The Alpha Twins and their Runaway Witch

51

Click, clack click clack the sound of stiletto heels on tile ringing sharply in the spartan office. Cassiopeia Greenrivers was sat in the modern minimalist style chair that had been specifically designed to be uncomfortable, without being obvious about it. Cassi was doing well to remain poised and looking unbothered as Marisol paced behind her. "How can two alpha wolves still have learned nothing about their mate? Are they even trying?" Marisol was in a mood. Cassi had long since learned how to weather her mentors moods.

Marisol had not enjoyed being forced to experience a mortal nightmare so visceral. The Baku had shown Marisol a stranger. The Black Corporation had been working systematically to route out dark covens, demons, and evil entities all over the world. There was a secret failsafe hidden inside the Blue Willow pack, one that they assumed to be infallible.

Cassi was both vexing Marisol with her poise and making her proud of her protege. Still, needs must, and Marisol needed more information. "Nothing, there is something weird about her, you know about the dream demon I presume?" Cassi asked her boss. Certain Marisol knew everything. Marisol nodded.

Sighing, Marisol's pacing stopped. "Yes I know the Baku." keeping to herself that she was the reason that particular demon was on The Council's radar to begin with, a fact he was not obliged to forgive her for. "We are not on friendly terms." Stopping Cassi from asking if Marisol could just go demon to demon to get what they need.

"Seriously? No one even has a name for her yet." Marisol had easily learned what name she was working under in Binh's diner. All her paperwork was very good, a thorough identity and history had been created. Except Jenny Hunt had never been born, did not exist, whoever was destined to be mated to Cassi's wolf brothers was as far as Marisol could tell an actual ghost. Every avenue Marisol explored resulted in dead ends.

***

Marisol had been working to find out more ever since the day in the hospital when the Baku had assaulted her with the nightmare. The girl was clearly human, demonstrably breakable and mortal. 

The mystery girl had stepped into the city from a bus that had a route spanning the airport, and industrial park, and into the center of the city. She had paid her bus share with change. Had a vintage soldier's style canvas bag stuffed to the top. There was no record of her on a flight. She had not arrived in town by bus. She had not been seen in any vehicle on any of highways that could have been used to reach the city. Marisol's friend, sometimes lover, and always IT genius had checked first back to only a week before the target had been hired at the diner.

Then Guillermo had become obsessed. Marisol had said the target wasn't a demon. Which meant she had been born and had history. Guillermo just had to find it hidden in the digital database of the internet that constantly expanded with more information. He had always enjoyed the game of cat and mouse, seeking what he needed in any record he could access. 

Except he had found nothing. He had been building and running bots through months and months of security footage and highway cams. The bus is the first time she was recorded near the city. Either she was actually a ghost or an alien, because she did not exist, had appeared out of nowhere and nothing. Briefly there had been concerns that she might be an other dimension traveller, but Marisol had assured him, that the target was of Earth.  

Guillermo had abandoned looking for how she got into the city. That wasn't important. He had an approximate age, hair and eye color. That should be enough to start. Guillermo knew The Greenrivers family, they were excellent people. One of his favourite people was siblings with both Marisol's dragon protegee and the target's twin moon destined mates. Guillermo had a very short list of favourite people. 

After the third sleepless night; after weeks of long days with little rest. There was a strange vibration pattern on his secure phone. Guillermo snapped out of his manic focus trying to hunt down the target all over the world. Taking his phone from his pocked, shocked when he read both the date and time of day. Opening his messages to see a pink coloured message from Lumi. "You need to shower and sleep my friend, take care of you and files will be on your desktop soon." Guillermo looked at the stacks of cardboard coffee cups and greasy takeout bags stacked in towers around his desk.

When The Queen of Lightning speaks, follow. Guillermo walked away from his latest attempt to send a bot into the ether of the digital information world. Taking a long hot shower, before falling face first into the cot in his office. Knowing that Lumi would never lie and if he did as she bid, there would finally be new information. 

When he awoke sixteen hours later, his computer had been refreshed as only Lumi could to optimise every aspect of the tech possible, and there was a new, single image file in the centre of his desktop. IThinkThisIsHer.JPG.

Guillermo opened up the single image. It was a missing child poster. A seventeen year old foster kid had gone missing close to her eighteenth birthday. Ariel Briar Rose was the name listed. Finally, Guillermo had something he could run with. While he started up his various search and database crawls, a new text file appeared by the picture. Her records are in paper, someone is going to need to go to these locations and try and access the physical copies. A long list of possible child welfare offices followed.

Meaning this particular puzzle was now outside of Guillermo's ability to solve. If Lumi said there was nothing digital, there was truly nothing. Guillermo looked at the missing child photo and the one Marisol had provided. Marisol had given him a security footage shot from the bus she had used to get into the middle of the city.

The dutch angle photo on the missing child poster told Guillermo a lot with no words. This picture had been zoomed in and cropped to get an image of her. The missing child had been in the background of someone else's photo. The cropped and zoomed in image had terrible quality.

Guillermo was feeling complicated feelings. Missing persons photos were picked to give the best chance at finding the missing person in question. Whoever Ariel Briar Rose was, she was not the kind of girl who had a strong support behind her. The kind of girl who grew up without anyone wanting to document and chronicle her life. According to police records, after the perfunctory police report was filed, she was declared a runaway and no one lifted a finger to do anything else. No one ever followed up. It did not appear that any effort was made being filing the report.

Guillermo had always had a very soft spot in his heart for broken things no one seemed to care about. Guillermo sent his information to Marisol. While he resumed his own searches through public records. Guillermo was quickly able to find a birth certificate. The digital record had her father's name redacted. Strange. However, the rabbit hole of bread crumbed information lured Guillermo deeper into digital records. 

Her mother, Becca Catherine Rose, had signed herself out of foster care at age eighteen. Was never seen again. The date on the paperwork was five years after Ariel's birth certificate. Next Guillermo checked court records, because the timeline he was building of the latest Greenrivers mate was not adding up to a pretty picture.

Guillermo still had next to nothing. A possible full name and closed child welfare offices to try and follow up on. None of the Greenrivers siblings knew anything. Other than Penny knowing her brothers were up to something, and Cassi and Lumi knowing they now shared a mate they were trying to woo. A mate who had a past that only seemed to grow darker with every new crumb of information.

While Guillermo had been ensconced in his office, the world had changed. The twins and their mate were spending more time together. According to her spy network, the twin wolves, their mate, and Binh had all shared a meal at a demon safe diner in a small town. Right after an astonishing amount of magic had been felt in the area by those who were sensitive to such things.

By all accounts from her little busy bees, the meal had gone well. The demon took the witch home, and the twins left on their bikes for a separate destination. Marisol started to arrange for minions to head out to the most likely child welfare offices that had handled her case. They would get started first thing in the morning. Today was not an entire loss.

Marisol would have been deeply upset if she learned that the dark witch she was seeking, was busy setting up her latest empire in the same city Marisol called home. Right underneath her nose.