You can chain me, you can torture me, you can even destroy this body, but you will never imprison my mind.

-Mahatma Gandhi

The DI pulled the small key from his pocket and she didn't think she had even been so relieved to be able to move her arm. This was it, no turning back. No taking back anything that was about to be said, this could either be the best or dumbest thing she had ever done in her life. "Who's after you?" With a cautious deep breath her eyes locked with grey irises and she began to tell the story of what it was like to live with the devil himself.

-/-

"I'll save you the sob story and tell you what's important. My family was killed on my 16th birthday, my parents, my older brother, and my two younger twin siblings. I hid in a crawl space on the top floor of our house and when I smelled the smoke I crawled back out and grabbed whatever I could before the house collapsed. I ended up on the streets with a backpack full of weapons, a debit card, and about a thousand dollars in cash.

I was smart and I managed to stay hidden for a while, I used to cash to buy fake ID's and passports. I applied for fake credit cards and after I spent about 500 dollars I would get a new one. I used what little cash I had left to buy ammo, medical supplies, and protective gear. I managed to stay hidden for 4 years but I slipped up one day and got caught breaking into a convenience store. I tried to fight the cop off but he called for backup and soon there were 4 guys pinning me to the ground and slapping cuffs on my wrists.

I was shoved into the back of the police cruiser and as soon as the door slammed shut the cop's brain exploded. The other three lost their heads too in about the same second and I was in complete shock. The back window was busted out and I was yanked out by my hair and drugged with chloroform. When I woke up I was strapped to a metal table and He was standing over me. There was this serum he had come across, I had no idea what it was but he said it would make me into the perfect weapon. I was given 20 initial injections 5 in each arm and leg. I thought I was going to die, the pain-it was unimaginable.

The whole thing messed me up so bad I couldn't even remember my name. Trying to remember it was like getting on your tiptoes and trying to reach something on the top shelf but you're just a little too short and you can only brush your fingertips across it. He called me Syn and that became my new name.

It took to me for some reason and I lived through it. They tested me every day to see how I was progressing but I always held back. I never wanted them to know my full potential just in case. I was beaten and tortured into obedience and once they were sure I wouldn't run the first chance I got I was branded with an M on my back. I guess so that way if I ever got lost whoever found me would know who I belonged to.

I had to keep getting injections every few days because I would crash, almost go through some sort of withdraw. I climbed through the organization and in 6 months I was one of his personal consultants. I lived with him for 4 years, commanded my own group of elites. The best of the best, the only people who could kill without hesitation on a moment's notice and be gone before the body had time to hit the floor. I would follow him on business trips and negotiations and offer my opinion if I was asked for it and protect Him if things ever got a bit out of hand.

He has people all through the UK, America, Russia, Germany, France, Portugal, Spain and a majority of China and India. He does everything and anything; smuggling, assassinations, blackmail, drugs, you name it that crazy bastard does it.

I was given an assignment that required me and a few of the elites to kill a client's wife as a promise of what was to come to his children if he didn't pay up soon. I had been informed the wife had taken the children to school but when I stormed into the house she hadn't. They were all sitting on the couch watching telly and when I shot the mother the kids screamed and screamed and screamed. I couldn't leave behind any witnesses so I had to shoot the kids too, I had no choice. I remember staring at the bodies and feeling the adrenaline pumping through my veins and the dull craving for more of the serum and I realized I was a monster. I was killing people the same way my family had been killed and for what?

When I got back to the mansion I waited until He was asleep and left. I've been running ever since. The people I killed have all been men that worked for him. I've been trying to take down his network for the last few years but it's so huge and I'm always having to run in the opposite direction because sometimes they're out to kill me but sometimes they're only out to warn me."

The room fell silent as she examined their expressions. The wheels in Sherlock's mind were working in overtime trying to decipher if what she was saying held any truth. Lestrade's jaw had fallen slack at some point during her story and she could see the possibility of her story being true beginning to dawn on him. John had complete and utter shock written across his face, his poor simple mind trying to comprehend what he had just heard.

Lestrade was the first to break the silence. "So what exactly…changed?" She toyed with an edge of the blanket she was covered with, carefully thinking about her response. "I'd rather not tell you. I want you to a least view me as somewhat human."

