AJ Elfhawk
On The Way Down
Chapter 25 – In Flight
"Bring me home in a blinding dream,
Through the secrets that I've seen.
Wash the sorrow from off my skin,
And show me how to be whole again.
Castle of Glass – Linkin Park
As visibility failed in the dimming light, the days of inter-country, cross-capital pursuits seemed little more than a distant lifetime away. The imminent threat of violence that rest would surely bring overcame any desire to stop as Sherlock tripped and groped a pathway through the forest.
His stamina wasted with inactivity after three months of idleness, the initial, headlong sprint from house to tree-line had almost ruined him. Chances of success in attempting escape had been slim enough but he'd known the odds when John forced him to leave.
That is, when he'd chosen to leave. It was an important distinction to make in this instance. Later, it would all too tempting to believe responsibility had rested with anyone else but with himself.
He didn't want to think about anything, not the enforced fasting reducing him to this weak, disorientated condition. Certainly not about the damage lying beneath the crust of dried blood, opening up his mind up from within.
Risking collision once more to listen behind, the sounds of pursuit remained on the edge of hearing despite having changed direction once already. Two groups of Moran's men were following him separately, he wasn't certain of their number but an awareness of being channelled between them was provisionally of greater concern. Of all the manners in which he'd been hunted in the past, heading up a triangle of murderers steering him towards a trap was certainly one of the bleaker scenarios.
In breathless, chest-burning flight, the only thought Sherlock could hold onto in focus was a question; how were they tracking him in the dark? He could out-manoeuvre infra-red, but had small hope in evading thermal-imaging, might just as well wave a flare torch as he ran.
If they had planted a GPS device, any escape attempt might be futile without stripping naked, unless he'd been forced to swallow a transmitter unconsciously, or they'd embedded it under his skin - the most noticeable and so least likely option.
'All right, enough!' Sherlock snapped, determined to rationalise his disorderly imagination before the mental drain of paranoia completely took over. Pain was no excuse for short-circuiting over one simple problem. With the assumed restraints of cost and access, the most advanced technology they'd likely have access to, if any, would be infra-red. That also meant his next choice was relatively simple.
As the terrain began to incline, Sherlock pushed himself into the ascent, using inertia to combat the lactic acid burning through his muscles. Along the slope, the trees thinned out enough to allow the last traces of light through, colouring the woodland grey and leaving him exposed, but finally offering the opportunity he'd been searching for.
Sherlock switched course again, running parallel to the gradient for thirty seconds before turning back downhill. Where the ground levelled out and the forest grew denser, he cut speed and skidded through the damp sod, diving sideways along the ground.
Twigs broke and pierced the cotton shirt as he rolled under the wide, overhanging foliage of rhododendrons. Face-down against the undergrowth, arms shaking with adrenaline, Sherlock pushed and twisted his way deeper as something startled off through the vegetation ahead. Finally certain of obscurity, he gathered debris and leaves about himself and lay still, controlling the laboured breaths until diaphragmatic control returned.
Moisture rose up through the ground, sapping heat from his body as it soaked the skin. Sherlock thought about going back, considering and dismissing arguments against himself while shouts in the distance grew closer. The prevailing difficulty would be in discerning a viable method to seize one of Moran's vehicles, and then in locating John from a distance as he sought the expedient opening needed to reach him without discovery.
The temple-splitting headache drummed in time to Sherlock's pulse as he counted the passing seconds, watching the darkness in vain until a stray torch startled him, illuminating the skeletons of trees before it swept onwards. One by one, men hastened past a short distance away with no mind to stealth. If only he'd had a line of wire to string out at throat height, by now at least some would be asphyxiating from collapsed windpipes.
Slowly, Sherlock accepted that he couldn't return. He'd known it when he left, but all the time he debated with himself it still seemed a possibility. If it hadn't been for John's emphatic, self-destructing desire to remove Sherlock from harm's way, he would have stayed until the end.
Now, if John wasn't already dead, they'd make short work of it before long. A bullet to the head, a slit throat, a staccato of shank holes below his ribs…
'Oh shit.' Sherlock closed his eyes, which made no difference whatsoever in the dark, covering his mouth to suffocate the despair raging as it built. He should have been the one to pay this forfeit, but he'd taken the craven's way out, turning John into a martyr by virtue of inaction.
Reliving the parting only amplified his guilt, because he should have known… he had known. John and his bloody saviour complex. Always setting himself in the course of danger, always the sacrifice.
But he couldn't run. What logic was there in us both dying?
The thought left Sherlock more isolated than he'd felt in years, empty and damned by his own subconscious. John had real family, friends. He'd been close to Lestrade, closer to Molly that Sherlock had ever managed in years of working around them.
With his effortlessly affable manner, John had aligned himself deftly alongside Sherlock's unfulfilled, functional life, co-conspiring and protecting him as he transformed Sherlock into some kind of accomplished, celebrated intellect, where most had perceived a pitiable eccentric at best.
What did he say when he saw these people again? What could his 'version of events' possibly be when nothing that came out of his mouth could alter the path he'd led John down and then abandoned him on? He was responsible and they would look straight through him and know that self-serving, narcissistic Sherlock Holmes had deserted the only faithful friend he'd known, to spare his own life.
Sherlock wondered what there was even left to return to. John's presence was in every memory they would never share again, that only he would carry onwards. Perhaps it was time for a change of situation. A change of country. A change of people.
His spine itched as perspiration cooled too quickly in the dark, and he started to shiver. Picking a leaf from his cheek with a trembling hand, Sherlock felt other debris clinging to the sweat and wiped his face across the cuff.
There was still a long night ahead, it was would be premature to torment himself over situations that might never arise if he didn't survive it. He had to live if only to take a sledge hammer to Sebastian Moran's cranium. He'd give that man the matching migraine he deserved and wouldn't be held accountable for misjudging the use of force if his skull collapsed.
If John was dead, he'd ensure it.
After the last man had passed a matter of minutes beforehand, Sherlock peeled himself unsteadily from the wet ground, his arms shaking as he struggled to sit straight. Reaching towards the branches above, his fingers tightened on something solid but he couldn't register any details of what he gripped and it became apparent the injury was about to manifest itself once more.
Another wave of dizziness inverted the ground, leaving Sherlock clinging to the forest's ceiling. He didn't feel himself hit the floor, and as he lay staring into nothing, temperature dropping as his muscles failed to respond, he finally escaped into dreams.