No One Owns Me

Chapter 11 — The Kings’ Safe House

The road stretches empty behind us, no headlights cutting through the dark, no engines roaring in pursuit. For the first time all day, no one is chasing us. I should feel relieved. Instead, every muscle in my body screams with exhaustion; my head throbs in time with my pulse, and my shoulder aches where glass grazed it earlier. It feels like I’ve been running for longer than just these last few days.

Ward slows the car and turns onto a rutted dirt track swallowed by trees. “Nearly there.”

“Where exactly?”

“One of ours. Hard to find. Harder to breach.” He glances sideways. “We don’t do hotel stays. Too many questions, too many witnesses.”

“Of course you don’t,” I say, and he grins.

Isabella is still asleep, curled small against the seat, her breathing soft and even. I keep looking over at her—at the scar above her eyebrow, the way her lashes rest against her cheeks, all the little pieces of myself I never got to see. We came so close to never finding her. So close to losing her again.

The trees part, and an old stone farmhouse rises up ahead. No lights glow in the windows. No other buildings sit within sight. Just dark fields and thick woodland stretching out in every direction.

Ward cuts the engine. “Home for now.”

Duncan climbs out first, scanning the tree line before nodding us forward. I brush Isabella’s arm gently. “We’re here.”

She blinks awake, disoriented, and glances around at the dark house. “Here? Is this… safe?”

I want to say yes. I want to promise her nothing will ever hurt her again. But lies don’t protect anyone. “Not completely. But it’s safer than anywhere else we’ve been.”

She gives a faint, tired smile. “Honesty. I’ll take it.”

The night air bites cold as we step outside. For a long moment I just stand there, breathing deep. No gunfire. No shouting. No screeching tyres. Just wind in the branches and the distant hoot of an owl.

Inside, the house is warmer than I expected: thick rugs on wooden floors, a great stone hearth, shelves lined with supplies, doors leading off to bedrooms. Built to wait, built to last. Drake and the rest of the Kings pull up minutes later, and the door closes behind them with a heavy, final thud.

Drake stops in the doorway, eyes locking straight on me. “You holding up?”

“Fine.”

Ward snorts as he drops his jacket over a chair. “She says that when she’s about to fall apart.”

I glare at him. “Traitor.”

“See?” Drake smirks. “She’s fitting right in.”

I sink onto the sofa, pulling my knees up to my chest. “I hate every single one of you.”

“No you don’t,” Drake says easily.

I pause. “No.”

We talk for a while, piecing together what we know: the Crown’s movements, the switch at the hospital, the two claims, the terrifying truth that they’d kill one of us to find the heir. Then Drake turns to Isabella, his tone softer now.

“You’re holding something back. Something your mother told you.”

Isabella goes very still. She twists her hands in her lap, then lifts her chin. “She said—if they ever got hold of both of us—we must never, ever let them take us to the same place.”

A chill runs through me. “Why?”

“Because that’s exactly what they want.” Drake leans forward. “What happens then, Isabella?”

She shakes her head, eyes glistening. “I don’t know the whole of it. Only that one of us would have to make a choice. A terrible choice. And she wouldn’t tell me more. Said it was too dangerous to carry even the memory.”

Frustration boils over, sharp and hot. “Of course. More riddles. More secrets.” I stand and start pacing, unable to keep still. “Every answer just opens another door we can’t close.”

Ward watches me quietly until I stop. “What?”

“You’re doing it again. Trying to carry every weight, solve every puzzle, all at once.”

“Someone has to!”

“Not tonight.” He nods back toward the sofa. “Sit.”

I stare at him. “Are you giving me orders now?”

“I’m telling you to stop acting like you’re made of iron. You’re exhausted. You’re hurt. You just found your twin. And you’ve spent your whole life being lied to.” His voice softens. “You don’t have to work out how to beat the Crown before sunrise. Tonight, you don’t have to be anything at all. Just be Casey.”

Just Casey. Not the heir. Not the target. Not the lost twin, not the hidden daughter. Just me.

I sink back down onto the sofa. Ward sits beside me—not too close, not crowding me, just there. “You okay?”

“No.”

“That’s allowed.”

“I don’t know who I am anymore.”

“Then we’ll work it out together.”

“You keep saying ‘we’.”

He smiles. “Get used to it.”

A moment later, Isabella shifts and leans her head on my shoulder, falling straight back asleep. I smile down at her. Ward follows my gaze.

“She trusts you. Even when she doesn’t know why.”

“That’s enough, isn’t it?”

Across the room, Duncan watches us, his face tired but his eyes warm. For the first time I notice the difference: no one here is asking what I can do for them. They’re asking what they can do for me. It scares me—caring about people means giving them something to lose, or something that can be taken away.

“Ward?”

“Mhm?”

“Why do you stay? With all of this?”

He thinks for a moment. “Because this is my family. The Kings.”

“And if they weren’t?”

He meets my eyes, steady and sure. “Then I’d still stay. Because family isn’t just blood. It’s the people who choose to stand with you when the world turns its back.”

I look at Isabella, at Duncan, at Drake and the others. For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m finally where I belong.

Then Drake’s phone blares—loud, sharp, wrong.

He pulls it from his pocket, glances at the screen, and his face goes pale.

“What is it?” I ask.

He turns the phone around. On the screen is a photograph: Isabella asleep on my shoulder, taken right here, right now.

My blood turns to ice. “That’s… that’s us. In this room.”

Drake swears. “Impossible. No one knew this location.”

I lean in, my eyes catching something faint in the window’s reflection behind us. A shape. A shadow. A person standing just beyond the glass, watching.

My voice catches.

“They didn’t just find the house.”

Everyone turns toward me.

“They’re already here.”