No One Owns Me

Chapter 6 — The Photograph

The photograph stays clutched in my hand as we leave the warehouse, my thumb brushing over the faded ink until the edges soften. I read the words again, and again, as if staring hard enough might make them mean something less terrifying:

ONE OF THEM WILL RULE.

THE OTHER WILL DESTROY THE CROWN.

They don’t change. They just settle heavier in my chest.

“Casey.” Duncan’s voice cuts through the fog. I blink, and realise we’re standing beside the bikes. The warehouse glows behind us, broken windows strobing with torchlight as the Kings secure the site. Ward leans against a fuel tank watching me. Drake barks orders into his radio. Everyone moves. Everyone but me.

“Casey,” Duncan says again, softer this time. “Give me the photograph.”

I curl my fingers tighter. “No.”

“It’s not safe to carry something like that.”

“Nothing about this is safe.”

He has no answer for that.

Ward walks over, nodding at the paper in my grip. “What does it say?”

I hand it over. He turns it, and his expression hardens. “That’s Crown doctrine. Old blood.”

“Is that supposed to mean something to me?”

He glances sharply around. “Where’s Daniel?”

I freeze. I scan the yard, the warehouse doors, the empty road. No sign of him.

“He was right behind us.” My voice wavers. “I know he was.”

“Daniel!” Duncan shouts. No answer. Only silence, and the distant crunch of boots on gravel.

Drake strides over. “What’s wrong?”

“He’s gone,” Duncan says. “Vanished.”

Drake’s jaw tightens. “No one leaves this ground without being seen. Not unless they meant to disappear.”

I look back down at the photograph, and catch a tiny mark tucked into the bottom corner—so faint I’d missed it before. A small number, written in pencil: 17.

“Wait.” I point. “Look.”

Ward leans in. “Seventeen. Your age?”

“My birthday.” I flip the photo over. Beneath the prophecy, there’s a date, scrawled in the same hand: the night I was born. “Everything leads back to that night.”

Duncan’s gaze fixes on it. “What happened that night?”

“You’re my father.” The words come out sharper than I mean them to. “You tell me.”

“I know what I was told.” He looks away, throat bobbing. “That you were born alone. That it was just you.”

My heart sinks. “And that’s what you believed.”

“Someone lied.”

⸻

The Kings’ Clubhouse

We pull in just after midnight. The hall looks like it weathered a storm: glass crunches under our boots, chairs lie toppled, bullet holes pock the timber walls. But already people are sweeping, boarding windows, stacking debris. No lingering. No self-pity. They fix what breaks, and keep moving. I wish I knew how to do that without running.

“Everyone round the table!” Drake calls.

We gather. I sit beside Ward; Duncan takes the seat opposite, eyes never straying far from me. Drake braces his hands on the wood.

“Lorenzo knew you were coming,” he says straight to me.

I nod. “He was waiting.”

“Not just for you. For backup. For the exact way we moved in.”

The room goes quiet.

“Someone leaked the plan,” Drake says. “Before we even left here.”

Ward leans forward. “Could have been a signal tracker at the warehouse.”

“No,” I say. “He wasn’t surprised. He was ready. He wanted me to find those files. He wanted me to find this.” I slide the photograph across the table.

Duncan stares at it. “Why hand you the truth now? Why not hide it forever?”

“Again with the ‘I don’t know’?” The words slip out before I can stop them. His face falls, and guilt twists sharp in my gut. I rub my eyes, exhausted. “I’m sorry. I’m just… tired of every answer opening three more doors I don’t want to walk through.”

Drake turns the photo over. “This script. It’s the Inner Circle’s mark. The highest tier of the Crown. Only they write like this.”

“What does the prophecy mean?” Ward asks.

“I don’t know. But I know who would.” Drake looks up. “Old archives. Before the Crown purged their own records.”

I stand. “Then let’s go.”

“Casey—” Duncan starts.

“No.” My voice is steady now. “Mum knew. Lorenzo knew. Daniel knew. Everyone decided I was too small, too fragile, too much of a child to carry the truth. Well I’m done carrying lies instead.”

