9.
It was like the world was playing in slow motion. The clouds of ash fell softly around the detective's feet. John sprinted over to the burning vehicle, coughing and wheezing, desperate to see if anyone had survived, although the probabilities weren't in his favour. Sherlock hoped that what he was seeing was a horrible, unforgiving nightmare. In minutes, the police had surrounded the car accompanied by several dozen paramedics and camera crews.
"Sir, are you alright?" one of the police officers asked Sherlock.
"I..." Sherlock stuttered. He didn't know how he felt. The past ten minutes had been a complete blur of a cacophony of noise and burning. Suddenly, from behind the wreckage, a policeman called out for help.
"I've got one!" he shouted, waving over his colleagues for assistance. Crawling out of the car was Lestrade, spluttering and squinting against the blinding daylight.
"Wait, stop that." Lestrade struggled to get his words out between the chokes of dusty air. Reaching back into the car, Lestrade's eyes were wide with extreme anxiety. Clawing through the twisted pieces of smouldering metal, the brave DI launched himself into the vehicle one last time.
"What are you doing, man? You could get yourself killed!" a police officer called, grabbing hold of Greg Lestrade's ankle.
"SHE'S STILL IN HERE!" he shouted back from inside the white hot twisted wreck. Sherlock's eyes fogged with a glimmer of hope as he jogged over to John who was stood by where Lestrade re-entered the car.
There was a dead silence. Nobody dared to move or even breathe. The fire crackled as it began to die down slightly. The metal frame of the police car began to shift and jolt. Pointing their cameras towards the wreckage, the whole nation was waiting, watching for any sign of life. Fire engines began pulling up in their masses; clamp cutters, hoses and teams of people all piling in to add to the lunacy. Suddenly, emerging feet first out of the wreckage again was Lestrade, but this time cradling Emily's head, pulling her limp, ash covered body away from the flames.
Almost throwing themselves at Lestrade, the teams of paramedics, camera crews and of course John, came careering in a sea of voices and sweaty, excited bodies.
"Donovan?" John peered towards the ashen vehicle then back to Lestrade. He simply shook his head. Donovan wasn't in the wreckage anymore, but somewhere else. Away from the cameras, away from the noise and away from the blinding light of the sun which perfectly illuminated the scene for all to see, mocking them.
Scooping Emily out of Lestrade's arms, the paramedics bustled her onto a stretcher and then swiftly into an ambulance.
"Are her parents around here somewhere?" one of the paramedics said.
Both John and Lestrade simultaneously looked to Sherlock who was sat cross legged on the pavement, a smashed up mobile phone a metre or so away from him. The paramedic walked over to him, placing a blanket around his shoulders (for the second time).
"Sir, would you like to come with us please. We are rushing your daughter to the hospital. We are afraid that she may have taken a rather serious blow to the side of her head which, if not treated, could turn into a bleed in the brain. If again left for too long; she could develop seizures, epileptic fits, nerve damage and in extreme cases, various forms of dementia.
"I see." Sherlock replied unconsciously.
"Please follow me." The paramedic tried to smile but ended up grimacing as she showed Sherlock to where his daughter lay cold and fragile. Her head was bleeding and she was plastered head to toe in bruises and gashes. She looked so innocent; angelic lying in her white robe. That is, until Sherlock noticed the large blood stain on her hip.
"What's that?" he said pointing, his voice cracking as he swallowed his emotions back down.
Looking where he was pointing, the paramedic's eyes widened.
"We need some more help over here! It looks like she has taken a large wound to the hip and stomach area. She is losing blood quickly and needs immediate medical attention. I'm sorry, but you're going to have to just follow us to the hospital and give us room to work."
Sherlock backed out of the ambulance as three more paramedics entered, bustling past him. He stood helplessly as he watched the blue lights flicker and move away from him. The sirens began to wail their demonic chant accompanied by the beeping of horns and squeaking suspension.
"Sherlock, get in!" John called from the car in which both Sherlock and he were spared. Hurrying eagerly to the passenger side door, Sherlock clambered into the vehicle.
"Follow the ambulance." Sherlock said, as he fixed his seat belt into the fastener with a shaky click.
John sensed the nervousness in his friend. "She's going to be alright" he said comfortingly.
"You didn't see the blood." Sherlock replied, looking straight at the back of the ambulance, as if he could see through it; hoping he could see through it, to make sure his daughter was safe.
Sitting in an isolated room, Sherlock sat tapping his feet on the floor. The door opened slowly. There stood John, a sympathetic glisten in his eye and a small stain down one cheek. Everyone was distressed and upset. The loss of Donovan hit everyone – even Sherlock Holmes – yet the injury of Emily devastated everyone.
