"You... What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing. You're not supposed to be here either, are you?"

"I-"

"You and I both know how this is going to end. Why don't you make this a little bit easier on us both and just cut out the struggle?"

"If you think I'm going to just bow down to you-"

"What about now?"

"..."

"That's what I thought. Now... Let's finally bring this game to an end, shall we? I've seen enough."

July 7

Morix Law Offices

1:40 PM

Yuri Rinko

I bounced my foot gently as I stared up at the ceiling of the agency's common room, a frown on my face. About a month had passed since the case that took us to Ashbrook, and nothing of interest had happened since. I had no idea if that was meant to be a good thing or not, but it was certainly... Something.

It was good in the way that the Emsthorpe assassins hadn't done anything either. We had all been scrambling to learn more about them, but we had ultimately come up short in the worst way possible. Nothing was happening for us to even look into, and that meant we were failing to find the truth that we were looking for. As long as they remained at large, things were only going to remain difficult, and nobody had any idea what to do about it.

Nothing had even happened with Oracle. Mr. Morix had meant it when he said that he wanted to put all operations with the project on halt as soon as possible, and so, nobody was able to do anything to hold back the natural corruption that came with the legal system. Chrysalis hated it, but she knew that he had a point in not wanting her to do anything. We wanted to stay safe, and that was the best way we were going to be able to maintain any sense of security.

The only even vaguely interesting fact about the last month was that Felicity was growing more agitated than before. This was something that had been happening ever since the Emsthorpe family first entered our lives again after all this time, but it still bothered everyone who noticed it. She had been so much quieter than she had any right to be, staring vacantly at the ground most of the time when she wasn't putting on the appearance of jubilant conversation despite not wanting to meet that expectation. Not even Sky seemed to know what to do, or if he did, he was choosing to hide it. He shifted uncomfortably with the information of Felicity's backsliding emotions, but he did his best to hide it. Unfortunately for him, nobody bought it in the slightest.

A knock came at the door, and I perked up before looking at the group. I didn't know who would have wanted to come by at this time of day, but we certainly hadn't been expecting any guests. I looked over to Felicity and Sky just to make sure that they didn't know what was going on, but Felicity was too spaced out to notice and Sky just eyed me quizzically. I couldn't tell if it was a good thing that all of us were confused with the sudden new arrival, but I shrugged it off and started toward the door to see who it was.

My eyes went wide as soon as I realized who our guest truly was. "James?" I questioned. "What are you doing here?"

James Devine stood in the doorway, his expression solemn but also edging on paranoid in a way I hadn't expected to see from him. He was a famous actor known for his ability to keep his cool under pressure, but he didn't seem to be able to keep himself calm right now. It was, in a word, jarring, though I could think of a myriad of other terms for it. Concerning was the first, and I prayed with everything I had that he hadn't been dragged into yet another disastrous case. Being arrested for murder was already more than enough excitement for most people to last a lifetime.

"I'm so happy to see all of you," James said as he looked around the room, relief flooding his eyes even though he clearly didn't feel all that calm. "I have an investigation for you to take on, and I really need your help."

A cure for my boredom? Of course I was going to take that! "What sort of investigation did you have in mind?" I asked, trying to at least maintain the facade of being calm. In all honesty, his paranoia and anxiety was starting to freak me out, but I didn't want to make him feel any worse than I had to as long as he was already under so much stress.

"There was an attack recently, and... I know the victim," James explained. By this point, both Felicity and Sky had perked up and started listening in on the conversation. "It was in an old law office, and... I just need your help to figure out who did it."

"Is the victim still alive?" Sky questioned in anticipation. "You make it sound like they survived the assault."

"He did live through it, but... He's still asleep. He had to go through intense surgery last night, and he still hasn't moved an inch since he was first taken into the hospital," James told us. The terrifying anxiety was starting to get worse, and my stomach did flips from the worry. This somehow felt a lot deeper than he was saying at first. "I need you to help me find out who did it."

"Of course we can do that," Sky assured him with a nod. "Would you be willing to take us to the scene of the crime? We would love to do what we can to assist you."

"Is there going to be a trial for it?" Felicity asked, speaking up for the first time all day. My eyes went wide at the fact that she was talking at all, but I did my best to keep my shock under wraps.

