The following morning, Iris & Amelie revisited the prison where Franklin was held. Iris came to the front desk, surreptitiously flashed her badge, then asked if she could see him.
"You're a little late for that. He just died a few hours ago."
"What? How?" said Amelie.
"Bring me to the doctor who treated him." said Iris. "Now."
They brought the two to the prison's doctor, and spoke with him privately in his office.
"To be honest, it was a freak accident. A fight broke out among a few inmates, earlier -- gang-related, as it usually is..." He shook his head and laughed. "My God, I can't believe his poor luck. One man lunges for another, using some sort of improvised knife he had fashioned out of plastic. The other man ducks out of the way, but Franklin is passing by; the knife enters his neck and severs a vital artery, and he bled to death shortly after he was gurneyed here."
Iris sat for a while. Again she was unable to control that which she wished for. The entirety of this Revenant she hated, not only because of the anxiety it bore into her, but because of who she investigated alongside and that it reminded her again how little of life was her's to breath into. She felt uneasy, and at an unconscious level, had already decided that she needed to solve this tight internal fear. What was left was conscious actualization.
She looked up at the doctor. She could not trust him nor what information he gave; she checked her notes and reminded herself of this, then reverted her phone to assure herself the notes were as they were upon writing.
Amelie spoke: "We need his address. Where was he located when he was jailed?"
"Any other circumstance, I might invoke privacy laws, but I suppose you might threaten me into breaking them regardless."
"I would." said Iris.
"Give me a few minutes, please." He stood up. "I'll come back with it."
Iris stood up. "I'm going with you and pulling the address up myself."
"Ma'am, I would really not rather reveal more information than is-"
Iris grabbed his wrist and she kept her grip tight there. He looked to her, a little afraid as her grip deepened. "A-Alright, I-I... I suppose I can't stop you, can I?"
Iris's hand did not budge. She did not look to him, but looked to Amelie as he tried to push her away from him, herself a presence of steel that would not be moved. Amelie watched herself as she watched Amelie; no expression moved her brow, and this frustrated Iris. The man mattered not to her, but she hated that she could not beget a reaction from her: hatred would at least allow her to abandon these stifled feelings.
"P-Please let me go."
"Show me."
"I-I'll have you follow me if you let me go." He tried to move away.
"Move away again and I'll tear your arm off."
"T-Then let us walk, please."
Iris looked to Amelie again, who simply nodded. So she left the room with the man, and guilt began seeping as her conscious pattern returned.
She had trouble believing her own behavior with this man; that she had intentionally been rougher with him than was necessary in the hopes that Amelie might rebuke her for it.
Again she had not and again she cared for Iris despite herself. Again Iris was tripped by the anxiety of that newly found thing, that which warned her away from itself, and she felt the shame that went with it again. She had no right to expect love from Amelie, yet she had it; she had told herself that she did not wish for it, that she understood she was not a woman that should be caught in affirmation or in longing, yet she had.
But she could not see any motivation Amelie had for loving her. Perhaps if she saw herself through the eye of another she could escape temporarily this tight morass of loathing. But the way she viewed herself was of these altercations and violence that spilled forth from her image. Events and memories came to her in a complex ecosystem of causation and reciprocity.
The response she had with Viktoria was an expression of her nature; all that made her integrity whole in reality, her Irisness. She remembered threatening to kill another host in 9th grade, but not why; another host had made fun of her for her alcoholic uncle, yet she had laughed and agreed with them; her reputation had made violence an expectation of emotion rather than a tool for her, but in such a home as this she could still drape around herself its flesh.
Why she had needed to live like this seemed foolish now. Yet her thoughts returned to Amelie, and she ventured that perhaps what they had shared together was not really love, that it was better she not be caught in this; if by thought she could transfigure it, then that slim knowledge might allow her to change her sadness over what had occurred between them.
Soon she had the address, and did not bother to look it up beside verifying it was valid. She was not sure whether she could trust this address, yet trust she must. She felt foolish but forced to be a fool.