The Heroes We Weren't

Chapter 32 - Return Of The Sick

As the others were busy setting up Adam's new TV, I found myself repeatedly following M back and forth between the kitchen counters, as he seemed to be busily wandering about (although something told me that he was just trying to avoid me).

"If you kill Johnson," I hissed, "you're only lowering yourself to his level."

I didn't wish to let the others know of what M had told me the night before. It didn't seem right. It seemed like something private, something that had slipped off of his tongue – a secret that he now wished to keep between the two of us.

Yet the thought of his plans to murder Johnson had kept me awake all night.

"The only symbol left," M was clearly avoiding the subject, "is that of the pocket watch. We need to return it to its original, harmless state - that is, a connection between Watches and Tellers instead of Mark and his Soldiers."

He pointed to the last line of his note.

"Sadly, I have no idea how to Mark adjusted the-" He stopped mid-sentence.

He viewed my crossed arms, before he gave me but a sigh. He could attempt to escape the conversation all day, but he surely could not escape me.

And so, he allowed for us to go back to the topic of my choice.

"Mark never kills with his own hands." M said. "So when I murder him, I will not lower myself to his level, for Johnson never directly killed to begin with."

"And you did?" I asked. "Tell me M, have you ever killed anyone?"

I studied him closely. Another topic that had kept me up all night was that of the real murderer of the mayor. None of what the policeman had said the day before, fit with my previous assumption of it being M.

He had avoided my gaze all morning yet now he looked up; he was not surprised that I had asked him such a question, not at all - in fact, he had even expected me to eventually hear the truth - the truth that he wasn't the real murderer at all.

"Who is it?" I asked. "Who actually killed the mayor?"

"Isn't it obvious?" He smiled, before he turned his head down to scribble a location onto a piece of paper - Tyson 15A.

"You've been seeing the hints all this time." He continued. "The mayor's wrist watch, the dried mud, the invite to this apartment - one that didn't come from Adam himself - along with the short and murderous temper. Isn't it obvious?"

He raised his gaze from the note and viewed me over his glasses.

"There, Sweetheart, work that brain of yours."

I wished to have presented him a quick and snarky reply, but the pieces were slow at falling into place and somewhere at the back of my head, I thought I heard a creak from a rusty cogwheel.

The wrist watch - I remember having seen M steal it from the victim's apartment, yet it did not dress his own wrist.

The mud - The policeman said that the murderer had walked through a construction site, and thus left shoe prints outside - their boots must have been covered in evidence still.

Then there was the invite - an uninvited guest who had come carrying but a sticky note with Adam's address on it.

I twitched as Ashanti had showed up on my side to grab a cup of coffee. She threw me a quick glare over the edge of the cup, before returning to the others.

Only soldiers could directly kill in the dream world, everyone else were but a déjà vu; The Mayor case had been just that, and come to think of it – Ashanti, with her only bond to the tin figurine and no actual contract, had never, truly, been a soldier to begin with.