The 18th Time They Lost Me Chapter 06

The 18th Time They Lost Me Chapter 06

Julian stared at the screen. The word hit him like a 

fist, and his whole face changed. 

He leaned in until his fingers were almost touching 

the glass. “An orphan? That’s… no. No, that’s 

insane. She’s not an orphan. I’m her father.” 

The officer flinched. 

Julian yanked out his phone and fumbled it open. 

“Here, let me… I’ll show you…” He swiped frantically, hunting for a photo of Quinn. 

The latest photos were all wrong. Maya with cotton candy at the amusement park. Silas mid–jump on the basketball court. Julian at the beach with Elena, Silas, and Maya. And Quinn was left at home, doing chores. 

He scrolled further back. The Moonrise Festival 

dinner. Four people at the table. Quinn had been in the kitchen. Nobody called her out. 

Further back. Maya’s birthday. Silas’s graduation. No Quinn. 

He swiped back seventy, eighty photos. His thumb stopped. 

Not one photo of Quinn. Not a single one. 

Every family photo had four people in it. 

There wasn’t a single one with five. 

The closest thing he could think of was a photo 

from eight years ago, taken in Grandma’s yard the 

day they brought Quinn home. 

That phone had broken years ago. 

Julian stood there with the phone still in his hand, 

the glow of the screen washing over a face that 

had gone completely blank. 

The officer pushed his glasses up, and his look 

shifted from doubt to something harder. “Who 

exactly are you? Quinn’s file says orphan. No 

parents. Never registered with another pack. Her 

only guardian was her grandmother, and she’s 

deceased. Now you show up out of nowhere. 

claiming to be her father? I have every reason to 

question that.” 

“No, no, you don’t understand!” Julian’s face was 

slick with sweat. “I’m her father! Her mother 

picked that name! We brought her back from Silver Moon’s old territory eight years ago!” 

“That kid told me she had nobody…” The officer 

stood. His expression went flat. “Words don’t 

prove anything. If you can’t document the 

relationship, I’m calling security.” 

The sentence landed somewhere deep in Julian’s 

chest and stayed there. 

He stumbled back a step, eyes unfocused. 

The officer watched him hover there, not leaving. 

He tapped the desk. “You’re a Beta. If she’s really 

yours, there’s a record. Give me your ID number. I’ll 

pull it up right now.” 

Julian rattled off the number. The officer typed. A 

page loaded. He scanned it, went quiet for a long. 

time, then looked up with no expression at all. 

“Your registry shows two pups. One son. One 

daughter. There’s no Quinn.” 

“Because…” Julian’s mouth was dry. “We never got 

around to registering her, because…” 

Elena rushed in with Silas right behind her. 

She saw Julian’s face and slowed down. “What 

happened? Quinn didn’t show?” 

Silas leaned in. “Dad, what’s going on? Is she still 

at the house?” 

The officer stood behind the counter, arms folded. 

“Quinn finished her enrollment at the end of 

August. Came in once, dropped off her 

documents, and left. Before she walked out, she 

told me…” He paused. “If anything comes up, 

reach out to me directly. Don’t go through anyone else. I don’t have a family.” 

Elena’s phone slid from her fingers. She barely 

caught it. 

Julian dropped into a plastic chair, hands braced 

on his knees, staring at nothing. 

The officer turned back to his keyboard and typed. 

“If 

you really are her father, go through the proper channels. Get a relationship verification from your 

local pack office. Until then, don’t contact Quinn.”