Chapter 8

The Chase

"Everything is going to be fine." John said quietly when he'd rung the house bell several times. Slowly, he carried Rachel out of the kitchen and down the hall. His arms were burning when he got to the door. Sherlock wasn't there. John felt his heart sinking. He set Rachel down against the wall. He'd rung the bell a few times, just to make sure that Sherlock would hear.

"Keep pressure on that." John muttered, placing her hands over the binding. She nodded, keeping her breathing steady. On the ground directly in front of the door was the brass key. Sherlock had obviously left it for him. He inserted the key into the lock. The door swung open effortlessly and John lifted Rachel into his arms again. She groaned, her pale face cinched with pain.

"Oh my god," John said, looking around. Daniel Hawthorn was lying on the floor, stiff and pale. There was a needle sticking out of the side of his neck. Damon and Sara were nowhere to be seen. "But it was locked." He muttered. John's head reeled and he struggled to control his breathing.

"Rachel!" a voice cried. John looked around. The sound had come from below the dining table. Damon and Sara crawled out from under it as John set Rachel on the sofa.

"What happened?" John asked. Sara was sobbing again and fell to her knees.

"Sara, please, I'm going to be okay." Rachel whispered. "It's not that bad. Doctor Watson fixed me up."

Sara nodded, reaching a hand out to her shoulder.

Damon took a deep breath. "That man. The detective. He came in through the wall. Daniel heard a noise coming from the wall and told us to hide. We hid. The wall opened up and Daniel yelled and that bastard attacked him. I almost suffocated Sara to keep her from screaming."

John shook his head, frowning. "Why do you think it was him if you were under the table?" He asked slowly.

"I'm telling you, it was him. I saw his coat. The coat he was wearing earlier. I couldn't see his face from under there, but I know it was his coat and it had blood on it. Then he went back into the wall, as quick as he came and Daniel fell on the floor. Then Scott came in in here through the same spot. It's a passage, see and he had followed Holmes. He called for us. I came out of under the table. I told him what was going on. He yelled at me to stay here and said he was going after Holmes. Scott had a gun. He said that Holmes had dropped it. Then we heard the door just now and hid again."

"No. No, he's got it wrong. Sherlock has not hurt anyone." John said, shaking his head.

"He hurt me!" Rachel cried. Sara sobbed even harder.

"He did that to her?" Damon said, outraged. He pointed to Rachel.

"No." John said firmly.

"He did!" Rachel insisted, gritting her teeth. "It hurts, God, it hurts."

"God dammit!" John roared. "No. Shut up, everyone. He would never do this. Sherlock Holmes would never do this."

Damon looked at him, shaking his head. "Well he did."

John looked around the room. "How long ago did this happen?"

"Moments before you came through the door." Damon said, leaning over Rachel.

John ran to the wall that Damon had pointed at when he was explaining what happen and began to knock on it. He felt a solid thud and knocked again a few feet further to the left. Another solid thud. He went right, knocking hard. Thud, thud, thud… Then, a light thud. A hollow sounding thud.

John felt around the wall. He pushed against it to no avail. He was not Sherlock, he couldn't just deduce how the damn thing would work. John was positive that he had the right spot, he just didn't know how to get the door to open and there wasn't time to figure it out. With that he gave the hollow spot a good, solid kick. It groaned when he hit it. Again, he thrust forward, putting all his weight into the kick. The force jarred his knee and he felt the door giving way beneath him. He kicked again and again, each time feeling it come looser. Finally, with the last of his breath he ran at the spot, turned at the last moment and crashed against it with his shoulder. The impact made his arm go numb as the passage door gave way and John fell through it into a dark corridor.

The ground was stone, covered in dust. He scrambled to his feet, reached into his pocket and pulled out a small flashlight. He scanned the cold grey floor and was relieved to see clear foot prints smattered through the dust, leading away down the endless, thin corrador. He took off at a run, following the prints. Fear was building in his heart and adrenaline coursed through his blood, making him feel wild. As he ran he calculated the possible scenarios that he could be about to encounter, prepping himself to react to each of them.