"D-do you still crave it? The serum?" The confusion plastered across John's face made a little more sense as she realized that he was probably viewing her from a medical standpoint. "Yes I do, I crave the burn that ran through my veins sometimes. I want to feel that buzz, the rush that I get with taking it and knowing that it's going to make me stronger. But it turned me into a monster and every time that craving gets a little too tempting I close my eyes and go back to my time working with Him and I relive everything I did to remind me why I don't need it. It doesn't erase the craving, it just dulls it to a tolerable level."

"Why warn you? Why not just kill you?" Sherlock finally asked. "I don't know, maybe because I'm getting too close and He wants to keep pushing me to see how long I'll be able to hold on to my sanity. I don't know why they don't just kill me."

"Perhaps this will help," Sherlock pulled out a stack of papers and set it in her lap. She picked up the first item off the pile, a photograph of a man and a woman she recognized. She flipped the picture over and her heart sank to her stomach. "Shit." Abandoning the photograph she skimmed through the papers on her lap, the urge to vomit becoming stronger with every page flip.

"The people who attacked me weren't His men. In fact I had no idea who they were or who they worked for or why they wanted me dead until now. These are lease agreements to flats just doors away from 221B and the people who are leasing them are top dollar assassins. This picture is of Felicity and Oliver Smoake. He was billionaire biochemist who was working for the CIA and while there he met Felicity who was an agent. Wedding bells rang and 6 months later they married and had a daughter. Not long after that they vanished, bank accounts wiped, the house was ransacked, all the cars were there, and a lot of people believed there had been foul play involved. They've been presumed dead considering no one has seen or hear from them in nearly 30 years.

This is a picture of Felicity and Oliver taken in Manchester 2 days ago. 4 days ago I killed in Manchester, 3 days ago in Birmingham, and then I came here. These papers are Oliver's lab notes, he was working on genetic mutations that could evolve the human race to a point of immorality when he disappeared. If they're still alive he could possibly be trying to recreate the serum."

She pinched the bridge of her nose as her mind raced with possibilities of what this could bring and what she needed to do now. It had been one thing knowing she was after His men, knowing most of the people she had killed, but this? She was completely blind to what this was, she had no idea what she was dealing with.

"In the cab you said the informant worked for M, correct?" She nodded her head. "Do you have any clue as to why he would want you to have this?"

"That's the thing Sherlock, I don't. It makes no sense for Him to give me this. He had to of known sending out an informant with these papers was going to get him killed. I don't understand why I wasn't shot too, I was right there for Christ's sake! None of this makes sense anymore. Smoake's people had two chances to kill me but they still let me live, why? Why beat me to a pulp and le-oh." You can't escape it darling, it was meant to be.

-/-

Syn spent the night watching the city below her come to life with sparkling lights and Saturday night party goers. She tried to distract her panicked mind from the tubes running medication through her veins by deducing people but not even that was able to calm her. Nurses came in periodically throughout the night to check her bandages and give her more medication and each time she would tense up until she realized that they were not a threat.

She rose with the sun, walking in circles as she tested her healing body. Her stomach was incredibly sore as was her back but it wasn't debilitating. It would slow her down sure but if she managed by some miracle to take it easy she would be healed by Monday. Hopefully.

A light knock at the door set her back on edge and a young pathologist stepped into the room with a bag of newly bought clothes and a warm smile. "I'm Molly, Sherlock sent me to bring you a change of clothes and your bag." Syn ripped the tubes out of her arm and thanked Molly for bringing her things.

She wasn't surprised when she found that the clothes and shoes he had gotten her fit perfectly, however she was a bit surprised at his choice of clothing; a light blue button up dress shirt, a grey button up vest, black slacks and matching boots. To keep her warm he had bought a black coat similar to his but shorter and a navy scarf.

It was obvious Sherlock had gotten her clothes, painfully so, but she wasn't complaining. While working for him she had been in uniform constantly and while on the run she was in whatever she could find that fit. At the bottom of the bag was a white remote with a red button in the center. Taped to the back of the remote was a note: Press the button and we will come –SH. She shook her head and shoved the remote into her pants pocket. Next she armed herself, gun tucked in her back waist band, knife strapped to her ankle, switch blade and mobile in her pocket.

She had never made a call on her mobile before, only received them when her contacts reached out to her, but maybe it was time she start carrying it on her. Satisfied she checked herself out of the hospital and, after being given a prescription that she would never fill and scheduling a follow up appointment that she would never go to, she was free to leave. Molly was waiting for her by the elevator and they rode down to the lobby, Molly talking the entire way. She actually didn't mind Molly as much as she thought she would. She was so innocent and smart and Syn envied her a bit.

