Third POV limited
Alyssa sat pressed against the window of the school bus, forehead nearly touching the glass, watching the city blur into greener stretches of road as they left downtown behind. Around her, kids from her class laughed and traded snacks across the aisle, someone’s backpack sliding off a seat every time the bus turned, Miss Meridian moving up and down the aisle trying to get everyone to stay buckled in.
"We’re going to see carnivorous plants," Alyssa announced to the girl beside her, bouncing slightly in her seat. "Aurora said she’s never seen one either, so I’m going to remember everything so I can tell her when I get home."
"What’s she going to do with that?" the girl asked, unwrapping a granola bar.
"Nothing, she just likes when I tell her things." Alyssa shrugged, grinning, already imagining the retelling, the flowers, the fountains, whatever gift shop trinket she might convince Miss Meridian to let her buy. She’d already decided on a pressed flower bookmark, something small enough to fit in her backpack without anyone noticing until she pulled it out at home.
Nothing about the bus felt different from any other excursion. The windows were down slightly, letting in warm air, the sun catching on dust motes drifting through the aisle, Miss Meridian’s voice calling out a countdown to their arrival like she did every year, counting down the minutes on her fingers while the kids groaned dramatically at how slow the bus felt, someone already asking if they were there yet for the third time.
Back at the mansion, Aurora stood at the edge of the kitchen, arms crossed, watching Saint from across the room as he read through something on his laptop, jaw tight the way it had been since the club.
"Are you going to keep doing this?" she finally asked.
He didn’t look up. "Doing what?"
"This. Whatever this is. You’ve barely said ten words to me since last night."
Saint’s fingers paused over the keyboard for half a second before continuing. "I’ve had a lot to deal with."
"Did I do something?" Aurora asked.
"No." He replied flatly.
Aurora stood there a moment longer, waiting for something else, anything else, some crack in the wall he’d built back up overnight, but nothing came. She thought about pushing harder, asking again, but the set of his shoulders told her exactly how far that would get her. She turned and walked out of the kitchen instead.
The bus was due to check in with the school office by early afternoon. Two o’clock came and went. By two-fifteen, the front desk started calling the driver’s cell phone. No answer. By two-thirty, they tried the transport company directly.
"We show the vehicle departed the gardens on schedule," the dispatcher said, sounding more confused than concerned. "There might be a route delay. Sometimes drivers take a different road if there’s construction on the highway."
"It’s been almost forty-five minutes past their expected return," the school’s front office coordinator said, voice tightening with every word. "That’s not a route delay, and you know it."
By three o’clock, with still no contact from the driver, no signal from the bus’s GPS unit, and no useful callback from the company, the school called the police panic was already beginning to glare into the school.
Officers arrived at the school within twenty minutes, beginning with the basics. Last known location, scheduled route, driver’s information, any mechanical issues reported earlier that day. They pulled up the transport company’s tracking system themselves, frowning at a screen that showed the bus’s last confirmed position on a quiet stretch of road near the gardens, and nothing after that, no further movement, no signal at all.
"No further pings," one officer said, tapping the screen like it might refresh itself. "That’s unusual for a vehicle this new. These systems don’t just go dark on their own."
As confirmation trickled in that this wasn’t a delay or a wrong turn, the school began calling parents, one by one, voices carefully measured, trying not to alarm anyone before there was anything solid to tell them.
Some parents arrived within minutes, gathering in the front office, others still on their way, phones pressed to their ears as they demanded answers nobody yet had to give them.
The call to the mansion came through the house line. Nina answered it in the hallway, her face going pale within seconds, hand tightening around the receiver as she listened.
"What is it?" Aurora asked, already moving toward her.
"Alyssa’s bus," Nina said, voice shaking. "They can’t find it." Aurora’s stomach dropped.
"What do you mean, can’t find it?"
"They said it left the gardens on schedule and never checked in. The police are already there." Nina’s hands trembled as she held the phone out slightly, like she didn’t know what else to do with it, like handing it off might somehow make it less real.
Aurora didn’t wait to hear more. She turned and ran toward the study, where Saint’s cold silence from moments earlier evaporated the instant she said Alyssa’s name. "What about her?" His entire body went rigid, laptop forgotten on the desk. "The bus. It’s missing, Saint. They can’t find it." He was already moving before she finished the sentence, phone in hand, dialing Dax before he’d even reached the door.
"Get everyone. Now."
Within the hour, Dax had guards deployed along the gardens’ route, Quinn pacing the study with his phone pressed to his ear, already asking.
"Could this be something beyond a normal disappearance?" Quinn asked quietly, mostly to himself, pausing at the window to stare out at the driveway like the bus might simply roll up any second.
"A group that size doesn’t just vanish without someone planning for it in advance."
Saint said nothing, jaw locked, his eyes dark in a way that had nothing to do with Marchetti but the human terror clawing through his body.
Milo arrived twenty minutes later, laptop already open before he’d fully sat down at the table, pulling up whatever data he could access from the transport company’s servers, fingers already moving before Dax had finished crossing the room toward him.
"Give me something," Dax said, standing over his shoulder. "Working on it."
Milo’s fingers moved fast across the keys, lines of code and timestamps scrolling past faster than they could follow.
"The GPS unit stopped transmitting at 1:52 PM. Not gradually, not a dead battery, it just cuts off. Clean."
"Clean how?" Saint asked.
"Like someone knew exactly where the signal came from and killed it on purpose." Milo’s brow furrowed deeper, scrolling back through the data again like he hoped it might read differently the second time around.
"This wasn’t a malfunction. Someone interfered with it, and whoever did knew exactly what they were doing." The room went quiet, the only sound the low hum of the servers and Aurora’s own pulse pounding hard in her ears.
By evening, the story had reached the news. Aurora stood frozen in front of the television, Saint beside her, as a reporter’s voice cut through the low hum of the mansion.
"A school excursion bus has gone missing in the Chicago area, carrying twenty-three children and one teacher with a driver, total of twenty five.
Authorities are actively searching for the vehicle and its occupants. Parents have gathered outside the school, awaiting further information." The screen cut to a list of names scrolling beneath the anchor’s face.
Aurora’s breath caught the moment she saw it. "Alyssa Marchetti." Her knees nearly buckled. Saint went completely still beside her, his hands curling into fists at his sides, every trace of the coldness he’d been carrying all day disappeared now replaced by something far more dangerous.
"Saint." Milo’s voice cut through the room, sharp, urgent, his eyes fixed on the screen in front of him. Saint turned toward him immediately. "I found something else." Milo’s face had gone pale, fingers hovering above the keyboard like he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep reading what was in front of him.
"In the minutes before the signal cut, there’s a second vehicle. It was tracking the bus’s route for almost twenty minutes before the GPS died."
"Whose vehicle?" Saint demanded, already crossing the room toward him. Milo looked up at him, something unreadable behind his eyes.
"I don’t know yet. But it wasn’t following by accident."