CHAPTER 61: PYRRHIC VICTORY
No one dares to breathe as time passes. One second, two seconds, three seconds, four seconds.
Nothing happens. The sword remains immobile on the ceiling, innocuous; the fire nozzles don't switch on, and the room temperature remains constant, even though everyone is covered in a cold sweat for the tension.
Then, an unexpected noise reaches their ears; it is the clinking of ice cubes swirling in a glass.
They frown at each other and turn their heads in all directions before the disappointed comment of Moriarty booms through the speakers, "Well, that is anticlimactic."
His grimacing face appears on the screen; he is peacefully sipping a glass of whiskey.
"For the briefest moment, I actually thought that you might guess wrong and start some fireworks," he shoots them a cruel grin. "All those speculations about the wrong objects, all those entertaining attempts to connect the other items to the epic poems really kept me on the edge of my seat," he exclaims in ecstasy. He loves making them dance with his puzzles, confusing them up to the point where they start questioning everything they know.
He shifts his eyes to Thomas Wellington and his expression changes dramatically, turning into a bored scowl, "I won't lie; I would have loved to kill him off, actually. But I am a man of my word, so he's free."
His words are accompanied by the entrance of two armed men in Thomas's room. They free him from the shackles without a word, while Jim continues, "And I'll keep up my end of the bargain entirely, so you can now proceed to the next room," he smirks as the automatic door at the end of the room swings open.
John shoots a wary glance at the line of jets on the wall before limping towards the exit; Giulia and Sherlock straighten up, ready to follow him.
As the armed guards grab Thomas's arms to drag him out of the room, he frees himself from their grasp and runs to the glass before the girl can step away.
"Giulia, wait. Let me just thank you," he yells, slamming a hand onto the glass.
She stops and lifts a stern gaze on him, "Don't bother. I didn't do it for you. Sure, we used to be very close, and yes, it hurt like hell when I had to push you away and we parted ways. I lost one of the most important people of my life, that night. But until today, I didn't know just how far gone you were. I thought I was the one who lost you, but by betraying me, you lost me, forever. Now, I can't even recognise the person in front of me. And for the record, Moriarty was wrong about me; I didn't choose to play out of love," she snarls, emphasising the last word. "If your survival truly depended on how much I love you, you'd be lying in a puddle of blood now."
He flinches at her icy tone, then nods, "Fair enough. You should have let him kill me, then. I deserved it," he shrugs.
She snaps back, "No man deserves to die. Besides, what about me? What about what I deserve?" she gestures animatedly, pointing her finger to herself. "I deserve justice for what you did to me, and I promise I won't rest until I have made you pay for your betrayal. I'll do everything in my power to ensure that you are going to be punished for what you did to me."
She makes a pause and shakes her head. "But I wasn't entitled to sentence you to death. I'm not a judge nor an executioner. I'm just a victim, and I want my payback. Because you see, Moriarty was indeed right about one thing," she tilts her head towards the screen with a bitter smile.
"Traitors are the worst kind of people. And if I had let him kill you… if I hadn't at least tried to save your life, I would've betrayed everything that I believe in. And I simply couldn't do it. I'm not like you," she sneers at him. "I chose to stay true to myself," she holds her head up high with pride.
Jim looks at her, and his high-pitched laughter echoes from the monitor. "True to yourself, but at what cost?"
She turns to him and comments sarcastically, "Sorry that my victory wasn't among the expected outcomes of this round."
Moriarty frowns, feigning utter confusion. "Victory? What are you talking about? There was no winning this round," he shakes his head and puts up the most compassionate expression that he is capable of; he smiles almost tenderly at her lack of understanding.
"Oh, Giulia, look what you did," he opens his arms wide as if to embrace the whole situation. "You started questioning your moral code. Look what you did to yourself, to your system of beliefs; you almost convinced yourself of the necessity to kill a man. And look what you did to others, too; you put your friends' life in danger all because, against your better judgement, you just care so much about people's lives, about the right thing to do."
