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Chapter 31
Vahadr
“Sir, he wasn’t taken. It looks as if he left on his own.”
Nearly twenty minutes after speaking with Ana I find myself in the surveillance room with my head of home security, staring at several screens of footage showing Asili packing his backpack and sneaking off the property.
“Why,” I say quietly, squeezing my fingers tightly over the back of the chair the guard sits at, “has it taken you so long to discover this?”
“There are hours of footage to—”
“On second thoughts, cease talking immediately if you wish to keep your job.”
The guard clamps his jaw shut with an audible clunk of teeth, and I almost fire him anyway for the irritating sound that makes.
But then a spitfire pair of green eyes flash through my mind’s eye, and for a second Ana is standing before me growling Don’t you dare fire that man, and the words die in my throat.
With a silent snarl, I spin away and head for the door. “Which direction did my son head?”
“Northeast, sir.”
Northeast. I will let Kyrin know.
My com begins to vibrate as I stalk out of the room, and I answer the call with a jerky movement. It’s Ana.
“What?”
“I think I know where he might be.”
I stop in my tracks, barely three steps down the hall. “You… Tell me.”
She’s bent over a table, rifling through the contents of her purse which are entirely upended over the surface, but she stops and stands up to look at me. “He’s gone to MITL. That has to be it, I’m sure of it.”
“What?” I stare at the screen for a long moment, and then my hands curl into fists suddenly, as if of their own volition, and the sharp dig of my claws into my palms jerks me back into motion. I begin striding forward again. “Why would you think that?”
“My bus card is missing, I realized I never got it back from him and I just…I just have a feeling that’s where we’ll find him.”
My lips are pulling downwards. “A feeling.”
“Yes.” She quickly sweeps everything back into her bag and hurries across her room. “I’m going to head down there now. If you want to come—”
“Analina,” I snap, my ire quickly slicing up through my chest once more as I shift my gaze from the screen. “This is my son. If you think I’ll waste time at a university on a whim, a feeling—”
“It’s not a whim,” she interrupts, and I growl and run my hand back and forth over my hair in agitation. “I taught him which bus route runs to and from campus. It’s the only one he knows. He’ll go there.”
I stop and press the heel of both my palms into my eyes.“Why did you give Asili a bus card?” I clench my jaw almost painfully and spin away from the drone, striding towards the railing on my right and gripping the wood tightly as I stare down onto the ground floor. “The Kuznezhens have not been adequately dealt with. Anyone could find him, Ana, anyone.”
“Vahadr.” Her tone is firm, and as the drone flies to a pause before me once more, I can’t stop my eyes from tracing back to the screen. She looks so determined, her eyes blazing and her shoulders set. “I would do anything for Asili, you know that, right?”
“Yes,” I reply, realizing with something like surprise that I do know this.
“His safety is the most important thing in this world to me. I would never take it lightly. It was just a game. Asili loved to play with the bus card imagining we were taking the bus to the university since we could not do it for real.“
I lean back, and the panicked buzzing in my head very slightly recedes as I stare at her.
“ I know Asili, I know the way his mind works, “ she continues. “I think he might be looking for me. I’m going to head over there as soon as I get dressed, so if you want to come search with me, meet me at bus stop X10—it’s on the east end of campus.”
“Alright.” I push off from the railing and begin striding forward once more. “Message your card ID number to Kyrin. If he can track anything else down in the meantime, I’ll let you know.”
