Locked (3 page)

And the letter’s next to the orange juice.

Dear Irene,

Mycroft made me do this. Technically he’s my guardian and technically he can make me do things. Even when I informed him I’d apologized to you quite thoroughly and with much feeling last night, even though I loathe repetition, he still insisted.

So: I apologize. Even though I can hardly help being right. Apparently one is supposed to dance around topics such as dead family members, and I can’t be bothered to remember every single topic that one is supposed to dance around. The list is miles long and I have many more important things to store in my mind.

In case Mycroft is reading this, I will say it again: I am sorry. I am so sorry I would rather be thrown on a funeral pyre than say anything insensitive to you ever again. If I happen to mention something indiscreet in the future, only mention it (perhaps we should come up with a code word) and I shall immediately draw and quarter myself and feed my own body to a thousand fire ants, which I shall keep for convenience in Mycroft’s room.

Satisfied, Mycroft?

Very truly yours,

Sherlock

So that was why he’d apologized last night.

When I’m done laughing into my scrambled eggs, I put the letter in my backpack and start off for school, feeling strangely lighter. For an arrogant dickhead with a bizarre ability to tell someone’s life story just by looking at them, he’s kind of funny.

I’m so distracted that I only notice the car when I have to stop to tie my shoe. It’s a slick dark expensive-looking thing, with tinted windows. Actually, it kind of reminds me of Sherlock, except it’s a car. Then again, I guess they’re both machines. One of them followed me last night, and one of them is following me now. It’s idling in the street, stopping as I stop. One of the tinted windows slides down.

“Hello, Irene,” says the driver, a man in his late twenties. He’s slightly overweight, and ridiculously well-groomed, his hair smoothed back and face clean-shaven. His voice is
mysterious and drawling and slightly familiar. “Won’t you get in? I’ll give you a ride to school.”

And British. The man is definitely British.

“You’re—the blocked number guy. Mycroft,” I say. “You called me last night. Twice.”

“And you didn’t answer the second time. Notable, considering you answered the first call. One can only assume you became preoccupied. Considering my original theory that you were out to meet with a lover, followed by my realization that Sherlock had gone, and then my subsequent deduction that he’d gone to find why you weren’t an insomniac—well. You two really have hit it off, haven’t you?”

I squint. Finding meaning in the rich pile of Mycroft’s words is like digging through molasses. “Are you…trying to imply…?”

“It was a joke. Sherlock doesn’t hit it off with anyone. He’s far more likely to get hit.”

He’s as tall as Sherlock, but without any of his lanky muscle. His face isn’t sharply structured like Sherlock’s, either. But they have the same glint of intelligence in their eyes. And the same haughty tone. “My sense of humor isn’t my most developed trait. Nor is it my brother’s. Hereditary, perhaps.”

Apparently thinking introductions were a waste of time was also a Holmes hereditary trait. “Okay, well, I’m Irene. Welcome to the neighborhood, I guess?”

“I doubt we are. At least, I doubt we will be, after people around here encounter my brother. I may share his intelligence in most matters, but I don’t share his stupidity in regards to keeping my mouth closed when it’s appropriate.” Mycroft cranes his long neck, still blocking the road. He’s wearing a fancy suit. What job in Aspen requires a fancy suit? “I hope you received the letter I dropped off this morning.”

“I did, yeah.” I shift my backpack higher on my shoulders. “Is he really going to put fire ants in your room?”

He ignores that. “Sherlock only raged about my forcing him to write it for twenty minutes. He must like you.”

I swallow a laugh. “I didn’t get the impression that he likes anybody.”

“Well, nobody likes him, so at least he’s on equal terms with the universe. Do get in the car.”

“Am I being kidnapped?”

“I have something to discuss with you. A proposition.”

I check my watch. Unless Mycroft really does give me a ride, I’m going to be late for school. My attendance streak this year is perfect. The only perfect thing about me. I open the door and get into the passenger seat. He hits the gas, and the car pulls into the road. It drives smooth as butter.

“I’m going away for a little while, Irene.”

“What do you mean, going away?” I shift on the creamy, insanely comfortable leather seat. “You just moved here.”

