1 I was going to miss my flight. The flight to the Berlin Tech Summit, the one my entire career was riding on. I could feel the seconds ticking away like tiny bombs as the TSA agent, a woman with a plastic smile and cold eyes, stopped me for the third time. “Ma’am, the scanner is picking up some kind of metal on your person. We’ll need you to step aside for an additional screening.” My heart hammered against my ribs, but I complied, frantically patting myself down until I found a stray quarter in my jeans pocket. I held it up. “Here.” I made to leave. She blocked my path again. “Your boots, ma’am. The soles are quite thick. They’ll need to be screened separately.” Another twenty minutes evaporated as they x-rayed my boots from every conceivable angle. By the time they were handed back, the final boarding call for my flight was echoing through the terminal. I grabbed my suitcase, ready to sprint. But the agent’s smile never faltered. Her eyes fixed on the white plaster cast on my arm. “Ma’am, for flight security, we’re going to need to inspect that cast…” That’s when I snapped. “Why didn’t you check it all at once? I’m about to miss my flight!” My voice was louder than I intended. “The cast? How are you supposed to inspect a cast? It’s a broken bone, not a fashion accessory I can just slip off!” The agent’s smile remained infuriatingly placid. Her name tag read DAVIES. “I understand your frustration, Ms. Thorne,” she said, her tone anything but understanding. “But we have to follow protocol. Please don’t make this difficult for us. We’re just doing our jobs.” She ran a handheld scanner over my arm. Beep. Beep. BEEP. The alarm blared again. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to accompany me to a private screening room.” I saw the malice in her eyes then. A flicker of something personal and cruel. I refused, point-blank. “No. I’ve never heard of inspecting a cast like this. You’re targeting me.” A few other passengers, delayed by the scene, started to murmur in my defense. “She’s right, you’ve been holding her up forever.” “I’m on the same flight, we’re about to miss it! Can’t you just let her go?” Agent Davies turned her plastic smile on them. “I’m not making this difficult, I’m following federal regulations. Can any of you, right here, right now, personally guarantee there’s nothing hidden inside Ms. Thorne’s cast? Can you take legal responsibility for her actions if something happens on that plane? Anyone?” Silence. Every single person looked away. I tried to push past, but two large security guards materialized, boxing me in. The mood of the crowd shifted. “Just cooperate with them already!” a man in a business suit yelled. “You’re holding up the whole line! Some of us have connections to make!” Defeated, I was escorted into a small, windowless room. I braced myself, but what she said next still shocked me. “Alright, you can start taking your clothes off. Please cooperate with the search.” The male guards left, leaving me with Davies and two stone-faced female officers. They subjected me to the most humiliating search of my life, leaving me standing in nothing but my own skin. Finally, I showed them the doctor’s report for my arm, proving the alarm was from the surgical pins holding my bones together. Davies barely glanced at it before handing it back, her smile a twisted slash. “You’re clear to go. Sorry for the inconvenience, Ms. Thorne.” I was shaking with rage. I pointed a finger at her name tag. “Davies. I’ll remember you.” She just chuckled. “Please do. Maybe next time it will remind you to dress more appropriately for air travel. Now, we’ll need to escort you through security one more time.” I threw on my clothes, fuming, and went through the scanner again, assuming it was a formality. BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! The alarm screamed. Davies was in front of me again. “What now?!” I was on the verge of losing my mind. She held up my handbag. “You dropped this, Ms. Thorne.” For a second, I felt a flash of confusion. Was I wrong? Was this a mistake? I took the bag, but as I turned to leave, she spoke again. “I’m sorry, but according to regulations, I can’t clear you for travel.” I laughed. A bitter, hysterical sound. “And why is that? You’ve searched every inch of me!” Davies shrugged. “The searches came back clear, yes. But your case is… unusual. The multiple flags have been logged in the system. I don’t have the authority to override it. I’ll have to report this to my supervisor. You’ll be cleared to go once he signs off on it.” My flight was literally closing its doors. “I have a critical business meeting! If I miss this flight, my company could lose millions. Are you going to cover that?” Her face was a placid mask. “If you attempt to breach security, that’s a federal offense. My hands are tied.” “Then when is your supervisor getting here?” I demanded through gritted teeth. She pulled out her phone and started tapping. “I’m filing the report now. It should only be a moment.” But I watched her. Her fingers were just swiping, scrolling. There was no report. In a flash of fury, I snatched the phone from her hand. She was scrolling through TMZ. “You’re not filing anything! You’re doing this on purpose!” I screamed, finally losing the last thread of my composure. “You’ve been targeting me from the very beginning! Why? I don’t even know you! Do you swear that this—playing on your phone—is part of the protocol? Do you take responsibility for that?!” Her jaw tightened, but the plastic smile snapped back into place. “Ma’am, please don’t project your emotions onto this situation. I have already notified my supervisor. And my phone is my private property. Grabbing it was extremely rude.” She leaned in, her voice dropping to a venomous