September 14

Blackgate High School

2:00 AM

Sky Amaya

I was the last out of us to arrive back at the high school after we left the courthouse behind. Since I parked the farthest from the entrance, I had the longest walk out to the car. My long walk to the car turned into traffic problems that took me a while to overcome. Lily and Victoria were leaned up against the wall just outside the building, and I saw them lingering in the shadows beside the entrance. At first, neither one of them noticed me, so I dashed up to them while breathing heavily. "Sorry I'm late!" I cried out.

"Don't worry about it," Victoria assured me with a shake of her head and a gentle smile. "It's fine. We already sent James ahead so that he could talk to Prosecutor Wood and Chrysalis for a little bit. We could tell that he was anxious, so we figured that we could at least give him the chance to see what they've been up to in the past few days."

"But now that you're here, we can go and check on them all," Lily told me. She took my hand in her own and began to drag me along behind her, though she was careful to not hurt me in the process. She immediately struck me as being more careful about those things than Felicity, and I don't think I could ever say how thankful I was that she wasn't as eager or excitable as my sister could be.

Victoria followed us as a small giggle left her lips. Lily took us into the gymnasium area that we had found Yuri, James, and Anton in the day before, and I glanced across the room as I saw the trio of the day sitting together. Prosecutor Wood was in the middle, and she was talking with James. She seemed oddly anxious, and James had an expression of worry plastered on his face. Chrysalis was leaned against Prosecutor Wood's shoulder, and she looked as if she was on the verge of falling asleep.

Ironically though, Chrysalis was the first one to notice us, and she perked up as soon as she saw that we had entered the room. She poked at Prosecutor Wood to get the other girl's attention, and both Prosecutor Wood and James turned to face us as soon as they realized what had gotten Chrysalis so distracted.

"It's nice to see you three are finally here," Chrysalis remarked. I could see that her eyes were somewhat droopy, but she still did her best to seem as if she was awake enough to continue talking to us. "We heard that you'd be coming, but we weren't sure of how long it would be until after you were finished with the trial. It wasn't as if we had much of a way of checking how much progress you had made, but... It's fine. Whatever. Why don't you just go on and ask us whatever you had on your minds?"

"We were just wondering what happened with you to make you leave the scene of the crime after the murder took place," I said at first before pausing. "Well, maybe you left beforehand... I don't know. The point is that you were planning on hanging out here to meet with a small group of others, but you never wound up doing that because you left the school early. Could you tell us about why?"

Chrysalis looked over at Prosecutor Wood, and the two both looked concerned for a moment. Chrysalis shook her head before dropping her gaze to her lap. "I don't know what happened, to be honest," she confessed. "I came to pick up Yuri, but she wound up taking a while. I didn't know that she was supposed to be staying after classes for longer than expected, so I decided to come and see what was going on with her here."

"I don't know what happened either," Prosecutor Wood commented with a shrug. Something about her seemed different than usual, but I couldn't quite put a finger on what it was. She seemed a bit more sure of herself. Perhaps it was because she wasn't involved with a trial. I had only ever seen her in the courtroom, so maybe she was different when stepping outside of the courthouse. There was less to be anxious about when she wasn't focused on a case, after all.

"So... Both of you went to the school but just lost all recollection of what happened?" Victoria questioned with wide eyes. "I don't like the sound of that... It's sounds to me like there's something going on here that made you forget about what happened at the time of the crime."

Chrysalis sighed with a heavy frown. "I wish I could tell you more than that, but I seriously don't have anything in mind," she confessed. "I was walking around the school after classes had ended, and everything just kind of goes fuzzy in my head. When I next came to, I was in Niamh's house, and I had apparently been sleeping for a while. I don't know why I was asleep in first place, but I don't think it particularly matters."

Prosecutor Wood shrugged her shoulders. "I don't know what to say about it all," she said next. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Lily was frowning to herself, but I didn't say anything about it. Instead, I remained silent as Prosecutor Wood continued to speak. "I know that the killer died, but I just left after classes were over... That's what I think happened, at the very least."

"But we were supposed to meet up and talk about classes here," James pointed out, and I could suddenly understand where his concern was coming from. If Prosecutor Wood had truly forgotten about all of this, then that was undoubtedly a source of worry and anxiety for him. He had spent so long wondering about what was happening with her, but the answer simply being based in forgetting could not have been easy for him to deal with.