“My occupation requires me to be in bigger and better places than little Massachusetts towns.” Mycroft smiles. Someone should make a horror movie about that smile. The same people who did
The Ring
. “This move was for Sherlock. He offended one too many people in our old town. It happens every few years. Critical mass. We move on. Eventually we gave up on Britain altogether.”

This is ridiculous. “What do you mean, one too many people? He’s, what, seventeen? Eighteen?”

“Eighteen. Started school a year late as a child. Like you. I’ve done some research.” He runs a red light. Not recklessly. More like he doesn’t consider laws worth following. “My brother has the mind of Einstein or Galileo and the impulse control of a teenager. He is, in short, the most dangerous person you’ve ever met. Besides me.”

I shake my head to clear it. This is all too weird. “You said you had a proposition. What proposition?”

“Sherlock and high school are like…oil and water, to borrow a cliché. Like a wolf in a cage made out of feathers. Do you see what I’m saying?”

“I’ve been kind of lost since you opened your mouth, actually.”

Without taking his eyes off the road, he plucks my phone from my lap and programs in a number. “I’m giving you my private line. I want you to contact me if Sherlock does anything…extreme. And I want you to keep an eye on him. You’ve met him. You know what he’s like. You also know what your school is like. You’re in a unique position to be an ally.”

“An ally?” I can’t decide if I’ve been dropped into a war movie or a spy movie. Or a comedy. “I’m not even sure if I like him yet.”

“Do it for the sake of being a good neighbor, then. You’re well on your way. You’ve already made him a casserole.”

“Which I dumped on his shirt.”

“I prefer to focus on the positives.”

We’re almost to the school. Two more minutes and I can flee for my life. “Look, if he’s such a danger to himself, why don’t you stick around? Where are your parents?”

“I’m too useful of a person to spend my days babysitting my brother.”

“Both modest, then. More Holmes family resemblances.”

He flattens a loose hair back against his skull. “You seem well-aware of how charming we are, and yet you express surprise at the fact that our parents have left us. There are few surprises in this world, and that fact is not one of them. I emancipated myself at seventeen and became my brother’s legal guardian.”

“…Does that even happen?”

“Not to normal people, perhaps.”

So Sherlock’s parents were gone. Not dead. They’d left. The two brothers had driven even their own parents away.

“May I encourage you to find some value in the fact that my brother is a genius,” says Mycroft. “It’s the only thing about him worth valuing, I’m afraid.”

Ouch. “He must get great grades.”

“The school system is not manufactured for geniuses, it’s manufactured for people who obey orders and enjoy repetition. Sherlock does not see the point in homework.”

“Bad grades, then. Got it.” My fingers are on the handle and I’m ready to bolt. “If he’s a genius, what does that make you?”

Our car reaches the school. It’s a cool-looking car and any other day, it would have drawn a few stares. Today, however, people are clumped together, whispering. Sherlock must already be inside.

“It makes me a bigger genius.” He reaches over and pops open the door on my side before I even have the chance to. “Thank you for your help, dear neighbor.”

“I haven’t said I’m going to do anything yet.”

But he just smiles again, pull the door closed, and drives away.

Well then. Reason number million to stay away from Sherlock—his maniac older brother. I set my teeth. Aspen High, the imperial brick building without even a single flower by the front steps, rears before me. Aspen’s a small town, but thanks to consolidation, Aspen High is a big school—the kids from two neighboring towns go here. Parents like to say that Aspen High is the real center of power in the town. They think they’re joking.

I wait for the familiar rush of nerves that always hit me every time I walk up those front steps, but they don’t come.

Today, nobody will be staring at Irene Adler, who was in the car when her sister died.

Today everyone will be staring at Sherlock Holmes.

Who is in my homeroom, a fact I discover less than ten minutes later as I head in with my shoulders hunched and eyes down, gearing up for the bomb to go off. But it already has. The evidence is in the new seating arrangement. The guys are clustered to one end, glaring knives at the solitary figure in the seat by the window. The girls are whispering so loudly that it sounds like I’ve stepped into a waterfall.

Sherlock is leaning back in his chair, his long legs stretched underneath his desk. I’ve never seen someone pull off such an imperial expression with their eyes closed.

