Cautious

He wavedat her? Jude's brain screeched to a halt, the gears catching and grinding. He'd waved? He'd smiled?

Despite his idea to keep his hand full, Jude ended up setting his drink down anyway, reaching up to rub at his temple. He could feel one of those things-got-too-dumb headaches raising its head in the distance.

"That at least lends credence to the theory that this wasn't done out of malice on his part, just stupidity. Tricked into doing it, maybe? If he was being paid, he wouldn't have waved at you. He'd have been hiding who he was, the way he did in Halcyon."

Jude opened his mouth again to suggest maybe it wasn't him before closing it. It was a portal. The odds of someone else having portals that worked so similarly... slim. Very slim.

"Being honest, the only way I see him getting paid and waving is if he was also getting paid to take the fall... but I don't think he's stupid enough for that. The island takes care of people, and there's no way his sister could get a large enough sum of money to make it worth it without the island catching on."

"I do, actually," Jude said. "I was raised Catholic. Holy water isn't actually all that hard to get once you're in a church, but it's also not something you can get just by chance."

He considered the whole thing, folding his arms over his chest before, midway through, he realized he was down a good portion of his left arm. The whole thing felt awkward, but that didn't stop him from doing it almost instinctively, and he fumbled for a moment before letting his hand just fall into his laugh.

"No," Jude corrected. "The way he did it was too obvious for that. His portals are a pretty distinct thing. He's not the only one with it, but it's too distinct a power. Like committing your murders with a farmer's scythe when your villain name is the farmlord."

Okay, no one had actually done that, but the idea was clear enough.

"I'm dating Alma," Jude said, "and he knows she's a half demon. He seemed... fine with it? Didn't seem to like the PDA, but lots of people don't. He's never mentioned any of those things, and I strongly doubt he even knows who those are. He's pretty, uh, oblivious."

Thinking about it, it occurred to Jude that he really did know a lot of demons. His roommate was the son of Satan. His girlfriend was a demon. That wasn't even count the dozen or so casual acquaintances he'd consider himself friendly with, like Ghum or Archer...

For a moment, it felt surreal.

He dragged himself back to reality, reaching out to grab his soda and taking a gulp to give his brain time to process.

"I don't know," he admitted. That was something he'd been taught a long, long time ago - admit when you don't know. "I don't know why he did it. I want to talk with him, even after what he did, at least once. I want to ask him to explain himself. I want to know why. If I hear anything important, I'll let you know, but I doubt he'll tell me anything he isn't going to tell the cops."

Manta Carlos moved pretty fast. How many days before he plead his case to a judge? How many days before he actually fucking answered Jude's texts?

Jude set his drink back down, reaching up to run his hand through his hair.

"Things were going really well, and now this."

The whole situation was shitty, and Jude found himself leaning farther and farther back into the couch until he was staring all the way up at the ceiling, wondering what the hell he was supposed to do.

"Maybe when he's sentenced I'll hear from him," Jude muttered quietly. "And then I'll hear whatever bullshit story he comes up with. Or maybe he'll just say it in the sentencing, and..."

Another long, long sigh.

"I'd have considered myself to be pretty close to him before, and now it's like I didn't even know him. No warning signs. Nothing. The other day he was talking about how eager he was to get out of remedial, and now...." Jude made a vague wave of his hand. "Now all this. I don't know what to tell you here. I want to say it's not like this, but who even know what it's like? Just... Just wait and see, I guess."

A part of Jude's brain was mentally composing an explanation that sometimes things just happened, but he cut himself off. It wouldn't be helpful.

"Tell them what you told me," Jude said. "Tell them you don't yet know why it happened, but you're going to keep trying to find out the truth. That you're going to keep going until you find out why, so everyone can stop this in the future."

People were far, far too wary about admitting they didn't know. He'd been taught to admit he didn't know for a variety of reasons, the least of which being that it tended to humanize the speaker in everyone else's eyes.

If you were having to explain something to someone, it was a pretty good bet they didn't know either.