"I have no idea," James confessed with a shake of his head. "I wish I could tell you, but I really don't know what the plan is for any of this. There's no suspect arrested at the moment though. I think you might know the person who they're considering arresting though. He was the one who told me what your address was so that I would be able to come and find you again. I was a bit frazzled and didn't know what to think when it all first happened, so..."

"Lead the way then," I told him. I could already tell that we were probably going to get a little bit more out of the investigation for the truth than we were from James himself, though I had to admit that it felt odd that we were being given the chance to go to check out the scene of the crime before an arrest was made. It usually felt like we were just a little bit too late to take care of something like that, but I wasn't objecting in the slightest. It never hurt to break up the routine a little bit.

James darted out of the room at my words, and I looked over to Felicity and Sky. "What do you think all of this is about?" Felicity asked with a frown. "I always thought he was so much brighter than this. He was more cheerful when he was locked up in the detention center last year."

"I don't know what could have started this, but we're going to figure it out soon enough, I'm sure," Sky said as he shook his head and followed after James. "I can only hope it doesn't take us too far down the path of disaster. Something tells me there's a lot more to this case than we could have ever expected."

July 7

Blocker Law

2:00 PM

Yuri Rinko

When I realized where we were, my jaw just about dropped through the ground.

Of all the places for a case to end up, Blocker Law felt like one of the last. Well, it wasn't specifically Blocker Law anymore. The building had since been abandoned, and I could tell that nobody had been inside in a long time. The agency had closed its doors soon after its owner had passed away since nobody could keep the firm up and running anymore, and nobody had taken up the space it once inhabited in the time since then. In other words, the building was still eerily full of the signs of an old law office, and I could see it everywhere.

Police tape lined the outside of the building, and I watched the officers that shuffled through the area with curiosity in my eyes. There had to be someone around here that we would recognize, right? All we would have to do is talk to them to get the inside details about the crime scene, and that was exactly what we needed at the moment.

Instead of finding a detective though, I was met with a trio of faces from the Prosecutor's Office. Prosecutor Burke stood with Anton and Chief Prosecutor Bespoke inside the building, all of them talking intensely about something that I could only assume was beyond serious. Perhaps they were the reason the arrest hadn't taken place quite yet. I couldn't say for sure, but we might as well ask them about it.

After we explained who we were to the officers out front, Felicity, Sky, and I were able to slip through and enter the building without many problems. The front desk still stood tall and proud even after all this time, and I resisted the urge to think about everything that had happened involving this agency over the course of the last few years. Jackson Blocker's death had really caused everything to fall apart even if nobody wanted to be the one to admit it.

"Finally," Prosecutor Burke muttered. She started off in our direction as soon as she realized we were there, not even bothering to give us the chance to look around first. "I was wondering when you were going to get here... Though it's a shame that Cotoli couldn't make it. What in the world was he doing?"

I considered it for a moment, though I had no idea. He was probably doing something to investigate the recent Emsthorpe cases. I could tell he was stressed about how little we had found after all this time, and he was desperate for us to figure out at least something about what we were meant to be searching for. "I'm not sure," I admitted. "I bet he got wrapped up in some investigation or another and didn't realize he was supposed to be here."

Prosecutor Burke sighed as Chief Prosecutor Bespoke placed a hand on her shoulder to try and calm her down. "It's alright," he murmured to her. "Everything is going to be fine. We're here, and that means we can do something to fix this before it can go out of our control. All you need to do is breathe, and we'll find a way to push through this."

"Would you mind explaining to us what exactly is going on?" Sky questioned anxiously. "We were told to come here by James, but we have no idea what actually happened for all of this to start."

Prosecutor Burke and Chief Prosecutor Bespoke shared a look at that, and James, who had previously been silent, swallowed dryly before forcing himself to speak. "Someone was shot here last night," he finally said in return.

My eyes went wide, but he was quick to keep talking before I could express my concern. "It wasn't fatal as I said before. The victim is in the hospital, and he's being treated for his wounds right now. The doctors say that he'll probably be alright with a bit of recovery time, but it's still... It's really bad. He was shot in the shoulder and lost a lot of blood, and he's absolutely exhausted. We have no idea what to do," James went on. He rubbed at his eyes at that, and I realized belatedly that he was crying. Just what could have happened here last night to evoke such a strong reaction?

