I have rescued you, he seemed to say with his every look.
You have only prolonged the inevitable, I countered with mine. Sherlock had stopped my father from killing me. He obviously wasn’t sorry for doing that. But he’d made the call to send police my way, not even knowing if I needed rescue. He’d done it because he didn’t trust me. He didn’t care what would be best for my life or for my brothers’. He just didn’t want me to change. That’s what he’d said. He’d kept me from killing my father in some vain attempt at preserving what little innocence I still possessed.
And it might have worked. Those first hours after my father’s arrest were filled with so many details to recount, detectives to placate, and reporters to dodge, I’d almost forgotten the cold, dark creature I’d become that night. I’d distracted myself with practicalities and left what had happened in a mental drawer to deal with in some distant future, when my world wasn’t falling apart.
But I’d had to relive that night over and over in the past two weeks, making statements to this officer and that, my story checked and double-checked before the police would even consider keeping him away from us. My father locked up wasn’t the freedom Sherlock had thought it would be. Even though the police had finally hidden him away from me, my father was always with me in my memory, filtering into my day-to-day thoughts in unexpected ways.
That day in the sparring gym with Lock wasn’t the first time a memory had exploded from the drawer and taken my composure with it. It wasn’t the first time my anger had crawled back, waiting in the shadows to remind me that I couldn’t trust Sherlock Holmes anymore. That he’d never trusted me in the first place. That he’d betrayed me when he could have helped, leaving my father lingering out there like a blinking red warning light in the distance—a promise of trouble to come.
But even with all the anger and memory pounding in my head, even though I turned away from his kiss, I couldn’t push Sherlock away. I won’t let my father take anything else away from me. That’s how I rationalized it, but I knew better. Things weren’t right between us. They might never be right. But he was still my Lock and I still wanted him. It wasn’t fair of me, but I did.
So when Sherlock’s head bent and I felt his heavy sigh against my neck, I lifted a hand to cup his cheek. It wouldn’t quell his frustration, but maybe, if I could focus only on today, if I could forget his betrayal and my father’s violence, maybe then I could keep Lock by my side—before I fell to pieces, locked away my emotions for good, or did something that would guarantee he’d leave me forever. I pressed my cheek to his and held him close. Temporary, I knew. I just wasn’t ready to let go yet.
Chapter 2
Sherlock was in rare form on the bus back to Baker Street. Though outwardly calm, his hands twitched and fumbled into one position after another—on his lap, under his crossed arms, gripping his knees—like they were looking for a place to rest. Probably a reflection of his thoughts just then. Did that mean my stillness was a reflection of mine? Were we the perfect picture of awkward and gutted?
Weeks ago, his fidgeting would have annoyed me until I reached out to grab one of his hands. Weeks ago, that would have calmed him completely. And that was the thought that brought back the now-familiar ache to my heart. Because weeks-ago Mori no longer existed—not the way Lock needed her to. And as much as I wanted to reach over and stop his fidgeting, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t make him think that things were all right again. I probably shouldn’t have been around him at all, but I couldn’t stop myself from doing that, either. I was a heap of couldn’ts when it came to Sherlock Holmes.
With his hands draped over the seat backs in front of us, he turned toward me. “I solved it,” he said. “That missing rat case.”
“Well done. Did you end up going to the house?”
Sherlock shook his head. I’d been down in Lock’s lab at school when Martin Banks came in and begged Sherlock to find his girlfriend’s missing pet rat. He’d been pet sitting and hadn’t latched the cage door all the way after a feeding. I’d wandered off just after Lock had made the poor boy draw a house map and before he’d finished his giant list of questions.
“It was in the box spring of his sister’s room, just as I’d predicted.”
I shuddered. There would be a thorough check of my own box spring in my future.
“The rat had stolen stuffing from one of his sister’s plush bears and made a nest.”
I could tell there was more by the rise of Lock’s brow and the way he stared past me out the window by my head. A completely unconvincing attempt at nonchalant.
“Go on. Tell us about the beady-eyed monster and your part in keeping it locked in a cage where it belongs.”
“There were four babies, just as I’d predicted!”