There was an unnatural silence about the hospital. The staff, the nurses, the patients; were all sullen and quiet. Nobody quite knew why, but they were quiet all the same.
The room in which John and Sherlock were seated was a plain white. There were a number of seats with a pasty looking green covering and a small stack of magazines piled to one side.
"No news?" John asked purely to break the tangible silence that you could cut through. Sherlock simply looked up gravely without another word. He sent a thought and John received it.
"Oh," he began, "well, no news is good news, right?"
Again, Sherlock did not respond. He was too busy thinking about how short he was with her in Poland, at the airport. He thought to himself, how could I have been so occupied in a mobile phone to not want to talk to her? Selfish, that's what I am; selfish.
As Sherlock was wrestling with his conscience again, a nurse calmly wandered in to the room.
"You may see her now, if you like." She said, trying to smile and be comforting, but failing dramatically. Sherlock braced himself for what was next to come.
The first thing Sherlock heard as he entered Emily's room was the rhythmic beeping of the heart rate monitor. Then there was Emily herself. The strange combination of breathing and wheezing filled the atmosphere in the room with an unsettling, disturbing air. Looking at his daughter, he couldn't help but think that he was at fault.
The door clicked open once again. Only John turned around to see who had entered. Lestrade, his face covered in bruises, cuts and a burn the size of a tennis ball, staggered uneasily into the room, sighing and frowning as he saw Emily and Sherlock.
The girl's face was surfaced with small burns, which had been treated, but still looked painful and swollen. The oxygen mask which covered the majority of her face concealed a broken nose and a burst lip.
"This is my fault." Sherlock said quietly.
"Don't be stupid!" John replied hastily.
"You saw her face. She didn't want to be near me! If I was a better parent I… I would've been able to protect her in the first place."
Lestrade put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder.
"Well, we're lucky she's still here." He said wincing as his burn began to tense up slightly on his face.
"Thank you." Sherlock said in return.
"For what?"
"Thank you for saving her life; for opening my eyes, Greg." Sherlock turned to face the DI. Sherlock held out his hand. Lestrade grasped it firmly and shook it.
Sherlock had been sitting by Emily's side for roughly an hour. She hadn't stirred. A nurse had been in offering tea or coffee at which Sherlock replied, "No thank you, I'm too busy watching my child."
The nurse left, rolling her eyes and saying nothing, leaving Sherlock in an irritable mood.
Emily's heart rate monitor repeated the same, unconscious droning rhythm which lulled the detective into a somewhat dream like aura. He began to almost nod along to the beat, until it got faster, and faster, and faster. Sherlock snapped himself out of the trance like phase, alerting his senses and quickening his pulse and mind.
"HELP!" he shouted, "I NEED HELP OVER HERE!"
Three nurses bustled into the room primed with needles and phials full of clear and purple liquids. Suddenly, sitting bolt up-right, her eyes gaping and terrified, Emily ripped the mask from her face throwing it beside her. A nurse tried to restrain the girl, but the crazed look in its eyes struck fear into her. Emily clamped her hand to the nurse's arm, digging her nails deeper and deeper into the soft flesh of her forearm, causing a thick trickle of warm blood to appear. The nurse began to scream and panic, alerting passers-by who swiftly joined in on trying to pry Emily's thin, bony fingers out of the ever deepening wound.
Sherlock stood completely shell-shocked in one corner of the room. As the nurses injected needle after needle of inoculation fluids into Emily, her eyes began to relax and contracted back down. She groaned and wheezed as she slipped slowly into an induced sleep. The tension in the nurse's demeanour became lessened. Emily was going to be inactive for a number of hours.
"What did you give her?" Sherlock asked, still completely petrified by what he had witnessed.
"Just about enough antihistamine to knock out a raging bull for the night." A younger nurse said, a sly grin stretching from one ear to the other.
The detective slid over to Emily's bedside, placing his hand carefully on top of hers. Emily began to twitch, not in the sense of a spasm, but like she was awakening from a nightmare. Her eyes flickered beneath her lids, but she could not open them. She twitched her fingers, but she could not move them. The girl began to panic, her heart rate increasing. Sherlock patted her hand and smoothed the hair away from her face. Only then did he see where her head had been glued to repair a small crack.
"Don't worry. It's ok now." Sherlock said soothingly. Emily stopped twitching and almost sighed with relief. She mumbled slightly, trying to speak.
"I…didn't…. mean… to…" she moaned.