November 20

Morix Law Offices

11:30 AM

Victoria von Graye

"What do you think this is about?"

Yuri slid into the seat behind me as I pulled away from her home. She buckled her seatbelt and let out a sigh before digging her phone out of her pocket. She pawed at the screen until she had pulled up the agency's group chat, undoubtedly looking at the messages that had been on everyone's minds all morning. I could see out of the corner of my eye that I was right, not that I was particularly desperate for the confirmation.

I shrugged and shook my head. "If I could tell you, I would," I told her with a light sigh. "All we can do for now is head down to the agency and see what we can find out. It sounds like Deirdre is already there, and she should be able to catch us up when we arrive."

Yuri nodded, but she still didn't put her phone away. "It looks like Lily has been arrested for this unknown crime... It's not even a question that we're going to be defending her," she concluded. "It's good to see that Deirdre is taking control of everything, especially since Mr. Morix still isn't answering... I wonder if he knows about all of this. If he does, why wouldn't he want to respond?"

"Has Chrysalis answered?" I questioned, but I already had the sneaking suspicion that I knew the answer before Yuri could say anything. Chrysalis and Mr. Morix were as good as two peas in a pod, and if there was something going on with one of them, the other one was going to know about it and react accordingly. That was how they functioned, and I knew better than to call it odd simply because it was how the agency worked as a whole.

Yuri shook her head. "Not yet," she said, but I could tell that she was doubtful that Chrysalis would ever be answering. I couldn't blame her in the slightest; I knew all too well that Chrysalis was a naturally secretive character, not that I could particularly fault her for being that way. Since she was in charge of the Oracle project, she had a lot on her plate at all times, and it was a risk that she simply couldn't engage with to be open about her personal life with the rest of the world. It still made me feel odd, but I didn't say anything about it openly.

I started to pull away from Yuri's house, surveying the mirrors on my car to make sure that I wasn't going to collide with anything. I started the familiar drive to the agency, and Yuri remained focused on the conversation with everyone else from her seat beside me. I could tell that she was waiting for Mr. Morix or Chrysalis to say something, anything, but it was clear as could be that they weren't going to be doing such. It was simply a sneaking suspicion that I had, but I figured that I would much rather listen to it than ignore it. After all, it certainly wouldn't have been out of character for the two of them to be too busy to answer when life took a turn for the worst. In fact, it seemed perfectly aligned with past behaviors for them.

The drive to the agency was agonizing and silent. I kept on glancing over at Yuri when we parked at stoplights and waited for them to shift. Her gaze never moved away from the phone, but the hope in her eyes seemed to diminish a tiny bit with each passing stoplight, almost as if she was losing faith that Mr. Morix and Chrysalis were going to answer her questions. I was willing to believe that they were safe and alright given the fact that Deirdre hadn't hurriedly explained that something had happened to them. She would have mentioned it if one of the core players of the agency was deep in trouble of some kind, but she didn't, so I was inclined to think that everything was fine with them. Well, as fine they could be given the circumstances, but I was going to run with it for the time being.

As soon as the agency came into view, I saw Yuri drop her phone back into her pocket, and her hand braced itself against the handle to open the car door. Once we slid to a stop, Yuri practically threw off her seatbelt and launched herself to her feet. I couldn't help but chuckle as I powered the car down, dropping my keys into my purse before I got out myself. Yuri sure was enthusiastic about this, but it seemed to be fueled more by nervous energy than anything else. I couldn't particularly blame her, and in fact, it filled me with this strange sense of fear that I wasn't sure of how to describe. I wasn't fond of what was happening, but I was going to try and press on regardless.

Deirdre came into view as we walked up to the building, and I could see that she was staring down at the ground with a blank expression. There was nothing melancholy about her gaze though, so I was willing to take it as a good thing. She was probably just thinking about her next step to figuring out the rest of the case, and given how uncertain everything was, that was a step above the potential for grief that a crime at the agency left open to us.

"Hey there, Deirdre!" Yuri chirped, but I could tell that she was trying her best to bury her own anxiety. She didn't seem to be able to stand still, instead rocking side to side between her feet. Her bow swayed rhythmically with the action. "Can you go on and tell us everything that you know about the case? You have no idea how eager we've been to hear what you have to say."

