Code Name Orange

My hair was supposed to be sunset copper. Instead, I emerged from the bathroom looking like a traffic cone.

"You look like you're about to direct traffic," my little brother announced from the hallway, because siblings are required by law to roast you.

"Shut up, Tyler."

School the next day was a nightmare. I could practically feel everyone's eyes on me like security cameras—tracking the orange-haired freak through the hallways. I'd never been more aware of how loud and bright everything was.

That's when I noticed her.

Aja, sitting alone at lunch again. New girl. Quiet. Always wearing that black hoodie with the mysterious cat symbol on the back. Everyone said she was weird. No one talked to her.

I'd been sitting two tables away, wishing I could just disappear, when she slid into the seat across from me like a ghost.

"Your hair looks like a warning sign," she said, deadpan. "I dig it."

I almost choked on my sandwich. "Thanks? I think?"

"I'm Aja. And you're officially my new project."

That's how I ended up spending the next three weeks running errands for her between classes, delivering cryptic notes to people I'd never spoken to, and waiting behind the gym during lunch like I was in some spy movie. Turns out Aja wasn't just the quiet new girl—she was running an underground operation to expose the student council president, who'd been stealing money from the homecoming fund for months.

"Why me?" I asked, sprinting across campus to deliver what turned out to be evidence to the school paper. "I'm literally the most obvious person in school now."

"Exactly," she said, all mysterious and sphinx-like, like she had all the answers and wasn't sharing. "Nobody suspects the orange-haired girl of being subtle. You're perfect."

We took down the corruption ring (okay, it was just one guy, but still), and suddenly I wasn't just the girl with the unfortunate hair anymore. I was part of something bigger.

"So," Aja said as we watched security escort the former president out of the building. "You in for next semester? We've got our eyes on the cafeteria menu prices now."

I touched my orange hair, still ridiculous, still impossible to miss. "Absolutely."

Maybe being seen isn't so bad when you know who's really watching your back.