"Let me take this from the beginning," Prosecutor Burke interjected, and rage started to play at the edges of her voice. I had no idea what had happened specifically, but I knew that she was beyond furious about it. "Last night, there was an incident here. Someone arrived here in the old building of Blocker Law seemingly with the purposes of looking around for something. Soon afterward, a gunshot rang out, and the man who broke in collapsed. The gunshot going off earned the attention of someone out on the street, and that... That was Elec."

"I was in the area too for other reasons, and when I heard the gunshot, I started to run in here too," James explained, his words getting steadily faster under the weight of his anxiety. "I ran into Prosecutor Daegana on the way inside, and we tried to find out what had happened together. That was when we saw..."

"The victim had been shot in the shoulder and was left in a pool of his own blood. The shooting took place on the second floor of the building, close enough to the ground for people outside to hear but far enough away that they weren't able to do anything about it immediately," Prosecutor Burke went on, her features set firmly in a frown. "As for the man who was attacked..."

"It was my brother," James forced himself to say. "Albert Devine."

I stared at him for a long moment, and Sky's voice caught on itself before he went on. "I... I didn't realize you had a brother," he admitted softly. "I suppose it's just never come up before now, but..."

"It's a complicated story," James confessed. "He went missing a long time ago after our father vanished. He said that he wanted to learn the reason that our father had disappeared, and he never came back. I had no idea what could have happened to him after that, but I didn't see him again until last night... When he was on the ground bleeding out from the bullet wound."

"That's why you were so nervous when you came to find us then," I murmured, though my surprise was still plain as could be. Of all the ways for a truth like this to come out, I never would have thought an assault in an abandoned law office would be the way to go about it.

"And we still don't know who did it," Prosecutor Burke sighed in frustration. "There are a few officers here who think that Elec was probably responsible since he was here at the scene of the crime so soon after it happened and that he was trying to establish an alibi, but I know that's nowhere near the truth. Elec wouldn't do something like this. Anyone with a brain should be able to figure that out."

"The short version of it all is that Albert Devine entered this building at some point late last night. Somebody else followed him inside and attacked him before making their escape, seemingly sure that the job had been fatal despite that being far from the truth. The gunshot was enough to attract Elec's attention, and James followed him up here to investigate. That was when they found the victim, and they called for help afterward," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke told us.

"Do we have any idea who could have done it aside from the police's suspicions about Elec?" I questioned, unable to hold back my frown. "I know he wouldn't have done this. I mean, he probably would have dislocated his shoulder if he even thought about firing a gun because of how small he is. How could he have put somebody in a coma if he could barely fire the gun?"

"One officer suggested that this is the reason that the victim survived... That Elec had poor aim because of his small stature and that the recoil from the gun caused him to miss the victim's heart," Prosecutor Burke said. She sighed and shook her head. "I feel like we all know better than that though."

"We should go and talk to Prosecutor Daegana about all of this as soon as possible," Sky suggested. "He has to be able to tell us something, and we need to hear what he knows as soon as possible. If we're lucky, we might be able to prove his innocence without the need for a trial at all."

"I'm just glad we got here when we did," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke admitted. "If the three of us hadn't arrived right when we did, I bet Elec would already be in the detention center waiting for a trial. We decided to stand our ground and that it didn't make much sense, but the police in the area are insistent on him being involved with this."

"They're latching onto the first thing they think of as suspicious," James cut in. "But we all know it's not that simple. All we have to do is prove it. I know for a fact that somebody else must have done it." He hesitated for a moment before sighing, looking off into the distance somberly. "I looked into his eyes soon after we found my brother... Prosecutor Daegana's eyes, that is. He wouldn't have done this. I could tell by the look on his face. I don't know who did attack my brother, but I know they have to still be out there somewhere."

"Then we'll find out who was responsible for it as soon as possible," I assured him. "For now, we should find our defendant and see what he's willing to tell us about all of this... But first, I want to know what you can tell us about your older brother, James. Is that okay?"

