Trapped

SAGE'S POV

The men were finally getting closer to us and I backed away from Julian. My heart was beating fast. "You said that you were going to help me and you didn't say anything about..."Julian interrupted me.

"I...I didn't know they'd follow me here, Victoria must have sent them". Julian stammered.

The two men were huge. One had a scar that ran down his cheek. The other had tattoos crawling up his neck.

"Julian St. Claire," the scarred one said. "Victoria wants to talk to you."

"Tell Victoria I have nothing to say to her."

Julian waved him off.

"That's not how this works." The tattooed man's eyes shifted to me. "And who's this? A new girlfriend? Victoria's not going to like that."

My mind raced. They think I'm some random girl. They don't know I'm supposed to be Aria. I can use that.

"I'm nobody," I said quickly. "I was just leaving…"

"Nobody leaves until we say so." Scarface stepped closer. "Victoria has questions about money, secrets and certain arrangements that aren't being honored."

Julian's face went pale. "I've done everything she asked. I've played my part…"

"Your part?" The tattooed man laughs. "You mean pretending to be a dead rich boy? Yeah, we know all about that, Julian or should we call you by your real name?"

The world tilted. These men know Julian's secret and if they work for Victoria, that means she knows too. Which means Julian was lying to me about needing my help to figure out what Victoria knew.

She knew everything

"Sage, run," Julian said quietly.

"What?" I wanted to be sure of what I heard him say.

"RUN!"

Julian lunged at the scarred man. They collided in a tangle of limbs. The tattooed man reached for me, but I was faster. Years of running from trouble had made me quick.

I sprinted towards my motorcycle. Behind me, I heard shouts and fights. The sound of fists hitting flesh. I was terribly scared.

I was almost close to my bike when someone grabbed my jacket and yanked me backward. I hit the pavement hard, the air knocked from my lungs.

The tattooed man loomed over me. "Not so fast, little girl."

I kicked upward as hard as I could. My boot connected with his knee. He howled and staggered back. I scrambled to my feet and threw my helmet at his head. It connected with a sickening crack and he dropped.

"SAGE!" Julian's voice was desperate. The scarred man had him pinned against his BMW with his forearm across his throat. I stared in terror.

I wanted to get on my motorcycle and disappear. That wasn't my fight but something in Julian's terrified eyes stopped me.

I grabbed a piece of broken concrete from the parking lot and threw it as hard as I could. It hit the scarred man in the shoulder. He released Julian and turned toward me in rage.

"You're going to regret that." He yelled.

He charged at me. I didn't have time to think. As he reached for me, I dropped low and swept his legs. He was too big to go down easily, but he stumbled.

Julian tackled him from behind and they crashed to the ground. Julian began to hit the man on his jaw with his fists but the man was stronger. He threw Julian off like he didn't have weight.

"We need to go!" I shouted at Julian. "NOW!"

Julian was bleeding from a cut above his eye, but he was still moving. We both ran for my motorcycle and I threw him the helmet.

"You know how to ride?" I asked, urgently.

"No, but I'm learning fast!"

I kicked the engine to life while Julian climbed on behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist. The two men were struggling to their feet, reaching for something in their jackets.

Guns. “They were pulling out guns.” I screamed.

"HOLD ON!"

I twisted the throttle. The motorcycle roared forward just as the first shot rang out. The bullet pinged off the pavement behind us.

We raced out of the parking lot, weaving through dark streets with my heart trying to explode out of my chest. I didn’t slow down until we were miles away, deep in an industrial area where no one found us.

I finally stopped behind an abandoned factory.

For a moment, neither of us moved. We were both breathing hard, adrenaline made our hands shake.

"What the hell was that?" I exploded, rounding on Julian. "You said Victoria was blackmailing you! You didn't say she had armed men working for her! You didn't say they'd try to kill us!" I yelled at Julian.

"I didn't think she'd send them tonight…"

"You LIED to me! You said you needed my help to find out what Victoria knows. But she already knows everything, doesn't she? About you being Julian Reeves instead of Julian St. Claire, about whatever shady deal your family made. Everything!" I continued, bitterly.

