Locked (15 page)

“This won’t take much time. Just wait for me, Irene.”

Someone rams into me from behind, spinning me around. I stumble against the stair rail. It’s Bree, stricken white, a vase in her arms. She nearly drops it, but I steady her.

“You said you were only inviting a few people!” I shout above the thumping bass.

“I did,” she wails. “But Ben asked if he could bring Alex, and Alex heard that my parents are on a business trip, and then…
that is not a
basketball
!”

I wince something smashes behind me. “Godspeed,” I say as Bree rushes past.

Sherlock has completely disappeared. There’s no sight of his tall dark figure against the backdrop of everyone else. I’m totally alone. The worst thing you can be at a party.

Before the awkward paralyses sets in, Robyn materializes, grabbing my wrist and pulling me toward the wall, where a circle of her friends wait. “Irene! I’m so glad you’re here. This, right now, is an intervention.”

“I’m not addicted to anything,” I say, shrinking back. I’m being scrutinized by five pairs of mascaraed eyes.

“Oh, yes you are,” Robyn slurs, poking me in the chest so hard it hurts a little. Her hair is in a messy braid today. “You’re addicted to Sherlock Holmes.”

“Irene, seriously,” another girl bursts out. Her name is Karen. Or Kathryn. Something. “Everyone knows what he did to Daphne. You can’t keep dating him after that.”

“It’s a betrayal of your whole community,” says one of the Hannahs archly. There are at least five Hannahs who go to Aspen High. I can’t remember which one she is. Their faces are all in shadow, it’s so dark.

“Irene.” Robyn grasps my shoulders. Whether it’s to be dramatic or hold herself up, I can’t tell. “He’s a
murderer
. A
murdering murderer.
He killed poor sweet Daphne.”

“I lent her a pencil once,” whimpers Karen-Kathryn, and the Hannah pats her shoulder.

“We get it, Irene, we do. The British accent is sexy. We understand.”

“I really don’t think his accent is sexy,” I say.

Two of the girls confer, and Karen-Kathryn pushes a beer into my hand. “You need a drink.”

“I can’t drink. I drove here.”

“Your boyfriend’s a murderer, honey, you need this beer.”

“One beer won’t make you drunk. You’ll still be able to drive.”

“Science,” notes Robyn.

My skin is crawling with discomfort and Sherlock still isn’t anywhere in my line of sight. Maybe the beer will make me less anxious. Maybe if I drink it, they’ll all stop looking at me like that. I grab it and take a swing. Karen-Kathryn and the Hannah high-five.

Five minutes and an argument about whether or not British accents are sexy later, everything is spinning. I close my eyes.

When I open them again, I’m propped in the corner of the kitchen, mumbling, “He didn’t kill anyone,” for the second or maybe the third time.

Karen-Kathryn is petting my hair. “It’s okay. Just be quiet.”

I yank away. Where’s Sherlock? I push myself to my feet and nearly knock over a handle of whiskey on the counter. Someone swears at me. I barely hear it. Sound is filtering past something heavy and foggy in my ears.

I only had one beer.

I stumble through clumps of people. Everyone is in varied stages of stumbling, so nobody notices how hard I have to concentrate to put one foot in front of the other.

“Irene?”

It’s
Sherlock
. It’s Sherlock Holmes. My eyes actually water, I’m so happy to see him. My weird amazing neighbor. Friend. My weird amazing friend.

“Sherlock!” I fall into him.

“Irene.” He kind of falls into me back. He’s not his usual rigid, en pointe self. He feels soft and loose. Or maybe it’s just me who feels soft and loose.

“Don’t get it,” I slur. “Only had one beer.”

“Me too. Powerful…stuff.”

I frown, squinting so hard I can barely see. “You…drank?”

“Sipped. Camouflage. Apparently…apparently it’s…” He sways.

“Sherlock,” I mumble. Out loud. I think it’s out loud. “I like you. You and your deductions and…paper towels and…lips.”

He leans against my shoulder to steady himself. “You like my—lips?”

“All of you! Sorry. I like all of you.”

He starts laughing. “What about my left pinky?” He holds out a lock of hair. “What about this piece of hair?”

I tug on it, accidentally pulling it toward me so our heads knock together. “That piece especially.”

“What about…” His voice quiets. “The rude and the…arrogant pieces…?”

“Sherlock.
All
of you.”

