Chapter 11
Eleven gazed out the window in wonder as they drove out of the city, taking in all the different sights she saw. Everything was so new. So strange. So fascinating. She noticed the occasional curious glances she'd get from Donovan and Lestrade in the front seats.
"So, erm... You're name's Eleanor, right?" Greg asked the girl after a few minutes of rather awkward silence. Eleven stopped staring at a turtle-shaped cloud and looked at the Detective Inspector, nodding in response.
"And you're John's niece?" he questioned further, getting another nod in reply. John shifted uncomfortably. He didn't particularly enjoy lying to anyone, especially a friend, but he knew he had no choice. After all, he couldn't just say that they'd picked her up off the street after she'd used a strange, almost magical ability to save John from robbers. Not only would they say he and Sherlock were crazy, they'd try and find out where Eleven came from, and then that would just lead to more trouble.
There were a few more minutes of silence. Eleven went back to staring out the window, John checked his phone, and Sherlock gazed straight ahead at nothing in particular, deep in thought. There was a blank look on his face, so it wasn't obvious to anybody that he was worried; very, very worried.
Soon enough, the group arrived at St. Aldate's School, parking the car and exiting it. Eleven looked around curiously at all the police officers and detectives around and in the building. She stared at the school, wondering if there was a gate to the Upside-Down here; but, of course, she also considered the other, more likely possibility: That Moriarty had done this. She pondered these things as she walked beside Sherlock and John. She started to follow them under the police tape, but an officer stopped her.
"Sorry, I'm afraid we can't allow a child on the crime scene," the woman spoke, looking towards Sherlock and John.
"But-" Eleven began to protest, not wanting to miss anything and also being anxious about separation from her friends.
"She's with us," Sherlock said firmly. "She won't be any trouble, I assure you."
"We can't break the rules, sir," the officer insisted. The consulting detective sighed in annoyance. Eleven looked towards John worriedly.
"Just, erm... Wait out here, okay?" the army doctor said comfortingly, kneeling down to her height. "Stay in the car. Lock the door."
John paused, taking his cell phone out of his coat pocket.
"Here, you can play around on this while we're gone," he said, handing it to the girl. "You know how to use it, yeah?"
"Yeah," Eleven said, nodding a little.
"Well, there you go," John replied with a friendly smile. "Now, we'll be back before you know it, I promise."
That seemed to reassure her; from what John could tell, "promise" meant a lot to her.
"Okay..." she said, smiling a little. The doctor stood up once more, walking back over to Sherlock, who had an impatient expression. When the detective saw his friend approaching, he began rushing over to a woman who appeared to be in great distress.
"Housemistress. Ms. McKenzie," Lestrade explained to Sherlock in a whisper as they approached the crying woman. "Go easy."
Greg stayed back as Sherlock walked over to the woman.
"Ms. McKenzie, you're in charge of pupil welfare, yet you left this place wide open last night," he said to her, and his voice suddenly rose angrily. "What are you?! A drunk, an idiot, or a criminal?!"
Ms. McKenzie's eyes widened in alarm, and she trembled slightly; she was already in shock, and this wasn't helping. She gasped in fear as Sherlock suddenly pulled the shock blanket off of her shoulders.
"NOW, QUICKLY! TELL ME!" he yelled.
"A-all the doors and windows were properly bolted! N-no one, not even me, went into their room last night. You have to believe me!" the Housemistress said, tears in her eyes as she trembled in fear. Just like that, Sherlock's whole demeanor changed from a furious one to a calm, gentle one.
"I do, I just wanted you to speak quickly," he said with a reassuring smile, gently grabbing her shoulders before rushing off into the school. "Ms. McKenzie will need to breathe into a bag now."
Eleven stared out the car window anxiously at the exchange. She couldn't hear any of it, of course, but Sherlock's changes from calm, to furious, to calm once more confused and slightly worried her. Despite her trust of the man, he still surprised her quite a bit. After he, John, and Lestrade walked inside the building, the girl turned her attention back to John's cell phone. The device certainly was odd to her. Other than answering Sherlock's phone once, she had never used a phone, but she caught on pretty quickly. She curiously tapped on a symbol that resembled a camera, and in a second, she was gazing at herself on the phone screen. She gasped softly, staring at herself before tapping the circle at the bottom of the screen, taking a photo. She then pressed the icon in the bottom right corner and grinned as she looked at the photo she'd taken. Eleven kept taking self portraits, trying different angles and expressions. But she soon got bored of that. Her eyes wandered once more, and she found herself staring at the edge of the woods, deep in thought. Her thoughts found their way back to Will Byers. She wished she knew more about his disappearance so she could know one way or another whether or not it was the monster that took him. Which, in other words, meant she was wondering whether or not she could save him.
