(The New) Power of the 8 Elements: Part Two

Chapter Twenty Eight: Eye Opening

"The solving of almost every crime mystery depends on something which seems, at first glance, to bear no relation whatever to the original crime." - Elsa Barker
PRESENT DAY
CELESTE

"Are we supposed to be speaking-?" Cheryl begins.

"Callate!" Thrax exclaims. "Look."

All of us are up in my attic. All of us, meaning Lucifer, me, Terry, Cheryl, Jeff, Reggie...and Billy—who after the Halloween party incident began showing up at my house, asking for forgiveness. I still don't know why it wasn't easier for him to turn up at Terry's place to apologize. The bucket fell on her, not me. Here we were on a Wednesday afternoon, sitting in my attic, staring at the bulletin board Thrax put together connecting all of the victims and suspects (which of course there are none). That's what today is all about—suspects.

"I'm confused," Terry says. "What are we supposed to be looking at?"

"Godd*mn it, Phoenix! Do you need glasses?! We're finding suspects! I stayed up for fifteen hours yesterday doing research! Wasted a date for this sh*t..."

Did I hear him correctly? I jump from the chair I'm sitting in and grab Thrax's arms. He slides his arms out of my grip.

"You went on a date?!" I exclaim.

Lucifer, who's been sitting in silence the entire time, sits up a little. I never thought Thrax would be the type to go on a date.

"Who is she? Is she a virus, too? Do I know her? High school sweethearts? Oh my God! I need details! Tell me everything!!!"

"Relax, we don't plan on going out again in a long time..." Thrax says, pushing me away.

I want to know more, but we don't bring up that topic ever again.

"Look, you're telling me you found nothing. No connection?"

"How about..." Lucifer says, shifting his weight and standing up. "...you tell the connection you found since we're obviously missing the point?"

"Fine," Thrax says with a disappointed snort. "Here's the one connection between all of our victims. Now...it took a lot of personal digging to do this. I stalked a few people on whatever social media website they possessed, and I found something...they all had sex."

"Sex?" Terry repeats. "I'm confused."

"As you should be. I was confused when I first saw it myself, too."

"What does sex have to do with this?" Reggie said.

"Let's use you, Veggie-"

"-Reggie-"

"Tomāto, tomäto. Let's use your late girlfriend as an example. You two did stuff together, and in conclusion, she met an untimely gory end-" Thrax has his arms crossed, extending his long claw and tilting his hips at a suggestive angle.

"-you know what?" Reggie says, shooting up from his chair and knocking it over. He stands before Thrax, nearly standing on his toes in order to meet the intimidating virus' height but to no avail. The virus is clearly taller, and Thrax took great pride in the height difference. We can all see it on the giant smirk on his, revealing all of his sharp teeth. If I didn't know any better, I would say he was salivating, staring down at the junior. But then again, upon further inspection, I realize that it's venom. Thrax's blinks are slow as his eyes move up and down Reggie's body rapidly. I think he's enjoying the fact that Reggie is trying to challenge him. "What did you ever do with the body?"

"'S none of your business," Thrax responded, tapping his longest claw on his shoulder.

"Oh, I do believe it is my business because that was my girlfriend-"