26. SELF-CONSCIOUS

And then suddenly your brain shuts down because someone told you something you couldn't process. Like, it literally shut down.

Jayce scoffed, then laughed a bit, "Sorry, repeat that once more,"

"What part of 'Jaxon killed Eric' did you not understand?"

"All of it,"

"The reason why I agreed to dating you is because I knew he was a killer. I did it to earn his trust. He wanted to use you as protection, and I wanted to keep you under my eye and gain info from you," he explained.

"Thank you so much for defining your main purpose of using me for info," she sneered.

"Don't act like you didn't date me either because you thought I was a murderer," he snapped back.

Jayce squeezed the knife and took a step forward to him, "I still think you are. You're a murderer with feelings, and sympathy and empathy. But like you said, you wouldn't be able to kill me would you?"

Ashton clenched his jaw, "Jaxon used me to get to you to make sure he gets all the information on the murder correctly, hoping that he could escape it somehow. I used you to gain information to put him in jail without having to give a statement like this,"

Jayce glared at him, ordering him to convince her more.

"I moved your pen around to make sure it didn't fall into his hands. If it does, he'll submit it to the police and you'll be in jail, and I don't think you're a murderer," he stated, "Remember when I asked you why you told everyone about the Walkers cutting off the school funding? And I didn't come back to the house that night?"

"Why?"

"I went to their house and to the dorm that night, to make sure he wasn't going out to kill my family, and I had to ensure him that I didn't hate them because he would kill anything I hate, and anything that makes him jealous,"

"I get the point of you dating me to keep me under your watch, and for information purposes," she replied, everything out of her mind right now, "But has it ever crossed your mind that dating me would make him jealous?"

"I wasn't going to fall for you anyways," Ashton stated, bitterly.

Jayce clenched her jaw with his words.

"And plus, he wanted me to date you, so he wouldn't have thought of you as a rival, but as something to use,"

"Wow, thank you, for clarifying the fact I was just a tool," Jayce sarcastically said, putting down the knife, and banging it harshly on the table.

"Need I to remind you that you suspected me as a murderer and dated me, wishing you could prove it, and you just held a knife on my neck? Oh, not only that, you also were the one who kissed me, twice." Ashton argued, this wasn't how he planned to confront her.

"Well, need I to remind you as well that you were the one who asked me to date you?" Jayce argued back.

"You said yes anyways, and for a more wicked cause than mine,"

Hurt, they've done that several times to each other.

"Okay, if that's the card you're willing to play," she said, approaching him back, "Answer my question truthfully: How did you find out Jaxon was the killer?"

He stepped back, putting his hands in his pockets, pursing his lips and sighing quietly.

"Sounds like it's a secret that can destroy you," she narrowed her eyes.

"I have- had, a sixth sense," he blurted out.

"A sixth sense?" she scoffed, "What does that make you do? See the dead?"

"Yes," he replied confidently, "I can call those who are dead by their name,"

"You expect me to believe you?"

"The way you're reacting is the reason I don't want to tell anyone about this," he said.

"Fine, explain." she stated.

