26. "having an appearance of godliness"

ONE YEAR AGO: AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER II

"Sorry, Ryan. You can do your best to make yourself at home, but I don't have much going for me in there. Just do whatever it takes for you to make it work. I don't really mind."

I've never been known for hospitality in my lifetime, and I think that can easily go back to nearly every generation in my family. It ran in my bloodline to be awkward with how to treat someone once they enter your house, and I was definitely not an exception, but for some reason, this zap of electricity in my bones wanted me to be an exception specifically for him and only him, even if I didn't have anything to offer. Suddenly, unlike ever before, I was praying for this to work.

Is that what love is? Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone just so the other can be somewhat comfortable?

"Don't worry, Colby. I'm not high maintenance. I can get by with whatever you have. I just need a place to rest and a place to keep warm. I'm not picky," Ryan answered, as he stepped into my place through the door I held open for him and began to scan through the small area. "You have a pretty nice place here, to be honest."

"Thanks for the lie. Welcome to my humble abode," I joked casually, as I followed him halfway in. One foot passed the new line of carpet that separated my apartment from the general hall, and I was stopped there. I intended to enter much further than I was able to when Jayvee pulled me back by my shoulder, without a care of how harsh her nails dug into my back.

I winced. She talked on like she didn't notice, but on her face was this look of urgency when I finally came across it, I couldn't get myself to talk down to her. She had this pleading in her eyes that just moved you to listen, no matter how badly you wanted to say 'no' and no matter how badly you didn't want to be involved with her schemes.

She knows how to hypnotize. She has intense power within her skull, and she must've known it, because she always, always figured out how to use it.

"Can I talk to you for a second? In private?" She asked, with high hopes.

My eyes fluttered nervously when I followed her lead back down to the main lobby. Jayvee never asked for these type of things unless there was a purpose, and each time she did think up a topic she needed to discuss with me, it got more drastically -- plain wrong. I was tired of doing her dirty work, and I was tired of how she got other people to do the things she needed done, but no one yet had figured out how to put a stop to her evil yet.

I joked to myself that this time it would be murder.

I joked to myself. It was just a joke. It was a joke on my side of the matter.

But evidently not on hers.

"Do you have feelings for him?" She put out there, bluntly after she plopped down into the nearest seat.

"For who?" I played dumb, sitting down much more formally than she did to the chair beside her. I paid more attention to my shoelaces than the girl's face to sidetrack my own attention to what I knew what was coming, but it didn't help -- not when it was Ryan who gifted me the shoes last fall for no reason whatsoever. Just because he felt like it.

"For Ryan, silly," she answered, yet in my head it lingered through the air in slow motion. My toes curled beneath my laces and I felt frigidly cold that she'd choose to bring this up. "I didn't even ask to come here to America, and most specifically Colorado out of fifty states? I didn't know it existed. Of course, I love seeing it here and all, but it was him that wanted to come here and it's so fishy to me that he doesn't have family or other friends besides you that he could stay with while he's here. He just chose here for the fun of it, he's not benefiting whatsoever, he didn't grow up here, and yet he still chose here. He likes you. I know he does, and he's using me as a safety net in case everything falls apart."

I crossed my arms out in front of me. "I doubt that's true," I told her, unsure of what else to think of what she was saying. "He likes you. He wouldn't date you for no reason. He's not that kind of person."

"Yeah. He wouldn't date me for no reason. His old school parents living in California -- not here in Colorado, you hear? California -- used to disown him, but after he called them and specifically mentioned that he's 'dating a woman' -- which why would he mention that unless you know? He came out of the closet a long time ago -- and then they accept him again when they heard that news. He has his family back because of me, but he refuses to go visit them after all these years because -- well, I think he knows that they'll take one look at us and know he doesn't think of me that way, because they're his own parents. Then of course, there's also the fact that I've been his fricking therapist because of my major gave me slight background in that field, and he doesn't have to pay me even a coin. Does that shout 'girlfriend' to you?"

I shrugged, my arms still wrapped tightly around my chest. "I don't know what goes on in your love life."

She rolled her eyes, tapping her foot gently on the floor. "So answer my question. Do you like him or not?"

"No, Jayvee. I'm not gay," I lied. Maybe I shouldn't have. Maybe I should've told her that I did like him, but I didn't hold back on it because I thought she would judge me. Besides, even if she did, I wasn't afraid to lose her. The way she thought of me didn't bother me. I held back on it because I hated the idea that she would be the first one to know something that didn't concern her, especially when I hadn't the courage to tell Ryan himself yet.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes! I'm sure, Jayvee. Why does it matter?"

She giggled. "I think we should kill him."

"Ha!" I chuckled, assuming she wasn't serious. "Very funny, Jayvee."

