I was a little busy today, so this update came a little late. Well, it's late for me at least.

Anyway, enjoy!

Everly's POV

We were up all night, then all day. And it was night once more. Everyone had taken breaks to get some sleep, leaving the conference room to head back to Gamma 12's sleeping rooms for a few hours at a time.

Currently, Eric and Tess had gone back to the rooms to get some rest and Alejandra had gone to pick up some more food and water from the cafeteria. Ian, Noelle, Ryan, and I were still looking over things.

We'd come up with a few leads, all of which had turned out to be dead ends so far, and we were now running out of ideas.

Nicky was able to pull all the security footage from the hard drive I had given her and had sent it all to me about an hour ago. Since then, my eyes had been glued to the computer screen as I sped up, slowed down, and went over the footage. A few things had stood out as odd to me, but nothing was jumping out.

I took a second to pause the footage and rub at my eyes. I let out a sigh as I looked at the time. Just after midnight. We were running out of time to find Agent 34 alive, and yet, I could find nothing. I double checked everything. Every file pertaining to the missing agents. Every file about the mercenaries.

"They've been taken in threes," Ryan suddenly said.

We all turned to look at him.

He held up the slip of paper with all the numbers of the missing agents on it. "I checked all the dates the agents went missing. Three every month for the past year."

Ian shook his head. "That's too many."

"How many of them have turned up?" I asked him.

Ryan just kind of stared down at the paper in his hands for a minute. "All except five of them, that's not including Melanie though."

"If three of them disappear a month," Noelle said. "I hate to even bring it up, but Melanie's only the first one this month."

I ran a hand down my face. "Is there some sort of pattern between the agents that have already been taken?" I asked Ryan.

He shook his head. "Not that I can see, but I'll keep looking."

I looked back at my computer screen, just in time to notice something. "Hey Ian," I said.

He looked up from his computer to me. "What?"

"You still have that footage pulled up from the week before?" I asked him.

"Yeah."

"Show it to me," I said.

He picked up the laptop and moved from his seat, taking the seat beside me.

"What are you looking for?" He asked me as I began playing the footage.

I sped up the footage and then paused it quickly. "That," I replied as I pointed to the black van driving down the street outside my building.

Ian just kind of frowned. "There were several vans coming and going since the building was having repairs done," Ian told me. "What makes that one different?"

"Because that was the only one parked on the street surveilling the building for two weeks before the repairs ever started. Once the repairs started, the only time you see that van is once the week before your agent went missing and then the day she went missing."

Ian began enhancing the footage. "There's the license plate," He said when he finally got it cleared up.

Noelle had moved to stand behind him, and once he finished getting the license plate number she leaned over and began running it through the agency's programs.

"It's not registered to anyone specifically," She said as she continued to type. "It is registered to a company that . . ." She paused as she continued to search. "Does not exist."

"Then that's probably what we're looking for," Ian said.

"We don't know that for sure," Noelle replied. "While it seems likely let's not get our hopes up. We've already run into several dead ends."

"Give me the name of the company," I told her. "I'll see if I can't find out if it's been mentioned anywhere else near where the other agents were taken."

Noelle scribbled the name of the company down onto a notepad. She tore the page out and handed it to me.

I paused as I looked at the name of the company. I blew out a long breath. "Forget it," I said. "Whoever created this fake company, they're the ones we're looking for."

"How do you know for sure? You didn't even check it like you said you were," Ian responded.

This was true. However, after reading the name of the company, I no longer needed to.

I turned the paper around so he could see it and held it out to him. The company name that Noelle had written across the page was Thomas Henderson Industrial Repairs/Trade Extending Every Need.

Ian frowned down at the paper. "Well, that's certainly a mouthful and doesn't make much sense."

"Take the first letter of each word and put that together," I told him.

He took a second to study the paper before swearing. "Thirteen," He said.

"Someone might have tried to warn me away," I said. "But they also seem to want my attention."

"Like they're blaming you," Ryan said. "As if to say everything that's happening is your fault."

"Or it's still a warning," Noelle said. "That if you get involved, there will be consequences."

I just sat there, staring at the letters of the company name. I shook my head. "Regardless of whatever their intentions, they've got my attention. We can figure out their true motives later, for now, we focus on the missing agents." I pointed to Noelle. "Start tracking that van. Use security cameras, street cameras, I don't care what. We need to know where it was heading."

Alejandra came back with food for everyone as we were all on computers trying to figure out exactly where the van had gone. One person would track it down a street, only for it to disappear. Another person would find it further away, then lose it once again.

Somehow, whoever had been driving the van, seemed to know exactly how to avoid nearly all cameras. What should have only taken us an hour tops to figure out where it had gone, was instead talking hours.

Tessa and Eric had returned, only to swap out with Ryan and Noelle. Ian refused to get any sleep, so much so to the point, I was about to knock him out just to make sure he didn't pass out from exhaustion later.

Tessa suddenly slammed her hands down on the keyboard of her computer and let out a string of colorful words.

