Exposition-heavy first chapter. Also, I don't know why I kept referring to him as Donald and not Mr Davenport but I'm going to stick with it.

The timeline isn't exactly one-for-one, but I think it makes sense.

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My name is Chase Davenport. I come from a big complicated family with a lot of history.

I don't really remember much from before I was four but apparently, that was when I committed my most crimes.

You see my Biological parents were Scam artists. My mum would become pregnant and pretend to be homeless or sick or whatever to trick people into giving her money, then dump the children on my Dad, Douglas. Who would then use us as bait, lost kids, sick kids, whatever, to get his own money. They worked separately only seeing each other when she wanted another pregnancy or to drop off a kid.

That's how my older siblings Adam and Bree and I were brought into the world. A life of crime before I was even born.

Adam is the oldest, a year older than Bree, who is only seven months older than me. I was a preemie baby, which my mother hated. Douglas didn't see her for a while after I was born. I can't imagine having three children in diapers, especially when two were under one year old. He raised us until I was three.

Douglas wasn't just a scam artist, he was an inventor too, mainly making weapons and selling them to whoever would pay him the most. That's what got him sent to jail.

This is when our uncle Donald comes into the story, or should I say our dad because that's what he was for us until the truth was revealed when I was fifteen. He rescued us and raised us as his own. He didn't know anything about raising children but he was smart, and also an inventor, of stuff that could help the world.

Little did he know, our mum was pregnant again, with who we found out when I was seventeen, is our younger brother Daniel. She visited Douglas in jail, forcing him to sign Daniel away into the adoption system. And then she was gone, never to be seen again by any of us.

After that, we grew up with Donald, away in the countryside, secluded. Donald feared Douglas would come back for us, and try to use us again, so we didn't have much contact with the outside world. But Donald homeschooled us while remotely running his tech business and at least we weren't locked in a basement like some lab experiments.

We played outside on the very high-tech play equipment he built us. He helped us work on our strengths, Adam was strong and full of energy so Donald built him a gym and other sports-related stuff. He built a mini sports oval with a running track also because Bree loved to run.

As for me I normally stayed inside reading or was up in the tree house just watching nature. Donald realised I was exceptionally bright at a young age. I had already surpassed my siblings by the age of five, learning multiplication and division. He helped me advance, by the time I was ten I was already at a college level and had decided to start training my body as well as my mind, learning all kinds of martial arts.

When I was fourteen things started to change. You see he started leaving us alone while he went out. Turns out he was dating a lady named Tasha and eventually they got married. However, Donald kept us a secret from her until the last minute. Donald told her why he didn't tell her and hoped she'd understand. Her son Leo and her were rightfully angry but accepted us. Leo is a year younger than me but we became best friends. They became our family quickly and never stopped.

She somehow convinced Donald to move us all to her hometown of Mission Creek and also to let us go to school with Leo. That was such an exciting day, going to school for the first time. Unfortunately, I was still the smartest person in the room. I even got detention for correcting the teacher, multiple times.

After a few months and after my fifteenth birthday, we meet another person in our family, Marcus. At the time we didn't know he was related to us. We became friends quickly. He was very secretive of his family and I now know why. After six months of knowing him, it was revealed. He's our half-brother. Apparently a year after I was born, Douglas had slept with another woman. Except this time she wanted to keep the child, she died a year after Douglas got out of jail and he took Marcus in.

When he finally introduced us to his father, they came over to our house, and Donald got so angry. Douglas started to explain everything and all the lies were shown. Douglas told us that he and Marcus moved to Mission Creek because he heard we were here and he just wanted to see us again.

Donald asked if Douglas had used Marcus as he did us. Douglas shakes his head, he's been trying to stay on the right side of the law since getting out. Marcus had never been exposed to that stuff.

Compared to Marcus we were hardened criminals. However, he had a temper especially when dealing with Leo who he found annoying, and was an exceptional liar and actor. Maybe some of Douglas' bad ways had been absorbed into him.

