Locked (17 page)

Mycroft drops the butt of the cigarette, squashing it with the heel of his gleaming shoe. “So what you’re saying is that you won’t break off your
relationship
with my brother for selfish reasons. You won’t do it to stop yourself from getting hurt.”

“Congratulations,” I say coldly. “You finally got something right.”

“Would you do it to stop him from getting hurt?”

“Well—yeah.”

“Good. I’m glad we could come to an agreement.” He stands, dusting himself off as if much dust could have accumulated on him in the time he’d been sitting.

“But I’m not going to hurt him,” I say, bemused. “So it doesn’t matter.”

“Would you agree with me that Sherlock is not safe in this town anymore?” He’s looming above me now.

“I—that’s what I’ve been telling him.”

“A scandal like this is not going to magically go away. Someone will hurt him again. And even if no one does so physically, if you’re so convinced he has a heart, what do you think it will do to that heart to live in a place where he is so universally reviled? Sherlock is so certain that he could never be bothered with what people think of him that he won’t notice when it starts to break him down. He thinks he’s invincible. He’s not.”

“He has me,” I say.

“And how much good has that done him so far?” Mycroft takes out another cigarette. “You’re wrong for him, Irene. You can’t help him. If you could help him, you would have stopped last night from happening.”

It’s like a blade lodges between my ribs. “I tried to tell him—”

“You tried. And you failed. It’s a simple conclusion to draw.” He blows smoke into the air. “I’m sure we both agree that the best solution is for Sherlock to move. My job is too important for me too spend all my time looking after him. And I
am
the only one who can look after him. I have always kept Sherlock safe by relocating every time he gets into this kind of mess. We have the finances and he has never minded before. Why do you think he minds this time?”

“He wants to solve the murder,” I whisper.

“It will take him hardly any time to solve that silly murder and he knows it. No. There’s something else.”

“It’s not me.”

He laughs.

“It’s not.” I’m so tired. “Sherlock wouldn’t stay here because of me.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because—” I rub my forehead. “He wouldn’t care that much. I’m not saying he can’t care. It’s just that it’s me. I’m not—a genius or someone fascinating or an exciting mystery or anything like that.”

SH:
Coast Guard deployed. Navy on their way.

“I agree,” says Mycroft. “He scarcely cares for you at all. But through some malfunction he has formed a minor attachment to you, and it’s making him want to stay. Probably he wants to analyze why you tolerate him when no one else will. Either way, my brother is extremely stubborn and I can’t force him to move if he refuses to, short of sedating him. And then he would hate me forever.”

“He already hates you.” My throat is thick.

He laughs again.

“So what do you want me to do,” I say dully.

“Stop associating with my brother. Once he understands you’re just like everyone else, he will agree to the move. It’s for his own safety. You’re a moral person, Irene. You wouldn’t keep someone in danger for the sake of your own feelings. I’m certain of it.”

He’s right. I can’t believe how right he is. Or how selfish I’ve been. “So I should—I should tell him I want—that I want to stop being friends with him.”

“Nothing so dramatic. Simply stop.”

“And that’ll…that’ll keep him safe.”

“It will. It’s the best thing for him. The best thing for you as well.” Mycroft tilts his head. “Don’t feel too badly about it, Irene. It never would have worked out between you two anyway.”

A numbness has crept over me. My body’s heavy, unwieldy. I’m afraid to get up from the bench. It must be the remnants of the drug.

Mycroft is smiling. He puts out his hand. Moisturized. Manicured nails. Things Sherlock would notice. “Agreed?”

I want to extend my arm, but I can’t quite find the energy. He reaches down, picks my hand up, and shakes it.

“That’s settled, then,” he says. “It’s been a pleasure.”

And with that, he walks off down the street, leaving me alone on the bench.

SH:
Irene?

|||

Sherlock texts me nineteen times in the next week:

SH:
Was wrong about the murder suspects. Have a few theories I want you to hear.

SH:
Still not moving. Mycroft’s gone. Says we’ll talk when he comes back. Pathetic.

SH:
You haven’t been in school. According to the latest rumor, I’ve murdered you.

