"What do you mean you got detention?"

I pinched the bridge of my nose, exhaled and explained in dry tones. Leila rolled her eyes.

"Emrys Parker. Well it figures. Half of the school pranks are done by him but he's never caught red-handed, so the teachers can't really do anything. I'm quite surprised he got caught to be honest. It's never happened before."

I thought back to us standing in front of the gym showers, and him not being able to go in because I was a girl. Oops.

Our last class had just finished and we were walking down the hallways. A blonde jock came up out of the blue and asked, "Hey Hayley, do you know where Kaylan is?"

I stared at him like he'd sprouted yellow tentacles. "Why in blazes would I know where Kaylan is?"

"Aren't you - "

I held up a hand firmly. "I'm going to stop you right there. I am not Kaylan's girlfriend, and I have no wish to be Kaylan's girlfriend, so you can stop bothering me - and go ask Brandy instead."

"D-uh. Okay." He walked off.

Leila snapped her fingers. "Oh by the way, it wasn't Kaylan during lunch. It was his two guy friends who came to ask why Kaylan didn't come to school."

Cue eye roll. "And they approached me for that? Is the whole school going crazy? I didn't even know he was absent."

"But do you know?"

"Know what?"

"Why he's not here?"

I shot Leila a look and she giggled. "I'm teasing. Chill!" We reached a junction and went separate ways. "Good luck with the detention!" she called.

Detention. The action of detaining someone or the state of being detained in official custody, especially as a political prisoner. In this case, the punishment of being kept in school after hours.

Boring. But not as bad as what I had feared.

Mr Michael - the teacher - had decided that detention was to be spent cleaning up his drama club's store room. The whole place had a dim musty smell, and was a tangled mess of torn costumes and dislodged props.

"How are we going to clean all this by four?" Emrys said in dismay after the teacher left us to it. "This is pure cruelty this is."

I picked up Ariel's tail, that had two holes burnt near the end of it. "Well maybe you should have thought of that before you did whatever it was that you did."

"Ha! If it wasn't because of you I wouldn't have been caught. And I was provoked alright?" His voice became quiet, sullen. "He said something I couldn't forgive."

I put down the tail, curious despite of myself. "What?"

His words were an outburst. "He said men wearing skinny jeans was a disgrace! A disgrace! He said skinny jeans undermined masculinity. Excuse me? How dare he utter such blasphemy!"

Times like these one should just go

I looked down and yep, he was wearing skinny jeans alright.

Men.

We started to clear out the shelves and haul boxes out from their long-forgotten corners. I wiped the props and Emrys tried on a dozen different costumes.

"How do I look?"

He had dug out some prince-ly outfit with all the works - gold epaulets, silk sleeves and brass buttons. He would have looked alright - if he hadn't put on Ariel's tail as his trousers and wriggled his feet halfway out of the two holes.

"Quite dashing. Why don't you wear that to school tomorrow?"

He looked down on himself. "Nah, I don't think so. The trousers are a little too green for me. Let me go try another one."

"By all means. Take your time. I'll just be here doing all the work that shouldn't have been my responsibility in the first place."

"Thanks! You're a great friend, you really are." I had no idea if the sarcasm went right past his head or he just decided to ignore it.

I was arranging a box on one of the lower shelves and had to bend down to do it. As I got back up my hip banged against the opposite rack.

I hissed at the pain and rubbed my side. At the same time there came an alarmed yell from behind,

"Watch out!"

I barely registered the flash of movement as Emrys dashed over and grabbed hold of my arm. In one swift movement he had pulled me close to his chest. There was a crash from behind and I turned to see the box of props that had fallen from the high shelf.

"You're a clumsy one, aren't you?"

I looked back at him. I was pretty tall for a girl and could meet his eyes dead on. They were a clear chestnut shade that never stopped twinkling and glimmering. This was a guy who could smile with his eyes alone.

He noticed my look and broke out into a teasing grin. "I guess Cinderella found her prince after all, did she?"