This revelation bent our friendship. But Donald made a deal with all of us. The kids he raised would stay with him but he couldn't stop us from getting to know our real father. Over time we regained our relationship with Marcus but it was never the same and started to build one with Douglas.

Douglas had slipped up though, or more he had a loose thread, Krane. You see, Victor Krane was a friend of Douglas' before he got sent to jail. He knew how Douglas was using us and decided to upscale it. He owned an orphanage full of foster kids. And the way he used them was way worse than anything Douglas made us do. Probably because Krane had been doing it longer and the children were older.

He had sent some of his children to confront Douglas about a promise he broke years ago while we were having a family get-together. That's where I met Sebastian as he tried to get through me to my bio dad.

Sebastian would eventually become my best friend and a slight one-sided crush on my part. But that's only after we were able to get Krane put away. However, the children at the orphanage would be split up and put into the ever overflowing foster system and Donald didn't want that.

Donald and Douglas decided to work together to start up an orphanage/boarding school for these kids, with the money Donald made from his company. The children needed to be trained on how to not be evil and it would probably help if they weren't separated from the closest thing to family they have.

Donald had a boarding school built and everyone moved there. All of us in the Davenport-Dooley family, Douglas, Marcus and all of the Krane kids. Even Tasha had moved with us but she made sure we weren't too far from Mission Creek because she still had her job.

They hired real teachers and carers for it. Adam, Bree, Leo, Marcus and I attend for the last of our schooling.

Or at least Marcus tried but it was too much for him, now that Douglas' attention was even more thin. He ran away to work for a woman named Giselle who tried to manipulate him into stealing from us. Giselle was an ex-girlfriend of Douglas'. And she was bitter about something, that I honestly couldn't care about.

Leo was happy when Marcus left but quickly realised it was a bad thing and "Even Marcus shouldn't have to put up being manipulated."

But things worked out and Marcus came back to live with his dad again. With us again. Leo and Marcus had worked things out more after that. Marcus became friends with Sebastian and the three of us became inseparable. It was fun while it lasted.

But before I get to that I have to tell you about how we found out Daniel was our brother, remember him? Yeah, turns out he's pretty smart too, in a typical thirteen-year-old way. At this point, I'm seventeen and suddenly a kid appears.

He says he's looking for his dad, Douglas. I was very confused but I called Douglas down to the entrance telling him there was someone there for him. The moment Douglas walked into the room he knew, but he asked the boy what he wanted anyway.

Daniel explains that he knew he was adopted and was looking for his dad. Douglas confirms that he does have another child named Daniel. I remember making a joke about how many children he had before properly introducing myself to Daniel as one of his older siblings.

Daniel basically begged to join the school and get to know us all. And after a few months, he finally wore all of us and his adoptive parents down and was enrolled into our school.

It was nice having our whole family under one gigantic roof. I quickly took on the role of a teacher since my intelligence was above the rest of my peers but since I didn't have a degree it was more of a tutor or helper role.

Now to the betrayal from my best friend. Okay, that's a bit dramatic but so are most of my family. Sebastian and I were taking a walk around the school grounds. I don't remember much of what happened because he got angry pushing me against the wall of the school and I was knocked out. I suffered some memory loss that I never regained. And I was out in a coma. I could never trust Sebastian again and he moved schools.

I remember fading in and out of conciseness. Seeing unidentified teens in my hospital room, cleaning stuff or checking my vitals. I also saw my family but never saw the two groups at the same time. One time I woke up briefly, and everything was clear for a moment, I turned my head and saw a teen boy reading a comic out loud at my bedside. I didn't recognise him. He looked up and smiled at me before continuing. I think I fell back asleep after that.

When I woke up properly, he was there again. Different clothes so it must have been a different day. I sat up and he quickly checked my vitals without saying a word before leaving the room. Coming back in with two other teens. I didn't recognise them either.

