My eyes open, jolting myself awake when I hear the car door slamming open. "You're awake?" Matsya says, most likely confirming it for herself. "I'm getting pizza. It's past midnight, I'm starving and it's way too late to go home without Amir questioning so I'm eating here."

"They serve this late?" I ask, causing Matsya to nod. "Get me some too." With a yawn, I stretch myself. A glance to the clock shows that I've only been asleep for ten minutes after mine and Matsya's chat.

When Matsya slams the car again, I watch her figure walk to pizza hutt. As soon as she enters the shop, I take off the seatbelt and blanket, uncaring of the cold now. Quickly, I look at the back of the seats for any clue of Amir.

Amir is directly linked to Matsya and why she's in crime - and crime is most likely linked to why she's working at my place and taken so much place in my life. If I manage to find out the cause, I can easily take her to the police or help her to her goal in order to get rid of her.

I don't know why I want to get rid of her so much. There's something about her, all the questions she raises in mind and the butterflies she caused becuase of the kiss. In a way, I want to know more about her but I also want to be weary. I'm a month and she's the flame. Even though I know she'll burn, I keep on wanting to know the answers to my questions.

I take out my phone to guide me, lighting it on while I frantically skin the mess. There's nothing other than clothes, cans of paint and brushes. My eyes move to a glinting screen, a phone and I nearly scream with joy. This could be it, the link to all the questions in my mind.

I turn on the Samsung phone, feeling deja vu while doing so. With tired eyes, I flip over the case for a clue why and spot a single white line across the phone. This is Diego's phone - in a gang member's car. I remember him dropping it and causing the starch.

Quickly, I turn it on. Why would Amir have it? What's the connection between a simple CEO and a gang leader? Diego is the nicest guy I know, he's the only one that managed to help me after I was kicked out of my home.

Diego was born rich. His family was rolling in money. They could use money to shower instead of water and still be able to buy a small island with the money left over. Diego had an apartment where he allowed me to stay and finish my degree. Without him, I would have been in poverty or dead.

Diego managed to care for me more than my own parents. There's no way he can have any sort of connection with Amir. Amir sounds cold, ruthless and Diego is the exact opposite. I log in, swiping left and right for a clue. Maybe the messages would have a clue.

There's nothing in the messages but a single text from Tina. I just saw Nirvaan leave with Matsya? I feel like there's something more to their relationship than we know tbh.

Tina and Diego talk about me behind my back? The message is fairly new, judging by its content it was only about ten minutes ago. Diego would have realized if his phone was missing before, he's always on it. Both of them are constantly talking to each other, even if it was stolen before Tina would have known by then.

The phone must have been stolen during the party.

The only person connected to Amir at the party was Mastya. She's the only one that could have possibly stolen the phone - but for what? There's no doubt that Diego is connected with Matsya now.

But how? And why? What does Diego have to do with Matsya? My head spins and it's completely understandable. My world has been shaken up - Diego, my best friend, the guy who managed to save me so many times may be the reason why my whole life is in havoc? What was so bad that Matsya hates someone like Diego?

I sit down onto the floor, quickly looking through the phone and its messages. Most of it is business related and texts to people I know. I feel like I'm invading his privacy but majority of these things are the stuff I know.

I shiver at the cold gust of wind and I hear the sound of the door opening. My eyes snap up, meeting Matsya is looking at a pizza happily. "I got hot and spicy and I don't really care if you prefer sweet stuff," she says, brushing a strand of hair away from her eyes.

They don't look back, instead they remain on the pizza and move to the empty seat where I should be. With a frown, she scans the car and spots me. At first her eyes look at me with amusement. It'll be hard to not laugh at a grown man, sitting on the car floor with little space to move his legs. To top it off, the blanket is falling off the seat and onto my head, bringing bottles of spray paint onto the floor.

Then she spots the phone in my hands. In my shock, I didn't manage to throw it away. Instead, it lies in my hands like if I was a child caught stealing the cookies out of the cookie jar. By the looks of her eyes, that fall from happy and light shade of brown to a gaze that hold no emotions, I judge that she's not happy.

I bite my bottem lip, moving back into the leather seat of the car. Matsya wordlessly moves into the car, slamming the door shut. Her eyes sweep the empty car park and after a few seconds that feel like years on my dry throat, she looks back at me with her palm out.

"The phone?" she asks. My grip tightens on it. I don't want to play by her rules, I want the truth more than the harm she can cause.

"What did Diego do?" I reply, giving her a question instead of the phone she wants. Her eyes narrow onto me and finally she sighs. Her body hits the seat, sinking into the soft cotton of it. My back is digging into the seat's edge and my ass feels like it's merging into the carpet.

"He didn't do anything. Is that enough?" she answers, her tone serious. It turns sarcastic at the end as if the idea is outrageous.

"No. It's not enough. Nothing you give is enough, why can't you just tell me the truth?" I say, my voice turning into a sword. The tone is one I can't place as mine. It sounds more like my father's; it was cold and holding poison.

"Give me one single reason why I should tell you anything," Matsya shoots back, starting up the car. When silence dominates the conversation, she looks back at me with eyes that hold steel. "What would you gain from the truth?"

I'll gain peace, it'll cure the restlessness I have. It'll solve the mystery in my mind, it'll get rid of you. What would Matsya gain from learning this? That the only few reasons why I want to know is because of the constant nagging in my mind and that I want her gone?

Why do I want her gone anyways? Is it because of the fear she causes me? The shock, the new set of emotions I thought weren't possible? In the days I've known Matsya, I've never felt so afraid, so confused or so happy at getting revenge. She's changed my perspective, made me stop assuming anything about people (she walked in my life with a gun yet gives medicine to kids) and changed my whole life within a few weeks.

She's made me angry at my own parents and my own words. With her presence, my whole life is slowly changing and I hate it. I liked the simple life I had, that lacked fear and curiosity. The world seems to be spinning the wrong way, away from the simple life I planned.

Perhaps I don't hate Matsya. I hate the idea if my world changing.
"What would it do? Why do you care so much?" Matsya quizzes me again, leaving me blank at any idea of what to reply. She accepts my silence as a win. "You don't have a reason. It's pointless."

"I want to know what brings you here."

"But why?"

"It's everything about you! Everything you do is a mystery. It's as if you have everything locked up in a secret and don't want anything to spill. All these actions you do are so different from your ones from yesterday, it's like you're never the same person. Why? How can you go from a gang member to someone who distributes medicine to sick kids?" I rant, my voice sounding like mine but mixed with anger.

"You manage to have me so afraid and then manage to have me easily go and tag my parent's home. It's like you have two sides to you, the nice side that manages to have me do anything for and the evil side that I despite. Why? What brings you here, what make you capable of almost destroying everything I know?!" I ask, gaining confidence even though I'm sitting on a stranger's carpet.

I finally break the silence. After all my ranting, Matsya seems to be thinking. "Aren't you going to answer?"

□

How was the chapter? Feedback? Is it good enough?

Vote?

- Maya.