As they stepped out Syn pulled her scarf up around her nose and kept her head tilted down. They pushed their way through people coming and going in the lobby and then through people walking in the streets. She took slow deliberate steps as she tried to move her body as little as possible. Stepping towards the curb and waiting for a cab, her body stiffened as the cab pulled up in front of them.

"You go ahead Molly, I have to stay." The ringing persisted but she ignored it. "But Sherlock said-" Syn held up her good hand to stop her. "I bet he said a lot of things that weren't true, like I'm a 'friend' of John's who just went through a 'traumatic' event. Molly if you want to live go home right now." The woman's face paled as she nodded her head and hurried into the cab.

Turning her attention to her left side she expected to see one of Smoake's people but what she saw instead made her heart drop to her stomach. He hadn't changed any in the last 6 years, maybe just gotten a bit more muscular but that was it. 6'2 and 180 pounds of muscle came walking towards her with that stupid prefect smile plastered across his face.

His green eyes scanned over her disapprovingly as he stood in front of her, almost as if he could see all the cuts and bruises underneath her clothing. "You've gotten weaker. Your healing slower, your stamina is going to go next." Her thumb circled the red button in her pocket as she looked him over. A gun tucked between the waistband of his jeans and his white t-shirt. A knife was tucked into his black boots and in his black leather jacket was something that resembled a folder. "I know what's going to happen, I'm doing as best as I can given the circumstances. If you're here to kill me please go ahead, no need to chat about my condition before you do. But I know you're not going to do that because if you were I would've been dead already. So you're fishing for information that I'm not going to give you."

"I'm worried about you Syn. Please can we just talk somewhere privately?" She looked him over once more before reluctantly agreeing. There had been a point in time where he had been the only thing preventing her from losing her sanity. He had been one of the elites, her right hand man and their relationship grew over the years. She knew he loved her, that he still does, but she never felt the same way back. Love was human error and as soon as you let yourself love someone they became your pressure point. Without a pressure point it makes it hard for enemies to manipulate you. They have nothing to threaten you with, nothing to use for leverage. But what she felt towards him could potentially destroy her.

She trusted Sebastian Moran.

They chose a pub a few blocks down from the hospital and sat in a quiet corner in the back. "So what has the great Sebastian Moran so spooked?" He pulled a black folder from his jacket and set it in front of her. Inside was all the information on the assassins who had taken temporary residence on Baker Street. "The Smoake's have a 10 million price on your head. The boss wants to offer you protection and I think it would be a smart decision considering your new neighbors aren't the best." She laughed in his face.

"Has he suffered a stroke? Or does he expect me to be that stupid?" Sebastian sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest like he always did when he was mad. "Syn you need us. You're getting weaker." Glasses jumped and conversations momentarily ceased as she slammed her fist down on the table. "I am not weak and I do not need the organization. The serum didn't make me who I am, my family did. The serum only enhanced what was already there and if I have to live with waiting a few extra days to heal then so be it." She stood slowly, ignoring the look he was giving her, and left.

-/-

Syn took her time getting back to Baker Street. Maybe it was a foolish thing for her to sit in the park and unravel every person that walked by, but there was a lot going on and she just needed time to think. She had half expected Sebastian to follow her but he hadn't and she was glad. As the sun set she vacated her spot on the bench and made the short walk back to 221B at a leisurely pace. John stormed past her as she stepped inside and slammed the door shut behind him. "Don't worry about him dear, they just had a domestic."

Syn pulled her scarf away from her face and gave the landlady a small smile. "Bored, is he?" She asked nodding upstairs. "I'm afraid so." As she slowly began to climb the stairs an uneasy feeling washed over her but before she had time to address it the entire building shook with the blast of an explosion. "Sherlock!"

-/-

Striding into the mess of a flat, Mycroft Holmes offered a tight smile to his younger brother. "Syn, this is Mycroft. Mycroft this is Syn." Sherlock said without looking up from his violin. Syn glared at the man and began to sharpen her arrowheads with more force than necessary.

Turning to face Syn, Mycroft offered another tight smile. "Out of all the flats in London-" Syn rolled her eyes and sighed irritably. "Mycroft don't start." Sherlock looked between the two in confusion. "I stopped your brother's assassination about a year ago," she explained. "However he seems to think he would've handled drinking rat poisoning and stopping a bullet from going through his brain just fine on his own."

