Chapter 73 - and honestly, why can't Kiara just meet someone nice? (And yes, that's directed at you, Grac3!) :) Thank you all for reviewing, it means a lot :)
I am so sorry.
There is nothing. It doesn't matter where Sherlock looks, or how many times, but he can't find any reason for Kiara to be absent.
The last time she was seen by a surveillance camera was in a side-alley not for away from where she got out, with a boy Sherlock is sure he has seen at Bart's before, but after a quick background check he rules him out as an attacker. Innocent, normal medicine student, on a work experience at the hospital, and as he can see on the CCTV, easily overpowered by Kiara if she wanted to.
When his phone finally rings more than an hour later, it's not Mycroft. Lestrade's voice is tired and annoyed, but there is also concern.
"Is Kiara okay?"
"What do you know?"
"There's this young man here, a William Tyler. He says he and a girl called Kiara were attacked two hours ago, and his description fits your Kiara to a T."
Sherlock and Mycroft have never been at New Scotland Yard so quickly.
Lestrade meets them in front of his office, hair tousled because of his fingers raking through them, his suit crumpled. There are coffee stains on his shirt.
"I only heard it by accident, I was walking past the room Mr Tyler was interviewed in. I thought you might to question him as well, but be nice. He is pretty roughed up."
Neither Sherlock nor Mycroft are really listening, and push into the room in question as soon as they can.
Roughed up, as Lestrade said, is putting it lightly. William Tyler's nose it broken at least once, but not bleeding any more. The dried blood partly hides the split lip, but it does nothing to disguise the bruises on his chin and jaw. He also sports a black eye, and his arms are bruised as well, his hands hurt where he tried to stop his fall, the blood already dried.
Wincing every now and then, he is currently telling the story to one officer, only glancing quickly at the newcomers.
"We were walking, chatting, but she was more quiet than the first time I talked to her. Looked around a lot, but still seemed confident. Suddenly there's like three people, attacking us.
It was weird. I knew she did martial arts, but she just took on two of them at the same time, giving them quite some trouble, too.
I'm afraid I wasn't much use -" he tries a smirk and and then winces, "- but at least not all of them could attack her at the same time. She got the worst of it, though. Anyway, one of them knocked me down, and I could hear her shout my name, but it distracted her.
It's all a bit blurry, I couldn't really see, but that was when they got her. I tried to get up, but one of them kicked me in the head. When I woke up an hour ago, they were gone, as was she."
He ends his recollection, looking a bit lost, so Sherlock decides to intervene.
Taking a picture Mycroft holds out for him, one of Kiara and Moriarty from her bedside table, he grips it tightly to hide Moriarty and holds it out for the boy to see.
"Is this her?" He asks, and can't hide the urgent note in his voice.
Tyler looks at the picture for a few seconds, then nods.
"She was a few years older than on this picture though." He says, a bit unsure.
All of them twist around when the door slams. Mycroft is nowhere to be seen.
William Tyler is free to go home when Sherlock declares him as innocent and useless for anything further, apart from setting them on the right trail on the first place. John scolds him after they leave the room, after all, Tyler had helped them a lot, but Sherlock knows he is on edge. He knows he is being cruel and brash to everyone around him, more so than usual for him. So when Sherlock goes looking for his brother a few minutes later, he can't help but think about how this is what Kiara usually did. The reasons are different, he wants to discuss a theory about Kiara's abduction with Mycroft and not be too far from Lestrade's office, the first place new information will get to, but it's still something he hasn't done for years.
He feels panic and grief rising up at the prospect of him doing what Kiara usually did – does, he corrects himself, she isn't dead, and he can't bear to even acknowledge the tiny yet – but there is no use panicking and he knows it. So he shoves down the emotions that threaten to rise, his face a calm mask once again when he turns another corner and finds Mycroft there.
Their exchange on the way back to Lestrade's office consists only of a few words, ideas which are followed by the right conclusions in each other's brains only moments after the words are voiced aloud. Still, they discuss so much in their own way others would have talked for hours.
