But I could just make out the smudgy figures: 2317. The number I’d written there when my handler set up the meeting had faded from an embarrassing number of bathroom breaks in the hours since. Ignoring the way anxiety had me projecting my feelings onto an inanimate building, I squinted at my palm. It was insulated and silent, far removed from the heat and bustle of the street below and untouched by my mounting tension. The corridor ahead of me didn’t look to be any more sympathetic. Aunt Alice and her perfect children never had problems getting their hair to behave. Twenty-three lit up, and the doors slid open with a quiet whoosh, reminding me of one of Aunt Alice’s disapproving sighs. The nagging concern I might be underdressed rose with every floor I passed. In typical Los Angeles fashion, even the damn elevator was more glamorous than me. I watched the golden numbers light up one by one. Some strands were stuck to my neck, subdued by sweat, but the rest was likely poking in all directions. I patted my unruly, shoulder-length hair-a nervous habit I’d developed over twenty-nine years of experiencing it having a mind of its own. The elevator shared none of my misgivings and shot skyward. Would a bad guy be intimidated if I threatened to release the butterflies? I did have a hard knot of nerves in my stomach though. I didn’t even have any muscles worth acknowledging. I wasn’t equipped like someone in the protection business. I crossed the lobby and entered a waiting elevator. The honor of protecting someone from harm.īut facing my fears didn’t come naturally to me, so I was thinking about my hair instead.

It was a sweltering day in September, the kind that had my clothes clinging in places they weren’t designed to cling, and I should’ve been thinking about the job. I stepped inside one of Los Angeles’s high-rise buildings for the chance to turn my life around.

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