|| Mirage's Fate || Original || -Unedited

Chapter 24:- Lost Innocence

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After their long break from all the chaos that is happening in Kinsel, they're finally back on their feet. Ever since the first day of Yanyi's official involvement with the police department, Irene has been working from their humble abode for a while. Hence, she makes a promise to her colleague that she'll be back in the office once everything has settled down. And with that, Yanyi was alone with her duties. 

She was walking towards the police department after her supper when she heard a crowd shouting. Well, more like demanding. 'It's coming from the station. Hopefully, it won't be a bother to the job.' Her thoughts could be a curse in words. When she thought that everything was okay, it was not. She hid from the eyes of the crowd. Looking past the pillar, people whom she assumes to be the cause was shouting with signs above their head. 

Though from the back, she could barely see the text unfold. 'Justice for the kids!' That is what most of it says. Confused, she sneaks past the riot and through a window sill. One of the officers took notice of Yanyi's presence, almost scared to death. Apologizing, she asks for clarification about the riot. "During Miss Yanyi's and Cheif's leaves, reports have been piling up. We don't have any words of commands from him other than to put all the reports onto his table, and he shall work through them once he's back on duty. He hasn't left the office since yesterday noon." The tone of him was worrying. 

Looking towards the office on the second floor, she felt distressed. 'He shouldn't be the only one to bear this burden. Why can't you share it with others?' Sighing deep inside, she went inside without knocking. She figured that he'd be busy, and taking of his concentration is the last thing she would want to do. 

Looking around the area, no figure of midnight blue hair insight. That was until she turned her head towards the desk of the chief, which couldn't be seen as one. The table is now piled up with papers. She assumes that it was the reports from those days off they had. Looking back towards the back where Luyao would be sitting, he's completely down. Eyes close with his hand acting as a pillow.

"*sigh* If you knew that you couldn't handle it, you could've shared some of it with me." She complains in a quiet voice. Reaching out to one of the reports, she read through them. This pile is twice as much as the previous one. Not taking the risk of it falling onto Luyao's head, she moves them towards the sitting area. Putting a blanket on him, she continues with her studies.

As the cloud moves across the sky and the sun glided through space, the clock has now struck 10 in the morning. Because of her speed reading from her early studies of being the young marquess, she sees through the reports ever so slightly quicker. In fact, two-third had already she scanned through. One thing that she notices right of the bet of the first few reports were the cases. Missing children's. 

Surveying through all of them, she placed them following her favour. Some reports are classified as urgent. Some are less as it could just be the kids staying at their friend's house. Some are places as incomplete, while most are piling up to the other side. Seeing the big pile, she began to scan through it again. This time though, she'll make sure that everything written on each report is embedded inside. The time has been ticking, and there's no time to waste.

After two hours of scanning again, she found a common idea among these reports. Playing at noon and haven't returned at dusk. Checking the date also plays a role in cases. Considering that the kids went missing between noon and dusk, we can clear that the reports are sent on the next day as the police station would be unoccupied most of the night. A large portion of it claims that these incidents happened during the weekdays. This info tickles inside. 

'The streets are busy with passersby as it's the working day. It makes sense that parents wouldn't notice their children went missing until dusk as most of them wouldn't even be at home. But if the commotion happened during the day and in the busy part of the town. Then how can it not be suspicious in other people's eyes? A person carrying a child and running away would be suspicious regardless of the situation.'