Locked (26 page)

“If you’re assuming I had a range of choices, you’re rather unobservant.”

“But before me, you didn’t have friends, right? That’s what you said. And you didn’t mind it. You liked it, even. You don’t like people, you don’t like talking to them or anything. But you talk to me.”

“True,” he says.

“Well, why?” I’m starting to get annoyed. “You only like fascinating things. You hate boring things. I’m boring, I’m not interesting at all, I’m basically ordinary. So why is it different with me?”

He speaks straight ahead to the road. “You’re the most unique person I’ve ever met, Irene Adler.”

I laugh.

“Because you like me,” he says. “You care about me. You said so. You’re the first person I’ve ever met with that unusual condition. So of course I found you interesting. You were an excellent experiment.”

“Experiment.” I try not to show how badly that hurts. “So I’m just an experiment.”

“You were,” he says.

“Were?”

“Not anymore.”

“You realized Irene was Ares, of course.” Sherlock is still gripping my hand. “You’ve been stalking her for months. You saw her repeatedly taking notes from that locker. And you thought you’d try a little trick. Your relationship with Daphne, one of your lucid attempts to distract yourself from your obsession, wasn’t working and you wanted to break it off. She was reluctant to allow her first relationship to be severed, however. You also couldn’t bear to be separated from Irene any longer. So you tried to kill two birds with one stone—the note to Ares.”

“It worked.” Suddenly Ethan’s eyes are bright and faraway. Bile rises in my throat and Sherlock moves his hand from my back to my shoulder. “She came to me.”

“Yes, and you had that picture sent to Daphne’s club’s twitter account so she’d break it off with you. She probably gave you the password one night so you could take over her tweeting duties when she was busy. It was a perfect way to make it seem like someone else had sent her the photo. Except it backfired. Daphne noticed who was in the photo. And when you realized how badly Daphne had hurt Irene with her attempt at revenge, you killed her in a moment of rage.”

Ethan’s teeth are gritted. “That fucking…she wasn’t supposed to send out the photo. She was never supposed to do that.”

“I was angry myself,” Sherlock says.

Ethan’s eyes meet mine for the first time. It makes me feel unclean. He takes a step toward me. “I’m sorry. When I saw the way people were treating you, I…I took care of her. I had to get revenge for you. Help you.”

I can’t move. Sherlock draws me into him, like he’d done in the movie theater, but this time it’s real. His hand covers my collarbone.

I’d wanted so badly for it to be real.

“But by then you’d heard that Irene and I were supposedly dating,” he continues. “And you couldn’t have that either. So you left me a note and set it up so that I would be found with Daphne’s body and blamed for her death. You were counting on Irene believing it, like everyone else. Another example of how you don’t know Irene Adler at all.”

“I know her.” The rage is back, the rage that Ethan had kept hidden so well every time I ever talked to him before this. “I know her better than anyone else.”

“Not better than me.”

“I’m going to kill you.”

Another sob breaks free of someone in the back of the room. My mind is stuttering. Stuttering to a halt. I don’t know what to do. There has to be some way. Some way.

Sherlock smiles.

“We’ll see about that.”

Mycroft calls one night, a week after Sherlock had moved into Carol’s old room.

“How’s he doing?” the drawling voice asks.

“I don’t know.” It’s late, and I’m pretty sure everyone in the house is asleep, but I keep my voice low just in case. “He’s Sherlock. It’s kind of hard to tell.”

“Is he eating?”

“Yeah.”

“Sleeping?”

“Well—yeah.”

“Shooting up?”

I splutter. “What?”

“He does, on occasion.”

“He asked me for drugs once, but I thought he was kidding.”

“My brother rarely kids. There have been periods of time where he was more of a catastrophe than you, Irene Adler. When he was sixteen, for example. He’ll crash and burn again. I’m just waiting on the sidelines for it to happen.”

“I told you I won’t let anything happen to him.”

“Yes, I remember. Just what a good little human shield should say.”

I laugh nervously. “When you say that, it sounds like I’m supposed to take a bullet for him or something.”

“Would you?”

I don’t reply.

“Sherlock,” I breathe. I have to tell him. Have to tell him that we need to make a plan. But all he does is hold his fingers lightly against my skin. Like he’s making sure I’m still here.