“I’m coming with you,” Ward says, already on his feet.

“So am I,” Duncan adds immediately.

“You don’t get to order me to stay—”

“I’m not,” he says. “I’m asking not to be left behind.”

I pause, surprised by how quiet his voice is. “Okay.”

Drake nods. “We go together. But we move fast.”

Then his phone rings. He answers, listens, and his expression shifts. “Got it. Send the coordinates.” He hangs up. “We don’t need to hunt for the archives. One’s already been found.”

“Where?”

“Old county records office. Edge of town.”

⸻

The Records Office

From the outside it looks abandoned: boarded windows, peeling paint, weeds swallowing the path. Too quiet. Too unguarded. In my experience, places that hide secrets never look locked—they look like no one bothered to visit.

Ward cuts the engine. “Stay close,” Duncan says, climbing off his bike.

I smirk. “You’re getting repetitive.”

“Someone has to be consistent.”

Two Kings take post outside. Ward pushes open the main door; it groans loud in the silence. Dust hangs thick in the air, and endless rows of filing cabinets stretch back into shadow.

“Basement,” Drake says, clicking on his torch. “Everything the Crown didn’t want found went underground.”

We descend, every step creaking like a warning. At the bottom stands a solid steel door, no handle on the outside.

“Locked,” Ward says, testing it.

I pull my picks from my pocket.

He blinks. “Of course you carry those.”

“Useful things, keys.”

“Y’know,” he says, leaning against the wall, “seeing you break into things is weirdly impressive.”

“Careful. I’ll start thinking you like me.”

He grins. “That’d be a tragedy.”

I laugh—a real, bright sound, the first in days. Even Duncan smiles as he steps past us.

The lock clicks. The door swings open.

Boxes stack ceiling-high, labelled with dates and names. Drake moves straight to a rusted cabinet at the far wall, pulls out a thick folder marked DE VITO / MORETTI — 2009, and hands it to me.

My hands shake as I open it. The first sheet is a birth certificate.

Mother: Mia Moretti De Vito

Father: Withheld

Children: Casey Grant

“Wrong,” I whisper. “There should be two.”

Drake pulls out a second paper tucked beneath it. A hospital admission log.

Two live births. Same mother. Same time. One minute apart.

Duncan takes the page, his fingers trembling. “One girl… and another girl.”

“Twins,” I breathe.

He looks up at me, eyes wide. “I never knew. Mia never said—”

“I know.” I turn the page. The first entry: CASEY GRANT. The second: FEMALE INFANT — UNNAMED.

“Why no name?”

Drake’s voice drops low. “Because she was gone before the ink dried.”

My head spins. “Taken?”

“Reported a*******n. The same night you were born.”

Seventeen years. One night. Two lives split apart.

I flip to the last page. No name. No signature. Just an address scrawled in the margin: a tiny town three hundred miles north.

“That’s where they took her,” I say, memorising every letter.

“We leave at first light,” Duncan says.

“Tonight—”

“Casey.” He steps closer, and I see the fear in his face, plain and raw. “I lost you once. I don’t know how to survive it again.”

The words stop me cold. For so long I’d wondered what it would feel like to have a father. I expected arguments, rules, distance. I never expected to be someone worth being afraid of losing.

“I don’t know how to do this,” I say quietly. “How to be your daughter.”

He gives a sad, tender smile. “I don’t know how to be your father. But we can learn together.”

I nod. “Okay.”

Ward clears his throat gently, and I realise he’s turned away to give us space.

Then something slips from the back of the folder. I catch it before it hits the floor.

Another photograph. Same two babies. Same white blankets. But this time, beneath the second infant’s face, someone wrote in clear, steady ink:

ISABELLA — GRANT

STATUS: ALIVE

My breath catches. Isabella. My sister. She has a name. And she’s still out there.

I tuck the photo safe inside my jacket, right over my heart.

“Sunrise,” I say, looking up at the others. “We find her at sunrise.”