I elbowed him in the ribs and pushed him away, leaving him to gasp. "Quit your flirting, pretty boy. There's work to be done."

"That's four times you've hurt me already. And we've only just met today!"

"Hmm. You need to work on your social skills then. They must be terrible for you to get punched so easily."

Surprisingly after that, Emrys stopped fooling around and came to help. He was muttering something about clumsy girl might just mess up the mess even worse. I started muttering something about a kick in the shins solves everything. He clammed up.

Emrys thumped down a box in front of me. "I can't get into the back shelves so you're going to have to put this back."

"Why? Scared you'll see a spider?"

"No. But I am scared of ripping my brand new jeans."

Figures. Every minute I spent with this guy was sixty seconds more of eye-rolling. I took the box from him and made my way to the back.

I found the shelf easily enough. It was squeezed between a wall and an abandoned locker. I placed the box there and, as I turned to make my way back to the front, something caught my eye.

A small symbol, smeared with dust. A doodle, a scribble, yet another piece of graffiti on the Sharpie-scrawled locker. I would have looked right past it if it hadn't been inked on my skin for the past six years.

My fingers went unconsciously to the base of my spine, the small of my back.

What was the Blackcroft tattoo doing on a Pambrooke school locker?

*

I climbed over the wall and my brand new sneakers immediately sunk into a pile of tissues and gum wrappers, the crinkling sound loud and obvious in the night. I winced. Carefully I removed my foot from the trashcan and landed with a light thud on the ground.

It was my second day of school and I'd decided to come back in the middle of the night because I loved it so much and couldn't get enough of it.

At least, that was the excuse I planned to use if I get caught. The real truth was I left my Chemistry homework behind and if I didn't get it done and handed in tomorrow my teacher was going to kill me. And why didn't I use the front gate you ask? Well I might have also left my pack of cigarettes behind with my homework and I didn't need another detention.

And that, dear folks, was my back-up excuse. Back to the present.

My rubber soles made no noise as I sprinted across the school grounds and made my way down the hallways. School at night was a scary thing. You run past the lockers and think to yourself one of these metal doors will open any second and something will jump out. And let's not even get started on the classrooms. You don't dare to look in the windows because you have a feeling there will be that one, lonely student sitting at the desk, staring unseeing at the empty whiteboard. And about those toilets......

Luckily for me my destination was none of those things. Nope. I was only going to the place where I spent my detention today, the drama club storeroom filled with masks and scissors and props that included but was not limited to dolls and a burnt mermaid's tail. Right at the back of the school block, to find a locker that was right at the back of the storeroom, deep in the shadows.

I opened the storeroom door and of course it creaked. With a torchlight in hand I stepped inside, shining the beam around.

And almost immediately bumped into

A strangled choke escaped my lips and I hissed. A closer inspection with my torchlight showed that it had been part of 2013's Halloween festival. One of those peeper clown masks that you stuck on the outside of the window with a suction cup. My heart settled and I resisted the urge to punch its bouncy red nose.

I didn't switch on the light. I know I know, if this was a horror movie I would be the first one to go. With my torchlight clearing a path through the darkness I made my way to the locker I had seen earlier that day.

"Emrys," I called. "What's this?"

He walked over, a Girls Generation cap on his head. "Oh that? It's just a prop for our plays. Somebody locked it and we have absolutely no idea what the combination is.......nor do we care really. I suppose I could crack it if I wanted to but why bother? It's not as if there's a brand new Polo shirt waiting for me inside. "

"Can anyone come here? Or is access restricted? "

"Where do you think you are, the White House? Anyone can come in as long as you have the keys. The question is why would anyone want to?"

The said keys were now tucked away in my jeans pocket. Technically speaking I hadn't broken any rules - I was supposed to return them to the teacher's table after detention, but he never specified when.

I stood in front of the locker now, staring at it. My finger came up to touch the symbol inked in black. I traced the outline of the box, then up the winding Z, before finally hitting the B.