He jolts upright. “I like you too. Very strange. Very very strange. Don’t like people. People don’t like me. Fourth law…of thermodynamics.”

“I can’t believe you can say thermo…thermodynate…” I giggle.

“Thermodynamics.”

“Yeah, that. I can’t believe you can—pronounce that right now.”

He grins. “I’m even a prodigen at being drunk. Progeny. Prodingy.”

“You ruined it.” I gasp with laughter.

He rests his forehead against mine, for the briefest barest second. Even under the haze, I feel it. “No. You ruined it.”

“Ruined what?”

“My hypothesis,” he murmurs.

This is a different Sherlock. I’m almost afraid to breathe. Afraid I’ll break the spell. But it breaks without me. He pulls away.

“I have—two more people to find. Be back in five minutes.”

“Don’t go,” I say, but I don’t think I say it out loud. The colors swirl together and I close my eyes again.

This time, when I open them, I’m outside, the damp grass soaking into my shirt. The sky is endless, broken only by Robyn, who’s gazing down at me with big worried eyes.

“I only had one beer,” I manage.

“I know…maybe you’re allergic. Don’t worry, I’m looking after you.”

“What time is it?” It comes out
whitimmizzit.

“Not sure. It’s been like two hours I think.”

Two hours? That’s…wrong. Why is it wrong? It’s supposed to have been five minutes. Sherlock said he would be done in five minutes.

“Where’s…Sherlock?”

“Sherlock’s here?” Robyn’s eyes get even bigger. “I haven’t seen him at all.”

Would he have left without me? I twist my neck, the motion making me so sick that I think I’m going to barf, but I don’t. And I see what I want to. Mom’s car. Still parked across the street. Duh—the keys are in my pocket.

Sherlock’s still at the party.

He’s been at the party for two hours.

What could he have been doing for two hours?

“Maybe he passed out somewhere,” Robyn says uneasily.

I struggle upright. My legs work better now, by a fraction. I even manage to step over someone on my way back to the house without tripping.

The party’s still crashing with noise and people. Except now everyone is as drunk as me, or nearly. Come on, eyes. Focus. I push through the crowd and then I’m in the kitchen, alone with three people pouring various bottles of liquor into a punch bowl. No Sherlock.

“Irene.” It’s Karen-Kathryn, reaching out for me. “You’re awake?”

“Course I’m awake,” I mumble. “Where’s Sherlock?”

Is it the haze, or does she tense up? “Don’t worry about him. Hey, I’ll give you a ride home. It’ll wear off by tomorrow morning.”

“What will? The beer?”

She flushes, too drunk to catch herself. “Yeah—that.”

“Did you put something in my drink,” I whisper.

“No. Why would I—come on. Let’s go find Robyn.”

I jerk away, stumbling back until I hit the stair railing again. “I’m going to find my friend.”

I head up the stairs before she or anyone else can stop me, gripping the railing to keep from sliding backwards. I check the bathroom. Some guy taking a piss. I check the first bedroom—a couple making out—and reach for the second, but a boy slouched against the wall says, “Don’t go in there. They’re having a threesome.”

I don’t stop to ask who ‘they’ is. I hear a grunt and turn away.

Nobody downstairs has seen Sherlock.

Nobody outside has seen Sherlock.

I’m checking the back porch when Robyn reappears, her face wan. She grips my arm. “Irene, are you okay?”

“She drugged me,” I say. There are people under the porch smoking a joint, and the smell is making me dizzy. “Your friend. Your K friend.”

For reasons I can’t fathom, Robyn seems close to tears. “I didn’t know, Irene. I swear I didn’t know what they were doing.”

A sick feeling grows in my stomach that has nothing to do with whatever drug is in my system. “Where’s Sherlock, Robyn?”

“They said they wanted to teach him a lesson. Since the cops wouldn’t.”

I grab her shirt. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she sobs.

I let go of her. If they’d taken him somewhere else, it’s all over. I have to pray he’s still here.

And the only place I haven’t checked…

I force myself up the stairs again, no matter how weak my knees are. The guy who’d been guarding the third bedroom is in line for the bathroom. He stammers something at me as I pass, but I’m too fast. I reach the door first.

I open it and it’s bright. Brighter than downstairs. The light blinds me and for the first second I stumble into the room, I’m blind.

The next second, I’m not.

Two seniors whose names I don’t know, guys from the lacrosse team, are holding Sherlock up. There’s another two standing by the window, smoking. August. August is here, his knuckles bleeding. He takes a step toward me and says something I don’t care about enough to hear.