The thin, dark corridor split into two ways and John came to an abrupt halt. He scanned the ground again. Left, the prints went left. He ran for at least a hundred feet before having to skid to a stop. A stairway, going down. He quickstepped down it and was surprised when he splashed into almost ten inches of water. He was on the first floor of the house now. Parts of it were flooding. He followed the tunnel left, then right, then left again, splashing all the while through icy water. A long stretch of corridor dead ended. Obviously, this had to be the way out. John did his best not to second guess himself. What if he'd missed something and gone in the complete wrong direction?

He pointed the flashlight at the wall. A small vertical hand jutted out of the wall and navel height. John grabbed it and pulled left. The door was spring loaded and it was difficult for him to slide it open but he managed. When he stepped through he left go of the door and it slid closed again with a snap. Lights flickered on.

John looked around. He was in a massive garage with three cars inside and still ankle deep in water.

Dammit Sherlock. Damn you. John thought, struggling to contain the fear in his heart.

Something shiny caught his eye from in the water. John stooped to pick it up. A silver whistle. He'd thought it would be another Cluedo piece. John pocketed it anyways. At the end of the garage there was a door going out to the yard. The door was open and John ran to it.

Outside the black sky was the picture of pure chaos, pitching heavy drops of water and tiny stinging pieces of hail. John quickly became drenched. Ice white flashes of lighting shot down through the clouds, illuminating and giving depth to the treacherous night. The moon was lost somewhere above in the thick swirls of nimbus. The flashes came hundreds at a time, each in quick succession, lighting up the skies in an endless, beautiful and dangerous storm. Thunder crashed, shaking the heavens and earth with each colossal roar. If the moment had not been urgent, John would have loved to stand and watch it. The image of him and Sherlock viewing the lightning from the warm comfort of 221B flashed through his mind. He wished so much that they were there, at home. Looking out into the dastardly shadows, the needles of light, the maddening rain, John could only gaze in awe and pray that while running temptingly across the vast open ground that he would not be struck down.

The trail was clear and John took off at a run, following the prints across the yard. He guessed that it was around thirty six degrees. The cold clashed with the adrenaline coursing through John's body, making him numb inside and out.

It was a straight path across the yard where an intricate, decorative gate stood. John passed through it and into the woods on the other side, following the pathway. He was racing down a dark trail. He jumped over logs, ducked under branching and kept losing his footing every hundred feet or so. Lighting was flashing constantly, illuminating the forest in an eerie, dreamlike way. John was gasping and covered in mud by the time he got to the bottom of the hill. In front of him was the dark road. Across it was a small, dim yellow glow in the distance.

Squinting through the water, John realized that the glow was a light in a building and that building had to be the Reichenbach Outpost. John splashed his way across the street. As he neared the store he was able to see the gravel parking lot in the back of it and the long, narrow foot bridge that bridged the gab in the canyon. A massive bolt of lighting flashed in the sky, brightening the night and John's heart jumped when he saw two figures racing across the bridge. Thunder crashed violently and the air felt thick with static.

"SHERLOCK!" John yelled, running towards the bridge. The roar of the Reichenbach Falls was so loud he could barely hear himself. It was directly beside the foot bridge on the opposite side of the canyon. Another flash of lightning showed that the two figures were dashing off the other end of the bridge as John stepped onto it. He glanced over the edge and his stomach turned. It was at least a fifty foot drop into the river, from the bridge and maybe a sixty or seventy foot drop from the waterfall.

