Dying For You

Chapter 12

Theo's POV

"Her file? You have a file on Laila?" I ask.

"I have a file on every member of this pack. Helpful hint: before and after every meeting with pack members, go over their files and write down notes about the meeting afterward. Even talking points like asking about plans for a kid's birthday party or something. It helps pack members feel more relaxed talking to an Alpha and gives it a personal touch without trying to remember every small interaction." He says.

"Ok. Noted." I nod. "Let me see it."

"Son, think about it." He finally looks me in the eye with a serious, pointed look.

"She's my mate. I want to know it all." I nod.

"I'm serious. Think about it. This file is full of every detail about her life, meaning every detail about her disappearance, every theory we could come up with, every shred of false hope that her family had, and the details of the day we found her…. Including medical records. Are you sure you're ready to see that?" he asks.

I nod quickly. I've never been so sure of anything in my life. It's like a burning in my soul, "I need to know." I need to know everything that happened to my mate. I must protect her. I can hear my heart beating in my ears. All the questions I want to ask her but can't, all the answers are right here. I take the file from my Dad.

"Take the rest of the day to look over and process this. If you have any questions, let me know. I can try to clear up anything." Dad says.

"Ok." I nod, standing up. I riffle through the pages as I walk out of the office. The first thing that strikes me is how thick the folder is. There is a lot of paper here for someone who only lived in the pack for three years.

I walk into my bedroom and get situated on my bed. I've had this file for 4 minutes, and it's already burning a hole in my pocket. I can't just have this and keep living my life. I have to know what's in here right now. I open the file to see a picture of Laila as an infant, then very official-looking documents. I start reading.

PACK MEMBER BIO

Name: Laila Thomas

Occupation: Child

Parents: Rebecca and Ron Thomas

Siblings: Reid, Brad, and Eric Thomas

Birthday: August 19th, 2003

Hair: Brown

Eyes: Blue

Height: 20 inches (Current), estimated future height when fully grown 5 foot 9 inches

Ha! Well, she definitely did not reach her full height potential. She's 5 feet at best. All the information on the first page seems just to be basic information that could be used to identify someone. I already learned something about her, though. I didn't know her last name was Thomas, and I found out her birthday.

I flip over to the next page. This seems to be some basic info about her family; it's a photo of her Mom and Dad, then talks about specifics of their apartment. Apartment 17F, floor plan layouts, number of bedrooms. Stuff like that.

The third page is the start of what I'm really looking for- the missing person report. I take a deep, calming breath, then dive in.

Missing Person Report

Name of Missing Person: Laila Thomas

Age: 3 years old.

Height: 3 feet 2 inches

Name of Person Filing Report: Rebecca Thomas

Relationship to Missing Person: Mother

Circumstances around disappearance: Mother took her four children to the lake for the day. She says she turned her back for a second to talk to another child, and when she turned back around, Laila was gone. There is no trace of where she went, no scent trail, and no witnesses.

Initial Response: A team of warriors and a group of friends and family combed the forest in search of the child. The pack was alerted to the disappearance and told to keep an eye out. The mother provided a photo of the child today showing what the victim looks like and the clothes she was wearing, which is just a bathing suit.

She disappeared right out from underneath her Mom's nose. I didn't know that. I look at the small photo paper clipped to the top corner of the paper. It's a photo of a young Laila smiling ear to ear as she holds out a flower toward the camera. She was a cute little girl, so happy.

I flip over to the next page to see a more detailed version of the events, but that's not my Dad's handwriting. There are old tear stains smearing some of the writing. It's got to be Laila's Mom.

'I took the kids to the lake today. I just wanted to do something fun since the boys didn't have school, and it was the first nice day out in a few days. I packed a bag for lunch and got all the kids into bathing suits before leaving the packhouse and walking through the woods. We've been to the lake many times. All the kids know the way back to the packhouse from the lake, even Laila.

The kids played in the water for a while before we got out to eat lunch. Everything was fine. But after lunch, I didn't want the kids to start swimming and possibly get a cramp. Everyone knows you're not supposed to swim for 30 minutes after you eat, or you could get a cramp. So I decided the kids and I would go for a little walk around the lake. The boys were being rowdy, and I was tired. Laila was walking slowly, and she kept stopping to pick flowers. Brad and Reid kept running ahead and wrestling, and Eric kept talking to me as we walked. We were between the boys, who were so far ahead, and Laila, who was only a few feet behind us. I turned around to check on her every few steps.

We walked past some daisies, and she lagged behind to pick one, but we were only maybe 20 feet ahead of her. Then Reid called me, trying to tattle, and I turned around to tell the boys to stop arguing. Then, when I looked at Laila again to tell her to catch up, she was just gone. At first, I thought maybe she just tripped and fell in the flowers or maybe walked behind a tree, so I walked to where she last was and looked around. Nothing.

The boys and I looked for her for 10 minutes before we called anyone. We searched everywhere. I didn't see or hear anyone following us; there were no other scents I could tell; it's like she disappeared into thin air.'

I can't imagine how scary that must have been to turn around and see that your child's disappeared. Your little girl stopped walking to pick a flower and vanished without a trace. How did Laila not scream, though? If hunters injected her with wolfsbane or silver, there should have been at least a scent of the drug left behind.

I flip over to the next page to see my Dad's handwriting again. These look like official documents. They're time and date stamped with the pack sigel. I skim over the documents. Usually, there is extensive documentation of which squad of warriors was patrolling this area, so I assume that's what not of this is. I skim a few pages until I see something that makes me stop. The words' human police'. That's odd. We don't do much with humans. We rarely involve the police unless they can be helpful. It's risky to let humans get too close since they don't know about us. I stop skimming and read the pages.

'The human police have been contacted to help assist in a state-wide search for the child. We need helicopters and more manpower to search the mountains. There is no trace of the child. Soon it might be warranted to drag the lake searching for a body.'

Drag the lake? They thought she might have drowned. Poor Laila must have been so scared when she was taken from her parents. Her parents must have been so scared for her.