Julian slumped against the factory wall, blood dripped from his eyebrow. "You're right. She knows. She has known for months."

"Then why did you need me?" I demanded.

"Because knowing isn't enough for Victoria. She wants leverage, she wants something she can use to control me forever." He looked at me with desperate eyes. "There are papers proving the arrangement between my family and the St. Claires. If those papers go public, I'm finished. My mother loses everything. The money we were promised for medical bills, for her treatment would be gone. Victoria has copies of those papers. She's threatening to release them unless I do whatever she wants."

"What does she want?" I raised my eyebrows in surprise.

"She wants me to marry her after graduation. She wants access to the St. Claire fortune through me. She wants to use me like a puppet." His voice cracked. "And now she has something to do with your sister."

I felt a cold shiver run down my spine. "What about Aria?"

"Victoria's been watching and following her. She knows secret things about Aria that I don't even know and she told me two days ago that Aria is involved in something dangerous. Something that could bring down several powerful families at Ashford."

"That's impossible. Aria is perfect. She follows every rule…" I defended, confidently.

"That's what everyone thinks but Victoria showed me photos. Aria meeting with a guy I don't recognize late at night in secret." Julian pulled out his phone with shaking hands and showed me a blurry photo. "This was taken last week."

The photo showed a girl who looked exactly like me, like Aria meeting with a guy in a dark parking lot. He was tall, dark-haired and intense looking.

"Who is he?" I demanded.

"I don't know but Victoria does and she says he's dangerous. That he's investigating something that could expose the entire Ashford Academy board. Something about drugs and money laundering and a death that was covered up."

My blood turned to ice. A death. Cameron Morrison. The name from Aria's text.

"Julian," I said slowly. "This guy in the photo.

What's his name?"

"I told you, I don't know…"

"Guess. You must have some idea."

He studied the photo again. "Victoria called him 'the Morrison boy.' That's all I heard."

Cole Morrison. The guy Madison warned me about. The one whose brother died two years ago.

"Oh god," I whispered. "Aria's investigating a murder."

"What?"

I grabbed Julian's phone and stared at the photo. "My sister texted me three days ago asking about Cameron Morrison, someone who died at Lincoln High. She must have found something or someone found her."

"Sage, what are you talking about?" Julian asked with a puzzled face.

"I'm talking about the fact that we just switched lives and my sister is walking into a murder investigation!" My voice rose to a shout. "And you knew! You knew something dangerous was happening and you still let me take her place!"

"I didn't know the details! I just knew Victoria was planning something…" Julian yelled back at me.

"You should have told me everything!" I paced back and forth, panic clawing at my throat. "I need to call Aria. I need to warn her…"

"You can't. They'll track the call. Victoria has people everywhere. If she knows you're talking to Aria, she'll know about the switch then both of you are dead."

He was right but every instinct wanted me to protect my sister.

"So what do we do?" I asked pacing around.

Julian wiped blood from his eye. "We go forward with the plan. You become Aria at Ashford. I'll be there to help you. We figure out what Victoria really wants and we stop her before she hurts anyone."

"And my sister? She's alone at Lincoln High, investigating a murder, with no idea what she's walking into…"

"Your sister is smarter than you think. She survived five years with your controlling mother. She can survive a few weeks at a public school."

"You don't understand. Lincoln is different. It's dangerous. And if she's digging into Cameron Morrison's death…" I stopped, a horrible realization hit me then. "Julian. What if the people who killed Cameron find out about the switch? What if they think Aria is me? What if they come after her thinking she's the one who witnessed something?"

Julian's face went pale. "We have to hope they don't figure it out."

"That's not good enough!" I panicked.

"It's all we have!" He grabbed my shoulders.

"Listen to me. We're in too deep to back out now. Those men saw us together. They'll report to Victoria and she'll know something's wrong. The only way to protect both you and Aria is to play this perfectly. You go to Ashford on Monday, act like Aria. You get close to Victoria and figure out her endgame. Meanwhile, I'll have someone watch over your sister at Lincoln. Someone I trust."