The bridge was heavy concrete and John slipped sideways as he ran, nearly sliding under the bridge's safety rail. For a terrifying, sickening moment he thought he would go over. The flashlight flew out of his hands and he reached out in the dark, catching the railing as his legs and torso slid under it. His feet were hanging over the edge. He hauled himself back up, taking a deep breath. John's legs were burning, the downpour was freezing and his breathing was uneven from running hard. It took everything John had to continue. He wanted so badly to just rest and breathe but there wasn't time. There just wasn't. Somewhere on the other side of that canyon there was a man with a gun, aiming to kill his only true friend in the world.

He pushed himself back into a run...

Sherlock dashed through the storm. He could barely see the rain was so thick. The world around him was treacherous. Lightning had struck the earth not twenty feet away from him as he ran and he could feel the electricity in the air. Scott Hawthorn was close on his tail as Sherlock sprinted across the bridge. In the distance, he thought that he had heard John call his name. His heart sank. It had not been his intention for John to be there, to witness what was inevitably going to happen.

Within moments, Sherlock had reached the end of the bridge and was sprinting up the trail. It was a winding way, all up hill. He took the right hand path where it split. It was a long stretch of open mud and granite.

As Sherlock ran another flash of lighting made him realize that the stretch was a dead end. It was a long, thick ledge with the river running beside. Sherlock lost his footing as he tried to stop and fell, sliding sideways. Directly beside him was river, ending with the waterfall that dropped into a black, thrashing pool sixty feet below.

Sherlock had slipped too far and too fast. He tumbled down with a yell, sliding into the river. His body was submerged and the water was so cold it felt hot. The current grabbed at him, pulling with all its might. He twisted under water, trying to reorient himself. He was being dragged backwards quickly. The flow was wicked strong but still shallow, only a few feet deep. As Sherlock neared the edge he stretched out, managing to grab onto a small boulder. He locked himself around it and pulled hard, choking on a mouthful of water. He struggled to pull himself to his feet, bracing himself against the current. He was knee deep and still holding onto the rock. Sherlock glanced over his shoulder. Another foot and he would have gone over the edge. Another flash in the sky showed him the drop and he leaned away. The height was nauseating.

Wearily he turned. Sherlock pushed his hair out of his eyes, trembling. He looked up to see Scott Hawthorn standing on the bank not ten feet away. He level the gun, breathing heavily…

John hit the end of the bridge and leaped over the three steps, splashing water everywhere. He'd just seen Sherlock and his assailant dash up the path on the right. He followed, digging his feet into the muddy earth to get traction. Every bit of him was drenched to the bone and numb from the cold.

"SHERLOCK!" John yelled again, as he wove through the trail. The lightning struck like a heartbeat.

"JOHN! STAY BACK! STAY WHERE YOU ARE!" Sherlock yelled back. Even with the noise of the waterfall growing John realized Sherlock wasn't far. His heart leaped at hearing Sherlock's voice and the littlest bit of hope flickered in his heart. He was so close. So close… Just a few more steps. He had been less than a hundred feet behind them before. He rounded the bend.

Then, in that moment of fear, hope, exhaustion and unstoppable drive John's heart stopped. A sharp, unmistakable crack shattered through the night.

"SHERLOCK!"John screamed.

John stumbled forward onto the slick, muddy ledge, terror coursing through his mind and body. He looked up in time to see the silhouette of a man with a gun. In front of that man, maybe ten feet ahead a cloaked silhouette waivered in the darkness. Lightning flashed and John felt a scream rip through his chest as Sherlock staggered backwards, knee deep in the water and on the very edge of death. With every ounce of energy John had he ran.

All noise vanished. The sound of the rain hitting the Earth, the thunder in the air and the crash of the waterfall. He saw Sherlock start to waiver and sink, falling…

Scott turned. There was a deep look of regret on his face. He saw John running for river, running for Sherlock as he stumbled backwards. Time slowed. Scott side stepped as John ran past him and drove the butt of the revolver down hard on the back of his head. John fell forward onto his knees and collapsed to the side as Sherlock disappeared over the edge of the falls into the raging, black pool below.