"I called Eric, some time after the murder. I forced him to tell me who killed him,"

~~~

"Eric Rodriguez, please, if you're there somewhere, just show yourself in front of me," Ashton pleaded, he was in his dorm, still in grief, some time after the murder.

There was a silence, and he wanted to give up, as it took quite a while for Eric to show up. Ashton had been trying to call him for a long time, but he wouldn't show up.

"You're the one who's been calling me?" a voice spoke in front of Ashton's eyes.

Eric, who was glowing in white, and of course, he was a ghost, but he still seemed creepy.

"Where the hell have you been?"

"You can see me?"

"That's not important right now, where the hell have you been? Do you ignore people when they call you?" Ashton complained.

"If you're dead, it kinda makes sense y'know," Eric replied.

"Who killed you?"

"And the other reason why I don't respond to the calls is since they're definitely going to ask me that. As someone dead, I can totally understand that,"

"Finding your killer is all that matters to me right now," Ashton stated.

"The killer had a reason,"

"Stop with the dumb-forgiving to someone who literally killed you," he yelled.

"Aren't you supposed to be questioning the suspects and not the dead victim himself?" Eric curled his lip, furrowing.

"Did Jayce kill you?"

"Jayce?" Eric raised a brow, "Why would you say that?"

"Because her pen was in your room,"

"What?"

"Yeah,"

"It wasn't her,"

"Then just tell me,"

"If I tell you, all you're going to do is bad things to him,"

"It's a him?"

"Promise me you won't do anything bad to him," Eric lent out a pinkie.

Ashton glared at Eric, knowing it was hard not to break the promise, but he wanted the truth so badly. He linked his pinkie around Eric which passed through. Of course, he was dead, "I promise,"

"Okay, then," he sighed, "Jaxon did it,"

"What?" he couldn't interpret his words at all, "You must be joking," he laughed it off.

"Jaxon had been obsessed with you since day 1, and it's not like a good obsession, as in having someone always loves you and keeps you safe, it's like a mad obsession. An obsession that drove him crazy that he thinks you're his," Eric explained.

"And he killed you because he was jealous of me being friends with you? We have been a trio since the first day of school, it was never a duo with an extra one," Ashton replied, "He killed you because of that?"

"He put the gun on my head, he climbed the pipes beside my house and got into my room. I knew I was going to die that day. He's been threatening me ever since. He showed his face before I died and I know it was Jaxon," Eric said, hastily, "He was in the wrong but-"

"There's no but(s),"

"He's my friend, he's our friend," Eric justified.

"Oh, so if your friend killed you, you would just forgive them?"

"Yeah, if it's in Among Us,"

"In real life,"

"The point is, Jaxon has been my best friend along with you, and the last thing I want is both of my friends trying to kill each other, 'cause I damn well know you're both capable of that,"

"He's trying to frame Jayce for your murder," Ashton concluded, ignoring Eric.

"So are you mad that he killed me or that he's trying to frame Jayce?" he asked, confused, yet, deep inside, shipping them both.

"Practically both," he replied.

"I'm sorry I never told you I got blackmailed,"

"I'm sorry that you got blackmailed because of me," Ashton replied, blaming it all on himself.

Eric sighed, "What are you going to do about Jaxon?"

"Play his game, and win it. Earn his trust and betray him," he stated.

"And how exactly are you going to do that?"

"We'll see with how this all goes,"

"When are you going into the Light?"

"The Light?" Eric asked, "What's that?"

"Like the afterlife, I call it the Light,"

"How long have you been seeing ghosts?" Eric asked instead.

Ashton felt the blame for his death all on him, "It's fine, I'll handle everything from here. You can rest,"

~~~

"Is this some type of joke?" Jayce laughed, "You actually want me to believe that you see ghosts?"

"Yes,"

"And you said you 'had' a sixth sense. Why a past tense?"

"Because it went missing," he bitterly said. Convincing her wasn't going to be easy.

"Like the rabbits in a magician's hat?" she asked, taking it all as a joke.

"It went missing after I crashed my car in the forest, and it exploded, by which, meaning, Jaxon was the one who threw the match to my car. He threw it from the area near the funeral, after all he was present there too," he explained, and it quite made sense to her, "Anyways, Harrison's child and wife died, and I tried calling them in the hospital, and it didn't work. And the hospital is like a fresh graveyard, people die there nearly everyday. And I couldn't see any ghost,"

"So should you crash a car again to get your senses back?" she said sarcastically.

He exasperatedly sighed, "The reason why I asked you to bring Eric along was because I knew he was going to die. A black smoke trailed him from a month before, the reason for that panic attack in the library," Ashton explained, going rather dull.

"Black smoke?"

"It started with Mikael, when I was little, and there was black smoke exactly a month before his death," he responded, "I talked to him in his ghost form, then a while later he went into the Light, like the actual afterlife. The smoke gets smaller and smaller as it nears the death,"

"So you knew he was going to die for a month?" Jayce wondered.

"I left his room when the smoke disappeared, and thought it was safe, but he died anyway," he explained bitterly.

