60

Alessio’s hand dropped from my waist as he bent down and picked up the remote, and shut off the music. My hands remained on his waist as I looked into his eyes with concern.

“I am listening.” he responded to Max, “explain.”

“Jeremy, Kody, William, Nate, and Sam were on pack guard duty for the past seven days. They were supposed to switch shifts yesterday night with other guards. They were in constant contact with the team until one hour ago before the shift change so everything was normal until eleven pm.” Max’s voice was laced with stress as he tried to talk fast, “but when at twelve am the replacement team reached the east border, they found out that none of them were there. They waited and looked around for an hour but when no sign was there, they called the pack house to confirm if they had returned without reporting and that is when we realized that something was fishy. No one knows what happened in that one hour. There is no struggle or fight signs or trace of scent or drugs.”