"We know everything yet, we know nothing."
-Love_richie.

Iby's dazed look only infuriated May more. She repeated the same question again.

"Iby, do you kill people for a living?"

The longer he left the question unanswered, the faster her heart beat. She didn't know why but
she could almost hear the thudding in her ears. Slow but heavy.

Was she friends with a murderer? If he decided to kill her now, could she defend herself?

No! She wouldn't be able to. If she was that powerful she'd never allow Edric to abuse her.

Different questions flooded her mind. She couldn't think straight. In fact, she didn't know what to
think.

Her question kept ringing in his ears, bringing back memories he thought he could run away from. He couldn't help but ask himself the same question in his head. Am I a killer? Am I?

His mouth instantly went dry. He gulped with eyes as wide as an owl's. His breathing began slowing or so he thought.

The screams. The blood.

Iby couldn't shake it out of his mind. His features suddenly seemed frightened, his eyes focusing on May but he wasn't looking at her. They seemed distant. Far.

This realization only scared May. She couldn't take the silence anymore. She screamed, "Iby!"

He shifted his eyes to her now. His mind back to reality. Back to his present state with her in his
apartment. "Eh?"

Relief surged through her due to his response. "What is wrong with you? You're acting weird."

He sighed in frustration. "I am fine."

"You don't look like it-"

"I said I am fine!"

The way he shouted made her jolt backward, shivering in shock.

He sighed yet again, running both hands on his hair, trying to calm down. He looked a mess.

"I'm sorry if I snapped-"

"You yelled at me." May angrily cut in, watching him with disbelieving eyes.

She could easily walk away from him, cut all ties, forget she'd ever met someone like him, but she couldn't. She didn't even have a valid reason why.

There was something pulling her to him with every minute she was or had spent with him. He
might not have seemed to be the perfect guy, but there was something... Maybe it was the way he laughed so easily and freely like nothing else in the world mattered. How he always tried to pick out little jokes whenever they were having a conversation just to make her laugh. Or was it how he always looked at her with amusement in his captivating eyes?

She didn't know. He just held this mysterious charm that no one else could. Not even Edric.

Iby looked hurt. She looked annoyed. But deep down her heart, she was having this feeling that he needed help but how?

He walked to his table to get his pack of cigarettes from under the books where he had hidden it. He took out one, and using his lighter, he lit the cigarette while he cursed himself under his
breath.

May wondered how many times she was going to widen her eyes. Maybe she'd never be able to
close them again. "You smoke too?"

The surprise in her tone was evident. Iby didn't fail to notice.

Iby looked up at his blue painted ceiling and puffed out some smoke. "Yeah. Why?"

"I don't like it." She said with a shrug. Then she remembered the small burn on his lip. It makes a lot of sense now.

"I smoke for a reason."

"May I know why?" She eagerly asked.

He sniffed and looked away from her, biting his bottom lip, "To calm my nerves."

"From what precisely?"

If he was some ritualist or killer, she needed to play it safe with him. Even if he had wanted to
kill her, though, he'd have killed her long ago. She'd spent up to three hours with him today.

"You wouldn't understand. No one does."

May was no doctor or psychologist but with the way things were heating up in front of her, she knew Iby needed help.

"You can tell me. I'm here for you." May said and mentally smacked her head. The words came out before she could stop them.

"...It's the past and your question seems to remind me of it." He drew in some smoke and puffed
it out.

May waited for him to say more. He kept quiet, debating over whether to tell her or not. Finally,
he sighed, rubbed his forehead, and kept cursing. "Shit. Shit."

She watched patiently until he was done with his drama.

He walked past her to his bed and sat down. After a while, he tapped the side of the bed, asking
her to sit too.

May didn't have enough chance to think if it was the right thing to do so she found herself walking towards his bed. Her legs shaking.

If he noticed, he didn't say anything.

They sat quietly for a minute or two before he spoke.

"Listen, May, I know there are so many things running through your head right now. You might
be thinking that I am a bad person. It's alright if you do. I mean, it's a free world and you have the right to think whatever you want to but I need you to know that I am not actually what you think." He faced her. "You see this life differently than me and everyone has their own
perspective. You might not like that I have all these drawings on my wall, but I don't see anything wrong with it. You might not like the idea that I smoke, but just like I told you, I do it for a reason."

May nodded in understanding. Who was she to judge him?

"About your question," he scratched the back of his ear. "No. My job is not killing, believe it or not. My job is to supervise this street, that's what I get paid by the government to do. This street was formerly known as 'Sodom and Gomorrah'. There was a time police came to arrest some boys after they robbed a bank. You know what those boys did?"

May shook her head.

"They killed the policemen. Backup was notified, three more police vans were sent to this place, and the boys killed them too."