"I forgot," Prosecutor Wood replied. "I don't know what else to tell you. I simply don't remember talking about it, but I guess that doesn't matter now. There's really nothing more to say about this case than we've already talked about."

Chrysalis nodded her agreement, and I saw that one of her hands was curled up by the side of her face. I could see that she was rubbing at something, and I waited for her fingers to pull away out of curiosity as to what could have attracted so much of her attention.

It was a small bandage. It only took up a small fraction of the space on her cheek and temple, but it was still large enough to be noticeable. I frowned upon seeing it, and my eyes narrowed. What had happened to her to give her that small cut? After all, she hadn't had such an injury when she was at work the day before.

Oh no.

"We should get back to looking around," I suddenly said. Lily and Victoria glanced over to me in shock out of the corner of my eye, but I ignored them and waved to Chrysalis, James, and Prosecutor Wood. "I guess that we'll see you later. If you happen to remember anything, please tell us about it as soon as you get the chance to. Thank you for speaking with us in the first place! See you around!"

I grabbed Lily's arm in one hand and Victoria's in the other as I charged towards the exit of the gymnasium. They stumbled after me, too confused to say much of anything on the matter until after we were back out in the hallway. I released them, and concern fogged my eyes over. "You're not going to believe what I saw on Chrysalis' cheek," I told them quickly.

"What is it?" Lily questioned, and her gaze, which was previously filled with concern, retreated into something almost fearful. My panic was already starting to rub off on her, and while I did feel bad about that, I didn't have time to fully apologize for it.

"I saw a bandage on her face," I replied. "You remember how there was a small amount of blood found at the scene of the crime from an unknown source? I'm starting to think that perhaps something happened to give her that injury. She definitely didn't have it a few days ago when we last saw her, and I'm sure that everyone at the agency would be more than able to back up such a story."

Victoria let out a gasp. "Now that you say it... I think that you're right. If Chrysalis had a cut on her cheek when she last came into work, we would have noticed it if she did. The only reason that she hasn't been at the agency since the crime is because she's been resting... I'm starting to think that her not working and that scratch on her cheek are connected," she agreed.

"It's something for us to think about throughout the rest of this case," Lily murmured. "But there's one other thing about that conversation that didn't sit well with me. I thought that Prosecutor Wood was acting weird, so I decided to try rubbing at my Magatama. It tells me when someone is lying, but I don't know the details beyond the fact that they're being dishonest. Psyche-Locks showed up when she said that she didn't remember what happened at the time of the crime, but that didn't apply to Chrysalis. Prosecutor Wood was lying when she said that she forgot about what happened when the murder took place, but Chrysalis really did forget."

"That's so strange..." I whispered. "Why would she want to lie when her friend's safety is on the line? Something is happening here, but I don't know what it could possibly be... There's got to be an explanation, but finding it isn't going to be as easy as we've been hoping for."

"We'll have to try and find out what she was lying about on our own terms if she isn't going to tell us up front," Victoria said confidently. "I'm still unsure as to what her motive for being untruthful could possibly be in the first place, but... We can't be caught up in that for too much longer. After all, this is our only lead. Chrysalis having a cut on her cheek is strange, and I'm willing to bet that Prosecutor Wood is the one who knows about why it's there."

"We should return to the scene of the crime and see if anything new has been uncovered there," I suggested. "If we get lucky, we'll be able to talk to Detective Hayes about what happened, and we can tell him that Chrysalis has a cut on her face."

Lily nodded her agreement, and she started to lead us away from the gymnasium. I gave a brief glance over my shoulder, and I wondered to myself why all of this was happening. What was the reason behind the sudden lying from Prosecutor Wood? Had she really been lying when she said that she forgot about the meeting planned with James?

I decided to vocalize my concerns while we were walking to the crime scene, and I turned my attention to Lily. "Hey, Lily... Question. Was Prosecutor Wood lying when she said that she forgot about the meeting with James?" I asked her.

Lily paused for a moment, clearly sifting through her memories to find a response. She shook her head after a moment of hesitation. "No... She wasn't lying about that. I find it weird that she would suddenly forget about something so important though. Then again, Chrysalis forgot about what she was doing at the school before she wound up back at Prosecutor Wood's house, so I guess that we really can't say that this is completely out of the realm of possibility. There are lots of memory issues taking place here," she answered.