Jayce raised both her brows, "If you knew Eric was going to die, did you know my mother was going to die too?"

Ashton clenched his jaw, breaking eye contact from her.

She stood up properly and approached him, knife in her hands, pointing it back at him, "You knew, didn't you?"

She forced him to look at her, and she had no idea what this feeling was. It wasn't anger, it wasn't disappointment, it was regret.

"Jayce-" Ashton took her wrist slowly, as she jerked it back, grabbing his hand roughly, twisting it.

She turned them around, with him now against the dressing table, knife on his neck.

"You didn't tell me about Eric or my mother's death? You knew they were going to die yet you kept it all to yourself?" she asked, gritting her teeth.

"Your reaction to everything I just explained makes me quite happy I didn't tell you in the first place," Ashton replied, putting himself closer to the knife, "We were and are both in the wrong,"

"So your dignity matters much more than someone's life?" Jayce asked, scoffing.

"What do you think my mother taught me?" he asked in reply.

"And you think she's correct?"

"Then tell me, Jayce," Ashton narrowed his eyes, "Don't you think your actions when you first came here were as different as mine? For first place, you threatened me, made me a rival, and apparently, we destroyed each other mentally in a great frequency,"

She clenched her jaw, "I've realized my mistakes," she stated, confidently.

"Have you? All you did recently and now, I don't think you've realized much," he questioned, "All I need right now is evidence that Jaxon killed Eric. It's up to you to help me or not. I'm doing it for Eric's good, and you're doing it for Amber's,"

Jayce stood there, still considering what she should do. She could kill him, she would've, but was he really guilty?

"The choice is in your hands, president," Ashton said softly, "Kill me now, or help me,"

The grip on her knife softened, but as soon as it did, he grabbed her hand, squeezing it, and pushed the knife deeper onto his neck. His skin stung on the coldness of the metal.

"Kill me," he stated, "If you still think I'm a murderer,"

She hesitated, but his grip was still strong. She stared at him, willingly wanting to see what would happen if she pushed it further, and what his reaction would be, gushing in blood. But again, she hesitated.

"I can't trust you," she stated.

"What makes you think I trust you?" he responded back.

Jayce didn't know how to continue all of it. The dilemma of helping him or not, it swept through her mind.

"We surely can't earn each other's trust by words anymore, can't we, president?" Ashton asked, rather tempting.

She glared back at him, then jerked his hand off hardly from her wrist, placing the knife on her palm, and before Ashton could grab her hand back, she swiped the blade on her palm, leading to a rather huge cut on her palm, dripping out blood.

"What the heck are you freaking doing?" Ashton exclaimed.

He instinctively grabbed her hand, about to grab a handkerchief, which she jerked away and placed the knife on his palm instead.

"Then our trust is to be bound by blood," she replied to his statement before, giving him a brow raise to cut his palm as well.

Ashton gave a breath, but he said it himself, Jayce was insane. He took the knife and struck through his palm, gushing out blood. He pursed back his lips to hold away the sting, noticing Jayce wasn't flinching at all.

She lent out her hand towards his and took it in her hand, squeezing each other's palm, as the blood of them both mixed together.

Ashton winced at the excruciating pain, while Jayce looked at him with a poke face.

"With this, we promise each other," she said, fixing at his eyes, "That we will not lie, deceive and hide anything from one another, especially about Eric's case, ever again,"

"And if we are to find the other breaking any of those rules," he continued, "The other shall-"

"Kill and finish the case by themselves," she ended the sentence.

Ashton was not going to say 'kill', he was going to say that they would break their connection and never see the other again, but Jayce was in a condition where nothing was right. And he had to tag along again.

"This blood-binded agreement," Jayce started, "It'll just last until there's proof of Jaxon murdering Eric,"

Ashton let go of her hand and took a handkerchief, covering her palm with it, and tying it up.

"Like you said, president," he said as he tied up her scar as she winced in a small sharp pain where the knot was too strong, "If you are caught breaking any of the rules, I will kill you,"

"Killing you isn't what's going to matter to me, Ashton," she said, in a warning way, "It's what you lied, deceived or hid about that made me kill you that will matter,"

She put down her hand by her side, taking wipes from her bag and cleaning up the floor as Ashton gave a sigh, and ripped off a piece of cloth from the curtain and wrapped it around his hand.

