More secrets are revealed about this mysterious girl! Keep on reading!

Chapter 3

"So, you're telling me you think your parents, your dad especially, are hiding something?"

Mason, Harper, and Alex walked into the lair. No one would be bothering them there- her parents, after deciding it was too much work to cook chicken soup, were out on a well-deserved date night, making fun of the easily spottable tourists, Justin had just left moments ago to go to his volcano club meeting, and Max was doing whatever Max does in his incredibly foul and dirty room.

Alex nodded, sitting down on the red-cushioned couch. Mason sat next to her and Harper sat on the comfy chair across from them.

"Yeah. Like I told you, we found this picture in a family photo book," she said waving the picture, "and when I tried to ask them about it they acted really strange, the strangest I've ever seen."

"Knowing your dad, he can be pretty strange," said Harper. "This must be a big deal."

"Let me take a look at the picture," said Mason. Harper got up and walked over so she could see it also. Alex handed him the picture. Mason studied it for a few moments, then frowned. "This sort of looks like you," he said. "So it must be you." Harper nodded in agreement.

Alex sighed, wishing it was that simple. "Turn it over," she ordered. Mason turned over the picture and looked at the date. His eyes widened. "Well, that doesn't make sense," Mason said. "According to this date this child would be about 12 years old."

"Wait," Harper said, wrinkling her forehead and standing up. "If it isn't you, and you're the only girl of your siblings, then... who is it?"

"My question exactly," Alex grumbled. "Why would they have a baby picture of someone who isn't their child?"

"Hold on!" Mason exclaimed. "Look at this! I think there is something else written on here!"

Harper rushed over and craned her neck to see. "Where?!" Alex exclaimed at the same time.

"Right here. Its very small and incredibly faint, as if someone tried to rub it off or erase it... but because I have such good eyesight I can see it."

Alex smiled and squeezed Mason tight. This was one of the perks of having a werewolf boyfriend- all of his senses were heightened, including sight.

"Well?" Harper questioned. "What does it say?"

"I think..." he said. "Umm... I think it says wwww. ... creaturegalore... .wiz," He said as he squinted and read off the web address slowly. It was obviously hard to read.

Alex's dark eyes lit up. The four w's and the '.wiz' could only mean one thing. She looked at Harper. "It's a wizard net address!" She sprinted over to the wiz computer. She opened up the giant, heavy top. "Man, this thing is old," she muttered as Mason and Harper gathered around her. "I've been wanting a wiz laptop for, like, ever!"

She quickly exited out of her shopping tab and opened a new one. With speedy fingers, she typed in the address and dramatically hit enter. The spinning rainbow ball came up, indicating that the page was loading.

Alex groaned. "No! Not the spinny wheel of death!"

"Be patient, Alex," said Mason.

Finally, the page slowly started to appear. A colorful banner at the top of the page read 'WELCOME TO CREATURE GALORE!' Cartoon dragons, baby vampires, very young wizards, and other baby creatures were around the bright words. A description below read, "Have you ever wanted a magical being or animal as your own? Well now you can have one! We even have rare, exotic creatures, varying from rare forms of ogres to even dragons that look like beagles! Choose your category and adopt now!"

"It's an adoption center..." Harper said in wonder. "But why would that be on the back of that picture?"

"Maybe dad and mom were thinking about adopting her a long time ago and that's why they have the picture!" exclaimed Alex, her hope rising even more.

"Then she's probably some sort of creature," said Mason. "We can probably find her on this website!"

Alex scrolled down to see three options to choose from: 'human-like', 'animal', or 'other creatures.' Alex forcefully clicked on the human option. When the page loaded, it came up with many more creatures to choose from. Alex clicked 'see all human-like creatures' and hoped for the best. To her disappointment, there were so many different creatures that there were 1,000 pages of them.

Alex was just about ready to give up, as she always tends to do once something gets hard. But Harper could see her slowly surrendering, and she didn't want to see Alex give up once again.

"Please don't give up!" Harper said, rubbing Alex's back in support.

"Hold on!" said Mason enthusiastically. "Click on the button that says 'Log In' at the top!"

Alex moved the cursor over to the top right corner and clicked. It had 2 boxes, one labeled 'Wiz Net Email' and one labeled 'Password.'

"Do you know what your dad's email is?" Harper asked.

Alex nodded. She furiously typed in his email.

"What about his password? Does he have a password that he always uses for everything?"

Alex thought for a moment. "It's either going to be SubStation14 or Italianbuckaroo6."

Everyone snickered. Alex found it hilarious that her dad wanted to be a professional bull rider as his Plan B if he didn't make it as the family wizard. She still made fun of him for that every once in awhile.

After trying both passwords (Italianbuckaroo6 was the one that turned out to be correct) it came up with a little pop-up window that said 'Welcome, Jerry Russo.' Alex smiled. They were in!

Alex exited out of the window, then spotted a little tab that said 'Recent Places.' "Maybe we'll find something here," she said, not expecting much. She clicked on the tab.

Everyone gasped.

Right there, on the first thing that came up, was the exact baby picture that Alex had found in the photo book of the mysterious girl they had been trying to find this whole time. Her big, green eyes stared right back at the three of them, and even though she was adorable the mysterious quality of this baby overruled her cuteness. Even the toothless grin didn't prevent Alex from getting the shivers. Next to the picture was a link, which read 'NO LONGER FOR ADOPTION' in bright red letters. Alex clicked on the link, but it redirected her to a page that apparently no longer existed.

"Does it have any description about what creature she is? Or anything at all about her?" asked Mason.

"No..." said Alex, disappointed. An idea suddenly popped into her head. "Guys," Alex said, suddenly standing up, "We've got to go to this adoption center. Like now."

