Chapter 1||Special service

**Zara Todd’s POV**

Okay! So, I don’t know how did I get this? I mean is the thing in front of me real or it’s just an imagination?

I scrutinize the document in front of me vividly as my eyes can’t believe that it’s true.

“Why the hell are you watching it like it’s some weapon in the secret mission? We aren’t trying to send you on the secret mission in  Iraq. Why don’t you just accept it?” my aunt’s sharp and irritating voice shouts out as it’s been quite a while that I am watching the paper.

“I don’t believe this. I don’t believe that I have got the opportunity to study over here,” my eyes don’t even bother to blink at the paper in front of me. It’s hard to believe for it.

“I can’t believe too. But you got it what can we do. Now at least you got to read in that prestigious school why don’t you just do it. Thinking too much will make you old and just do it when you have got it,” she announces and for the first time in this long ten years life I have never heard my aunt talking this much nicely.

I mean every time she spoke with me, either it would be some scolding, chores which she never allows her daughter Jane to do or it would be just some swearing words in which she would curse me like hell.

“God! Damn just accept it. They said they would come to take you for your dorm tomorrow. Just pack your stuffs and get the hell out of my house,” she shouts as she walks out of my small room which isn’t even a room. It is a storage house which I have turned to make my room and which was always disliked by them.

Finally, I am better.

I am hitting my eighteen year tomorrow and no wonder I have got the best gift of my life over here. God must be so much happy that I have done so much good works for him. Isn’t this just so great?

“Geez! Can you just stop showing it off to me? Are you trying to flaunt that you are way more intelligent than me?” Jane shouts from the door and I quickly try to hide it away as the smile hovers all over my lips.

I am happy just so happy. Yeah! She is right. If I was just so able to show off to her, I would have obviously done that. It would be so much fun but right now I don’t dare to.

Packing?

What should I even pack?

I don’t have anything with me except some old books and some old clothes hanging below the stairs.

Okay fine! They’re gonna work for me as I have to wear something till I graduate from Hill-town High School.

Gosh! I can’t believe that I am just going to Hill-town high. But getting admission over there is quite weird. I mean I have applied it over there almost two years ago and how come the reply is after the two years.

But it doesn’t matter as I will be graduate from the Hilltown after all. It’s just the last year of high school and I am done with it.

I quickly shove my clothes and the books in the old bags which I always used to carry. I will soon change it to the new one but right now, I have to go with this one.

The clock in the wall chimes loudly and I stand up and rush towards the kitchen. I need to prepare dinner now. For them and from tomorrow I shouldn’t. I am just free from this hell.

I have always dreamt of getting out of this hell and  I have to wait till I turn eighteen and to my amazement, eighteen year brought me much more than I can ever imagine.

“Make sure to pay for what I have done after you have been there,” my aunt snaps as she has her food.

Pay for what?

For all the beatings she had given to me? For all those discrimination between me and her daughter? For so much of violence to me? For what should I pay her?

I get lost in words. There is no limit of her selfishness and her stubbornness.

“Yeah aunt,” I nod.

“Better. Now go to your room and sleep after you are done with the dishes,” she stands up from her seat and walks towards her room. Others do the same.

Room? Like she has given me something so precious and beautiful. She has been hurting me to the hell all these years. She never let me eat the goo food and she never let me wear the good clothes. I have to wear the old clothes that Jane used to wear and still she would shout at me.

With all the never ending chores she assigned me every day, I still have took out time for my studies and have become the topper of the whole class every year. Life is hard for me but I am still surviving the every level of it and I am going to do the same in the future.

After all the chores, I get back to that small messy room where I and she sleep together.

With, she I mean Diva. Diva is the only one who could understand me better than anyone in this house. And she is my best friend.

“I will miss you Diva. Make sure you stay well after I leave this place,” I say as I caress her brown fur and she barks with excitement when I touch her.

“I am surely going to miss you,” I hug her as tears roll down my eyes. Somebody have said that sometimes animals understand us better than anyone else and yes they do.

Diva has been a complete angel in my life all this year and I am always grateful for that. She has been my friend, sister and my guardian too sometimes and I am surely going to miss her.

I look around the place and become quite elated for leaving this place. If it was someone other then, they would have been sad for leaving the place they have been living for ten years but for me it’s like I am leaving a hell for a heaven.

“Goodnight sweetie,” I wish her goodnight as I have to start the tomorrow’s journey early in the morning. They said they will pick me up in the school’s bus tomorrow morning at sharp 5 am. So, I should better sleep and dream about the better days that is going to come to me soon.

I wake up with the barking of Diva. She always wakes me up early as I have to do the household chores. I still have sometime before I leave so, I decide to make some breakfast to them. Although I have been always a burden and they have given me a hard I should still thank them for giving me a place to live in and food to eat.

I place all of their favourite breakfast on the table and have some of buns myself and walk to their room to bid them goodbye but I don’t think they are even bothered for a minute because I am leaving.

I grab my bag and walk outside and wait for the school bus to come and pick me up. Diva stands right by my side. It’s a cold morning and I can even see the warm smoky thick vapour forming on my mouth as I breathe out.

“It’s going to be winter soon. Promise me you will take care of yourself,” I say to Diva and she barks. The dawn is still dark and still quite chilly.

And exactly at 5, a vehicle drives towards my direction which doesn’t look like a car but looks like more like long fancy black car which I have seen celebrities travel in them.

I think that’s not for me there might someone else they have to pick up. I stand still when the car stops in front of me and some of the men get out from there.

“Miss Todd?” they ask and I nod my head.

“We have been ordered to take you to dorm,” one of them says and I nod my head. I don’t know why but I find kind of weird for getting into this car. Does the school have special service for all of the students or is it only me?