SH:
Would like to see you to deny or confirm.

SH:
Would like to see you in general.

SH:
That was stupid. I retract it.

SH:
Stopped by your house. Your mother says you have the flu.

SH:
She asked if I was your boyfriend. Are we still keeping up that charade?

SH:
You’re ruining your attendance record.

SH:
If you make me do something so domestic as bring you chicken soup I will make that rumor about me murdering you a reality.

SH:
What did Mycroft say to you?

SH:
Many local artists have been attending to my locker.

SH:
Hopefully one of them becomes famous as an adult. Will sell it online for millions.

SH:
Brought you soup. Your mother says you don’t want to see me.

SH:
Perhaps she could tell it was canned.

SH:
Considering I brought it still in the can.

SH:
Experimenting to see how many cigarettes I can smoke in four hours.

SH:
Need someone to help keep count.

SH:
You don’t have the flu.

And then the texts stop.

Two days after the texts stop, Mom comes upstairs.

“That’s it,” she says, throwing the shades open so that light pours out across the floor. “You can’t still be sick. You’re going to school.”

“I am still sick,” I say from beneath the blankets. The light hurts my eyes. “My throat is sore. And my head is sore. And—”

“The doctor says you’re fine.”

“The doctor doesn’t know anything.”

“The doctor went to
medical school
. All you have to do is go to normal school. You can’t stay out another week. At this rate they’ll keep you back. And you already have enough makeup work on your plate. Your grades will—”

“I don’t care.”

“The Irene Adler I know cares very much about her grades,” Mom says sharply.

“The Irene Adler you know is fake.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing. I’ll go to school.”

I pass through the morning in a daze. Mom’s concern, her jabbering at me as she drives to school—it all floats over my head. I’m halfway up the school steps, the anxiety knots that went away when Sherlock moved here reclaiming their spot in my stomach, when Robyn jumps out at me. Today her hair’s in pigtails. I could track my life through the progression of her hair. She had a bow in it when Sherlock refused to introduce himself in class for the first time.

Why? You’ve already said my name. At this point it’s a bit redundant, don’t you think?

I shake myself back into the present. Robyn is chattering at me. “Irene, you’re back! You were gone for so long.”

“Yeah. Flu,” I lie.

“Darn. Hope you didn’t catch it from me.” Robyn shuffles. We’re an island on the steps, people flooding up toward the building on either side of us. “You don’t look so great.”

I don’t reply. If only I were still in bed. I slept all night and nearly all day yesterday, and still I can barely keep my eyes open.

“I wanted to apologize,” says Robyn determinedly. “About the party. I didn’t know they were planning to do that to Sherlock and I didn’t know Kathryn messed with your drink. I’m not speaking to her.”

“You can speak to her.”

“You’re not mad?”

I shrug.

“I’d be mad if I were you. It’s your boyfriend.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He’s not? You broke up?”

“I have to go to class, Robyn.”

I push past, phasing out the rest of her questions. In the hallway, I feel like a radar attuned to only one thing. But Sherlock is nowhere in sight. A few people whisper when they see me, but most ignore me. Except Bree Laurel, surrounded by her friends by the science wing lockers, who smirks as I approach.

I stop in front of her. “Can I talk to you?”

She rolls her eyes over her shoulder at her friends. “About what?”

“Don’t do anything like that to Sherlock again.”

“Oh, so you figured it out.” She steps away from her group and suddenly she’s looking shyly down at her feet, her voice shrinking and wavering. “I just—I don’t think he did it—I’ve always thought he was a good person.” She pauses and laughs. “I won all the awards last year from the drama department. Too bad your boyfriend didn’t know that.”

“He’s not my boyfriend, and leave him alone.”

“Yeah, I’ll leave him alone just like he left Daphne alone. I hear he said your name before he passed out. Bet it killed him when you dumped his ass. Too bad it literally didn’t.”

I stare at my fingers. They’re trembling. I curl my hand into a fist wonderingly.

