Sophie raised her hand again to deflect her father's rage as his hand tried to punch her again missing and glancing a blow to her ear making it temporarily ring with anger,
'Father come on be reasonable.' She tried to say feeling the blood from her cut lip spill warm and metallic into her mouth.
'I shall not be reasonable you will listen to me. You are never to go back to the army. I fought very hard to get you that job you ungrateful little bitch and you will take it. I will not have my only daughter killed in some Arab country because she can't control her rebellious streak! I will bring you to heel girl!' he said making her frown. It was no use she could fight him for another few hours and end up unable to speak, see or hear with god knows how many broken limbs so many she wouldn't ever be able to go back even if she wanted to. Sighing she resigned to her fate and avoided another one of her father's harsher beatings,
'Fine if you want to condemn me to a life of misery chained to a desk working in some government office so be it.' She said,
'Finally see that wasn't so bad to admit was it.' He said retracting his hand releasing the grip he had on her jumper that was pinning her down. Sophie wiped the blood from her lip with her sleeve seeing it was still pouring, 'clean yourself up you start in a week and we have to move you into a flat.' He said,
'No I will not live there, I will not take that. I have agreed to the job but I never agreed to that. I will find somewhere to live on my own; I will pay for it on my own.' Henry Garrett smiled knowing that before long she would be running to him for help,
'Fine so be it.' He said slyly before turning and stalking from her childhood room.

Sophie sat stunned for a minute in the middle of her pastel pink room looking around the place that she had so many happy childhood memories before she went away to boarding school in Surrey. She hadn't quite known when her father had become violent but she was sure the evidence had been there on her mother's body if only she had noticed it, and notice she did. At the age of 10 Sophie finally witnessed the cause of these marks and had vowed that she would protect her mother from this harm. She made her body lean and strong spending long hours running and swimming until her core was strong and her limbs thin but toned; then she turned her mind to defence, her school offered martial arts training and she took it up until her hand to hand combat skills were better than her tutors, she took up anything she could, archery, learnt to throw hard, fast and accurately. Of course in her mission she gained few friends but there were time for those later in life and with her feisty temperament she didn't win hearts easily. Finally she became strong enough to fight back and so she did, at the age of fifteen her father swung for her after much provoking and she floored him in one swift movement, and so it began all out war. His punches once aimed at her mother were now reserved for her, every time she defied him no where near the shining beacon of her older brother Harry who had gone to Eton and was now studying at Oxford, friends of royalty, captain of the boat crew in his first year no less. Sophie knew that in order to win over her father she needed some form of modern weapons training, so when Harry died at the tender age of 22 she was only nineteen and at Oxford herself studying Law and hating it, her father unaware that she had joined the territorial army and was slowly learning how to shoot a gun and how to kill a man. After two years her grades were slipping as she spent more and more time with the army and she dropped out; Sophie winced at the memory of the beating her father gave her that night that he found out, he had come down to her tiny flat in oxford and almost left her for dead, his words rang through her head,
'Let the army have what's left of you if you will be of any use to them now.' She had lain on the floor for a day barely breathing until she could finally move icing and tending to her wounds she signed on for her training, four weeks later she was at Sandhurst. They propelled her through the course having found out she could speak five languages, Arabic, French, Russian, Spanish, and Mandarin; and promoted her to a higher rank in charge of 30 men that was the night she met John Watson again at the Captain's ball.

Sophie took a deep breath and took out her phone dialling a number she put it to her ear finally a woman picked up,
'Hello Harry I need a big favour…' she began, 'I was wondering if I could come and stay with you in London for a bit. Just got a new job and haven't found a place yet.' She began hoping that Harriet Watson her only school friend would manage to help her out.