Grimm's fairy tales. A lacrosse stick. Spy books. Sherlock examined each of these items as he looked around the missing children's dorm room, quickly coming up with idea after idea and dismissing each one... Until he saw an almost empty bottle of linseed oil. He picked it up, getting a stern look in his eyes.
"Get Anderson," he ordered, looking up at Lestrade.
Soon, the room was darkened, and Sherlock had an ultraviolet light in his hand that he shone on the walls and floor. When the light arrived on the wall above the boy's bed, the words "HELP US" became visible.
"Linseed oil," Sherlock stated as he stared at the message.
"Not much use," Anderson replied, crossing his arms. "Doesn't lead us to the kidnapper."
"Brilliant, Anderson," the detective replied sarcastically, rolling his eyes; though Phillip Anderson didn't seem to notice that Sherlock wasn't being serious.
"Really?" he asked, a hint of surprise in his voice.
"Yes," Sherlock answered. "Brilliant impression of an idiot."
Anderson narrowed his eyes slightly, but said nothing in reply as Sherlock shined the light onto the floor, revealing several footprints leading towards the door. There was one pair of adult-sized footprints and two pairs of children's footprints on either side. The consulting detective began following the trail, keeping the ultraviolet light on it.
"He made a trail for us..." John said with wide eyes as he followed his flatmate.
"The boy was made to walk ahead of them," Sherlock said, mostly thinking out loud as the light revealed the shape of the child's footprints.
"On tiptoe?" John asked.
"Indicates anxiety," Sherlock explained. "A gun held to his head."
They continued along the corridor, following the glowing footprints.
"The girl was pulled beside him," Sherlock said as he noticed the shape of the girl's footprints. "dragged sideways. He had his left arm cradled about her neck."
Soon, the footprints stopped.
"That's the end of it," Anderson, who had been walking along with them, said. "We don't know where they went from here."
Sherlock paused as he said this and turned to face him.
"Tells us nothing after all," Anderson stated, crossing his arms and giving Sherlock a somewhat miffed look.
"You're right, Anderson... Nothing," the detective responded before taking a deep breath and speaking quickly. "Except his shoe size, his gait, his walking pace."
Sherlock tore down the material that had been placed on the window to darken the room and knelt down. He took out a wallet of tools and a plastic dish, which he placed on the floor while selecting which tool to use.
"Having fun?" John sighed.
"Starting to," Sherlock answered with a smile.
"Maybe don't do the smiling," John said. "Kidnapped children."
Sherlock didn't respond as he began to scrape some of the linseed oil off the floor with a scalpel and place it in the Petri dish. His friend sighed, beginning to get impatient. Usually he didn't mind having to wait, but he felt the need to go check on Eleven. Seeing that those children were dragged off and threatened with a gun by Moriarty or one of his men, most likely, made him even more anxious. He knew that Moriarty wouldn't hesitate to kidnap El, and maybe even kill her, or send her back to the laboratory. All of those possibilities frightened and angered him. She was just a child, she didn't need to be around all of this; especially not after she'd just escaped whatever horrors she'd faced back at Baskerville.
"Something's bothering you," Sherlock stated, standing up after collecting all the evidence he needed. "You're worried about El, aren't you?"
"Yeah, actually," John sighed as the two began to walk to the exit. "She just... Shouldn't be around all of this."
Sherlock didn't respond. He knew that was true, and he didn't want to put the girl in danger either, but... What choice did he have? Where could she go where she was safe? Now that Moriarty was interested in her, she wouldn't be able to escape him. She was better off at 221B, where he and John could keep an eye on her themselves and do all they could to keep the consulting criminal off her back. Plus, though Sherlock hadn't admitted it, he rather enjoyed her company. She was rather naive, yes, but the detective could tell that Eleven was a smart, brave girl, who was very eager to learn about the world outside Baskerville. He figured that after all this was over, he and John could arrange for El to go to school, and maybe she could get her own room... Maybe he could teach her to play the violin.
But these distracting thoughts quickly ended as he remembered the very real possibility that he wouldn't make it out of this alive.