"Who?" I asked, getting a bit relieved.

"A friend. Someone who owes me a favor. I'll have them keep an eye on Aria without her knowing."

I wanted to argue. I wanted to run to Lincoln High then and drag my sister out of there but Julian was right. We were trapped.

"Fine," I said. "But if anything happens to Aria…"

"It won't. I promise."

He sounded so sincere and convincing but I learnt that everyone in Aria's world were liars including Julian St. Claire.

My burner phone buzzed. It was text from an unknown number:

“Tell Julian that Victoria knows about tonight. Tell him he has 24 hours to return to Ashford and face consequences, or his mother's medical treatments stop immediately. Oh, and tell him we're looking for the girl on the motorcycle. The one who broke Vincent's nose. We will find her.” -V

I showed Julian the text. His face went pale.

"They're going to kill my mother."

"No, they're going to use her to control you. There's a difference." I said to him,

"What do I do?"

Before I could answer, another text came through from a different number. I gasped.

“Sage Chen. We know you're not at home. We know you're with Julian St. Claire and we know about the twin switch. You have one chance to make this right: Meet us at Ashford Academy. Sunday midnight at the old chapel. Come alone or we hurt both sisters. You choose who lives and who dies.” -M

M. Marcus. The guy I owe money to.

"No," I breathed. "No, no, no."

"What? What is it?" Julian asked in sudden surprise.

I showed him the text. Julian read it twice and his expression darkened.

"How does he know about the switch?"

"I don't know but if Marcus knows, that means…" My stomach dropped. "That means other people might know too. People at Lincoln. People who want to hurt me might go after Aria instead."

Julian's phone buzzed. Then mine, then his again.

We were both getting dozens of messages all at once.

I opened mine with shaking hands.

It was a photo of me and Julian in the parking lot. The moment we shook hands and the moment we made our deal.

The caption underneath read: “Identity theft, fraud and conspiracy. We have everything. Every photo, text and lie. Tomorrow morning, everyone at both schools will know the truth. Unless you do exactly what we say.” -Anonymous.

Julian looked at me, terror written across his face.

"Someone's been watching us the entire time," he whispered. "Someone knows everything and they're about to destroy both our lives."

My phone rang. It was an unknown number. Against my better judgment, I answered.

"Hello?"

A distorted voice, electronically altered: "Hello, Sage or should I call you Aria? It's so hard to keep track of which twin is which when you're both lying to everyone."

"Who is this?" I asked in fear.

"Someone who's been very interested in your family for a very long time. Someone who watched you and your sister grow up. Someone who knows exactly why your parents split you apart five years ago and someone who knows the real reason Cameron Morrison died."

My blood froze. "What do you want?"

"I want you to continue the switch. I want you to go to Ashford and pretend to be Aria. I want you to get close to Victoria Ashford and find out where she keeps her secrets because Victoria isn't the only one playing games. There are bigger players, more dangerous people and you and your sister just became pawns in a game that's been playing out for years."

"I'm not playing anyone's game…” I argued.

"Oh, but you are. You already agreed. You made the deal and now you're going to see it through because if you don't, I'll make sure everyone knows the truth about what really happened to Cameron Morrison. I'll make sure everyone knows your father's role in it and I'll make sure both you and Aria pay for your parents' sins."

The line went dead.

I stood there, frozen, the phone slipping from my numb fingers.

Julian stared at me. "What did they say?"

"They know about our father, Cameron and everything." My voice sounded distant, like was coming from someone else. "Julian, what did our parents do? What really happened five years ago?"

Before he could answer, headlights cut through the darkness. Multiple cars surrounded us and we were trapped.

The doors opened and figures emerged from the shadows. There were too many to count or fight.

A woman's voice cuts through the night. Cold and familiar.

"Hello, Julian. Hello, Sage. Welcome to the real game."

Victoria Ashford stepped into the light, smiling like a shark.

"Did you really think I'd let you steal my boyfriend without consequences?”