“Then you burned down my house, obviously. Hoping I was inside. Again, Irene Adler was the variable you hadn’t anticipated. She’d bothered me so much about smoking in the house that I’d gone out for a walk to have a cigarette. And your plans backfired for the second time. It only brought us closer. I moved in with her.”

“Stop looking so smug.” A fleck of spittle leaves Ethan’s lips. “It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how close you are to her, get it? I’m going to shoot you in the head.”

Every word is a wire cutting into my throat. Where are the police? The police must be here by now. Sherlock is out of revelations. We don’t have any more time.

“I’m going to kill all of you,” Ethan whispers. “Everyone in this whole school, for how you treated her. She’s better than all of you. All of you.”

“I agree,” says Sherlock.

Ethan moves forward. The gun held out. “You’re first.”

No.
No.
Each pore of me screams that word. I stand up, cutting myself off from every part of Sherlock that I was touching. My body is liquid, but somehow I force it to work. I can’t be scared. Can’t look scared. “Wait. Wait, Ethan.”

“This is for your own good,” he says, still looking only at Sherlock. With dead shark eyes. “He’s bad for you. He’s evil. Listen to the way he talks to people. He’s a monster.”

“We’re similar in that respect,” says Sherlock. “Monsters who only care about Irene Adler.”

Ethan’s finger twitches on the trigger. “Then I guess the world doesn’t need two of us.”

“
Wait
.” The word rips out of me in a ragged sob. But no. I have to force all the terror and desperation out of my voice. Cool and calm. Ice. Like Sherlock. I take a step forward.

“Thank you, Ethan,” I say shakily. “Thank you for this. I never realized how much you cared about me. Now I know.”

His eyes flicker. His finger remains motionless on the trigger.

“If I’d known,” I say, my mind churning, “I would have felt differently. I do feel differently, now. I wouldn’t have dated Sherlock if I’d known.”

“You never should have dated him at all.”

“You’re right. You’re right. But now it’s okay. Because you’re
so much better
than he is, Ethan. I don’t want him at all. I don’t care about him anymore.” I hide my hands behind my back so he can’t see how badly they’re trembling. “So you don’t need to kill him.”

It had been the worst day ever.

Two people had made jokes about the photo to me in the hallway. I’d had to scribble over SHERLOCK HOLMES = MURDERER graffiti in the bathroom, and then it was rewritten when I went again later. I got a bad grade on a test I’d studied for. Before Sherlock had moved here, I would have gotten home after a day like this and gone to bed. At three p.m.

Now I go straight to his room.

I open the door and I’m struck by the most beautiful music I’ve ever heard. He’s lounging on the bed, playing his violin. All the anger and frustration dissipates from me like smoke.

He stops playing. “Was wondering when you’d get home.”

“This is when normal people get home from school. When they don’t skip.” But there’s no irritation in me anymore. I sit on the edge of his bed. “Don’t stop playing.”

After ten more minutes of the music, I feel like I’ve been wiped clean.

“Who was that by?” I ask as he puts the violin away.

“Me.”

“You wrote that?”

“Yes, I wrote it about—” But he doesn’t complete his sentence.

I can feel Sherlock’s eyes on me. But I don’t look at him. I don’t dare to. If I do, I’ll break.

I won’t break.

“I really want to be alone with you, Ethan.” I can’t stop my voice from trembling, but I turn it into a different kind of tremble. One of longing. “Here. In this room.”

“I’m not stupid,” he says. But his eyes are locked on mine. And no matter how much they make me feel like I’m about to vomit, I don’t look away.

“I know. I know you’re not stupid. You’re smart, that’s how you know the real me. And the real me just wants to be alone with you in this room.”

“I’ll kill them, then we’ll be alone. It’s like you wanted. They’ll be gone.”

I bite my tongue until it bleeds, and the pain sharpens me. “No, that’ll—that’ll take too long. Send them out in the hall. We’ll deal with them later. First I have things I want to talk to you about. We can stay in here as long as you want. You can do anything you want to me.”

“Irene,” says Sherlock.

“Shut up.” My voice cracks.

“You know what I think?” says Ethan, his tone totally even.

“What?”