This was Blackcroft. We were a Jack-in-the-box, springing up when you least expected it, showing you only the side that we wanted you to see. Other times we kept the lid on us tightly shut, not allowing even the slightest of peeks.

I focused on the lock in front of me. It was a typical combination lock, and a few minutes of utter silence was all I needed. Lucky for me then.

I set the timer on my watch and put my ear close, pulling up the lock shackle with gentle force. Slowly I turned the dial, waiting for the first click. It was probably a three digit combo. Spin spin spin, left right left, feeling the way the lock bumped and caught, hearing the clicks.

Voila! The lock released and came open in my hand. I slapped my hand on my watch immediately.

Dang. 67 seconds. I was only two seconds away from breaking my record, dammit!

I shone my torchlight inside. There was only one item in there. A digital recorder, with earphones plugged into it. Both were cheap little things - the recorder was heavy and clunky, and the earphones were very uncomfortable, scratching the inside of my ears.

There was no one speaking for the first few seconds. Just static and then abruptly, something crashing in the background, followed by a loud yell.

Ah. The voice of my beloved brother Eric.

The first words he spoke were too close to the microphone and I could hear every intake of his breath. Then he adjusted his distance.

"This recording means I have failed, and am either dead or captured. Either way, you should probably try to rescue me. Also, I'm guessing you're my sister, because father would never entrust someone else to the job. If you're not my sister then you would put this thing back where you found it. Because you're right, you have stumbled upon a secret dark devilish organization, and am about to listen to all their secrets. And if you continue listening, soon you will find yourself unable to listen to anything else again. So innocent civilian, please return the recorder back where you found it."

Dun dun dun. Cue the ominous music. There was a three-second pause.

"Alright then. Considered yourself warned. So sister, I'm assuming father told you the whole story of why the mission is important? The good news is, I've found out where it is. The bad news is, they're right on my tail. I'm naming no names here, because a school locker isn't exactly the safest vault in the world. So I hope you can decipher my clues.

"The following is important. Memorize it word for word."

Dun dun dun. Cue drum roll.

"Alcoholics are the people chasing after me. They have taken it, but it is not with them. Unmarked third party involved. Address is as following - our mother when she died comma tall East Indian tree. 6-mile radius. End of address.

"At present time it is at above location. Change to another location is highly likely considering now they know people are coming to steal it.

"Be careful of the alcoholics. They are everywhere - even in Pambrooke itself. End of message."

My mind swirled as I tried to comprehend what it all meant. That had been my brother's voice all right. Judging from the looks of things he was captured while trying to steal the will from - whatever that address was.

The earphone crackled in my ears and my brother's voice came back. It was suddenly sly.

"By the way sis, remember the Mission Impossible tapes?"

My hands were up and moving in seconds as they ripped out the earphones from my ears and threw them, along with the recorder into the locker. All this was done not a moment too soon, because the recorder started smoking and hissing pretty violently. There was a sharp and loud pop.

I stared at the fried recorder. By Merlin's beard he really hadn't been kidding. Now I know why the earphones scratched. They had thin copper wires peeking out of them. The recorder was heavy too because a little something extra had been fitted within, set to go off after the recording ended, frying the circuits.

The electricity would have traveled all around the recorder but it would have done something else too - it would have gone up the earphones and out through the wires, coming into contact with the listener's ears.

And if you continue listening, soon you will find yourself unable to listen to anything else again.

Any slower and I would be on the ground screaming bloody murder right now. That was just Blackcroft for you.

I ran his words through my head one more time. I wasn't going to figure it out anytime soon, and a dark storeroom was no place to think. Pulling out the keys I turned away from the locker and made for the door.

I had barely taken two steps when I heard it. The clear unmistakable sound of the storeroom door locking.

From the inside.

Someone was here, and that someone was in here with me.

*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.*.

This chapter is dedicated to UndiscoveredProject, for all the great things they do. For those of you who don't know who they are, they're a ragtag bunch of amazing souls dedicated to the betterment of YOUR works and YOUR stories. They do reviews and help your book get discovered. Go check them out!

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And really that is all you need to know :)

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