Deirdre immediately snapped out of her daze, and I couldn't help but wonder just how long she had been standing there, waiting for us to arrive. She nodded as soon as she had a grip on what Yuri had asked in the first place. "Of course," she replied. She turned on her heel to walk around the back of the agency, gesturing for us to follow her. I trailed in her footsteps, halfway nervous and halfway eager to hear what she had to say about this mysterious crime at the agency.

Deirdre glanced around once we were settled at the back side of the agency. I could tell that she was making sure that we were alone, and once she was satisfied, she let out a small sigh. "I can say without a shadow of a doubt that something strange is happening here," she told us, but I could tell that this was an understatement. Everything about her gaze told me that there was something deep and upsetting taking place behind the scenes, and I felt my stomach twist with the potential for nausea.

"Don't keep us in the dark! Tell us what's going on already!" Yuri cried out. She was practically vibrating on the spot from her excitement and nerves. I couldn't tell which one was more prominent, but I figured that I would figure it out as soon as Deirdre started explaining what had happened.

Deirdre sighed and nodded. "Of course," she murmured before she cleared her throat. "I can say that there was a pool of blood in the agency's lobby. It was in front of the desk, and it was rather large. Here's where the hard part comes in... We don't know whose blood it is or what could have happened. There aren't any weapons in the area, and the only blood that can be found is in the pool on the floor."

"There's just a blood pool?" I echoed, my eyes going wide. "But that's not possible. There has to be a victim. If there was a lot of blood, then chances are that it was a murder, and you would expect a body to be left behind if there was a victim."

"That's the annoying part," Deirdre explained. "There's no victim at the scene. If the victim is dead, then their body was taken away by the culprit. If the victim is alive, chances are they fled without calling the police for some reason... I don't know why anyone would want to keep from telling the police about something like this, but... There weren't any reports about it until Lily stumbled upon the scene by accident when she was trying to open up the agency for the day."

"I think our first priority should be figuring out how anyone could have gotten into the agency," I suggested. "I mean, we already know that Lily has a key to the building, but there are others who don't have something like that. In fact, all of us have keys, but that's it as far as I'm aware... Can you think of anyone else who would need a key to the agency?"

Yuri nodded a moment later. "I think so," she answered. "There are only three people on this list though... Prosecutor Lin, Prosecutor Burke, and Chief Prosecutor Bespoke all have heavy ties with the agency. If anyone outside of the lawyer group was going to have a key to the building, it would be one of those three. Maybe more than one of them have a key... But that doesn't exactly help us. I don't think that any of them would do something like this."

"You're right there," I agreed with a small nod. "It's something for us to ask Mr. Morix about. I'm sure that he would know all of the people who have keys to the agency. I mean, he's the one in charge of the building, so it only makes sense that he would be the one to ask about this sort of thing."

"That's the second problem with this case," Deirdre frowned, letting out a small sigh. "I don't know how to describe it, but... Something is going on with Mr. Morix. He's been acting strangely all day, and I feel like he knows something about this case. There was a candle on the front desk, and I think there was something near it that got his attention. I would have expected him to want to investigate this case, but he took off nearly as soon as he saw what was hiding underneath the candle. I don't know where he went, but... It must have been pretty important in his eyes."

"A candle?" Yuri questioned doubtfully. "That's weird... I mean, Chrysalis and Mr. Morix have both hated candles for as long as I can remember. Chrysalis thinks that they're painful to deal with sometimes, and she's never wanted to even be in the room with one. I don't know why there would be one sitting on the desk."

"It was unused too... I don't think that I've ever seen a candle on there, much less one that's never been used," Deirdre continued. "He grabbed this small necklace and a card that appeared to be used for identification or something similar. I couldn't say for sure if that was what it's meant to be used for exactly, but... That's what I think it's meant to be, and it's where we're going to have to start."

"Mr. Morix didn't respond to the group messages because something is going on with him," I muttered, glancing down to the ground. I allowed my eyes to slip shut as I tried to figure out what was taking place here. There was something strange going on, but I didn't quite know where to start when it came to investigating it.

