Discovering the Missing Campus Athletes

Discovering the Missing Campus Athletes turns an ordinary campus bulletin board into evidence of a new phase in Brody’s campaign. When Romy, Talia, and Anna find flyers for two missing athletes, the disappearances that had centered on women appear to be widening into a strategy for building an army. The discovery shifts their attention from the missing girls Brody had targeted to the strength and numbers he may now be gathering among the men of the University campus.

The Flyers and the First Warning

The moment begins just outside a campus building, where Talia urges the group to hurry and find seats together. Romy pauses at a bulletin board, and the three women read a missing-person flyer stapled there. Talia recognizes Brent Kenner. Anna recalls hearing that he was a likely choice for a place on the U.S. Olympic track team; she had catered the party his fraternity held for him. Justice, following the exchange through their linked call, adds that Kenner is attractive. His celebrity and promise as an athlete make the flyer more than a private loss: someone conspicuous, surrounded by people likely to notice his absence, has vanished.

Romy reads that Kenner has been missing for a week. Talia then pulls away a second flyer, revealing another photograph and headline of the same kind. Two athletes at the height of their careers have disappeared from campus in that single week. The sequence changes the meaning of the first notice: it is not an isolated case, but part of a pattern. Romy feels a foreboding, while Kash, listening in her ear, asks what is wrong. Talia reads the information aloud, allowing the group to consider the evidence together rather than treating each flyer as a separate concern.

From the Missing Girls to a New Target

Anna immediately compares the athletes’ disappearances with the earlier crisis involving missing girls. The comparison is unsettling precisely because it also seems to break the known pattern: Brody had been pursuing women for his plan to produce werewolf children, so Anna cannot see why he would abduct men. Her confusion gives way to Romy and Talia’s shared inference. They have recently cost Brody nearly twenty members, with more losses possible among the babies soon to be born. If he needs to replace those numbers, turning the strongest men on campus could serve that purpose.

This remains a deduction, not a witnessed account of what happened to the athletes. Romy frames it as the next logical move for an enemy who has already demonstrated the capacity to abduct and turn people. She also connects the suspected recruitment to the conflict over pack strength. Under the Old Law, territory belongs to the largest recognized true pack in an area, and another pack can challenge the ruling group if it has sufficient numbers. The law makes the missing athletes’ physical ability and possible conversion strategically significant: the disappearances could strengthen Brody’s forces as well as replenish the membership he has lost.

Justice’s response makes the danger personal. He says he feels sick, thinking of Brody forcing an alpha mark on him when he first changed. That memory links the group’s theory to an established method of coercion and gives Romy’s suspicion a human consequence beyond arithmetic. Romy also questions why Brody would risk abducting prominent athletes with friends, families, and recognizable routines. Their visibility ought to make them difficult targets to take unnoticed; instead, the flyers suggest that Brody is acting brazenly despite the attention their absence may draw.

Brody’s Taunt and the Growing Pattern

The group soon receives a further clue through Romy’s online exchanges with the account bdog69x. In a reply directed at her, the account refers to her interest in an athletic team captain and points to a larger group of men from which she might choose. Romy recognizes the threat behind the taunt: Brody is referring to his werebros. She concludes that he is responsible for the athletes’ disappearances and suspects that the young men have already become members of his pack. The reply does not prove the fate of any individual athlete, but it sharpens the connection between Brody, his growing force, and the missing men.

Romy’s suspicion is reinforced by the sequence that follows. For three days, she and the others escort Anna between classes and meet Justice for lunch in the campus café. Talia occupies herself with Mafia Wars, while Romy tries to read, but the war keeps intruding on her attention. Brody and his werebros remain unseen; the group detects no scent of them. Their absence offers no reassurance, because the operation appears to continue without visible activity on campus. By Friday, two junior-varsity soccer players have also vanished without a trace. Romy is frustrated that Brody can keep advancing his plans while staying out of sight.

Credibility, Mobilization, and Significance

The flyers land against a history in which Romy’s public claims have been easy to dismiss. She has used her Romy Reads Romance account to announce that Werewolves exist and to pursue proof for her followers, but her earlier attempts have faltered. The Girl Who Cried Werewolf hashtag has been spoofed on Instagram and Twitter, accompanied by memes, while Romy’s follower count has fallen. She has also privately recorded what she knows about the missing girls and Brody’s breeding plan, anticipating that others may only believe her later. In captivity, she is told that because she has disappeared before, the public will dismiss a second disappearance as another instance of the girl who cried captive; she also knows that the police turned Talia away when she tried to report her missing. The athlete flyers provide visible evidence of a continuing crisis, but they do not automatically overcome the credibility problem surrounding Romy’s testimony.

The discovery therefore works on two levels. For the group, it is a warning that Brody may be replacing lost pack members with athletic men capable of strengthening his forces. For Romy, it is a fresh piece of evidence in a struggle over who gets believed and whether a pattern will be recognized before more people vanish. Later, when the pack debates the coming fight, she accuses the council of hoping the crisis will resolve itself without their involvement and declares that the defense is theirs to undertake. The pack cheers, and Doyle calls her boss lady. The missing-athlete discovery does not settle what Brody has done, but it helps turn suspicion into shared readiness for the war ahead.