Sold #1 - The Secret Keeper

Chapter 1

At quarter to four in the morning, the last thing Darcy expected was to be woken with the loud bang of her bedroom door in the girls dormitory of the boarding school, the anger that forced it's way into her room shocking her awake with a squeak of surprise. She could hear a loud commotion stirring through the house as if she were back with her parents, listening to their arguments turning violent against each other once more, but only, this time it was different. The screams she heard were no longer from her mother fending off her father, but from countless other girls from her dormitory being woken in the same way. Her eyes blinked continuously, adjusting to the bright light that suddenly popped on and within a second a hard hand gripped her hair and tried to drag her out of bed.

"What's going on? Let go of me...you're hurting me." She cried out amongst the continuous whimpers of pain as a dark figure dragged her to her feet, then released her towards the door with a sharp push that landed her on her knees. Darcy could hear the other girls screaming, as one by one her teachers burst into their bedrooms in the same manner as they had hers. Struggling to her feet, she held a hand over her eyes to guard them from the brightness, surprised to see her history professor Mr Hiroshi staring at her intensely as he rubbed his chin, deep in thought.

"Get up!" He ordered angrily, his usual calm nature a world away from the furious man who stood before her. He was usually such an elegant looking Chinese man, his long dark hair tied into a neat ponytail down his back, but now...this was someone completely different. His face was bright red with anger, his hair dishevelled and hanging loosely over his shoulders as he stood before her in an unusually shabby suit, tears and stains covering the white jacket. As Nobutara Hiroshi stepped up close to her, Darcy felt a shiver of cold running up her spine, which only intensified as he reached out a hand and brushed it against her cheek with a horribly approving smile. The fear that ran through her, was more than she had ever known and instead of running like she felt she should have, her feet were rooted to the ground, forbidding her to move.

"Darcy...Darcy run!" A voice called out to her, and as she glanced back at the petite young girl, one of Hiroshi's nieces, a beautiful young Chinese girl with elegantly flowing black hair, now in the grips of another of their teachers, a blonde English lady who taught their art class. It was all so unexpected, such a shock that Darcy barely knew what to think. Any second she felt she was going to wake up and find it was one long, horrible dream.

"Lani...Brooke..." She called back to the girls being led out of their rooms and over to the staircase, she felt as though she were in a dream she couldn't escape, and yet, when she felt her teachers hand slipping from her cheek, drawing a line down her neck to the top of her skinny ribbed t-shirt, she snapped to attention, swatting his hand away with a determined frown to fight as hard and as long as she could. But first she needed her legs to work.

"You don't want me, you little bitch?" Nobutara asked angrily, the back of his hand making a sharp and painful impact with her face, sending her crashing down to the floor again. Tears flowed from her eyes without restraint as Darcy gazed up at him, her long black hair slipping out of the plait she kept it in overnight, to fall over her face. "Get up!" He ordered once more, grabbing her hair one final time as he made the mental decision that she wasn't worth the trouble, before thrusting her out into the hallway ahead of him, unable to stop himself from looking her over admiringly. She certainly was one of the more mature looking girls, regardless of the fact that they were all the same age. "I don't know why I'm bothering to take you along..." He growled in a half sigh, shaking his head as he forced her downstairs and into the living room on the right hand side of the hallway. "You're too much bloody trouble, but...he said everyone, so we're taking everyone." He explained partially, Darcy surprised by his words and unsure of their meaning as he threw her onto one of the single armchairs just inside the living room door.