10. "haughty"

"And that's it. That's the whole story," Jayvee told the officer. One of her legs was crossed over the other, and she appeared as pleasantly as she possibly could. "Then we were taken here to the station to talk to you."

"Oh God Jehovah, is it always the group with the one Criminal Minds fanatic that comes in with a case that sounds impossible to solve? What are these people doing? Does that cast not have any normal fans? What goes down in that show? My goodness," the officer sighed underneath his breath, speaking in a voice that was randomly unprofessional and I could tell he accidentally let it slip. I don't think he expected any of us to hear anything, and I don't have a clue if the others did, but I did clearly, without issue.

I said nothing about it.

When he recovered from his shock, he continued, his professionalism returning. Looking down at his paper which was finally full of notes, and going over what we presented to him, he felt a little better that he had something to work with, even if there wasn't much to make sense of. "Okay. Thank you. I'm just going to clarify some things with each of you before I take you to the next steps, so please listen carefully."

We nodded to prove we were involved in the conversation as he wanted us to be, and satisfied with that, he went right into it. Or more like he planned to, but the phone on his desk began to ring, and with his index finger up toward us to signal we give him a minute, he answered. There came a series of 'mhmm's and 'uh-uh's and fairly rapid, he hung up the phone, evening his glance back to us.

"I guess I should introduce myself more properly since we will be seeing each other again. My name is Officer Dela Cruz. I'll represent the violent crime unit here at the police department of Bohol, and I'll be leading this investigation. The missing case of Ryan David Javers cannot be ruled as a murder despite what you have said -- at least not yet, because I have been told there is no body at the crime scene, as you also mentioned. The thing is, there was definitely signs of struggle and he was definitely signed into the seminar based on his signature found on your contracts each of you signed, and now he's gone -- meaning a crime did take place. We'll look into it further to figure out exactly what happened."

Our skin crawled at the thought that they could even claim that he wasn't murdered. We saw him in the worst condition he could ever be in, and that image wasn't going to get out of our heads for as long as we live. I could see it on all our faces -- we wanted to say something, but we couldn't do much, so each of us sat back into our seats and agreed, with hopes that they'd somehow figure out what we don't know and that they'd find the truth.

A person capable of being this much of a monster should be imprisoned, especially after every centimeter of screams, anxiety, grief, and emptiness they got us into. They didn't kill only one person today. They killed the rest of us too, even if we were still alive. We only looked the part of 'lively', but barely. Inside we were a rotting mold.

After all, here we were sitting across a police officer as suspects to violent crime for our own friend or acquaintance -- something no one would just have in their plans on an ordinary day, and covered in goosebumps, we had to suffer through it.

I'd wake up in tears if this were only a dream, panicky and trembling all over. How much more if it was excruciatingly real?

"Uhm, Officer -- so," Jewee lulled his speech briefly. "What now? For us?"

"I understand that four out of five of you are from abroad, -- so Miss Jayvee Payawal, you have the option of returning home to Dauis or staying with the rest of your friends in a boarding-like house located here in Tagbilaran. Either way, you'd be confined to the home. This is an option only because you live alone.

"Each of you will have your own room, and the kitchen and bathroom will be shared in a separate shelter. It's a rare case these are available for us to use, but they are in the mean time, which will make it easier to get in contact with you when we need since you'll each be in the same place. I do warn each of you though, the spaces are nothing special. Don't have high expectations. The main focus from the builders was not the place itself, but the built-in protection system for situations like these. I'll get into it a little more in a second," Officer Dela Cruz explained.

He then turned is focus solely to Jayvee. "However, Miss Payawal, please understand that trips to the station will be more lengthy for you and for us if you choose to go home."

Jayvee puckered her lip, leaning forward a bit as she pondered the information. "I'll stay in the boarding house if it's more convenient for you and your team, sir. I was only living alone to pursue my studies here, but I've finished so I was going to go back to Manila soon. My staying period in Dauis is almost up anyway."

"Okay. Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Payawal," He nodded his head, sliding her a card across the desk. Then, he balanced his vision more equally among all of us.

"I'll also explain that each room is locked by a number ID card that each of you will be assigned. Only your card will open your door, but if you use your key on a different room, the person inside will be alerted of your identity and can choose whether or not to let you in. The kitchen and the bathroom work similarly -- except once you enter it is considered occupied. Only one person is allowed in at a time. Whatever happens while you stay here in regards to when you enter a room or when you leave it, -- once you enter your key in a slot -- it will be recorded and reported to us. We will also visit you regularly as we obtain evidence."

He picked up additional cards, and began handing them to us in alphabetical order, by our surname, like we were experiencing a day of elementary school testing and were to retrieve our materials. Jewee Choi. Jared Kinoshita. Colby Lexoni. Nova Lim, following after Jayvee, who had already been completed.

It was an odd feeling that came over us then. It's not often that we would hear our full names being said out loud anyway, so that already put us off, but in the times it did happen, Ryan's name came in between Jewee and Jared. Now, it wasn't there at all.