"Where do we start?" he asked. It felt better now that he had a partner, a rather shady one though.

"The closest person to Jaxon: Jasmine," she replied, standing up and putting the blood-soaked wipes into her bag.

He flinched. He knew they weren't in good circumstances, but they both hid it well.

"Also about Jasmine," he started, "I also used you to get to her as she is one of the closest people to Jaxon," Jayce wasn't surprised though, "That's it. That's all the lies that I have done when I used you,"

Jayce kept a poker face, as she took her purse and turned towards the door.

"One more question," he said before she unlocked the door.

"What?" she groaned.

"What about our relationship?"

The sunset is beautiful, isn't it? ringed in Jayce's head.

She stood quiet for a while, then unlocked the door, "Was there even one to start with?"

She was about to open the door wide before he broke in again.

"Right, I forgot," he interrupted, "There is one very big lie I forgot to tell you,"

"What's that?" she asked, not in the mood anymore.

"I hate you, with no exceptions and with no limits," Ashton stated with a firm face, "That's a lie,"

He put his hands in his pocket, as Jayce stood by the door, just frozen. It was just a sentence, but it shook her. He walked past her, going through the door and going out, leaving her frozen with her dull thoughts there.

At that moment, the sentence was a truth for Jayce, but a lie for Ashton.

~~~

Jayce sat beside Ashton in the car. They had escaped the ballroom quick enough for no one to notice them, and her phone was filled with messages from Amber and his phone was filled with messages from Jaxon. Both of them chose to ignore it, like how they were ignoring each other.

They were on the way to Jasmine's house, and Ashton had not come back to his mother's house in weeks. He had constantly been staying at the dorm.

Jayce put her head out in the autumn breeze, heart beating and feelings all swelled and mixed. Ashton loved her, and deep down somewhere in her twisted heart, she knew that she, for once, loved him too.

She reached down in her bag, taking out the wooden house key. She placed the key in the jeep's compartment.

Ashton noticed, and immediately looked back at her, "What are you doing-?"

"Keep your eyes on the road," Jayce replied, sitting back on the chair, "You don't want to get on another crash,"

"You're giving me back the house," he said.

"It was never my house," she replied bitterly, "After all, we end after this,"

"Just so you know," he responded, "The house was purely a gift from me,"

Jayce ignored his words, she couldn't believe him that much anymore. She knew that manipulation and kindness were two things so near but so far, and this was something she couldn't conclude herself.

Ashton kept his eyes low on the road, as he made a turn to the 'elite' area.

~~~

Ashton stepped down the jeep, about to open Jayce's door for her, but she went down before he could.

He cleared his throat before knocking on the Spencers' house gates.

After a while, a braided black-haired girl, wearing a long-sleeved shirt, covering a yellow crop-top, tucked in jeans, came out and opened it. Her hazel eyes locked with Jayce's, and they both froze for a while.

"Jayce," Jasmine said finally. It wasn't some sort of desperate call, it was just a staggered one. Her eyes hovered beside her, "And Ashton," from her tone, it seemed that she was quite unhappy with it, "What brings you both here?"

Jayce didn't respond immediately, in fact she took time, and Ashton gave her time. Jasmine felt ignored.

"We should go somewhere else," Jayce said, turning around, "Do you mind coming with us, Jaz- Jasmine?" she flinched.

"Where to?" Jasmine asked back.

"Let's just say this is crucial to us," Ashton replied.

"Crucial to her, or to you?" she asked back.

"It's about Eric," Jayce interrupted, still not looking at her.

Jasmine worded the letter O with her mouth, then nodded, "Okay then,"

She walked past Jayce, and stepped into the middle seats, which were still covered in plastic. She didn't mind, and just went in and sat, the sound of the plastics crumpling were heard.

Jayce went inside the jeep and Ashton started driving, "Where are we exactly heading?" he asked.

"The house," she replied.

