|Eight|

•Week Two•

(Ignore spelling mistakes cuz I'm honestly too lazy to fix them)

I paced the room back and forth, replaying everything that happened the other day.
I needed to get Ryan somewhere safe, but I couldn't think of anywhere that would be a good place for him to stay. I couldn't ask if he could stay at one of our friend's apartment, because that would put our friend in danger, too.
And I can't keep him here, because they'll assume Ryan will be hiding out at his apartment. And besides that, Jasper (who I really think has something to do with this) knows where the apartment is.

I collapsed on the couch and rubbed my eyes. I was getting paranoid that someone would break in and either murder or adultnap Ryan.

Jack glanced over at me. "Have you thought of anything we could do?" He asked as he searched the kitchen for something to eat.

I sighed. "No. We can't get help from the police or anyone we know, we can't go outside, and we can't stay here."

Ryan lifted his head up off of the pillow he was resting on. "Maybe we could try stopping them ourselves?"

Jack dropped his sandwich and I gave Ryan a weird look. "You want us to stop a group of murderers? How would we even do that?"

Ryan shrugged. "Uh, I dunno. But if we work together, maybe we can figure something out? At least we could get enough evidence to convince the police I'm innocent."

I thought it over in my head. It would be risky, but really, what else could we do? Jasper was probably listing off ways he could kill Ryan right now.

"Fine. But where do we start?" I asked.

"The police station! Maybe we can find more info there!" Jack said, jumping onto the couch next to me.

"You just want to go there so you can steal from them again," I deadpanned.

Ryan perked up. "Steal from them? Again?"

Jack and I exchanged glances. "Nevermind that," I said. "It doesn't matter."

There was a pause before Ryan spoke. "But maybe going to the police station is a good idea. I think we could definitely find something there! I mean, Jasper and his friends have been around for a long time, so they probably have a pretty big criminal record."

"Okay, then we'll start there!" Jack said.

"But if they see Ryan, they'll arrest him," I reminded them. "And we can't leave Ryan alone."

"Uh, we'll use disguises. Obviously." Jack got up and pulled Ryan off of the couch. "We can give him a 'makeover'!" He enthusiastically said, dragging Ryan to the kitchen.

I stumbled after them. "We don't have anything for disguises."

Jack shrugged. "We'll do our best with what we have."

~

After an hour, we found a pretty unsuspecting outfit for Ryan to wear (it was a combination of all of our clothes), and a few pieces of jewelry for him.

Jack instructed Ryan to sit down on a chair, and Ryan obeyed. Jack pulled out some scissors and started to cut his hair.

"Wait, are you seriously cutting my hair with some random scissors you found in a drawer?!"

Jack stopped. "Well, these are the only scissors I could find," he explained. "I also don't really know how to cut hair, so this will be a fun, new experience for us all."

Ryan looked anxious. "Great, now I'm going to look like a shaved monkey."

"Don't be silly. You don't have nearly enough hair to look like a shaved monkey," Jack said, nonchalantly.

~

After Jack finished cutting Ryan's hair,  Ryan went to take a shower, although reluctantly.

I helped clean up the mess we made trying to find a good disguise for Ryan, and Jack went to his room to find something.

I was worried the disguise wouldn't work, but then again, the police had never even seen Ryan in real life. They only had pictures of him, so I really hoped they wouldn't recognize him at all.

Words could not describe how scared for Ryan's life I was. I didn't want anything to happen to him ever. But I knew something would, eventually. I doubted we'd be able to get tangled with ruthless killers and then come out unharmed.

Jack ran into the room with a black sharpie, and nearly crashed into me. "Found it!" He said, slamming it down on the counter.

I looked at it and then back at Jack. "Why do you need a sharpie?"

He smiled and was about to respond, but then Ryan walked in, wearing the clothes we picked out for him.

"I'm not so sure about this," Ryan said, doing a nervous spin to show off his outfit. He was wearing ripped black jeans (one of Jack's ruined pairs), a shirt that was small on him so it kinda looked like a crop top, a silver necklace they found under the couch, mismatched gloves, and a leather jacket. "I look like the dollar store version of emo."

Jack shook his head. "You look great!"

Ryan seemed doubtful and ran a hand through his newly cut hair. His hair actually didn't look as bad as I thought it would, and looked pretty good with the outfit.

Jack walked up to Ryan and took his glasses off. "I need these for a sec," he said and grabbed the sharpie off the table.

Ryan started to protest, but it was already too late. Jack had colored the lenses completely black and then handed them back to Ryan.

"You know I can't see with these anymore, right? Do you have any ide-"

Jack waved Ryan off. "Sorry, but we don't have any sunglasses and I think this really completes the look."

"Those don't look like sunglasses, though. They look like someone scribbled on them with a sharpie," I pointed out. Jack huffed and crossed his arms.

"Well, that's all I could do!"

"I still can't see," Ryan reminded us. "How am I supposed to help look for evidence and stuff?"

Jack shrugged. "You could distract people for us."

Ryan nervously put his glasses on. "I guess I could try that."

Jack gave him a thumbs up before turning to me. "Now to find a disguise for us!" He said and grabbed my hand, dragging me to the Living Room.