Chapter 32

Third person narrative A few days had passed since Jasmine went missing, and the brothers were almost going crazy. They had searched everywhere they thought she would be, but they couldn’t find her.

They had even gone to Noah’s apartment but found nobody in his apartment.

Mia was also giving them a really hard time during their search. Her best friend was missing, and it was her brother’s fault.

“I swear to the goddess, if anything happens to Jasmine, I’ll cut all your heads off,” Mia threatened as she glared at her brothers.

Calix was lying on the floor, looking dejected, Zane was sitting on the couch, with his hand under his chin, and Ethan was pacing across the room so fast that the floorboards were vibrating under his feet.

“I keep on telling you, we didn’t do anything. We’re innocent of this accusation. Yes, we indeed went to a stripper club a few months back, but that was way before we found out that Jasmine was our mate. And we honestly didn’t know that someone was taking pictures of us. We were as shocked as you were when we saw those pictures,” Calix repeated for the umpteenth time.

“How the hell do you expect me to believe you, after everything that has happened between you guys?” Mia frowned.

“Well, it doesn’t matter if you believe us or not, the truth is that we didn’t intentionally do anything to Jasmine!” Ethan suddenly shouted.

“You asked a private investigator to find out who sent the pictures, right?” He added.

Mia nodded and pushed her hands into her pocket as she sighed heavily.

“He couldn’t trace it back to the person, but all he could tell me was that it had to be a teacher or a non-teaching staff with access to other student’s contact details,” she said.

“It would be really hard to find the person who did this, and we can’t just go around questioning the teachers now, can we?” Calix said as he ran his fingers through his hair, scattering it.

“What about Noah, he too has been missing from school for the past couple of days, do you think Jasmine might be with him?” Mia asked.

“Well, that could be a possibility, but nobody knows stuff about him, and since we aren’t so sure that Jasmine is with him, we can’t declare him wanted,” Ethan replied.

They all sighed deeply at the same time. Mia turned around and looked at the posters that she had printed that morning.

“Let’s just focus on finding Jasmine for now, so come on let’s go put up these posters and hope someone might have seen her.” She said, lifting the posters and sharing them amongst herself and her brothers.

They left the room, and spent the rest of the day, pasting the posters on every wall and every notice board that they could lay their eyes on.

They also shared it with people, asking them if they had by chance seen Jasmine, but no matter who they asked, the answer was still the same.

No one had seen her.

Mia was surprised by her brothers’ dedication to what they were doing. She had never seen them act so seriously before. Even when they saw their friends, they didn’t even stop to talk to them, only waved and continued with what they were doing.

She was starting to believe that they were telling the truth and that it was all a setup.

Mia had met their school’s janitor when she went into one of the school buildings to put up the posters. She explained to her what had happened, and she offered to help them out.

“I didn’t know something like that had happened,” The janitor said. “But don’t worry, I’ll keep on putting up the posters and asking around, and if I get any clue, I’ll be sure to let you know,” she said as she took the rest of the papers out of Mia’s hands.

“Thank you so much. You’ve been such a big help to us today,” Mia appreciated.

“We’re grateful for all your help, ma,” Ethan added.

“Oh, it’s fine. I’m just doing what I can to help out.” she smiled. “That being said, I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said and made her way back into the building.

“Even if we can’t tell Jasmine’s parents about it now, we have to tell our parents, so that they could at least help us. There isn’t much we can do outside school grounds on our own, so it’d be better to get their help. We haven’t even told them that she’s our mate yet,” Zane said.

“I was thinking about that. We can’t wait till it’s too late before we tell them, it’d be even worse if something happened to her,” Calix added.

“I have been trying not to even think about that. I can’t bear to imagine what would happen if anything happened to her,” Mia said, worrying about both her brothers and Jasmine’s parents.

“Let’s leave now,” Ethan said and started making his way to the car, while his siblings got in with him.

The drive home was deadly quiet. None of the siblings uttered a single word to each other, each one of them thinking about a way to solve the problem ahead of them.

