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“Look this way Tara. Over here Tara.” She turned this way and that like a puppet on a string as flashbulbs went crazy with each turn. The dress she wore didn't leave much to the imagination, but I guess that's all part of the image.

She wore an engaging smile but I could see the strain on her face and the barely hidden tension in her body. She moved almost as if she were following a script, like someone who counted the steps while learning a new dance. I’m guessing she wasn’t too fond of this part of her job.

I walked a few paces back as usual and let her do her thing, my eyes peeled to the crowd, my senses on full alert. This was the most dangerous aspect of the job, her out in the open like this with so many unknowns in the vicinity; at least it had been until a day or two ago.

That my friend is when I lost my damn mind; when the man I’d always thought myself to be, morphed into this stranger whose skin I now find myself walking around in. Days later I still can’t make sense of this shit, but it is what it is. I’m nothing if not flexible.

I’m not in the habit of being taken by surprise though. My life is too structured for that. But I have to say that for the first time since early childhood, something has been able to get under my skin, and I’m fucked if I like it. A man’s life shouldn’t be changed when he least expects it for fuck sake.

I feel listless and out of control, like something else is at the helm. For a man like me, a former marine accustomed to discipline and order, this bullshit is fucking with my head. I’m not even going to get into the number it’s doing on my heart.

I never give that shit a second thought, except when it comes to its health. So you can imagine when the shit sparked for no fucking reason, like someone took an electric shock to it, the fuckery damn near stopped me in my tracks.

I knew down to the fucking minute it happened, and why. And had I been a damn female, I would’ve written the shit down somewhere for posterity’s sake. It’s one of those things they tend to want to remember, down to the date and time. Somehow I don’t think I’ll be forgetting, memo or not.

Since I’m not a girl and wasn’t built that way, I stored the shit to memory and let that be enough. I had no worries about forgetting. Who can forget the minute their whole life changed for fuck sake? The shit that’s plaguing me now is, do I let myself get suckered in, or should I fight the good fight and put an end to this shit before it goes too far?

The shit has been on my mind for the last day and a half, taking over all aspects of my life. ‘She’ has taken over my well structured world and turned it to shit. A little slip of a girl who never speaks above a whisper, and who’s so far outside the norm of my ideal that it’s hard to fathom why the hell this is even happening.

I didn’t give anything away though as I kept a professional distance while she gave this crowd of vultures what they wanted. When the strain was starting to show in the slight tremble of the hand she had on her hip, something only I could see because I was so intensely focused on her, I moved in and got her out of there.

She didn’t argue, not even when I kept my hand in the small of her back as I led her away from the glaring lights to the safety of the car. I had my own gutful of tension but for entirely different reasons, at least I thought they were. But for all I know she could be suffering the same fate as I.

I’ve been on her for a couple weeks now. Her handlers had been the ones to hire me; well not me exactly, they’d contacted my firm, but all my guys were already out on other jobs so I took the bait. Fucking fate I guess, and even I know that no matter how bad a motherfucker is, he can’t fuck with fate.

It was the first time since I’d started the company that we’d been stretched so thin. We were in high demand all of a sudden because of a job we’d handled six months earlier. Up until then we mostly flew under the radar. Our fees were high enough that we didn’t need more than a few jobs a year to keep the business afloat.

But after that job when we went into a foreign country to bring back the socialite daughter of a mogul, who’d been taken for ransom by rebels in the fucking Gobi desert, shit blew up and we were still trying to figure out what the fuck.

We’d fucked some shit up and left a few bodies to prove we were there and got the girl back with her family safe and sound, not a scratch and ready for the next dumb thing on her ‘get fucked up’ list. Fucking trust fund kids are a pain in the ass. No wonder tigers eat their young.

Anyway, she couldn’t keep her damn mouth shut and told that shit to anyone who would listen, which in hindsight wasn’t such a bad thing for the company. Once word got around that we didn’t give a fuck, as long as we got the job done, we’ve hardly had a day of peace.

It was good for the bottom line no doubt, but sometimes the nut-job on the other end of the line needs to be left where the fuck they are. No joke, there are some fucked up individuals out there who instead of rescuing, I’m more tempted to put two in the chest and one to the head.

Those motherfuckers I don’t go after. I got ethics and shit. If you fucked your country over for a payday, I ain’t saving your ass; rot. I don’t get to choose who deserves to live; well, we’ll leave that shit alone. But I do have a say in who the fuck I waste my time saving.

I’d started the company three years ago after twelve years as a mercenary. I started out in the army, but they had too many fucking rules to suit me. They knew it and I knew it, so they put me where I could do my best and still serve my country. Behind the scenes, in the darkest cesspools of the earth, busting shit up.

So on that fateful day, I took the call. And since I was the only one free at the time, had to bite the bullet and take the job. Though fuck knows I’d rather shoot myself in the foot than shadow some airheaded Hollywood starlet who was probably going to give me hell at every turn. Been there done that! And have the skid marks on my ass to prove it.

When I'm on a job it's my rules all the way from beginning to end. I don’t fuck with my safety so if the person I’m covering can’t follow the few simple rules I set in place, they’re probably in more danger from me than whatever the hell it is they’re needing protection from.