They had introduced themselves as Kaz, the kid who was reading me the comic, Oliver and Skylar. They explained that they're support workers part-time at the hospital. Helping with easier cases or any young person to help them feel more comfortable. That a proper doctor will be with me soon and that they've called my family to let them know I'm awake.

I had asked them how old they were and to my surprise, they were only sixteen. Skylar worked there because her foster dad was a doctor and his nephew who was fifteen also helped out occasionally.

Kaz and Oliver however, apparently got their jobs because they managed to get stuck in a UFO display. They came to the emergency room to get it removed and managed to get it off themselves before someone went into shock. They jumped in without thinking using their knowledge from comics and TV to help the patient because all of the doctors and nurses were busy. They were congratulated by being given this job, however, they weren't allowed to do any actual medical stuff.

Kaz had blurted up how excited he was when he found out it was me who came in. He had seen the big new report about Donald coming back to the public eye with three young teens years beforehand. I guess he saw me as a semi-celebrity. He then embarrassedly apologised because that's not something you say to someone who just came out of a coma.

I was in a coma for about a week. And they had been coming in to do their jobs now and then. I thanked them and they left.

Over the next month, they helped me when my family had to leave, often the last people I saw before going to sleep. Especially Kaz who, I learnt is avoidant of work, although he said this was a part of his job description. He kept me company most of the time. Getting me whatever I wanted or just sitting and talking to me.

I was eventually allowed to leave my room, so he'd take me for walks around the hospital or we'd sit out in the garden. We had become surprisingly close, considering we had very different work ethics.

I had already figured out my sexuality at that point so I knew I had a small crush on him. But after what happened with Sebastian, I didn't want to get too close. But Kaz was nice and funny, he made me feel safe despite everything I went through. He would ask me all these questions about "smart" stuff and I could tell he never truly understood any of it but he was still happy to listen. I couldn't help but like him. Even if technically he was only doing all that because of his job.

Which only made the day I was discharged worse. Kaz walked me out to the car and hugged me. I swear he had a tear in his eye. Then we said goodbye. Oliver and Skylar also said their goodbyes but it didn't mean as much to me.

The next few months were kinda hard. I had to go back to my mundane life helping the Krane kids with schoolwork, missing Sebastian and then hating myself for even thinking of him. Donald was busy with the school or with Tasha who was pregnant with my baby sister Naomi. And most of all wanting to talk to Kaz again. I beat myself up for not swapping phone numbers with him.

Adam, Leo and Marcus did their best to help me, Daniel too but they wouldn't understand even if I told them what was going on. I wanted to tell Marcus but he was even more hopeless at romance than I was.

I did tell Bree, I told her everything. How I felt about Kaz, how I didn't act on it because of Sebastian, how I was afraid. She hugged me and gave me a knowing smile. I now know why. It's because she had been in on a secret. One that she had kept from all her brothers.

Donald had called us all into his office. And by all, I mean his children, and Marcus, not Daniel. If we weren't his family this would look like we were in trouble. Douglas was there too.

Donald explains that his company haven't been doing very well in the youth market and he's decided to start a new branch with us heading it. He corrected himself, however, saying that only three of us could go, the other two had to stay at the school.

Bree explained that she already knew about this idea because he had come to her about it. After all, she was the most in tune with teenagers. But she suggested he open a new branch and hire real teens.

The five of us discussed it and Adam and Leo decided to stay at the school. They said it made the most sense if Bree, Marcus and I did it since we were the ones most likely to take over the business, and because Bree had amazing ideas already and I could help develop them. Also, Marcus would be able to spend more time with his dad. They made Donald promise to send them the stuff we made before they went on the market.

It had all been worked out that day and we were being sent off within the week. Douglas would be there to supervise and act as a salesperson, while Bree, Marcus and I worked with some other teens to come up with the ideas.

Donald had organised a team building camp, a few days where we were to get to know our new team members. It sounded like an excellent idea. And it would have been if I hadn't already met them.