Bree leans in. “We’re going to make his life a living hell until he admits what he did to Daphne. Someone like that should be put down. I’ve thought that from the minute I first talked to him and realized what a freak he is—”

I bruise my knuckles on her jaw.

|||

“Let me get this straight,” says Principal Collard. “Irene, you slapped Bree.”

“Punched,” Bree sobs. “She punched the crap out of my freaking face.”

“And Irene, you admit to—” Collard shuffles some papers on his desk. “Punching the crap out of her freaking face?”

I just nod.

“All right. Bree, you may leave.”

Bree stands, angry tears still dripping from her chin, which is slightly swollen. “You better suspend her. Or expel her. Or send her to prison—”

“She’ll be punished, rest assured.”

Bree stalks out the door. I look around, dazed. Pictures of three little blonde kids decorate the wall. There’s a frog bobblehead on top of the filing cabinet. It’s the first time I’ve been in the principal’s office. I’ve never been in trouble before.

Collard places his elbows on his desk. His face is a normal color. When he’s not mad, he seems almost like a real human being. “I’m reluctant to suspend you, Irene. You’ve just missed a considerable amount of class time and any more lost days could result in you repeating a grade.”

“You can suspend me if you want,” I say quietly.

“I just don’t understand this.” Collard fingers the edge of his mustache. “You’ve always been one of our best and brightest. I’ve been telling my colleagues that we’ll have at least one student this year who goes to an Ivy. I’ve always heard nothing but praise from your teachers. Why this sudden outburst of aggression?”

I shrug.

“If you tell us what’s going on, we can help you.”

“Are you going to suspend me or not?”

Collard sighs. “This is a hard time for students, I know. What with losing Daphne Brown. And for you, I imagine it’s especially hard, after your sister.”

I am granite. I’m coal-hard.

“Detention for a week,” he says.

“That’s all?”

“It’s your first offense. As well as your last.” His jaw tightens and I can see the ex-wrestler in him. “It
will
be your last. Now get to class. You’re late.”

Sherlock is in my first class. “You’re not going to at least send me home for the day?”

“If I wasn’t a smart man, Irene, I’d say you were looking for punishment. I’m not sending you home. Get. To. Class.”

I walk as slowly as I can to my classroom. My heart is pounding. The Holmes tachycardia again. When I open the door, I keep my head down, fully intending to ignore the back of the classroom, but right before I sit, something overpowers me and I glance back.

There’s uncharacteristic shock on Sherlock’s face.

“You’re late, Adler,” says Mr. Jennings lazily. “I’ll have to mark it down.”

I turn around and breathe. A minute after the lecture resumes, my phone flashes.

SH:
I see you’ve reclaimed your old seat.

“The Civil War was fought from 1861 to 1856—”

SH:
Might have been wrong about you not being ill. You look terrible.

“Over six hundred thousand casualties—”

SH:
Are you okay?

I bury my phone at the bottom of my bag.

I heard you tell him just this morning, every time you asked if he was okay.

It doesn’t matter because I don’t love him. What Mycroft said was ridiculous. I’ve spent the past ten days repeating that to myself.

When the bell rings, I’m ready for it. I bolt. I’m out the door before the bell has even finished ringing, before Mr. Jennings has finished speaking. But Sherlock catches up to me anyway.

“Irene!”

I’m about to break into a run when his hand closes on my wrist. I stop but don’t look at him. All I have to do is breathe.

“Was it the soup?”

It surprises me so much that I look up. I wish I hadn’t. I’ve been imagining his face for days but right there, so close to mine, it’s too real. Exactly the same as it was, apart from the traces of nearly-gone bruises and slight shadows under his eyes. High cheekbones. Sharp jawline. Hair nearly in his eyes. He probably has no idea I know about the widow’s peak.

“The internet said to bring homemade soup, but as the idea of it was to make you better, I elected to save you from my cooking. I would have heated it up at my house, but there was still some shoe in the microwave. Also a distinct lack of bowls.”

He wears a slightly nervous smile. Very un-Sherlock-like. Now the hallway is beginning to fill with people. I don’t miss the sideways glares they cast at him, but he doesn’t take his eyes from mine.