"You know, Mr. Morix hasn't acted this blatantly weird in two years," Yuri commented. I saw her nudge Deirdre with her elbow, and I glanced up to both of them with curiosity festering in my gaze. Two years prior would have been before I started to work at the agency, and if their words were to be believed, something had happened back then to make Mr. Morix shift his behavior.

"What happened two years ago?" I asked. Something deep in the pit of my stomach told me that I didn't even want to hear about this. I mean, if it was something so serious that they were dancing around the subject rather than embracing their conversation about it, chances were that the outcome had been far from positive.

"It was the case where we found out more about Oracle," Deirdre elaborated, leaning in to make sure that nobody heard what she was saying. "Something happened to Chrysalis, and she was taken hostage by a group of assassins. Mr. Morix practically shut down and left us to handle one of the biggest cases that the agency had ever taken on. It was a case at Interpol, and that's kind of a big deal."

My eyes practically shot open at their explanation. "I think I remember hearing about that case, actually... It was a huge deal as it was happening," I told them. I decided to stop talking there, but my mind was spinning with a thousand explanations that suddenly made a lot more sense. It wasn't as if Deirdre or Yuri would understand them though, so I was going to simply hold back on what I was starting to figure out.

"Yeah... We realized that it all had something to do with Oracle, so the two of us and Lily decided to crack down on our investigation into them. We figured out the truth, and we managed to convince Mr. Morix to tell us about it. The rest of the case was pretty tense since we didn't have much room for error," Yuri continued to tell me. "Mr. Morix practically shut himself away from the rest of the world when the stress got to be too much for him to handle."

"He didn't seem quite as stressed or anxious as before, but he certainly started to behave strangely," Deirdre said next. "We're going to have to figure out what happened to make him react so strangely on our own. If he wanted to tell us about it, he would have mentioned it to me when we were talking before you two got here. Instead, he told me to handle this case and then ran off. I think that he's going to take care of whatever business he has that involves the identification card and that necklace."

"That's odd," I murmured, though that didn't even begin to describe what was happening. Mr. Morix suddenly acting so defensive and cagey certainly didn't sit well with me. In fact, it made my stomach twist into an upset knot all over again. If we were going to find the truth behind this case, chances were high that we would have to find out what was bothering him so much in the first place, and that was way easier said than done, as much as I hated to say it.

"I guess that all we can do for now is try to find the truth behind this case and hope that we'll be able to calm him down from there," Yuri suggested with a loose shrug. I got the feeling that she was trying to convince herself that this was our way out as opposed to me or Deirdre, but I chose not to call her out on it. After all, I could tell that she was far from being the only one who felt uncertain about this peculiar string of events.

"Don't tell me you three are trying to hide from the crime scene."

I would have been lying if I said that the sudden sound of a voice from me didn't absolutely terrify me at first. I let out a yelp of shock as I pressed one hand against my chest, realizing a bit too late that I had gotten too wrapped up in my conversation with Deirdre and Yuri to bother giving a second thought to my surroundings. Embarrassment burned hot in my cheeks, but I forced myself to turn around and face the ones responsible for my sudden spike in anxiety.

I could see that there were three people nearby, and I recognized all of them as soon as I saw them. Prosecutor Burke and Chief Prosecutor Bespoke were standing on either side of Anton. I could tell that there was something dark to both of their gazes, but Anton seemed to be blissfully unaware of what had frightened them so much. In fact, he had a shy smile on his face, and he had removed his sunglasses to show off his glowing eyes. We were in the shade of the agency, so I supposed that it wouldn't be necessary for him to keep hiding part of his face.

"It's nice to see you three," Deirdre said, managing to get a grasp on what was happening far faster than I could. She took a step closer to the trio of newcomers, and I saw her smile in their direction. The action was strained and unfocused, but I still appreciated the effort she was putting in.

Chief Prosecutor Bespoke nodded to us, and I could see that his eyes were uncharacteristically sharp. In my limited time knowing Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, I had gotten the impression that he was a bit of a goofball, always sleeping on the job and being kind of hard to pin down. He didn't have the best attention span as far as I was aware. In a way, he reminded me of a house cat, always lounging around and doing things at his own pace regardless of the thoughts of others. I didn't think that I had ever managed to get through a conversation with him without a yawn interrupting his words at some point along the way.