James' eyes went wide, and everything about him seemed to shift to the nervous. "I... Well... My brother is..." he began, fumbling desperately for the words even though he already seemed to know he wasn't going to find them. "He went missing after our father vanished. I never knew what happened to our father, but Albert was determined to find the truth. Ever since then, it's only been me and our mother. I suspect that our father has been dead for a long time, and I suspected the same was true for Albert. I'm as shocked as the rest of you that he returned to everyone in a case like this... I'm shocked this was how he was dragged back to us."

Something about his voice faltered, and Felicity narrowed her eyes in his direction. "You're not telling us everything," she concluded. My eyes went wide, and I swiveled to look at her. Felicity being blunt simply wasn't in character for her, but she hadn't even tried to add her regular Felicity charm to saying that she thought James had something else to say. Sky seemed concerned as well, but he said nothing, instead just biting down on his lip and looking off to the side with what appeared to be guilt written all over his face.

James paused for a long moment before sighing. "You're right," he admitted softly. "I... I was in the area because I was searching for him. It had been years since Albert was last home, and at this point... Both my mother and I were missing him. We were desperate for him to come back to us. I was doing my own investigation of sorts to find him, and I was sure that he was going to be here tonight. I arrived just after he had been shot, and... That was the first time I had seen him in over five years."

Everyone went silent at that, glancing amongst one another to try and find an answer as to who in the world would want to attack James' older brother. I didn't know much about Albert, and it didn't seem like James knew much about him either, but I was struggling to figure out what reasoning anybody could have had to turn to violence against him so quickly. It must have been something important to the killer, but I didn't think I wanted to ask any questions without evidence since it had ended with someone in comatose in the hospital.

James looked off to the side again, refusing to meet anybody's gaze fully. "This morning, Prosecutor Daegana gave me the address for your agency. I haven't been able to stop by and say hello since I was arrested for murder, but as long as I had the address, I could do what I had to and ask for help," he went on as he gestured to Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, Prosecutor Burke, and Anton. "At the time, those three hadn't yet arrived, and I was convinced that this was going to have to be a battle I fought alone. I'm just glad that wound up not being the case."

"We're happy to help you out too," Sky assured him as he placed a comforting hand on James' shoulder. "We're going to do everything we can to find the truth about who attacked your brother and why they did it. I can promise you that much. For now, you should just try to not stress yourself out too much. You've been through a lot over the course of the last day because of all this too."

"And you look like you've barely slept," I chimed in with a frown. Dark circles were tearing apart the skin just beneath James eyes, though he was doing his best to hide it behind a smile that would never quite be able to fully mask that bone-deep exhaustion. "You can leave all of this to us. We'll probably come back to hear from you later about what you saw, but for the time being, we're going to head off and see what we can learn from Prosecutor Daegana and the other investigators on this case."

"I-I... I want to talk t-to Elec first," Anton said firmly. His voice was still shaking ever so slightly from fear, but he seemed more sure of himself than he usually did. "I need to k-know what happened here l-last night."

"Then we can go and talk to him now," Prosecutor Burke told him kindly. She glanced back over to me, Sky, and Felicity a moment later with a small frown. "You should go and talk to the detectives while we take care of gathering Elec's testimony. We can swap in a little while."

"We can go and check out the crime scene now to see what we can find," Sky suggested. "Afterward, we can head back and speak with Prosecutor Daegana once we've gotten a few more details about what exactly happened here last night."

"Thank you for doing so much to help me, everyone," James smiled wearily. "I truly do appreciate it."

"We're happy to help," I reminded him before making a gesture to shoo him away. "Now, go find a place to get a little bit of rest. I somehow doubt you're going to be able to stay awake for long once you sit down somewhere comfortable enough."

James let out a dark laugh at that, everything about it stilted and broken at the edges. "I suppose you're probably right. I'll speak with you again later," he declared, offering us a wave before he walked away.

"Let's go see Elec," Prosecutor Burke told the other two members of her team. Anton nodded and eagerly started off in the direction of his twin. Chief Prosecutor Bespoke lingered at the back, and I could already tell that he had a lot more on his mind than met the eye. He was worried about at least a dozen different things related to this case; he just didn't want to have to admit it.

It wasn't until after the trio had left that I turned to Felicity and Sky, determination glimmering in my eyes. Felicity didn't seem to be focusing the way she should have even now, so I knew it was going to be up to me and Sky to pick up the slack. "Alright. There's bound to be at least somebody around here we know, right?" I said, though it was more of a plea than anything else. I was hoping with everything I had that at least one of our detective friends was around here, though we wouldn't know until we started to search.

