Page 32 of The Dragon's Surprise
Warning bells rang inside her head. “No. And you don’t know who it was?”
“Just that it was official ADDA and DOCS business. Ethan mentioned a meeting later today, and I thought they’d just come early.”
Her stomach churned. This was bad. “No. It’s not until later.”
Mr. Forrest stood and rushed to the door. “Come on. I’m sure it’s nothing, and maybe it was Kyle who came by. Let’s find out.”
As they strode down the hall toward the front office, Lexi’s heart pounded. Her gut said something was wrong.
And yet, she would gladly be wrong if it meant Ethan was safe.
They approached the dragonwoman at the front desk, and she looked at Lexi and then at Mr. Forrest. “Is something wrong, Oscar?”
The teacher replied, “I don’t know. Earlier, Ethan was called to the front office to be picked up. Who was it?”
The dragonwoman shook her head. “Ethan was never called to the front office, or showed up here.”
Lexi’s stomach dropped. “Are there security cameras inside the school? Ones we can check and maybe see where Ethan went?”
“Yes. Follow me.”
Mr. Forrest gave Lexi a sympathetic look. “Maybe he ran off with Jackson, or one of the other boys. They all try to sneak away sometimes.”
“But he’s only six.”
The dragonwoman led them inside a small room, equipped with various monitors. As she fiddled with one, she explained, “We have someone monitoring these in the mornings, lunch, and evenings, but we always record.”
Even if she wanted to shout they should have round-the-clock security, Lexi knew sometimes there weren’t enough people to fill all the jobs inside a dragon clan. It was one of the many reasons her sister kept pushing to allow humans to work inside them during the day.
Something she’d bring up to her big sister later.
The dragonwoman’s voice garnered Lexi’s attention. “There’s Ethan, but I don’t know who that is. Do either of you?”
Lexi leaned closer and scrutinized the man. Given the lack of a tattoo on his upper arm, he was probably human. “No, but he seems familiar somehow.”
As she studied the man a little closer, it finally hit her how much the man resembled Ethan, and she gasped. “It can’t be. He lives in Idaho.”
Mr. Forrest asked, “Do you know who that is?”
“I can’t be 100 percent positive given the video quality, but I think that might be Ethan’s maternal uncle—Patrick White.”
The one who’d tried to take Ethan the day he’d been dropped off, but who had failed the background check and been denied. The man had been in and out of jail for the past decade, and his online accounts were full of dragon-related hatred. Plus, during his interview, his dragon hatred had shone through clearly, even for his nephew.
So why had he come here? Not out of some sense of duty of familial love, that was for sure.
Lexi took out her phone and said to the dragon pair, “I might know where he went. I need to go after him.”
Mr. Forrest shook his head. “Tell the Protectors, Lexi, and they’ll help you.”
“I’ll call them when I’m on the road, but I can’t waste any time. Ethan is probably in danger.”
Before they could persuade her out of her plan, she hit Call on her phone and power-walked toward where her car was parked. She asked a few things from her colleagues and learned that Patrick White was still staying just outside Reno with a friend.
After clicking End, Lexi slid inside her car, started it, and headed out. By now, the guards knew her and let her out without a word.
As she drove down the mountain, well over the speed limit, she willed for Ethan to be okay. Given how much his maternaluncle hated dragon-shifters, he’d probably use the boy for his own gain. Namely, selling him to the League, or maybe to the despicable humans who thought to collect dragon-shifters like pets and keep them in chains.
And she couldn’t let either situation happen, no matter what.
