was obvious from his reaction.

“Senator Spencer gave me your file. How the hell did a guy like you, who’s top of your class and the academy’s new golden boy, end up with a shitty assignment like this?” he asked, looking genuinely curious.

I closed my eyes and rested my head on the seat back. “I have no idea,” I mumbled. I was still asking myself the same question. I could see the importance of it, but surely there could have been someone else for the job that came from a protection background. I stayed quiet for the rest of the trip.

After what seemed like forever, we landed outside an expansive house that was right on the lake. I followed Dean into the house, trying not to react to the sheer size of it. I trudged behind him, looking around in awe at the real wooden floors, the heavy drapes, the framed artwork on the walls. It was like something out of a magazine. Dean stopped outside a door and chatted to a lady sitting at the desk; she was probably in her mid-fifties and she glanced over at me with a friendly smile.