"I bet you're right," Sky agreed with a nod. "All we have to do is figure out where they are..." He pushed himself onto his toes as he glanced at the nearby crowd of officers discussing the crime scene. "It's no good. I can't see anything from here because of how many officers there are. We're just going to have to jump into the crowd and see who we can find along the way."

I nodded and started off toward the crowd, but I stopped when I realized Felicity wasn't moving. She was simply glancing around the area, a bitter sort of nostalgia in her eyes. "It's so odd being back here," she admitted. "Especially since we know there was an attempted murder here last night. I would have thought we were done affiliating with Blocker Law, but... We're back."

"It's been a long time, hasn't it?" Sky murmured in return. I winced inwardly when I realized just how extensive the twins' history was with this building. This was where they had both initially applied for positions as lawyers. After Felicity was rejected, she was accused of murdering the head of the agency even though a member of Occisor was using her as a scapegoat. After the death of the agency's owner, she and Sky had both been hired in full, but everything fell apart following Jackson Blocker's death. When the law offices fell in reputation and lost their initial sway, the agency was eventually disbanded, and that was how Felicity and Sky wound up as part of Morix Law Offices. No wonder they had some dark memories of the place. This was where Felicity had been when she was accused of killing someone, and after the fact, everything about the agency had started to fall apart because of that very case.

"Yeah," was all Felicity could bring herself to say in response to her twin. "I never would have thought something like this would be what brought us back here, but I guess I didn't think we would be back here at all after everything that happened."

"I can't help but wonder what James' older brother could have wanted with a place like this," Sky mused aloud. "I mean, nobody's worked here in over a year. It's not like there would have been much of anything of note... I'm honestly shocked nobody else has bought the building and decided to repurpose it. This is a nice space."

"I feel like a murder taking place here is a strong enough reason for people to want to stay away," I pointed out. "That's probably why nobody wanted anything to do with this place, at least as far as I'm concerned. It doesn't matter now though. The fact that other people didn't buy up the building is what brought us here, and we need to do everything we can to figure out just what happened here last night and why James' brother was here at all. He can't tell us himself yet, so we'll have to puzzle through it ourselves."

"I hope he wakes up soon," Felicity remarked. "I'm sure he'll be able to put everything into focus when he does come to again... I don't understand why the investigation is already going ahead even though he's probably going to wake up. Why not just wait until after he's up and about so that he can tell us what happened? I bet he knows exactly who attacked him, so why bother with this little song and dance when he'll be able to answer all our questions if we just give it a bit of time?"

"They're trying to prepare for the worst case scenario... If he doesn't wake up," Sky frowned. "We have no way of saying for sure how things are going to end right now. The chance is always there that he's not going to come to again, and we need to find the truth as soon as possible even though he might be able to talk to us if he does come back from the surgery intact."

"I feel awful for James," I admitted. "Nobody should have to go through something like this. It's the first time he's seen his brother in more than half a decade, and he had to see him bleeding out on the ground from a gunshot wound."

"We're going to make sure everything is fine though... We have to," Felicity told me, though I could still tell her heart wasn't entirely in it. "We know what we're doing here... Or so I'm hoping."

"We're going to be fine," Sky said quickly, though I could tell he was trying to cheer himself up just as much as he was hoping to cover for Felicity's lack of enthusiasm. Her concerning behavior only seemed to be getting worse as the minutes passed by, but I chose to not let it show, at least not yet. This was something for us to tackle after the case had ended.

"Let's start looking around for the detectives then," I declared, slamming a fist into my other hand where it waited as an open palm. "The sooner we can hear from the detectives about the case, the sooner we'll be able to see the crime scene, and that should help everything to come together."

The other two nodded, and we started off toward the nearby crowd. I did my best to not frown too openly as we wove through the cluster of officers, knowing it would only attract their attention. Everything about this case was bothering me already, and we had only just barely started looking around for information.

I was hoping we found the truth just as much as I was hoping that Felicity turned out to be alright, but I did my best to not mention either one, at least not yet. The time would come, I was sure.

what if i slept what then

-Digital