He gulps down the rest of his drink and rolls the glass absentmindedly between his hands, making the ice clatter against the crystal. Then he tilts his head and looks offended by her previous insinuation that he could have made a miscalculation about the game.
"The only outcome I had anticipated is that this round would break you. And as always, my predictions were spot on."
He signals his men to take Thomas out of the room by force and enjoys the view of him struggling and fighting while calling Giulia's name at the tops of his lungs.
The girl turns her back to the glass wall and places a hand on the table at the centre of the room for support. She closes her eyes and takes some deep breaths. Moriarty is right; right now, she is completely broken.
When she opens her eyes again, she finds herself staring at the marble Muse a few inches from her face. A guttural scream of exasperation erupts from her throat while she grabs the statue and flings it at the weighing scale. The force of the impact topples the machine and detaches the metal plate from the base, activating the mechanism that releases the sword. The blade drops down with a sibilant swoosh, plunging into the headrest of the armchair, right where Thomas's head was leaning, five minutes ago.
Giulia stares at the scene, a rapt look in her eyes. Then, all the emotions of that round swoop on her at once, and she starts sobbing. She sinks her head in her hands while hot tears stream down her face.
The two men gape at the girl, speechless. Unsurprisingly, John is the first to react; he walks up to Giulia and is about to hug her to comfort her, but she recoils with an appalled expression.
"No, don't touch me!" she yells, stepping backwards.
John does a double-take at her reaction; she looks frightened rather than angry.
She raises her tear-streamed face to look at him. "Why would you even try to console me, why don't you hate me?" her voice breaks.
Watson frowns, "Giulia, what are you talking about?"
She bites down on her lips, murmuring, "You should hate me. I had no right to dispose of your lives like that. I was playing God, deciding who lives and who dies."
His expression softens in front of her self-deprecation. "We would never hold it against you. It was all a matter of circumstances. It was Moriarty's doing; he forced you to make that choice," he specifies calmly, not a note of blame in his voice.
"And I made a selfish decision by putting you in danger," she protests. "What does it say about me? That under pressure I just become a self-centred arrogant? Why don't you hate me?" she screams again.
Before John can reply, Sherlock talks for the first time.
"You want us to hate you," he deduces, studying her. "You want us to be mad at you for choosing to play the game because you think we were opposed to your decision. And just because we survived, you believe it doesn't erase the fact that you deliberately put us in danger. That's why you are trying to push us away right now; you think that if it had been up to us, we would have never made the same choice as you. And this tore you apart; believing that we were against you in this round."
He takes some steps forward. "In the end, that's probably your worst flaw: you seek the approval of others," he declares, and she nods slightly, acknowledging the truth in his words.
John glowers at him: most awful timing ever.
Sherlock ignores his death stare and keeps walking until he is towering over Giulia, forcing her to look up to meet his eyes.
He speaks in a softer tone, "You are wrong. What you don't realise is that had you had the possibility to ask our opinion, we would have always said yes to this round. And not because preventing a homicide was the right thing to do – that was your reason for playing," he wrinkles his nose.
She knits her brows, confused. "Why would you have chosen to play then?"
He sighs, "Because it mattered to you. I don't care about the life of a stranger, but I saw how much it counted to you. Listen, what I said in my hospital room when I was shot, I meant it: we are with you until the very end. That's how much we care."
Author's note: We have finally reached the end of this emotionally charged round. With all the detailed information about epic poems and the several red herrings, I feel like this round resembles more to a Dan Brown's novel than to a Sherlock Holmes's story, but I hoped you enjoyed the characters' way of reasoning and the adrenaline rush, as well.
I've tried to explore Giulia's moral dilemma by presenting her internal battle and her final breakdown, and I hope I conveyed the whole rainbow of her conflicted emotions.
Can anyone guess what the next round has in store for our exhausted characters?