“I think you’re trying to make it so they have time to get away.” He smiles warmly at me. “That’s very admirable of you, Irene. That’s why I love you so much. You’re selfless. But they hurt you, and I can’t let them get away with that.”

He points the gun at Sherlock’s forehead.

“I especially can’t let him get away with it.”

“No—no. No. He won’t.” My chest is aching. I can’t breathe. “He won’t. Listen, Ethan. Listen. Carol told me something about you before she died. A secret.”

Something sinks in his face and lights up at the same time. For a second, the monster inside him is gone and he’s a child. “She did?”

“Yeah,” I choke. “Yeah. Something really important. And I’ll tell you what she said, but only if you send Sherlock and everyone else out into the hallway right now without hurting them.”

He keeps the gun trained on Sherlock, but his arm wavers. Finally, he inches backward and gestures at the door. “Everyone get out. Ms. Fields, take everyone out into the hall.”

A shudder escapes me. My vision blurs and for a second I think I’m going to pass out. There’s a flurry of hushed activity as Ms. Fields begins shepherding the sophomores out the door.

“Except Sherlock,” says Ethan.

We’d woken up together that morning.

No nightmares. The first night in ages that I hadn’t been jolted awake by the sight of him bleeding in front me. I’m not used to what it feels like to open my eyes after a good night’s sleep.

And then I see him.

Still asleep, the sunlight softening his face, wearing an expression of deep peace instead of his usual smirk or irritated frown or concentration.

He’s beautiful.

He is so very beautiful.

“I love you,” I say. I just barely mouth the words. I know he doesn’t hear them. He’s sleeping. I’ll tell him for real, later, after he wakes up, at the right time.

But for now, we can just be together in the morning sunlight from the window.

Everyone is gone except for the three of us.

“Well?” Ethan is breathing heavily, waving the gun for emphasis. “What did Carol say about me?”

“Sherlock has to go too, Ethan.” I am stone. I am a prison for what’s inside me. I won’t let any of it escape.

Just like Ethan won’t let him escape.

“He’s different, Irene.” Ethan’s voice is wheedling now, almost pleading. “I can’t let him go. You understand, don’t you? He’s got this hold on you. I have to break it.”

Sherlock stands up. I hear it happen behind me.

No. Don’t.

Don’t move.

Don’t be here.

You said you would never be in the burning building again.

Ethan’s words ice over in a millisecond. “Stay exactly where you are.”

Ethan is by the door. Sherlock and I are against the wall. Too far for me to reach Ethan before he could fire. Too close for a shot to be anything but fatal.

“Ethan,” I whisper. The prison’s crumbling. “Please, don’t. Please, please don’t.”

“I thought you said you didn’t care about him.” He’s so cold.

“I don’t. Listen to me. I
don’t
.” I’m crying now. I’m shaking apart, the tears dripping down my cheeks. “Please, don’t do this. Just—just…wait…”

“I can be your Sherlock,” he says. “And you can be my Carol.”

“Irene,” Sherlock says quietly. “There’s something I want to tell you.”

I look at him. There’s no fear in his expression. Only acceptance. Only kindness. There’s so much kindness in him as he smiles at me. It burns apart the memory of every scowl, every smirk.

He’s beautiful.

“Hey, Ethan,” I manage through the tears. “It’s my birthday.”

“I know.” He cocks the gun. “And this is my present.”

“You think he should stay,” I say, hope grabbing me by the throat.

“I have a proposition for you.”
      

“Oh, another proposition.” I hardly dare to breathe.

“I have told you I am far too busy to stay around here and watch him every second of every day. What’s more, if I did so, he would probably put himself in reckless situations merely to infuriate me. No. Someone else needs to look after him.”

“I thought you said I couldn’t protect him.”

“That was before you ran into a burning building on his behalf. At the very least, I know you’re willing to sacrifice yourself for him. You’ll have a minimum of one use as a human shield.”

“You don’t care about me at all, do you?” I ask.

“Not at all,” he says easily.

“But you care about Sherlock.”

“Yes.”

“Then I’m okay with you.” I put out my hand. “I’ll protect him if you let him stay.”

His fingers close, viselike, on my wrist. “If anything happens to him, it’s your fault. It will be your burden to bear.”

“I won’t let anything happen.”