Molly stretched her legs in her small cell which wasn't really a cell, but a small two piece loo in the dank basement of a townhouse in Battersea near Clapham Junction. She had been brought there hours ago by the troll-man, "Joseph" and another equally repugnant lout driving a non-descript silver Ford Fiesta. She wasn't entirely sure how much time had passed, but by the change of the light through the heavily frosted window (which was much too small to escape through) she figured it was somewhere between nine and ten in the evening.
The last couple of hours had been strangely anti-climactic. She had been bustled into the little room and essentially abandoned there. She had no idea what was going on. She was supposed to meet the "boss" who she figured must be the infamous Sebastian Moran, but if he was even at the townhouse, he had yet to summon her for their meeting.
She rubbed her arms. She was cold. They had taken her shoes, her socks and her cardigan so that all she was left wearing was a pair of loose cotton trousers and a thin, short-sleeved blouse.
A faint vibration through the floor indicated the passing of another train. She shivered, more from the knowledge of that than anything else. They hadn't even bothered to conceal where they took her which Mycroft had warned was almost a guaranteed sign they planned to end her life. Molly sat down on the closed seat of the toilet again and tucked her feet up under her to try to warm them. Almost as soon as she did though, the door handle moved. She hugged her arms about herself. What does one do in this situation?
The door fully opened. The disgusting henchman Joseph threw her shoes down at her.
"Alright, you can have those back. Come on then, the boss is ready to see you."
Molly's heart started thumping. A shiver shot up her spine. She scrambled to put her shoes on before she was wrenched out of the bathroom by her elbow and dragged a couple rooms over to an old parlour. Joseph hurled her towards a musty sofa. She slunk down to it and looked around anxiously. There were larger windows near the ceiling of the room but she could see they had bars. There really was no escape from her predicament.
She needed a rescue to get out of this.
A sound to her right caught her attention and she looked sideways to see a tall-ish, lean man with dark hair and dressed impeccably in a slim grey suit with a hint of blue in its hue, very pale primrose colored shirt and houndstooth patterned, jewel-tone, slim green tie. Atop his head was a dove grey trilby hat.
He walked into the middle of the room, then stopped and gazed down at her with very intense, light grey eyes the color of blanched driftwood. He raised an odd, pen-like device that she realized was an electronic cigarette and took a puff from it. His nose sort of wrinkled as he assessed her as if disappointed by what he saw.
"I had hoped you would be more formidable somehow," he murmured in a low, gravelly voice with a relatively flat, North American accent, "but you're just a mouse."
Molly didn't answer. She wanted to say something clever about mice and elephants but what was the point? She didn't want to have to converse with this man any more than necessary.
He squinted at her. "Nothing to say?"
She shrugged. "Squeak?"
He chuckled and then in a few steps, flopped down beside her and threw an arm over the back of the couch. Molly shrunk away up against the rest on her end. He twitched his brows at her as he puffed again on his device. The sickly sweet smell of black licorice wafted to her nostrils.
"Relax, mouse, you may have the great Sherlock Holmes twisted in knots, but you really don't do anything for me."
Molly pressed her lips together and looked down. "What do you want, Mr.-?"
He removed his hat and set it down on a nearby side table. "Come now, you know who I am, don't you? I'm sure Agatha has told you all about me. My name is Sebastian."
He was so off-putting for a handsome man and she didn't know why. She felt like if she peeled back some of his skin, all she'd see was large, hairy, black spiders crawling along his insides.
She dipped her head. "Mary mentioned she had an ex-husband."
"Ex?" He repeated sharply. "We never divorced."
She tucked in her lips. She didn't want to antagonize this man. He had already tried to kill her twice if his cohort's cryptic comments were anything to go by.
"It's none of my business," Molly mumbled.
Sebastian reached and snatched her towards him by her wrist. She bit her already swollen lip.
"You've made it your business though. You've become Agatha's little confident and now you're emptying safety deposit boxes all over town."
She swallowed. "I don't know what you're talking about . . ."
His fingers bit into her wrist painfully. He put down his e-cigarette and then grabbed her face and squeezed it with his other hand. Molly couldn't suppress the cry that escaped her lips. The pressure he put on her wrist was extraordinarily excruciating.
"Listen, little mouse, I detest these kind of games. They grate on me," he hissed. "Now, you've taken something from me and I'll have it back."
He pushed her face and she fell back against the couch then waved the squat Joseph over. He stepped forward.
"The phone, please," her assaulter muttered.
Joseph reached into his pocket and retrieved her cell. Sebastian grabbed it and turned it on.
"We took the liberty of replacing your battery. The Brits are pretty good at incorporating all manner of recorders and transmitters into those. Now, don't get too excited. We've got a cellular disrupter here so none of your communications will work but you can however, access anything else on your phone."
He shoved it in her direction. "Unlock it."
Molly shakily grasped her phone and stared down at the lock screen. "Why?"