"Alex, not now," Harper said. "It's already ten o'clock! How about tomorrow?"

At first, Alex didn't believe that it was already ten. But when she looked at the time on the wizard computer, she realized time had flown by so much quicker than she thought. "Okay, then we can go first thing tomorrow."

Harper gave her a disbelieving glance. "Honey, do you really think you will even be up before 11am tomorrow?"

Harper was right again- Alex did love sleeping the day away. "Ugh, why do I have to be so lazy?" she moaned. She turned towards Harper and started to instruct her. "Harper; if I'm not awake by 9:30 tomorrow, wake me up. Mason, come over around then and we can all go to the adoption center. Okay?" Alex was so glad that Harper was living with them. She didn't know what she'd do without her.

Harper smiled. "Alex, I love how productive you're being! You really want to find this girl, don't you? Because I have never seen you this determined before."

Alex glared. "Don't get used to it."

Mason had a sad look on his face. "Actually, Alex, I'm fairly busy tomorrow. I don't think I will be able to make it. Tomorrow is when my cousins come over, and I have to help my mom prepare the meat." Mason shook his head. "Man, my cousins can put away ten pigs alone!"

"Mason! You can't bail on us!" said Alex while rubbing his shoulders.

"I'm sorry! I really wish I could skip, love. But my mom would kill me; and that isn't sarcastic."

Alex sighed. "It's okay." She brought him in for a hug, then softly kissed him. They continued to hug. Harper awkwardly shuffled to the exit, then yelled, "SEE YOU IN P.E.!" with wide eyes.

Alex and Mason laughed, and Mason brushed a piece of hair out of her face. "You're acting like this is the last time we're ever going to see each other."

"Of course we're going to see each other! It's just... I'm going to miss you."

Mason gave her a funny look. "How long are you planning on staying at that adoption center?"

Alex looked down. "I just don't know how long it's going to take us, or what we're going to find here. I don't know why, but I feel like this girl is a big part of my life..."

Mason hugger her once more. "I think its for the best that I don't come. This seems to be a mission you and Harper should take together."

Alex didn't want to admit it, but he was right. She would still miss him not being there, though.

The two walked out of the lair and into the sandwich kitchen. They walked into the restaurant, hugged once again, and she watched Mason walk out the substation door. Alex yelled goodnight to Harper down the basement stairs, then slowly made her way up the spiral stairs into the Russo family residence, making her way to her bed. She was exhausted, and by the time she got to her room, put on her pajamas and got in bed, she was almost already asleep.

"Alex!" Max yelled, walking into the lair. "Have you seen my giant fork I got a few years ago? I need it because dad left a bunch of spaghetti leftovers from last night!"

Max looked in the lair and realized no one was there. "Weird," he said. "I thought she was in here." He spotted the open computer, and his curious senses took over. He walked over to the computer and sat down in front of it.

"Creature galore," he read out loud slowly. "Looks cool."

He then spotted a giant button in the left-hand button that read, "Dragons on sale for 20% off!"

"Woah! Dragons? Sick!" he said, clicking on it. Pictures of many different kinds of dragons popped up. He clicked on the first one. "This dragon is so cool!"

Not knowing what he was doing, he stupidly clicked on the 'Adopt Now' button. He filled out his name and information slowly (Max is not the fastest typer) and clicked 'Adopt.'

A glowing hologram of a sign flew out of the screen and in front of Max. It read two words that flashed and shined.

'NO REFUNDS.'

Alex slowly woke up. At first, everything was blurry and she couldn't hear anything. But as her eyes and ears gradually adjusted she realized she was in fact not in her room. She was in a never-ending dark space, full of mist and mystery. She immediately realized she was dreaming.

To her right, out in front of her, she heard faint giggling of a young girl. She stood up and ran towards the sound. Even though she was running fast, she could not hear her footsteps. As she got closer to the giggling, she saw a shadow. It was the outline of a girl, who looked around 11, maybe 12 years old. She couldn't see anymore characteristics about this girl, and when she tried to get closer, the girl got farther away. She tried to yell out, but her voice didn't make any sound. All she could hear was the sound of the girl giggling.

Suddenly, the surroundings around her began to spin and change. She soon found herself at her house, in the kitchen, sitting on the bright orange couch. But something felt different... As she looked down, and realized she was only about 6 years old.

This is definitely one of the weirdest and most realistic dreams I've ever had, thought Alex. Even when she was thinking, her voice sounded like a 6-year-old version of her, and she truly felt like she was tiny and in her kitchen at that moment. She jumped down from the kitchen, and everything looked 3x as big as it usually did. Alex, suddenly realizing she had no control over her tiny body, walked upstairs where the bedrooms were and passed by her parents bedroom. She stopped when she thought she heard something strange. She turned towards the door, which was just a crack open.

Why can't I control my body? Alex thought. And why am I 6? I am so confused! But when she thought about it, everything that was happening to her at this moment was sort of... familiar. She realized, as her body was moving towards her parents door, that this was no ordinary dream. She was re-living a forgotten memory.

She put her eye up against the crack and looked into her parents room. Their room was quite large, and Jerry and Theresa were far away in the corner, mumbling softly. Alex couldn't make out what they were saying.

Suddenly, an eye appeared right where her eye was. The eye was so close to hers, that was now all she could see. This startled Alex, and she jumped back with freight, deep brown eyes wide. She quickly ran away, trying not to scream. As she was running towards her room, thoughts were racing through her head.

There was no one else in there besides mom and dad! How is it possible that someone else's eye came in front of me?

Then Alex started remember details about the eye, as her 6-year-self, who was controlling the body, quickly hid under her covers. If she was in control of her body, she would have gasped loudly.

The eye was green. Bright green.

Just like the baby in the picture.