1 Her Alias

Jenna Mitchell woke up in a cold sweat, the image of the gun pointed at her still branded to her eyelids. She hadn't gotten a good night's sleep since she was shot.

Everyone told her she was lucky. She only had to be in physical therapy for a couple of months and hadn't lost any motion in her arm. But she knew that wasn't all there was to it. If the marksman had hit her a bit more to the left, she would have been shot in the chest and might have died.

Although she hadn't wanted to die, she didn't consider herself lucky at all. Being in the wrong place at the wrong time had completely ruined her life.

Right now she didn't look like herself, had to transfer her college credits from the University of Florida to the University of California Santa Barbara and retake a bunch of classes, and had limited contact with her family. She wasn't even able to use her real name.

Tessa O'Brien, her alias, had medium golden-brown hair dyed purple about halfway down, always wore makeup to hide her freckles, and dressed much more fashionably. Jenna's natural hair was sandy blonde and her eyebrows were so light they were hardly visible without being penciled in. She had to dye those too. At least her grayish blue eyes were the same.

Not much else was. She was more than 2,600 miles away from home all by herself unless you counted her case agent, which she didn't most of the time.

FBI agent Killian Quinn was a no-nonsense man in his early-to-mid thirties who she had never seen crack a smile. His dark hair was always perfectly in place and matched his dark suit and black tie.

When she was first taken into protective custody she was told that he was one of the best in the business and had experience with the Witness Protection Program. That she would be in good hands so there was nothing to worry about, as if that would make her feel any better about what happened.

Jenna spent two weeks holed up in a hotel room with Killian as her only company as he taught her everything she needed to know about Tessa O'Brien. He had let her pick the first name since it was somewhat similar to hers and she figured it might be easier to answer to.

He also made sure to get her into a college that had her rather specific major, which was nice of him. He could have easily stuck her in some Podunk town in the middle of nowhere and made her go to community college but he didn't.

Killian may be stiff, humorless, and nothing like her big brothers despite being about Adam's age but right now he was all Jenna had. And he was taking care of her down to the letter despite not being her friend.

She wasn't here to make friends. She was here to survive until the FBI managed to gather enough evidence against her former employer and the crime syndicate he ran that it went to court. Once he and all of his associates were put away she would be allowed to go back to her life…or so she had been told.

For six months Jenna had desperately clung to hope that she would be able to go home soon without much to show for it. Killian gave her updates when they had their weekly check-ins but most of the time there was nothing to report.

It was driving her crazy! She wanted to go home so much it hurt. She missed her brothers…her mom…her nieces and nephew…being called by her own name and dressing the way she wanted…her school friends.

Getting your whole life uprooted at age twenty was a terrible thing indeed. She would be spending her twenty-first birthday alone instead of with her twin Jonas and everyone else she loved. They had been planning a blowout party with everyone they knew too so they could celebrate being the legal drinking age.

Now she would probably end up going out drinking by herself. How depressing.

Killian kept telling her to socialize because it would help with her cover but she didn't want to make friends she would inevitably have to leave. She had to stick with the mindset that all of this was only temporary or she wouldn't be able to handle it.

Jenna's cover was strong enough already. She looked and acted very little like herself. No one would connect Jenna Mitchell of Gainesville, Florida to Tessa O'Brien of Santa Barbara, California. He was being paranoid.

She supposed that was what made him good at his job though. He had protected her very well up until now so she had no reason not to trust him.

At least she had one thing to look forward to. Later today Killian would check in with her and allow her to use the secure phone line to call her family and exchange letters with them.

She was dying to know how everyone was doing. Was her niece Lila walking yet? Had Evan proposed to his girlfriend or was he still too chicken? How was Colton's cookie business doing? What about her mom?

Originally Sarah Mitchell had offered to go into the program with her only daughter but Jenna talked her out of it. She loved her grandchildren and functioned as a babysitter frequently. She wouldn't be able to bear leaving them behind and Jenna didn't want to inconvenience her sisters-in-law who needed her more.

Questions like this continued swirling around in her head as she got ready for the day. That involved putting on her makeup, including the perfect winged eyeliner her sister-in-law Alison taught her how to do despite never planning on using it. She had always been more of a tomboy but Alison was such a girly-girl and had been so excited to get a sister since she was an only child. It had been impossible to say no.

Jenna glanced at herself in the mirror when she was done. Yep. Another day of looking nothing like herself.

Her makeup was immaculate, her hair was tied back in a fancy fishtail braid, and she was wearing a red halter neck tunic top with ripped skinny jeans and sandals showing off the pedicure she had done herself. Yet another thing Alison taught her that was coming in handy.

She missed her sister-in-law almost as much as she missed her brothers. She didn't have any sisters either until Adam got married but his wife Erica, though nice, was too old to be interested in hanging out with her young sister-in-law one on one.

That wasn't the case with Alison. She was only four years older than Jenna and they spent a lot of time together ever since she and Colton started dating when the two of them were in college.

She had been a freshman while he was a grad student getting his MBA and they clicked perfectly despite the five-year age difference. The rest was history and they now had two adorable daughters that Alison loved to dress up the way she used to with Jenna.

Thinking about all of this was depressing her. She needed to focus on what was important: school.

Killian already told her that he would be able to get her school things changed to her real name once she went back to her life so it was important for her to keep studying hard and getting as many internships as possible. She would need plenty of experience if she wanted to get a job as an exotic wildlife vet at some sort of animal rescue someday.

That was primarily what kept her going right now. Working to help support herself on top of the money the FBI was putting into her living expenses as a valuable witness, studying like crazy, and volunteering with various animal rescue groups kept her busy.

Almost busy enough to forget about her troubles but not quite. Nothing would be capable of doing that completely. Everything here was too foreign to feel comfortable with aside from her volunteer work and school. That was just about the only familiar thing she had while living on the other side of the country from everything she knew and loved.

Jenna sighed and looked at the time on her phone as she took the bus to school. Her meeting with Killian was still so far away.