MITCH POV
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Mitch worked through the night, tracing the coordinated vehicles' registrations against every database he could access, and what emerged, gradually, was a picture considerably larger than the twelve adults the original intervention had identified.
"Cousins," he told the assembled crew near dawn, his voice hoarse from hours of continuous focus. "Distant branches of the Marlowe family, spread across four territories, connected through the same ideology but operating independently enough that our original investigation never mapped them."
"How many total," Ryke asked, his exhaustion visible after a full night without sleep, without release from the specific vigilance guarding Ren demanded.
"Best estimate, twenty to thirty additional adults," Mitch said. "Not all actively da