"If you ask me, the way that she was talking made it sound like she didn't know in the first place," Victoria commented under her breath. "I know that it's a weird thing for me to say, but James seemed weirdly concerned around her... I think that he can tell something is off. Maybe she never heard about the meeting in the first place. She didn't elaborate on it much at all before forcing the conversation to move on. There's something strange going on regarding the planned meeting. That's my take on it, at the very least."

"Why would she never know about it in the first place?" I questioned with a heavy frown. "I just don't get it... You would expect her to keep something so important in mind, but... I suppose that just wasn't the case."

Lily and Victoria glanced over to each other, and I looked back and forth between them in confusion. I was positive that there was something I was missing out on here, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out what it was. Did they know a way for Prosecutor Wood to not be aware of the truth?

"What if it's Nevada?" Lily eventually inquired softly. She stopped walking and spoke as quietly as possible to keep from catching the attention of anyone else around us.

I tilted my head slightly to the side. "Who's Nevada?" I asked. Now I was sure that something else had happened that I wasn't aware of. Perhaps it had been before I joined the agency. After all, Nevada was far from being a familiar name to me, and it would have made the most sense if something happened with this strange character prior to my joining the agency.

"There was a case last year that showed us that Prosecutor Wood has dissociative identity disorder," Lily replied. "Nobody knew about her prior to the case, but... Nevada appeared in a moment of extreme danger. Prosecutor Wood has a severe fear of knives, and when she saw one, Nevada came into view for the first time. Someone was attempting to destroy the Prosecutor's Office with a bomb, but Nevada stopped them from committing the crime by lashing out. The case was ruled as justified self-defense because Nevada kept the victim from ending countless lives."

"As far as we're aware, Nevada hasn't shown an appearance in quite some time... In fact, she might have gone dormant in the time since the previous case," Victoria continued. "Her sudden shift in behavior and not knowing about what happened around the time of the murder... That could certainly point to Nevada being involved. The victim had a knife on his person when he was killed, and if Nevada saw that and went into fight or flight mode..."

"The one problem I can see with that is the size difference between them," Lily said. "Nevada is the same height as Prosecutor Wood, and they're not exactly the tallest people out there. It would have been hard for her to fight back against the killer given how small she is by comparison."

"Technically though, we aren't looking for someone who was able to hit the victim in the back of the head with the trophy," I pointed out. "All that we need is someone who was able to throw something heavy at the trophy case, causing it to break and then allowing the trophy to fall onto the victim's head. This case is all about cause and effect, and if our current understanding of the murder is correct, then it's possible that someone so much smaller than the victim could have committed the crime."

"I still don't know if we can really jump to this conclusion quite yet," Victoria admitted with a frown. "I don't want to jump too far without any evidence. I mean, even if she did do it, I don't think that she's going to just admit it out of nowhere. Besides, we can't really accuse Nevada of being responsible based only on some limited strange behavior. She left the school before she was supposed to, but that could have also happened due to being absentminded."

"For now though, we should definitely go and tell Detective Hayes what we think about the blood found near the body. If it really does belong to Chrysalis, then that could completely change the way that we've been looking at this case," Lily declared. "If she was involved somehow, then this is the proof that we need to place her at the crime scene... I don't know how much good that's going to do us though. Chrysalis still doesn't remember anything, and I don't think that she's going to suddenly recall everything that happened at the time. If she was unconscious or something, there's no way for us to say what happened."

"We'll have to dig a bit deeper until we can find out what's going on then," I sighed. "I do agree that talking to Detective Hayes is a good idea for the time being though. If he really does have something figured out, then we're definitely going to want to hear about it as soon as possible."

"I don't like the fact that Chrysalis was likely at the scene of the crime," Victoria confessed, shaking her head. "I don't know... Something about it just sits weird with me. Maybe we should try to ask her about it a little later down the line."

"If we're going to do that, we should catch her when she's alone," I pointed out. "If Prosecutor Wood, or Nevada, for that matter, was involved with the crime, she could try to stop us from hearing the full truth from Chrysalis. I don't think that it would be a danger to us at all to make sure that we're alone when we talk to Chrysalis, so... We might as well be safe rather than sorry."