whisper. “Wouldn’t you agree?” I took a shuddering breath. “How long. Until your supervisor gets here.” She glanced at her watch. “Hmm, about… three hours.” “Three hours?! Are you insane? My flight leaves in five minutes!” She gave a helpless little shrug. “So sorry. My supervisor is actually at a training seminar in another state. With the time difference, he probably won’t see my message for a while. You’ll just have to wait.” I felt the walls closing in. It was all so bizarre, a cascade of bad luck. Two days ago, I’d intervened when I saw a group of thugs harassing a girl outside a bar. I got a broken arm for my trouble, but the girl got away safely. Then my boss, despite my injury, forced me on this trip, making me sign a contract that I’d be personally liable for any losses if the deal fell through. And now this. It wasn’t bad luck. It was a setup. “I demand to speak to your supervisor’s superior. Right now. I am getting on a plane today, one way or another.” Davies shook her head. “You’re just a passenger, ma’am. You don’t have the right to speak to our leadership. The only solution is to wait.” I grabbed her by the collar of her uniform. “What is your problem?! What did I ever do to you? Let me go, now!” She smiled then, a real smile. It was terrifying. “Ma’am, please calm down! Physical violence won’t solve anything.” I felt the guards closing in around me and realized my actions were playing right into her hands. As I went to let her go, she grabbed my wrist, her voice a hiss meant only for me. “That’s right, Maya. I am targeting you. You’re starting to get it, aren’t you?” she whispered. “I’m telling you now, as long as I’m here, you’re not getting on any flight today.” The final, final boarding call blared over the speakers. My instincts screamed at me to run. I tried to shove her away, but she clung to me like a leech, shouting for everyone to hear. “She’s trying to rush the gate! Stop her! Security breach!” The area erupted in chaos. The crowd, which had been a mix of annoyed and sympathetic, was now a mob of gawkers, all with their phones out, recording. “It’s a security threat! She was trying to get past security!” “I’m live on the scene, folks, we have a passenger attempting to breach a TSA checkpoint!” “Someone said she might have a bomb in her cast!” I saw the look of triumph in Davies’s eyes and it all clicked into place. She was intentionally provoking me into a public meltdown. “This is a setup,” I said, my voice low and shaking. “You’re trying to get me arrested.” Davies adopted a look of perfect confusion. “Ms. Thorne, I don’t know what you’re talking about. But I suggest you calm down before you make this a police matter.” And then I knew. The guy from the bar, the leader of the thugs, had screamed at me as I ran off with the girl. “You stupid bitch! Do you have any idea who you just messed with? He’ll ruin you for this!” This was the blowback. And whoever this "he" was, he had serious reach. Davies saw my hesitation and pushed harder. “You know, my supervisor just messaged back. Looks like he’s going to be even later than I thought,” she said, feigning sympathy. “Maybe if you just let us cut the cast off, we can all go home?” Just then, my phone buzzed with a text from my boss. “What the hell, Thorne, why aren’t you on the plane?! If you blow this deal, I’ll see you in court!” The more they pushed, the more certain I was that getting on that plane was the worst thing I could do. Ignoring my boss’s frantic texts, I walked over to a nearby chair and sat down. Davies was stunned for a second, then her face hardened. “Ms. Thorne, refusing to cooperate is not an option! You can’t just sit here!” Before I could even respond, she gave a signal. The security guards surged forward, tackling me to the ground. “What are you doing?! Get off me!” I screamed. One of them deliberately kicked my broken arm. A white-hot bolt of pain shot through me, stealing my breath. As Davies shouted that I was assaulting her officers, the fists and boots began to rain down on me. I tasted blood. The last thing I heard before they dragged me back into the dark room was the gleeful shouts of a bystander. “She had an explosive and attacked the officers! It’s all on camera!” The heavy door slammed shut, plunging me into near darkness. A man was sitting in a chair in the corner, his hair a shock of bleached blond. “Maya Thorne, right?” he said, a smirk playing on his lips. “You know, some people just don't know when to stay out of things.” He stood up. “The name’s Caden Sterling. You ruined a very important night for me. The Sterlings always pay their debts.” It was him. The man from the bar. He had orchestrated everything—the impossible work trip, the airport nightmare. He wanted to destroy my career and my body, all because I’d saved that girl. I spit a mouthful of blood onto the floor. “You’re nothing but a pathetic coward, hiding behind your money. You think you’re a king? You’re just a spoiled little boy.” Caden’s smirk vanished. He walked over and stomped on my cast. Pain exploded in my arm. “I’m the son of William Sterling. Sterling Industries. To me, you’re an insect. I can crush you whenever I want.” He kicked me hard in the stomach. Davies scurried over to wipe the dust from his expensive shoe with a tissue, which she then threw on my face. “Sterling Industries owns seventy percent of the company you work for, Maya,” she purred. “You messed with the wrong people.” The guards closed in, cracking their knuckles. I scrambled backward, my heart pounding with pure terror. “Stay away from me!” Just as their shadows fell over me, the door to the room flew off its hinges with a deafening crash. “Get the hell away from her!” a voice commanded.
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