May drew in her brows and scrunched up her nose as if in confusion, "Unbelievable."

"Yes, but it happened." Iby had stopped smoking. The cigar still between his fingers. "The
federal government got upset. You know, these policemen also have families to take care of. So
they came in with a bomb. They threw bombs everywhere not caring who was killed. The thing
that hurts me most, though, is that people's parents died during the time. Kids, old men, and
women. It was all because of those boys. But they managed to escape."

"I can't believe I've been in this state for all my life and I've never heard this story," May said
more to herself.

Iby ignored her as he continued. "After some months later, people started building houses again
and moving in. The government doesn't want what happened to happen again so this group was
formed, the group I'm working in. Our duty is to discipline whoever is caught stealing or fighting most of all, any boy or man who abuses a woman." He stopped to think and she waited patiently for him to continue.

"That's what we've been doing-"

"Then what about the tire? The burning? The killing?"

"That's what the crowd wants. The market people, these cultists, they steal what others put so much effort into getting. The hustle. The pain. The crowd doesn't want to listen. You can call them heartless but they'd tell you that these boys were heartless for doing what they do. And we, we only give them what the crowd wants. You know what the Bible says. It says 'suffer not
the wicked to live or go unpunished'." He shakes his head. "No... I don't know if I quoted it right-"

May cut in. "The same bible says, 'thou shalt not kill'. How about that?" She breathed out. "And
these boys you're talking about? I think they need help... Just like you said, sometimes they do what they do for a reason. We just don't know what. There has to be a way..."

"And what about those who are found guilty in court and get death sentences? Isn't that the
same thing?"

May shakes her head thoughtfully. "No. No. That's murder. This is different. This is stealing."

Iby laughed at her ignorance, grazing his thumb on his lips. "You don't get it. Do you? Now let's put it this way. Just imagine, you're coming back from a night vigil with your daughter and then you get stopped by two boys. You're frightened. There's no one out there to help you and then one of the boys points a pistol at you while the other is holding an axe. They order you to give them your bag knowing fully well that your phone, your money, or anything of great value is inside. You try to plead with them to reconsider. They show you no mercy." He forms his hand into a gun. "And then boom!" He shoots using his hand adding effect to what he was trying to explain. May shivers.

"They kill your child and still take your bag. Tell me, is that called 'only stealing'?" He asks.

May stayed quiet. Processing what he said.

He doesn't wait for her to speak. "And then after a week fate comes into the picture. You're
shopping in the local market and you see this little crowd gathered, surrounding a boy you
recognized to be the killer of your child. This time he was caught stealing. He has a big tire on his neck and the crowd is yelling. Burn him alive! Burn him alive! Be honest May, would you preach to them to let him go?"

May closed her eyes. She couldn't imagine that happening. God forbid that someone kill Maryam. She'd do anything to get revenge. "No. I'll be the one to take the fuel, pour it over him, and light the match. I'll happily watch him burn."

Iby snapped his fingers. "That's it. That's just it, May."

She didn't know why but she smiled. "I'm sorry for reading too much meaning into it and criticizing you. I didn't think of all that. I am sorry for judging you."

He sighed yet again. "It's okay. Not like I find pleasure in what I do anyway."

May placed her hand on his shoulder. "If you don't, then why don't you just quit?"

"I'm twenty-seven years old, I have two younger siblings, I am running an online program, and
my dad has a brain tumor."

May's hand flew to her mouth at his revelation, "Oh, my God."

He continued, "We need three million for his surgery overseas. I mean where the fuck will I get
three million from? My poor mother and two other siblings have searched by every means
necessary to get the money. But as the eldest, they're looking up at me for assistance. This is a job I get paid well for. The money I get goes for family and school... Don't you think my life is
tough enough already and you want me to quit my only means of survival?"

He was fighting the urge not to cry. From time to time as he spoke, his eyes teared up. He
blinked and it disappeared.

May didn't know she was crying until the tears dropped on her skirt. She drew him close to her,
resting her head on his shoulder. She didn't know why but it felt like the right thing to do at the
time.

"I'm sorry," she sniffed. "I'm so sorry... I had no idea."

"It's okay," he dropped the cigar and stepped on it.

She couldn't stop crying. She felt the need to cry. Maybe it was because she was thinking of her
life too, in the process.

He wrapped his hand around her to comfort her. Why do girls get so emotional all the time? He
didn't understand why she was the one crying rather than him.

"It's okay," he reiterated, holding her tighter to himself which only caused her to wince out in pain.

"What's wrong?" He asked, shocked.

"Uhm nothing." she pulled away from him.

He had the feeling she was hiding something. So he quickly shifted her sweater which revealed her swollen, red shoulder.

"May, who did this to you?"