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“It isn’t fair they’re dead. It’s far
worse that I remain alive to grieve for them, because it’s more pain than I
can endure.”
Nightcrawler,
Excalibur
Franklin sat at the dinette table in the
kitchen, tapping absently on the stained wood tabletop with his index
finger. In faded blue jeans and a
white shirt with the sleeves rolled up above his elbows, he stared vacantly
at nothing, as if looking inquisitively into a mirror. His memories and thoughts were more real to
him than the world around him. His
raging emotions were placated into a pillowy numbness by his senses muting to
almost obliviousness.
The kitchen was quietly
clean. The floor was a simple tile
that felt neat and healthy rather than surgically spotless. The counters were marble-topped while the
cabinets were deeply stained wood. The
kitchen, with two entrances on either side and the dinette set in the middle,
fused a timeless nostalgia with modern style and convenience.
He became aware of something and
looked up, his eyes slowly settled on Everett
as he sat across from him. Franklin looked around
at the people, Morgan’s friends, who had gathered in front of him. Names and memories descended on his ravaged
mind like rain falling on a forest after a fire. He moved to speak, to ask the horrible
things that were swirling in his head, but all that came out was, “Why are
you all in blue and white?”
Everett was stunned for a second by the
question. He looked down at his
clothes, then at the other knights.
“It’s…” he started.
“Did you guys renounce Chivalry
too?”
“We switched teams,” Roland
answered, glancing over his shoulder as the police went about their forensics
business, leaving the small crowd alone in the kitchen.
“The knights have teams?” Franklin asked.
“Yes,” Edgar said with a sensitive
smile, hurrying up the discussion.
“Oh.”
“Franklin,”
Everett said,
getting his attention again. “What
happened?”
“When?” he asked.
“When you first got here,” Everett clarified. Next to him, Marilyn, the only one not in
blue and silver, slipped her hand onto his shoulder, squeezing him
supportively. Without being aware of
it, he grabbed her hand, holding onto her.
“I, uh,” Franklin began, leaning back in the
high-end dinette chair. “I got off
work,” he recounted, struggling to keep the events in order, handling them
like globs of wet sand. “I, uh, mom
and me were going to go see the movie that just, just came out last
weekend. She, uh, she likes, likes the
guy that’s in it.”
“Right,” Everett encouraged.
“I got here,” Franklin said slowly, his eyes twitching as
if reliving the moments. “I got here
and Morgan had just gotten here. He
was…was he going to the movie with us?
No, he was, he was, coming over to see mom. He was going to introduce her to, to
someone,” he said, his words slurred with distant thoughts. “I don’t remember who it was. He didn’t say. He never says,” he said, looking sadly at
the knights. “Morgan and I, we weren’t
close-close, not like all brothers are, but we were close in kind of unique
way. We were…”
“Franklin,”
Sydney said, pulling out the seat to Franklin’s right,
sitting next to him. She sat close,
holding both his hands in hers. “What
happened after you got here?”
Franklin stared at her as if translating
her words from a foreign language.
“Morgan,” he finally said, swallowing.
“Morgan knocked on the door.
But there wasn’t an answer. He
knocked again, and then I was calling mom, but Morgan…I don’t know, his
spider-sense went off or something. He
got the spare key and opened the door and…”
Franklin’s breathing began to grow rapid,
his words tumbling over one another.
“And that’s when he started to freak.
He and I, we both smelled it.
It was like rotten Kool-aid or…something. Morgan went in first, all ninja and
stuff. He walked into the living room
and then…” Franklin stopped, looking up. He stared at the doorway to the kitchen as
if expecting to see Morgan standing there.
Several of the others couldn’t resist looking as well. “He just froze.”
The next words slowly dribbled out
like water through a rusted drain. “On
the floor,” he said calmly, “mom was lying there. Face-down, and a big stain was covering the
carpet.” He looked at Everett.
“That’s when Morgan sniffed. He
sniffed at the air like a bloodhound.”
Everett took a quick whiff of the air, a
troubled look coming over him. He
looked at Sydney. “I smell it too,” she confirmed quietly.
“He said, ‘they did it’. He said it again and again and again. They did it. They did it.” Franklin
shook his head, becoming frantic. “He
got mad. He got angry, but then, he,
he just went numb. He just went calm
and catatonic, like he was in shock.
Like he’d just won a million dollars, only not happy; sad. I asked him. I asked him who’d done it. I don’t really know why. Mom was lying there. But I asked him who’d done it.” He looked squarely forward, his distant
eyes piercing Everett
through the chest like a gunshot. “And
he said the Blue Knights.”
Franklin turned and pointed towards the
door. “And he started to leave,” he
said, getting up to leave as well. “He
started to leave and I went to get him to stay, but he, he just shoved
me. Just shoved me out of the way,
like, like I was, like I was nothing.
Just shoved me.” He sat back,
running over his story like he was searching for any forgotten details. “I wonder if mom’s going to be okay?” he
asked absently.
“He didn’t say where he was
going?” Ledger asked. Franklin just stared off. “Frank!” he said louder.
“Huh? Oh, no.
He just said the Blue Knights had done it and left,” Franklin answered, already returning to his
detached state.
Everett started to get to his feet. “Thanks, Franklin,” he said hesitantly, unable to
look him in the eyes. Franklin just stared out, distant. Everett
stood and turned to the other knights, the group gathering around one another
as inconspicuously as possible. “What
do you think?”
“Why in the world would Morgan
think we’d done it?” Donovan asked, a touch of irate behind his otherwise
calm words. “We didn’t do it. Me and Erik are the only ones here in the
States and we sure as hell didn’t do it.”
“Can we get into the living room?”
Armand asked. “See the crime scene?”
“Police still won’t allow it,” Sydney said. “We’re lucky they even let us talk to Franklin.”
“Morgan’s stepmom was a tough old
bird,” Roland tossed into the conversation.
“If she got killed, it definitely was either a surprise attack or
there had to have been a struggle.”
“She was on her stomach,” Edgar
said quietly, noting a police officer looking in on them. “She probably didn’t even know anything was
up until…well, too late.”
“What kind of coward would attack
from behind?” Roland asked semi-rhetorically.
“The kind of coward that would
want to frame the Blue Knights,” Everett
said. “Take a whiff. Smell that?” The knights all did. Roland and Donovan looked confused, just as
Edgar and Armand looked a little lost.
Ledger, though, developed a dawning realization. “That smells like Richard.”
“Richard?” Donovan said. He sniffed again. He readied to argue, but could only keep
smelling.
“It’s not that the Blue Knights
attacked; it’s that someone wanted to make it look like the Blue Knights
attacked,” Everett
said. “They use a scent that’s similar
to Richard’s, which Morgan would definitely be able to pick up, and they make
it look like the most cowardly-type of attack possible, which will get a
former knight’s hackles up.”
“And killing his stepmother
wouldn’t do that enough?” Ledger asked callously.
“What would he hope to accomplish
from that?” Marilyn asked. Roland and
Ledger both glared at her. “What?!”
she protested.
“Piss Morgan off enough and he
gets vindictive,” Everett
said, growing concerned.
“Vindictive enough to go kill a
knight,” Sydney
connected. “We need to get to
Erik. Fast.”
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