“Irene,” says Robyn Brighton, as soon as I sit down in the front of the room. As far away from Sherlock as I can manage. “There’s a new guy. Over there. Look.”

“I see him,” I say, careful not to actually look.

Robyn isn’t really my friend, but we’d paired together on a project two weeks ago, and she’s one of those girls who feels obligated to talk to people with recently-dead sisters. She’s a blonde girl with hipster glasses and a bow in her hair. The hair changes every day.

“He’s British,” she squeals.

She knows about the accent. Meaning Sherlock has opened his mouth. I’m surprised nobody’s hit him yet.

The bell rings, angry pealing, and Mr. Jennings appears with a stack of papers under his arm. I groan. We’re getting our tests back. The test that I’d only studied six hours for. An A minus. I’m getting an A minus. My first all year. Mom will notice.

“We have a new student today.” Mr. Jennings deposits the papers on his desk and turns beamingly to Sherlock. Everyone else turns toward him too, slightly less beamingly. Sherlock doesn’t move.

“An
international
student,” says Mr. Jennings.

Still nothing.

“Er, will Sherlock Holmes please introduce himself?”

Sherlock opens his eyes in a flash of annoyance. “Why? You’ve already said my name. At this point it’s a bit redundant, don’t you think?”

I should have warned poor Mr. Jennings about the introduction thing.

“Humor me,” says Mr. Jennings, sliding into that kind of hardness teachers get when they sense it’s one of
those
students.

Next to me, Robyn is drooling. Actually drooling. Sherlock sighs loudly. “Sherlock Holmes. Moved to Panadero Street. Yes, I’m from London. No, to the girl next to Irene, I wouldn’t like to get coffee. Now continue on with your learning, or your most likely pointless attempt at it.”

Mr. Jennings is breathing hard, obviously trying to figure out whether or not Sherlock’s being rude enough to get sent to the office. He’s used to the standard form of student rudeness—swearing or sex jokes. Sherlock’s brand of rudeness is from a whole different planet.

“Don’t you live on Panadero Street?” whispers Robyn. “Is that how he knows your name? Why doesn’t he like coffee?”

I flip open my notebook and fake-read yesterday’s chemistry notes.

By second period, three girls have asked Sherlock out.

By lunch, all three are crying in the bathroom.

By third period, the rumors are flying. He’s psychic. He’s psychotic. He’s an undercover cop. He’s an undercover FBI agent with a file on each and every student and that’s how he knows that Kelly’s brother is in rehab, that Angela had diet pills for breakfast, that Jeanne keeps a stash of Japanese porn in her locker.

It’s hard to hate a guy who pulled me back onto a roof. It’s easy to hate a guy who has the ability to break every heart he comes across, and who can’t care less if he does.

By fourth period, he’s in a fight.

I’ve been keeping my head down all day, half-terrified someone will discover my association with him and get thrown back into the spotlight. It’s so nice to not be in the spotlight. Not much happens in Aspen, and the only thing more interesting than a girl with a dead sister is a supercilious, modelesque, strangely-named transfer student.

I still have my head down on my way to French, and that’s why I bang into someone’s back. Not just one person. It’s a bunch of people. The hallway is clotted with them, and they’re all staring in one direction. I hear what’s going on before I see it:

“What
did you say about my mom?” someone shouts. I know the voice. Michael, a dumb guy but not a bad guy, who dropped off a letter to Ares last month asking for help breaking up his little sister and her way-too-old boyfriend.

“Nothing of significance,” I hear Sherlock say, airily for a guy facing down someone who I once saw basically pick his car up and pull it out of a snow bank. “Merely that if you’re going to try to cheat off me in class because your father is too busy having sex with your tutor for her to help you, you should know that I frequently write down wildly incorrect answers to amuse myself.”

Nice, Sherlock.

Everyone else is tall and I’m short and I can’t see what happens, or who advances first, but in the next few second I have the perfect view. Everyone in front of me scatters, dodging a falling Michael as he crashes to the ground. Sherlock stands there, as impassive as ever. One eyebrow is slightly cocked, like he’s watching something vaguely interesting on TV.

That asshole.

“Really?” I say and the spotlight swings back onto me again, but for the moment, I don’t care. “You’re a total jerk to him and then you knock him over, just to be extra nice?”