And yet, he seemed completely different this time. Rather than being a house cat, he appeared to be like a lion who had finally figured out how to strike at his prey. To put it simply, it was absolutely terrifying. I found myself shifting uncomfortably under his gaze, unwilling to admit that he was making me nervous despite how clear it was. It appeared that Mr. Morix was far from being the only one who was acting strange during this case. The odd behavior had spread to Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, and that was almost even worse. You would expect an unsettled reaction from Mr. Morix since he's the one who runs the agency, but Chief Prosecutor Bespoke is an outside party who still managed to show signs of being upset. Oh, this was not going to end well.

"We're going to be the prosecution for this case," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke told us. His voice was once again oddly sharp, almost as if he had managed to hide all of his previous signs of exhaustion. He threatened to stare right through my soul if I wasn't careful, and I found myself looking down at the ground in anxiety. This was already showing itself to be a mess, and I wasn't sure of how we were supposed to approach the rest of the case.

"I see," Deirdre murmured. She seemed to have picked up on the same oddities in his demeanor that I had, but she was doing her best to hide it. Chances were high that she knew his odd behavior was somehow connected to what was happening with Mr. Morix, and it was in our best interests to hold off asking anybody about that until after we had managed to gather evidence about why he was acting so weird all of a sudden.

"There's blood in the agency's lobby, but nobody knows who it belongs to," Prosecutor Burke remarked. "Cotoli told us about it, and we decided to come running to check it out. He's got other things to take care of though, so I guess that he left it up to you three to take care of. That's a sign of major respect from him, you know. Cotoli doesn't just trust everybody with things like this."

I couldn't help but feel embarrassed at her words. I knew that she was right, but it felt odd to hear it phrased that way. Mr. Morix was incredibly specific when it came to those who he placed his trust in, and Chrysalis was much the same way. I had gotten this impression from them starting from the day that I first met them, and it had never once gone away in the time that I had been working at the agency. The fact that he was trusting us enough to take care of this case while he was doing other things left me flustered, but I wasn't sure of how to articulate that, so I just stood there, my cheeks pink as I tried to keep from making eye contact with anyone.

"What all do you know about the case?" Yuri questioned. "We aren't aware of that much, but we can at least try to tell you something so that you can help us out. Well... We're going to be aiding one another in the courtroom since that's usually how this sort of thing shakes out. I feel like you three all know that Lily couldn't have done this. There's no way that she would ever want to hurt another person. She can barely use a fly swatter when she's being bothered by a bug."

Prosecutor Burke shared a brief glance with Chief Prosecutor Burke, and I got the feeling that I knew exactly what it was about without needing to ask anyone else. This had something to do with the Oracle project. I was sure of it. I hadn't ever been given much of a reason to believe that Prosecutor Burke or Chief Prosecutor Burke spent much time with Lily, so their primary connection was through the Oracle of the Law. They had been collaborating on the project for the past two years, so it was only natural that they would understand that she was trustworthy even without knowing her well personally. After all, Mr. Morix's trust was a difficult thing to earn, and if Lily had managed to claim it, then she was certainly someone that they were going to have to consider as their ally on all fronts.

Chief Prosecutor Bespoke was the one to respond to Yuri's inquiry after a long moment of excruciating silence. He shrugged to himself, the motion jerky and haphazard, before attempting to formulate an answer. "We just know that some blood was found in the agency's lobby. It was enough to make someone think that something awful had taken place, and after having seen how much it was... Yeah, I can certainly understand how somebody could get that impression," he remarked. Once again, he sounded far more attentive than usual, and I found that infinitely more terrifying than the idea of the culprit roaming at large somewhere.

"The victim is gone though, so we have no idea what we're supposed to be doing with all of this," Prosecutor Burke said next. "We're going to try and figure out where the victim disappeared to. Given the amount of blood that was lost, it's most certainly feasible that the victim is still alive. It's a significant amount, yes, but it wasn't enough to make someone positive of death."

"But if the victim is alive, then why in the world wouldn't they report what happened?" I questioned. When the eyes of the rest of the group fell on me, I stared down at the ground to pretend that I was anywhere else. I didn't mind Deirdre, Yuri, and Anton looking at me, but the other two were a different story, especially with Chief Prosecutor Bespoke acting so out of character and serious.