"You too don't seem to be in good circumstances," Jasmine commented, peeking in between them as they both gulped.

"There's a whole bunch of good reasons for us not to be," Jayce replied.

~~~

They got to the wooden house, and Jasmine gasped in awe.

"This house, is yours?" she asked in delight to Ashton.

"No," Ashton replied.

"Yes," Jayce replied.

Jasmine flinched at the contrast of answers, "Okay, you both are going to tell me what happened,"

"Get in first," Ashton took out the key Jayce had given back to him and unlocked the door.

The flowers and plants the two had planted were already growing. The sprouts were already peaking out, and it seemed that memory was too good to be true.

Jasmine stepped in the house, mesmerized by the interior.

"I bought it from your dad," Ashton said, "So if it looks nice, thank him,"

"Oh,"

"Let's get to business, shall we?" Jayce asked, sitting beside Jasmine, as Ashton sat far opposite from them.

Jasmine felt like she was in the middle of a couple fight, consisting of her ex and her brother's best friend.

Jayce and Ashton took turns explaining the situation, and Eric's death, and their relationship, and his sixth sense, and Jaxon's involvement in Eric's death.

"First of all," Jasmine said, rather concerned, "You're saying my brother, my dear Jaxon, killed his own best friend 'cause he has some psycho personality who obsesses over Ashton? And he gets jealous over Eric, then kills him?"

"I know it's hard to believe, and I don't believe him as well unless we get proof," Jayce comforted her.

Jasmine glared at Ashton, who looked as if he wanted to just prove what he had said, and heard.

"So let me get this straight," Jasmine started, "Jaxon used Ashton to date Jayce so he can see the investigation and spy on it, then can escape from being a suspect from all the information he shall get,"

"Yes,"

"And Ashton agreed to Jaxon because he wanted to prove that Jaxon can trust Ashton even though he knows he's a killer. And Ashton dated Jayce to keep her safe under her watch,"

"Yeah, and it's kinda weird you're talking in third-person,"

Jasmine ignored his statement, "And, you, Jayce, you dated Ashton 'cause he's suspicious and your dad thinks he's a murderer and you dated him to find out if he really is one?"

"Yep,"

"Okay, then, okay," she sighed, "What do you need from me?"

"Where was Jaxon the night of Eric's murder? I don't think he was at the dorm," Ashton asked.

"He wasn't at home definitely," Jasmine replied, "I was with Brenda, watching TV that all the neighbors could hear. And he wouldn't have liked that,"

"He wasn't at home," he concluded, "And he wasn't at the dorm. I was out all day,"

"His bank account," Jayce said, "Were there any transactions of money in huge amounts? If Jaxon was the killer, he must've paid thousands of dollars in cash to Fredrick Jackville for the phones,"

"I take care of his financial stuff, he doesn't understand it much," Jasmine said, "And I can assure you nothing is suspicious from his transactions from the past few months, or like since ever,"

"We're on another dead-end," Ashton sighed.

"Then maybe he has another bank account you don't know," Jayce replied, "And he's been saying all along that he doesn't understand how to take care of his finance to make us think that way when in reality, he understands it very well,"

"Still, we're on another dead-end," he repeated.

There was silence before Jayce then sat back straightly and furrowed, "I don't think so,"

"What other crazy idea do you have?" he groaned.

"My pen, that was found in Eric's bedroom, must have been stolen from my bedroom. I don't remember when else they could've stolen it without me knowing. It must have been on the morning before the murder," she stated.

"And your point?"

"The stalker," she said, "The way he was showing clues that the murderer was from the basketball team. And he was correct, Jaxon is from the basketball team, which means that he must have evidence to do so,"

"We don't know who this stalker is, Jayce," he sighed.

Jayce looked back at him, with bright yet sorrowful eyes, "Unless we do,"

"I'm not getting your point,"

Her face was pale, "There has been one person who seems to always be jealous, and doesn't like our relationship and your friend group. And you, Jaxon and Eric are in the basketball group. There has been one person that told me to stay away from you all, and be careful, as if knowing something I don't about you three,"

"Who?"

"Niel,"