Because of Ethan’s crazy driving, they reached their home faster than they normally would. They rushed inside as they looked at the yard and noticed that their parents were home.

As they slammed the door open, their parents who were scattered around the living room, each doing their own thing turned around to face the door, confused and surprised looks on their faces.

“Mia? Calix?” Their mother started. “What are you children doing back home?” She asked, leaving what she was doing to walk towards them.

She pulled all of them into a tight hug, a bright smile on her face. “You all missed me, right? I had a feeling,” she said, tightening her grip.

When she noticed that none of them had smiles on their faces, neither did they seem excited, she pulled back and took a second look at them.

They all looked horrible, their hair was messy, their clothes crumpled and it seemed they had dark circles under their eyes.

“What the hell is going on with you kids? Where’s Jasmine, she’s always with you?” She asked, but the kids only winced and gave no reply.

Their fathers had also left what they were doing to stand behind their wives, also wondering what was going on.

“We have something to tell you guys,” Ethan stated, looking down at his feet.

“Okay, come in and sit down and tell us all about it,” Their mother encouraged.

When they were all seated, the brothers looked between themselves, trying to decide who would break the news. After a while of fighting amongst themselves with their eyes, one of their fathers, Denver spoke.

“One of you should speak up before I make you, you’re making your mother worry,” he threatened.

Ethan sighed, before deciding to speak up.

“Zane, Calix, and I have found our mate,” He announced.

“Really?” Their mother said, a bright smile spreading across her lips, the excitement in her voice filling the room. “Then why do you all look so down? This is something to celebrate. Who is she?”

Ethan hesitated again before answering the question.

“It’s… it’s… it’s Jasmine,” he finally said, and it felt like everything and everyone in the room stood still.

Their parents looked even more shocked than they expected them to be.

“Is it the same Jasmine that we know? The same Jasmine that grew up with you all?” Derrick, their other father asked.

“Yes, Dad. That Jasmine.”

Ethan, Calix, and Zane were all shaking. They didn’t know how their parents would react to Jasmine being their mate, and they had not known about it until now.

There was silence for a while before their mother finally spoke.

“This is a bit unexpected, but I’m happy.” She said, and the boys looked up at her, surprise written all over their faces.

“Jasmine’s a nice girl, and I know the fact you boys were just always mean to her. Now I am sure you all understand why I always told you to be kind and treat her nicely, but you guys would rather do things your way. So, where is she I would love to meet her and console her for having you a lot as mates. You boys are such a handful,”

Their mother laughed and looked at her mates who were sitting beside her. They all seemed to agree with her.

“That’s the problem,” Calix said, and their parents stopped. “We’ve been looking for Jasmine for the past few days now,”

“WHAT?” All their parents shouted at the same time.

The siblings shrunk in on themselves, not knowing what to do.

“What do you mean you’ve been looking for her? What happened?” Derrick asked them, and then they started to explain.

Their parents listened carefully as they explained everything that had happened between them, Jasmine and Noah, all the while.

They were shocked by how so much had happened and they were all clueless.

“How could you wait till now to inform us about this? What if she was in danger?” Denver scolded.

“We’re sorry, we just thought she would be back after a while, but when she didn’t get back after a few days, we started to panic,” They explained.

“I can’t believe this is happening. Her parents left her under our care. What am I going to tell her mother when she asks me about her?” Gina asked, as she stood up from the couch and started pacing around the living room.

“I warned you, boys, I told you that one day, your promiscuous nature would put you in trouble, and now it finally has,”

“And you, Mia,” She started, talking to her daughter. “What were you doing when Jasmine was running off?” She scolded Mia who just put her head down in shame.

“Calm down, love. We just have to come up with a plan to help find her, that’s all. I’m sure wherever she is, she’s safe,” Devon said, in an attempt to console Gina.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her, no matter what. All we need to do is to find out who this Noah boy is and why he would be interested in your mate,” Denver said.