"You would expect them to bring it up," Yuri agreed, taking the attention off me immediately. I inwardly thanked her before glancing in her direction. "I mean, this is a serious injury as far as I can tell. Why in the world would anybody want to hide something like this? They'd be able to identify the culprit and keep everyone safe from the culprit's future outbursts."

"We still haven't heard anything of that nature, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen," Prosecutor Burke said. "I mean, this case is still relatively new. It will be a while before the general public is aware of what happened. If you want my opinion, it's for the best that it's being kept relatively quiet as of now. I don't want to get the media involved. You have no idea how ridiculous reporters can get when they think there's a story to be found somewhere, and I would prefer to spare this case that sort of treatment for as long as possible if we can help it."

"We'll check around to see if there's anything that we can find out," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke told us. "For all we know, the victim is at the hospital already getting treatment for whatever injury caused all of this blood to get everywhere. We'll just have to see what's going on after we split up and can start investigating other sources of information."

"If the victim isn't there, then that will leave us with the question about what their motives could possibly be for keeping all of this secret," Deirdre commented next. "I mean, we obviously have no evidence as of now that the victim is trying to keep the world at large from finding out about what happened at the time of the crime. If we find reason to believe that this is the case though, then we're going to need to find them and see why they were so desperate to hide this information from the rest of the world in the first place. It's strange in my opinion that anyone would put so much attention to trying to hide the truth about a crime taking place. If they told the right people, they would be granted protection from the one who caused so much harm in the first place."

"We shouldn't go jumping to conclusions about all of this though," Prosecutor Burke reminded her. "For all we know, the victim is dead, and there's nothing that we can do to change that if this is the case. We should just be careful about all of this and not make any rash decisions quite yet. There's got to be evidence out there. We're going to search for witnesses after this discussion of ours is over, and if we can find anyone, we're going to drag them up to the stand no matter what."

"Before we do split up to do our own things, I want to know... Who all has a key to the agency? Do you know of anybody outside of the agency who would have a key aside from the two of you and Prosecutor Lin?" Yuri questioned, glancing back and forth between the two prosecutors in front of us. "We were trying to think about all of that, but we came up short where others with keys are concerned. If there are people who have keys, then we're going to need to find them and start digging. I mean, Lily was the only one who went to the agency that early since she was alone, but she couldn't have done this. We already know that she wouldn't have hurt this unidentified victim."

Prosecutor Burke glanced over to Chief Prosecutor Bespoke. After a long moment, they simply shrugged, seemingly unable to think of anyone who would fit the bill. "Sorry," Chief Prosecutor Bespoke replied. "As much as we would like to help you, it's kind of hard to do that when we're just about as clueless as you are."

"Thank you for helping anyways," Deirdre told them, bowing her head in their direction. "We'll simply have to investigate those who do have keys and see if any of them were perhaps lost recently. That would give the culprit the chance to take dominion over something that they should not have possessed."

Prosecutor Burke shoved one hand into her pocket before she pulled out a small keyring. She dangled it up for us all to see, holding tightly to one key in particular. "This is the key for the agency, and as you can see, I've got mine," she told us before putting the keyring back in its regular place. She nudged at Chief Prosecutor Bespoke to prompt him to show his key in much the same way, and he obliged a moment later.

I glanced up to Deirdre before nodding. "Thank you for your help. We'll leave you to your investigation now," I told them. I waved as the trio walked away. Anton gave Yuri a wave of his own before he chased after his partners in the investigation. As soon as they rounded the corner, the atmosphere of the area completely changed, and I realized that the heaviness surrounding this case had started to set in all over again.

"We should start off by learning as much as we can about the keys," Deirdre suggested. I could tell based on the look in Yuri's eyes that she felt much the same way. I didn't have any objections either, so I nodded to Deirdre. We walked out from the back of the building with that said, ready to see what was going to await us in the next segment of our investigation.

Still, I couldn't shake the lingering feeling that something was wrong. I had no evidence solidly that there was anything strange going on, but I felt weird about all of this. This case was far grander than initially met the eye, and I could simply sense it. I wasn't sure of what it meant, but I knew already that this was going to be a doozy of a trial.

God I love this case so much

-Digital