These starlet types don't know shit about following orders. Some of them stay high as shit twenty-four seven, which fucks with their perception, and no one knows it but you. As their keeper you’ve got to keep an eye on that shit, keep their dumb asses alive and out of the tabloids. So I really wasn’t looking forward to dealing with this one. Especially after I read up on her and saw how famous she was.

She’s like the new darling of America or some shit, whatever. I barely spared her a glance while reading her portfolio. I had no interest in her looks I was more interested in what kind of help she needed. Already regretting my decision to take the job.

Apparently she had a stalker or some shit, one of those nuts that saw her face on the screen and decided that she was talking to him. It must’ve gotten really bad for them to call in the big guns, which is what I found out once I got on the job.

I have to be honest; because of my disdain for her ilk, I really didn’t pay too much attention to her the first time we met. She was just another warm body that I was there to protect, nothing more. I take my job seriously and would skin any one of my guys who step over the line.

When we’re on a job it’s professionalism all the way. Plus I had a good ten years on her and as we all know, nothing lasts in this damn town. Who the fuck has time for that? Not that I won’t break one off if I get the itch, but her ilk is just not my type. They live their lives in a fishbowl; I do better in the shadows.

Anyway, she seemed normal enough on first acquaintance. That first day I’d dealt more with her manager than her, while she sat on the couch in his office reading what I guess was a script. All I saw was a nest of messy hair piled on top of her head and reading glasses perched on her nose. She was wearing baggy sweats and a tank. Shit made no sense, you’re either hot or cold, what the fuck.

I’d left the office still in doubt as to whether or not I really wanted to do this shit, but my boys were all still tied up and none of them seemed too thrilled at the prospect of taking over for me. That’s a testament to our past dealings with her type. After the last one I needed fucking combat pay.

It didn’t take me long to realize that she was different though. There were no tantrums or impossible demands like I’d expected. She kept her head down and did as she was told without question. From what I’ve seen so far she isn’t much of a partier, or girl about town the way the write-ups had intimated, far from it.

She was usually in bed by eight at night, which made my job easier, since the crazies seemed to keep most of their physical shit for after dark. In the first few days I was holding my breath, waiting for her to start chafing at the restraints I’d placed on her, but nothing; not a peep.

Most people seem to think that once they have security in place they no longer have to be careful. They leave their lives and wellbeing to us. I’m the fucking security and I think that’s some dumb shit. You can never be too careful. She had sense it seemed, because she did everything to keep herself as inconspicuous as possible.

I’d read the letters and shit that the nut who was after her had sent, had seen the escalation from the first letter to the last. Total fucking fruitcake, but he wasn’t my first. Personally, if she was my woman I’d have hunted him down and peeled the skin off his ass with a rusty knife, but hey, that’s just me.

This skell’s whole deal was instilling fear. That’s the quickest way to take over someone’s life, have them so afraid they’d jump at their own shadow. My job wasn’t just to give her a sense of security though. They’d brought me in to take him out. That’s my specialty. Well their exact words were take him in, whatever.

If she was afraid she hid it well. In fact, the only way I knew anything was going on with her was by her manager giving me the rundown. Otherwise I might’ve thought the shit wasn’t as serious as I’d been led to believe.

She was one cool customer I’ll give her that. He on the other hand was pulling his hair out with worry. He was hyper as fuck, and she was the one usually calming him down and reassuring him that she was okay. I would’ve thought they had something going on until I saw one of these interactions.

There were no sexual undertones whatsoever. He just really liked her as a person I guess. That and she made him a fuck ton of money. I know because I ran his ass too. I never take shit for granted when going in; everyone’s a suspect until I decide otherwise.

So there I was thinking I’d lucked out this time. She was the easiest case I’d ever worked. The days were usually pretty tame, she went to the set at the ass crack of dawn and spent most of the day there doing her thing, while I sat off to the side and kept an eye out, while keeping tabs on my boys back home and the jobs they were working.

She was very polite and cordial, not at all like what I would’ve expected from someone in her position. More than that, she knew how the fuck to follow instructions without giving me a headache, or like the last one of her ilk, having to threaten to leave her ass to the wolves. Yeah, I did that shit.

I’d seen enough fuckery while hanging around the underbelly of the world to know what was out there. But this girl, this Tara Allendale, she was different. She seemed to have a head on her shoulders and gave more of a fuck about her life than where the next party was gonna be, or the next score. I haven’t seen her take so much as an aspirin.

I never had it so easy. I was actually congratulating myself for lucking out and thinking of the stories I’d have to tell my boys who were all catching their ass on their current jobs. She was so easy if I wasn’t as good as I am I would’ve taken a nap and woken up hours later to find her just where I’d left her. Fuck yeah, easy money.

And maybe that’s why I let my guard down. Why I left myself wide open. I didn’t watch my six because I didn’t think I needed to. I didn’t sense the danger or even know that shit was in the vicinity.

I had no idea who I was looking for but I knew the signs of crazy when I saw it, and so far we were in the clear. While watching over her I already had shit running in the background trying to hunt this fucker down. And since she was so easy, it freed me up to do my job well. But that’s not where the danger came from. Not even fucking close.