I don't think I can get used to that if I lived one hundred lifetimes.

"What if--," Jared began, but he stopped in case the officer had more to say or maybe because the feeling each of us had was eating him up. When he was granted the permission to continue, he did so gracefully though. "What if we lose our card? Or someone else gets a hold of it?"

"That would be a problem, but the system does also run on fingerprints if you would be comfortable with doing it, and I mean, you know, you always have your fingerprints with you. By law, I can't ask for your fingerprints if I'm not arresting you, and I don't have the specific suspicion to be able to do that as of now, let alone the proof. If you would want to do this willingly, you would have to sign an agreement, and talk it over with the owner of the building. It is questionable if we, as the authorities, would get access to it. We would receive the same information we would if you used the cards unless we had proper reason to get more than that."

"We don't really need to do that, do we guys? I've said a lot of nonsense in today's timeline, but do we actually need to get to that? I still want to believe that the killer isn't even among us, somehow. It might seem like it can't happen, but there being someone that extreme in the five of us sounds just as unlikely. I still want to be able to trust you guys. This is gonna make us hate each other," Nova shifted her position on her seat to look at us, talking over her dislike. For a second there, I stared at her confused. I disagreed with her. I thought the idea was smart.

"Better safe than sorry," I had to say. "We can trust each other as friends, but we can't trust each other as killers, and right now we don't know who it is that we shouldn't be trusting.

"We want to believe that a person this terrible wouldn't be within the five of us, and I don't want to blame anyone either, but in the mean time, I think a fingerprint is the best way we can take care of ourselves, which we should be thinking more about for right now. We'll have the trust of our friends again when this is all over, -- we might even end up closer together, I don't know -- but what if we don't even have ourselves?" I swallowed hard when I said that out loud -- the possibility that we could be dead too dispersing into the air wouldn't let my saliva down. After a cough, I tried pushing through, ignoring the shudder playing at my spine like a creepy crawler on its web.

"I'd like the extra security to be honest. The less chances there are for something bad to happen to us, the better right? All I know is that something out there is terrifying and I don't want it messing with us until we find out the truth. I'd sign the agreement."

A flurry of nods and a consistent 'yes' came about from the rest, and I was thankful that at least majority of the group thought the same way I did.

"If all of you would agree, then I'll contact the owner of the boarding house and let him know, so it can be set up when you arrive," Officer Dela Cruz noted.

"But Miss Nova Lim, know that what I'm about to say has no intention of drilling you or putting pressure on you. I'm not saying that you're the one behind any of this. I can't say anything like that yet, but you're an intelligent girl, I can say that -- that's what brought you here to the Philippines in the first place; your intelligence, but you're still young. This is a lot to go through for all of you, of course, but for youthful eyes it could be very heavy to carry. You're a toddler in adulthood. I know you're afraid, and you have every right to be. In fact, I think you should be. This is a time that it's reasonable to be afraid.

"But if you have doubts yourself about something you couldn't even see yet you're trying to believe different, and then combining that with what's been reported to me from my team at the scene, there is no way someone could've gotten in from the outside. The windows and doors were locked, and they weren't tampered with. There was no damage. Each of you are prime suspects for the missing Mister Ryan Javers, and even if that wasn't the case, we have to examine everything. This is procedure.

"I know, we grow up told to trust people and to be hospitable toward them, but there also comes a time that we shouldn't be, and for each of you, this is one of those times. For the good people here, do what you think would be good for you. Deep down, each of you know something that you might not realize you know, or that you think isn't a big deal. Don't worry about other people right now. Organize your thoughts, communicate with us, tell us more that may come to mind in the long run and cooperate with the rules, and I promise we'll do our best to help you and get to the bottom of this."

Jared gave Nova a nudge to the shoulder. Without looking at him, she blinked fast to hold back her tears. The girl was egotistical a lot of the time, but deep down within her there was something unlike that -- something vulnerable that she didn't like to show. Rattled by the speech of the officer and Jared's last push, she changed her mind.

"Okay, I agree to the fingerprint," she stated. She didn't seem to regret it, but who knows? She's mysterious sometimes -- and she thinks differently than we do. Her look on the world has never been remotely similar to ours. Like we've always known, she's the young one -- young, wild, and free. It made her hard to read in certain circumstances.

"Alright, I'm glad each of you are on the same page," the man replied, taking back the cards he had given us and replacing them with a piece of paper. "Hold onto these and you'll have them signed in front of the owner of the place you'll reside in the meantime, just to make sure she knows your signature was out of your own willingness."

I took mine and skimmed through the small print. Everything about this was so bizarre and overwhelming, I could hardly wrap my head around the fact that I was one of the minority in this world that had to know things like this exist, because otherwise, it would have never crossed my mind.

This stuff isn't supposed to happen.

I guess there's a lot of new things and processes that cross your mind when you're protecting yourself from a murderer -- when you're protecting yourself from someone who you didn't think you needed protecting from.