Lost In London

⓳

Cara

Chapter 19

I sat in my room thinking about the events of the night before.. Did I really believe that I could outsmart Damien? If anything I was sure damn proud I had been able to stand up for myself, no matter how good it felt to have Damien touching me.

I let out a sigh. "There's no way I could let him do that to me," I whispered out loud. "I'm just here to be traded off."

Traded off. Just the idea of it made me feel hurt. As if I am just an object that could be disposed of.

As far as I knew, I'm supposedly this Cara Bell person not Cara Stryker. Damien was going to trade me off in exchange for a lot of money. So I was right, I am a hostage. But it seems that with Jaden's leukemia and the number of the people who live here, Damien has personal reasons to get that money. Reasons that justify why I'm still alive.

Reasons why I'm stuck here. I remembered what Scarlet told me in the infirmary. I'm not Cara Stryker.

Bell, huh? How could they suggest that? To say that I do not have my mother's last name. They think this Bell person is my biological parent, and whoever they may be, they are powerful.

Knock. Knock.

My head turned towards the doorway. Nic stood there wrapping sports tape around his fists.

"You ready?" he asked me.

"For what?" I replied.

"We're gonna do training exercises."

I was surprised. "You want to train me?"

Nic was quiet for a while. "It was Damien's idea."

That made me even more curious. Damien did not really give me much access to anything. "And why would he do that?"

"He just wants to make sure you can protect yourself."

"Against who? Him?" I laughed under my breath.

Nic finished with his sports wrap. He looked like he was about to go for a boxing match. In his pockets he pulled out more tape, which I assumed was going to be for me. He took a seat right next to me and I pulled out my hand for him. Nic began to wrap my wrist before working his way around my fist.

"I know Damien can be a little...difficult," he said as he worked the tape around. "But it means a lot to him knowing that you can stay safe. There are people out there who will want to hurt you if they know who you are."

I wanted to roll my eyes. How could the London Heist claim to know more about myself than me? "Right," I said. "Because I'm related to Bell."

I could feel the tension strike instantly within Nic. Something about his facial expression looked like he already knew.

"So you're comfortable enough to talk about this?" he asked. "Damien wasn't quite so sure. In fact none of us wanted to believe it."

"Why would you deny it? Damien was convinced," I responded. "That's why he treats me the way that he does."

At this point, I wasn't quite sure what we were talking about. I don't know anything more than I was told about this Bell person. My supposed biological parent, but I needed answers and not from Damien.

"He has a lot to lose and you're the key to gaining what he needs."

"Yeah he did tell me about the trade," I mentioned.

This surprised Nic. "I can imagine you'd be excited to go home. Back to The King's."

The King's? It was like I had an out of the world experience. Memories of my mom's classified files popped up in my head. Like missing letters in a word game of scrabble. One of the words blacked out was "The King's".