"I take it you lost it again," Eric said.

"Who the hell is driving this fucking van?" Tessa questioned as she pulled at her hair. "If they hadn't kidnapped our agent, I'd tell Zero to hire this fu-"

"There are children present," Eric interrupted as he conspiratorially pointed to Alejandra.

Alejandra rolled her eyes and flipped him off. "I found the van again," Alejandra told Tessa.

"Where?"

"Like fifty miles south of where you lost it."

Tessa looked down at her computer, and then across the table to Alejandra. "How on earth do you know where I lost it? Did you hack my computer?"

Alejandra pointed behind Tessa. "The entire wall behind you is a mirror, you know that right?"

Tessa looked over her shoulder at her own reflection. Her computer screen could also clearly be seen if you were sitting across from her. "I think I'm losing it," Tessa muttered. "There's no way that was there this whole time."

Eric turned around to look at the mirror. He paused. "Has that really been here this whole time?"

"I think you all need more sleep," Ian muttered as he rubbed at his eyes. "You're not usually this . . ." He didn't finish.

"He was totally going to say stupid," Eric said.

"I was not."

"Then what were you going to say?" Eric questioned.

"Stupid fits," Alejandra said as she continued typing on her computer.

Eric glared at her.

"Stop it," Ian muttered. "You're giving me a headache."

"That headache has a name," Tessa said. "And it's not any of ours." She pointedly looked right at me.

I narrowed my eyes back at her. "It's called lack of sleep," I said. "Since he seems to believe that's what's going to help us find Agent Thirty-four."

"I could knock him out," Alejandra said simply, her gaze never leaving her computer screen.

Ian glared at her.

I smiled as I looked at Ian. "It's like she can read my mind."

His glare turned to me.

"In all seriousness," I said to Ian. "You're no good to Agent Thirty-four if you're exhausted. You just noticed Tessa's and Eric's lack of awareness, and they've been getting more sleep than you have thus far."

Ian shook his head. "I'm fine."

Alejandra was the one to turn and look at me dubiously. She made a gesture with her head. I nodded and pushed up out of my seat.

She pointed at her screen. "I think I've managed to track down the van," She told Ian.

As Ian turned to peer over her shoulder and look down at her computer screen, I walked up behind him. He bent over her shoulder with a frown.

"I don't see-" He was in a headlock before he could finish his sentence.

His hands shot up and pulled at my arm, and when that didn't get me to let up, he threw himself back into the wall.

I let out a grunt of pain and tightened my grip. "Don't fight it," I muttered.

Alejandra stuck her foot out when Ian tried to walk forward to throw me into the wall again. He tripped and landed on his knees, which only helped me. He started to weaken and fall, and I kept my arm around his neck until he finally went limp.

I dropped him and backed up. I didn't kill him, of course. Just forcefully put him to sleep. I turned to look at Eric and Tessa who were just wordlessly staring.

"Well . . ." Eric drawled.

"I've been wanting to do that for so long," Tessa said, actually smiling at me. "You have no idea."

I just shook my head. "One of you want to help me get him into an actual bed?"

"No," Tessa replied. "He can sleep on the floor."

Eric shoved up from his seat. "I'll get his shoulders. You get his legs."

After we'd gotten Ian settled in a bed, we went back to looking for the van. We were making progress, but it was slow going.

"I had the van heading east," Eric muttered. "But then I lost it."

"Where did you lose it?" I asked him.

"Roughly thirty miles from where you last found it," He replied.

"Oh," Tessa said. "I think I've got it. Wait no. That's a truck." She pulled at the ends of her hair. "It's like the damn thing vanished."

Footsteps approached and Noelle came walking back into the room. "I see you all finally talked some sense into Ian," She said.

We all looked at each other.

"You could say that," I muttered.

"How did you do it?" She asked me.

"Forcefully," Tessa muttered under her breath.

"What?" Noelle questioned.

"Nothing," Tessa responded quickly.

"I found it," I said.

"You found the van?" Noelle said as she came over to look at my computer screen.

I nodded. "Two days ago the van was abandoned at the edge of a forest. Now there's no footage of anyone actually leaving the van, but there are at least thirty minutes of footage missing and . . ." I trailed off as I pulled up the cameras again, only this time it was present footage. "It's still there now," I told her.

"Then we need to move," She said.

Tessa, Eric, Alejandra, and I all closed the laptops and jumped to our feet. We grabbed the jackets that had been thrown over the chairs and the weapons that were laid out across the tables as we all began to move.

"Someone needs to wake up Ian and Ryan," Noelle said.

"Yeah," I said. "About that-"

"Someone's going to need to carry Ian," Alejandra said.

"What? Why?" Noelle asked.

"Long story," Eric said.

"I'll explain on the drive," I said. "Whoever took Agent Thirty-four drove for damn near forty-eight hours straight. We're behind enough as it is we can talk on the drive."

"Oh a road trip," Tessa said with false cheeriness before her tone turned sarcastic. "Yippee."

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