She stopped laughing. "I'm not joking. I mean it."

Hearing that made me choke. "What the heck? How can you say 'I mean it' without a single emotion in your voice? That's so messed up!"

"Why does it matter? He has no respect for my emotions so he kind of deserves it, and if you don't want him, then there's no reason not to kill him to be honest. He's not alive for anyone besides himself, so it doesn't really matter what happens to him."

"That logic is so--," I huffed out of the unsettling atmosphere I was trapped in when I sat with her, and I scattered through my brain for an excuse -- a reason that would change a girl who didn't care about anything, to actually care slightly, or to at least prove her wrong somehow, but there wasn't something for someone that didn't hold empathy in their body.

"But Nova likes him too. Maybe they have a shot. He might not be gay or maybe he's bisexual or whatever, and that could mean they could be somebody for each other. Or maybe, you're overthinking it and he'd deeply in love with you. Why would you ruin what you have for that? " I added on. I didn't expect it to do very much good, but I had to say something -- I had to at least try to snap her awake. I had to try to make her see that she should be someone who stops the monsters in this world. Not someone who becomes one.

But that's not what I feared the most. What I feared the most was that if I wasn't in on this, or if she didn't at least believe that I was, she was going to do everything all by herself, and all I would be able to do is sit and watch because I'm too dang weak to turn things back and put them into control.

"He doesn't like me. A woman knows. The air just isn't as romance-crisp as it's supposed to be, and it's not my fault. I've done everything that I could possibly do to make our relationship what it's supposed to be, and I haven't been able to get him to care that much. And Nova, you say? Are you kidding me? Have you seen the way she looks at him? She's still a kid. That's puppy love. He would be better off dead than date her."

I got up to my feet, backing away from her to the other side of the room. I was worried that maybe with an attitude like that, she'd turn on me and I'd be the one she'd kill first, but I'd be the first domino that'd fall, and what would come after is another, and then another, and then another.

"A murder is a little much to think about, don't you think? It would take a lot of planning if you don't want to get caught and--."

"Don't worry, I already know how it would work," she said cheerily, pulling out a couple of badly ripped pieces of paper from a spiral notebook. My lungs froze, and the breath in my throat couldn't move as I watched her read from it, and summarize it aloud. "I've been spending the last while working on a vaccine that turns your blood black or white according to guilt or innocence. I've had a lot of failures come out of it. It works overall, but there's certain issues -- it doesn't work for A negative blood and the blood just stays white, it would need to be normalized so that a person doesn't feel guilt at all for a crime that they didn't do because then it would wrongfully turn black, and blah blah blah, but the thing we can use is the side effects. It causes extreme dizziness after about fifteen minutes, and that's the slot to shoot with a gun. You'll shoot, and I'll get everything set up to lure everyone in as blind witnesses. I'll do all the background stuff. It'd be perfect."

I puckered my lips as she ranted about her invention, as I attempted to keep my busy on something else, but I couldn't because the one thing that would creep into my mind would be the fact that I have A negative blood, and that she would find that out somehow, or that maybe she already has, to be taken advantage of just like she would take advantage of the results of the vaccine when she carries out her plan about the guilt a person holds when she does something so graphic and disgusting.

I stood up straight like how I did when I woke up in the middle of the night to a bad dream. Sweat poured down from my temples and I could feel my body heat up to simply knowing her plan. How much worse would it be if I let myself go through with it?

"What makes you think that I would help you with this? And why would you choose me of all people to help you? If you want someone in the group to carry out a crime, there are people out there that already have criminal records. I don't want anything to do with that."

"You won't get caught. Nobody will see you. I'm sure of it, and besides, I'll pay you big time. I could get you a million. More? I could figure something out. Just don't tell anyone. We have a year or so to make it exactly right," she was still chuckling through the dark topic. "So, you mean it when you said you're not gay right? I'll throw a chance with him at you and we can kill him when he breaks your heart eventually."

"I'm straight, Jayvee," I lied again. I cocked my head to the side. I wanted to complain that she'd try to woo me with money for attempting to convince me to put blood on my hands, but I shut my mouth when she got up and headed to the door without a goodbye. Heck, she didn't turn back to look at me, and I didn't want her to. I couldn't stand to look at her.

I couldn't stand to look at me either. Because my ego was still in the way from admitting the truth to a woman with cold-blooded intentions, I was a year away from taking someone's life, instead of saving it.

How could I live with that?

There's no way I could. I couldn't.

Once she said such a thing that made her more scary than I thought she was, I headed straight for the stairs, dashed up to the room where Ryan was staying, and I did exactly what she told me not to.

"Ryan. There's something I need to tell you. Right now," I shouted, shutting the door behind me.