Lestrade pulls them inside with a worried, but also partly relieved hint in his voice. The relief, as they realise when they see the computer with a video running on the screen, leading on them being there on time.
"It's a life feed," Lestrade explains quietly, "they called only seconds ago. Apparently they want to talk to us."
This is something more familiar to Mycroft, so Sherlock doesn't protest when his brother reaches the table quicker than him and claims Lestrade's chair as his own.
The room visible is bare, concrete walls and floor suggesting a basement. Apart from the man currently setting up the laptop with the video-call-connection, no one is in the room, and there is no sound.
It's frustrating. Sherlock doesn't recognize the cellar, can't even place the general location, and there is no clue anywhere. He can read a lot from the man, sure, but nothing useful. When he deduces that the man has a smaller sister, he shudders.
Suddenly there is a sound connection as well and a well dressed, but small and not really imposing man enters. He smiles at the camera once, then starts to speak, but Sherlock only partially listens to him. This man is much more useful than the first one, and now he sees something new.
"...nothing against the girl, really. She is just the means to an end." The fine suit speaks of money, the product in the carefully styled hair and the twirled moustache are clear signs for him trying to seem important, and Sherlock wonders whether he can use that to his advantage. When he realises that the man stopped speaking, he focuses on the whole picture again.
Not a moment too soon. Anger pulses up in him when he sees Kiara being pushed into the middle room, the small man who spoke first having stepped aside.
They rid her of her light hoodie so she is just standing there in a tank top and jeans, but she isn't shaking in the slightest, despite her hands being handcuffed behind her back and the blindfold over her eyes. No, there is a certain static quality in her, restrained energy, only waiting for her turn to fight, and some of the anger is replaced by pride.
"Kiara?" He asks, hoping the voice call is directed both ways, and lets out the breath he didn't realise he was holding when she turns her head.
"Water, twenty years empty, outside London!" She calls out, then a fist strikes her face and her head whips around. At the same moment she lifts her knee and manages to kick her attacker in the groin. He doubles over, but now the others come at her, none of them holding her arm any more, but obviously enjoying the game.
Kiara is good. She fights with all she has, once using her handcuffed hands to hit someone's stomach behind her, sometimes almost knowing from which the next blow comes, but there are four – now mostly angry – man and she is handicapped twice.
"Hinter dir!" Sherlock shouts in German, and in just the right moment she ducks down and to the side, sweeping her leg behind her. The man falls and grunts, and when he gets up again, his nose is bleeding.
Despite some of those small successes, Kiara wasn't unhurt to begin with, and in reality, she doesn't really have a chance.
The men quickly realise Sherlock is helping her with her hints in German, so they turn off their speakers for the moment.
This doesn't stop Sherlock from helplessly saying the helpful words in German, but Kiara can't hear them. Mycroft, Sherlock, Lestrade and John can only watch in horror as she is beaten more and more, can only watch as she falls to her knees, then completely to the floor.
Most of the pride Sherlock had felt is replaced by anger again, but there is still this glimmer. This glimmer of pride that refuses to go down, just like Kiara, who gets up again and again, no matter the consequences. A final kick to her nose knocks her back, and by the way she doesn't even try to break her fall, they all know she is unconscious. Her fiery red hair is around her, some of it lying on her face and shoulders, some of it matted with sweat. It doesn't matter which parts you look at, most of it turns into a darker red because of the blood flowing from the various wounds on her face, arms and torso.
It's too dark, and Sherlock nearly gags when he sees the sticky fluid in the curls.
"You see, Iceman, we just want to show you how disillusioned you are. You aren't nearly as powerful as you think, if you can't even protect your friends." The man from the beginning says, stepping closer to Kiara's limp form. He puts his foot on her right wrist and smiles. "She'll be dead in eighteen hours, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it." He stamps down and the sickening cracks of the two bones in her arm fill both rooms, the basement and the office. With that, the video stops, and they are left looking at the dark screen, horrified.
"Hinter dir!" - Behind you