Kidnapped by Vampires ✔ (The Broken Trilogy Book 1)

Chapter Six

Ethan woke back up at HQ. He had a dull headache as what usually happens when he tries to push his powers too far. There were Tylenol and a glass of water on the nightstand next to his bed with a note in Lauren's handwriting that said to meet them in the computer lab.

He took the pill and made his way down the dim hallways to the computer lab where Lauren, Ben, and a few other guardians were hard at work.

"Find anything?" he asked while pulling up a chair.

"Not yet," Lauren sighed. She was leaning back in her chair with her feet up on the desk and watching videos on her phone. As she usually does when her research takes longer than two minutes.

"Since you didn't get a make or model we're having to go off of a partial license plate," Ben said. "So far, we have a lot of cars to go through."

The algorithm on the screen was searching through the DMV database in the entire state of California, Oregon, and Nevada for a match. And there were quite a few.

"Why not just search in California?" Ethan asked.

"We did, but there was no registration to anyone in the Rutherford family and no cars reported stolen in the area around the kidnapping that night so we're thinking they could have a car from out of state," Lauren said without looking up from a cat video.

Ethan had a weird idea and moved Ben's chair out of the way so he could take a look at the computer. He opened up the file containing all of the cars from California and then took out any of the registrations from southern California.

"What are you doing?" Ben asked.

"Well," Ethan said. "We know that the Rutherfords is just the family in charge. It's likely that they have other families and other vampires in their coven. So, what if the one who picked up Mia was just a henchman?" Ethan started scrolling through all of the car registrations of those in the same county that Mia was taken in, but he didn't know what he was looking for.

"That's a good theory, but we don't know the names of any of their 'henchmen.'" Lauren said. She took her feet down and started swiveling in her chair.

Ethan bit the inside of his cheek like he does when he's thinking. "Maybe, the answer is in why they took Mia. Maybe it was because they knew she had run away before. My mom wasn't suspicious about it when I first came to her and so maybe they figured no one else would put too much thought into it either?"

"Maybe..." Ben nodded. "And wouldn't you have to live in the same town to know about that?"

Ethan adjusted the algorithm to cut out anyone unless they were in the town or a surrounding town that Mia lived in. There were only fourteen cars left.

"Fourteen cars, that's still too many for your mom to approve surveillance," Lauren said. She was now sitting up and crowding around the computer like the rest of them.

"There's got to be a way to narrow the cars down even further."

They all got quiet as they sat and thought. A minute went by. Two minutes. Three.

Lauren snapped her fingers. "The abduction happened at her school."

"So?"Ben asked.

Lauren rolled her eyes. "So, why kidnap someone at a school when they could've waited until she got home. It would've been less suspicious."

Ethan went through all of the car registrations and found that most of them were for adults who didn't work at the school. Then he saw Charles Burke. Seventeen years old. And goes to Grant High School.

"There's our in." Ethan quickly printed out the information and ran to his mother's office. This time he made sure to knock so she wouldn't be annoyed with him again.

"Come in," she called.

Ethan walked up to her desk and set down the information about Charles. "This is the guy who took Mia."

Moira scanned the picture of his driver's license and the rest of his information. "And you're sure this is about the vampire's and this isn't just a kid possibly obsessed with this girl?"

Ethan nodded. "I felt his presence while I tracked Mia. I could feel that he was-"

"You tracked?"

Ethan closed his mouth.

"Honey, I've told you time and time again not to track until you're older. You're body just can't handle it right now."

"I know mom, but everything went fine and now we have an in on the Rutherfords. We can track him and he can lead us to them."

Moira nodded. "I'll give the okay for the usual surveillance. You, Lauren, and Ben are on it. The second you find out where the Rutherfords are, you call it in and we'll get a team to your location."

"Right," Ethan smiled and picked up Charles' information and started to walk out when something crossed his mind. "Mom, what are you going to do if he doesn't lead us to the Rutherfords?"

"Whatever is necessary."