Sherlock is unconscious, his head tilted forward so I can’t see his face, but I can see the blood that streaks down his neck and onto his shirt.

Carol’s hanging from her seatbelt, blood that should be inside her streaming down her face in trickles, rivers—

“Five on one,” I croak. How fast the room is spinning. “Five on one. And you had to drug him first.”

“Chill out, Adler,” says August. “We’re almost done.”

All the colors that have been blurring suddenly solidify into one clean sheet of red. My mind functions in pieces. One piece sees the large metal soccer trophy on the bedside table by the door. Another part of me grabs it.

“Get out,” I hear myself say.

“What’s she on?” one of the guys holding Sherlock says, laughing. “I want some.”

The red crisscrosses with white lines. I blink—I’m holding the trophy out in front of me, freeze-frame—and I blink again and then Anthony is on the ground, yelling at the top of his lungs and clutching his shoulder.

“Shit,” one of the guys by the window yelps and leaps backward.

I hurl the trophy at him. It glances off his shoulder and shatters the window.

“Take me downstairs, my arm’s fucking broken,” August is shouting.

“Let’s go find her friends and make them deal with it,” one of the guys who was holding Sherlock is saying on his way out the door. Friends. I only have one of those. And he’s lying on the ground.

August lurches after the others and then the room’s empty except for Sherlock and I. I lock the door, fumbling with the mechanism until it clicks, and drop to my knees in front of him.

“Sherlock,” I whisper and touch his still face. My fingers come back wet. “How long were they hitting you?”

I can’t panic. Definitely can’t panic. I’m reaching for my phone to call 911 when I realize it’s already ringing.

“H-hello?”

“Irene Adler,” comes a vaguely familiar drawl. “I’ve been trying to reach my brother, but he refuses to respond to me. Tell him I’m nearly home from my business trip. And that some greatly troubling information has reached my ears.”

“Mycroft, I’m sorry, I have to hang up, I have to call 911.”

There’s a millisecond of quiet. “The music tells me you’re at a party. Your voice tells me you’re drunk. Are you with my brother?”

“Yeah.” I stare at his face. “He’s not awake.”

“Is he breathing?”

I rest my hand on his chest. It rises and falls, lightly. “He’s…yeah.”

“Address?”

“Elderberry—13 Elderberry Drive.”

“I’ll be right there. Don’t call the police.”

Click.

And then I’m alone with Sherlock Holmes.

I whisper his name two more times. I smooth his hair back from his forehead. He has a widow’s peak. How many people had smoothed Sherlock’s hair back from his forehead and discovered his widow’s peak? It’s like a little gift, just for me. I think I’m crying a little.

“I told you this party was a bad idea. It’s my turn to say I told you so. Wake up so I can have my turn.”

He doesn’t wake up. I lean down, pressing my forehead to his like he’d done to me earlier. Everything is hazy and terrible. “Please don’t die, okay? You don’t understand what would happen to me if you died. You don’t understand what I was before you moved in next door. You changed everything, Sherlock.”

I’m not sure how much of this is coming out coherent, or coming out at all. The door handle jiggles and a drunken muffled curse comes from beyond the door.

I take his hand. “Don’t change it back,” I whisper.

“Irene, please open the door,” comes Robyn’s devastated voice.

I ignore her and keep talking in an endless stream, like he’ll slip away if I stop. I’m glued in place by the spot of warmth connecting our foreheads. Eventually, someone figures out how to pick the lock. I can hear it happening, the tiny clicks. I grip his hand more tightly. They’re not going to touch him. But it’s not August or his friends.

Mycroft Holmes steps into the bedroom, flicking something off the end of his shirt with disdain.

“Still alive?” His voice is rich and tinted, an older version of Sherlock’s.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Good. Stand back.”

“No.”

“If you think you can carry him, be my guest.”

I lift my forehead from Sherlock’s. Mycroft kneels, places Sherlock’s arm over his shoulder, and drags him up off the ground.

I stumble after him, through the hallway and down the stairs. The house is completely empty. The ragged proof of a party is everywhere—empty bottles, stains on the floor, broken glass.

“Are you hurt?” Mycroft asks brusquely. His clothes look expensive. They’ll be ruined. “There’s blood on your forehead.”

“It’s Sherlock’s.” I trip over a torn throw pillow. “Where is everyone?”