Victoria glanced down at the ground before taking in a slow, heavy breath. "I suppose that all we can do is talk to Detective Hayes like we already agreed. At least, that's all that we can do for the time being. We can consider our options more after we've come a bit further in figuring out what happened at the time of the crime," she said. She started walking back towards the scene of the crime, and she gestured for us to follow her. I nodded to myself even though I knew that she couldn't see it and trailed after. Lily did the same thing, but I could tell that she was still worried beyond imagination. Her eyes were trained on the ground firmly, and she shook her head silently, clearly not wanting to believe what was happening.

It wasn't as if I could blame her in the slightest. This case was already shaking out to be far more solemn than we could have anticipated. Nevada's potential involvement had me far more worried than I was choosing to let on. I didn't know much about her since she had only appeared before I joined up with the agency, but the possibility made me nervous. The only other time that Nevada had appeared, she had turned to violence. As far as I could tell though, she hadn't exactly had much of a choice. The case that Victoria and Lily described was clearly one of justified self-defense since the victim was planning on killing countless people, but that didn't stop my mind from swirling in curiosity and concern about this Nevada character. Then again, if she really was involved with this case, I was going to find out more about her soon, so I would simply have to be ready for whatever came next.

As we arrived at the scene of the crime, I looked down to the floor. There was one notable change that caught my eye immediately, and I let out a small gasp upon realizing it. The body had been removed, and I figured that the forensics team was already starting to run tests on it to make sure that there was no new information for them to glean. The space felt far less cramped and suffocating with the absence of the victim's body, but I still hated the sight of his blood all over the floor. I looked away to keep from feeling too sick at the reminder that someone had died in this very space less than seventy-two hours prior.

I allowed my eyes to find the area that had been outlined to show where the other source of blood had dripped into the carpet. There wasn't much of it, though I don't know what I expected given that we had just come to see the space the day before. It looked the same as always, but this time, something about it felt different. A little voice in the back of my head whispered that this was because we knew that we could potentially link it to Chrysalis, but I did my best to shake that off to the best of my ability.

"I still don't see anything here that could have been used to shatter the glass," Victoria remarked, snapping me out of my trance. I glanced over in her direction and saw that she was quickly examining the area with a swift eye. "The glass was shattered because something from outside of the case slammed into it. I don't know what could have been used as a weapon to accomplish something like that, but I suppose that we saw that coming before we even came here. We heard during the trial that nobody had managed to find something like that."

"There has to be some weapon here in the school to show that something happened here," Lily said confidently. She placed one finger on her chin and frowned to herself. "I don't know what it could possibly be though... Well, I suppose that it doesn't have to be in the school. The culprit could have taken it with them since we heard during the trial that nothing suspicious was found in the building."

"It's not like we can really say that there's nothing suspicious conclusively though," Victoria pointed out. "This is a pretty large building, and I'm sure that there are places that something heavy enough to shatter the glass could be hiding. Nobody found it on a first search, but I somehow doubt that anybody has been able to look more in depth than a simple once over of the building. This place is simply too big for multiple searches to have been held, and something easily could have been missed or glossed over."

"Plus, what someone considers suspicious might not fall into the same category of what someone else does," Lily agreed with a nod. "We just know that it's something that would have been able to be thrown easily. I know that the chairs are attached to the desks for the most part in this place. I got a brief glance into a classroom when we were walking here, and the desks and chairs are connected by a metal bar. That takes a chair out of the equation of potential weapons that shattered the glass."

"Nobody would have simply had a desk on hand anyways," I murmured. "I mean, everything about this crime screams that it was improvised. There are better weapons to use to throw at the glass than a desk or chair, and if the crime was premeditated, the culprit would have had something on hand. The only person here who actually had a weapon on them was the victim though... I don't know what we're supposed to do regarding the culprit."

"The trophy could have hit the culprit by complete accident too," Victoria said. "We've been operating under the possibility that this crime was accidental, and I think that we should continue to do that. If the crime was premeditated, I feel like the culprit would have had something else on them to fight back rather than simply an item that was thrown at a trophy case. It doesn't make sense..."