The muscles of his jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth. "Why do you think you're here, Molly Hooper? Those ridiculous gems? I am not stupid, I can smell a setup. I know exactly what they are trying to do. Several of those gems are conflict diamonds, Burmese rubies and other exceedingly rare stones. They're the kind of stones that attract attention when one tries to unload them. I suppose you expect me to ask you where all the other withdrawals you made are but I could care less. What I really want is in your phone. Now kindly, unlock it."
Molly shook her head. This situation was going from bad to worse.
Sebastian leaned forward and gripped her knee punishingly. He clamped down hard. This time, Molly gritted her teeth instead of whimpering.
"You have a choice. Unlock the damn phone for me, or unlock it for Joseph."
She looked over at Joseph's leering face and swallowed a rise of bile. Her hopes were fading fast.
"What's going to happen to me if I do this?" She whispered.
He lifted his chin in challenge.
"What's going to happen to you if you don't?" He asked.
Molly blinked back tears. She could stall and bargain but it would just delay the inevitable. She punched in her code and watched her phone come to life. She sniffed down at the picture of Toby that popped up.
"What do you want now?" She asked.
He snatched the phone from her hand and rose to his feet. He picked his hat up and put it on as he strolled towards the door. He didn't even look up when he spoke to his counterparts.
"Kill her."
Molly's breath caught in her throat. She looked wildly about. That was it? This was it? She shook her head.
"W-wait, please . . ."
Sebastian stopped at the doorway and glanced back enquiringly. "What? What did you expect? The only thing you had that was any value to me was that photo you took of Dr. Rojas' notes. Now, I have it. You are the last breadcrumb. You have to die."
"B-b-but I'm not. I sent that photo to my laptop . . . check the history on my phone . . ."
Irritation rippled across his face as he looked down at the phone. He stalked back towards her and slapped it back in her hands.
"Show me."
She scrolled through her files and then held the phone up for him to see. "Here, in the Bluetooth folder. There's the time stamp."
"Where is your laptop?" He asked with ice in every word.
"A-a-at the lab at Bart's. Um, it's password protected as well."
Molly stared up at him. By the way his eyes constricted and a muscle in his cheek spasmed, she could tell he was enraged. He took off his hat and flung it across the room. He turned back towards his companions. Molly slipped her phone into her pocket and made a little prayer that he wouldn't notice.
"Where are they waiting for us?" His voice remained eerily even-tempered.
"The Watson's place, her flat, and Baker street. I imagine she's supposed to lure you to one of them locations."
The other man shrugged. "I didn't see anything at the hospital. I think we can get in and out of there pretty quick."
Sebastian turned back to her. "Where exactly is your laptop in the lab?"
Molly crossed her arms and looked away. "Go to hell!"
He hauled her to her feet and glowered down at her. His eyes flicked across her face.
"Hell is not a place, Molly Hooper. It's a state of being. I am Hell. You don't want to unleash me."
Mycroft clutched his umbrella tightly in his grasp as every phone in his immediate vicinity seemed to go off. The entire flat they occupied opposite of Molly Hooper's apartment building lit up with the blue glow of cellular screens. He didn't even need to look at Anthea.
"Sherlock is awake," he said with a sigh.
She nodded. "Seems so, and if the tone of his text message is anything to go by, he's rather upset."
He looked over at her with a tilt of his head. "Well, that was to be expected. Hmm, I think we're going to have to check the dosage recommendation of our new sedative. He was supposed to be out for another two hours."
Anthea smiled wanly. "We had our best chemists on that. However, I don't know if there is a way to factor in . . . well, his mental resistance to being controlled. He probably willed himself awake."
Mycroft stuck out his lip as he thought about that. "Yes, I hadn't considered that. Next time I'll double the dosage."
She sputtered a laugh before reigning it in. "Do you think there will ever be a next time?"
He opened his mouth to respond but another technician interrupted them.
"Her phone! Her phone's popped up!"
Mycroft stood quickly and took a deep breath. "Where?"
"It just pinged off a tower near King Edward's and Newgate."
Mycroft closed his eyes and a map of London whizzed by his internal lens. He clicked his umbrella off the floor as he recognized the crossroads.
"They're at Bart's. Contact the team there. Let them know we're on our way."
They'd waited ages for Molly to arrive at her flat but when she'd disappeared from the face of the Earth hours before, the worst had begun to seem likely. Her belongings along with her purse and its smashed tracker had been found just after he surveillance team had lost her trail near Hollingsworth Bank. It wasn't supposed to have gone that way and heads were going to roll for the monumental screw-up. Most likely his when Sherlock finally caught up with him.
"What do you want to do about your brother?" Anthea asked. "He's ringing me now."
Mycroft sighed. "Tell him to meet us at Bart's, but impress upon him that he's not to interfere or he could be responsible for his pathologist's death."
He let out a breath he'd been holding. Bart's Lab was one of the alternatives that had been discussed with Molly. The only reason they'd go there is if she led them to it.
He closed his eyes and thanked his lucky stars. She was still alive.