"The crime being accidental would make a lot of sense, but we need solid proof that the culprit didn't mean to kill the victim," I remarked. "For now, let's just keep looking around though... Detective Hayes really should be here, and as soon as we see him, we have to tell him about Chrysalis."

"What about Chrysalis?"

I'm ashamed to admit that the sound of a voice behind me made me nearly jump out of my skin. I let out a yelp of surprise and turned to face the one responsible, my eyes wide and transparent. My heart skipped a beat out of pure shock before I realized that it was only Detective Hayes. He looked rather guilty for frightening me, so I did my best to shelve my raging fears as soon as possible.

"H-Hey..." I said carefully, waving slowly in his direction as soon as I was able to force myself to speak once again. "We were just looking for you, actually... If it's alright with you, we were wondering if perhaps we could tell you about what we've discovered about the crime."

Detective Hayes nodded to us. "That would be great, as a matter of fact. Please, tell me everything," he told us, and I saw his eyes light up with excitement. I couldn't help but think that perhaps he had been just as desperate for a lead as we were. Would anybody be able to blame him for that? This case simply wasn't being friendly to any of us, after all.

"We think that we've figured out where the blood from the crime scene came from," Lily began to explain. "We spoke with Chrysalis and Prosecutor Wood before coming here, and we saw that Chrysalis has an injury on her cheek that wasn't there when we last saw her. We can't help but wonder if perhaps it has anything to do with the crime. After all, the last time that any of us came into contact with Chrysalis was before the murder took place, and the second source of blood... It strikes me as strange, to say the least."

Detective Hayes watched us with wide eyes before he managed to force himself to speak once again. "I see..." he whispered. "I didn't notice anything wrong with her, honestly... She's been practically glued to Prosecutor Wood's side all day. When I dropped by to talk to them for a while earlier on, Chrysalis' cheek was completely covered up since she was leaning up against Prosecutor Wood."

"She's being weirdly affectionate," Victoria remarked. "I mean, I know that Prosecutor Wood is her friend and all that, but I can't help but find this to be a bit weird. I mean, I feel like you two have to know what I'm talking about. Chrysalis isn't exactly the most affectionate person until she gets to completely know those who she's spending time with. She isn't even entirely cozy around me, and I've been working with her for more than a year now."

"That's strange..." I muttered. Part of me was starting to wonder if this was perhaps deliberate. It was a ridiculous thing for me to say out loud, to imply that maybe Chrysalis was trying to hide the injury on purpose, but if that was really her intention, she would have done a better job of it. Chrysalis was a secretive person as far as I could tell. She knew that she wanted others to be aware of and what she wanted to keep secret. If she was trying to keep this information from us, she would have done a better job of it.

"Still, the possibility of her being the one who the blood belongs to is most certainly suspicious... I'll do what I can to try and learn more about that. Thanks for talking to me about it," Detective Hayes continued, forcing me to glance up at him once again.

"No problem," Lily assured him with a small shrug. "Is there anything else that you've stumbled upon since we last spoke? Anything that you have to tell us will be useful. We're sort of at a roadblock of sorts."

Detective Hayes hesitated at her words before letting out a sigh. He shook his head as he stared down at the floor, and I felt my stomach do a flip. That was not a good sign. "Well... There is one thing that I've found out... Let's just say that we've learned a lot about the victim since the trial started this morning," he explained. "Detective Umber brought the report by earlier, and... I think that you're going to want to know this."

I glanced over to Lily and Victoria, and I saw that they were just as blatantly concerned as I was. Still, I did my best to shake off my worries as I looked back to Detective Hayes. "Please tell us everything," I said, desperate to find out so that I could put this aching feeling at my core to rest.

Detective Hayes nodded slowly, taking in a slow and careful breath. "You aren't going to like this... I don't think that anybody wanted to hear this information about the victim, but I guess that there's nothing we can do about it now," he muttered. Once he was finished whispering to himself, Detective Hayes corrected his posture and looked at us all. "I'm going to go on and rip the bandage right off. We did some research into the victim, and we found out that he is far from being who we expected... Dale Koontsin, the name that we've identified him with, is his true name, but the victim has countless aliases and false identities. He's used those fake names to commit crimes, and he has an extensive criminal record far beyond what any of us could have ever seen coming."

I have eaten a lot of mashed potatoes today

-Digital