Ignoring her Mycroft turned back to his brother. "Are you so bored of Doctor Watson that you had to take on another pet?" The elder Holmes looked over Syn with disgust. Her eyes sparked a dark shade as she squared up to him, arrow still in hand. Reaching forward, he caught her chin, turning her head side to side, getting a good look at her since she was no longer wearing anything to cover her face.

She was itching to ram an arrow though his wrist and break it but Mycroft was literally the British Government and he could have her killed with just one word. It was obvious that Mycroft didn't think highly of her, placing his distaste for her below that of the general public. Syn made a threatening sound in the back of her throat and tried to pull away. Mycroft smirked and tightened his hold, intent on displaying that he had the upper hand on the assassin. Her top lip curved into a snarl as she refused to look away, defying the man with her eyes.

"Oh I see why he drug you in; he always has loved a challenge." Sherlock noticed Syn's hand ball into tight fists and stepped between the two before the situation could escalate.

"Mycroft. That's enough." His voice was deep with an unspoken threat. His brother was known to push and Sherlock didn't know how Syn would react. "I'm sure Syn would appreciate it if you removed your pudgy fingers from her face." Retracting his hand, Mycroft made a show of wiping his hands on his handkerchief. "You always have been possessive with your toys Sherlock, even the broken ones."

In the next second Mycroft was doubled over trying to stop the flow blood running from his nose. Syn leaned down level with his ear and smiled. "Mr. Holmes, I don't think your brother would appreciate me decorating his flat with your innards so please, enough with the name calling. Understood?"

Mycroft straightened himself and gently dabbed at his nose with his bloodied handkerchief. "Of course." Syn smiled cheekily at the older Holmes brother and reclaimed her seat on the couch.

"Sherlock?" John came running up the stairs, his eyes taking in the chucks of glass scattered on the floor and the papers strewn in every direction. "John."

"I saw it on the telly, are you okay?" He glanced over at Mycroft with wide eyes and then over to Syn who smirked. "We're fine. Mycroft's trying to get Sherlock to take a case but he doesn't seem to understand that we're rather busy right now." Syn informed. Truth was they weren't busy at all, it was a case of sibling rivalry that she had picked up on as soon as Mycroft walked into the flat.

Mycroft tried his luck with John, explaining the case of Andrew West, an M16 employee who was found in a rail year with his head smashed in and a USB containing vital information about the Bruce-Partington missile project was missing. "Why'd you lie? You've got nothing on, not a single case. That's why the wall took a pounding," Syn glanced over the wall and chuckled at the chunks missing from yellow face that had been painted onto the wallpaper. "Why'd you tell your brother you were busy?"

"Sibling rivalry, John. I'm surprised you didn't pick up on it. The entire confrontation was simply oozing with it." Syn stood and threw her arrow at the wall, finding its mark in the center of the yellow eye as Sherlock's mobile began to ring. "Sherlock Holmes." Syn watched his eyes light up and his body straighten. "Get your things John," she said, pulling her coat on. "We have another case."

-/-

Everyone stared at the trio as the followed Lestrade through the Yard. He had slipped her the papers she had asked for while she was in the hospital before they stepped inside his office. "You like the funny cases, don't you? The surprising ones?" "Obviously," Sherlock muttered. "You'll love this. That explosion…" "It wasn't a gas leak was it?" Syn asked, voicing the secret fear that had been festering since the explosion. "No. Made to look like one. Hardly anything was left of the place except for a strong box-a very strong box."

On Lestrade's desk was a white envelope addressed to Sherlock Holmes. "We've X-rayed it. It's not booby-trapped." "How reassuring," Sherlock mumbled after a moment's hesitation. "Syn?" "From the Czech Republic. She used a fountain pen, Parker Duofold iridium nib by the looks." John and Lestrade stared at her dumbfounded. "Bloody hell now there's two." She smiled. "Don't worry John, I tend to only do it when asked."

Sherlock picked up a letter opened and carefully slit open the envelope. Inside was a pink iPhone. "The Study in Pink, the pink phone." Syn felt the color drain from her face. "You have one new message," The phone alerted. Four short pips and one longer one filled the silence that had fallen over the room. "Sherlock," her voice was barely above a whisper but everyone's attention turned to the teary eyed woman. "He's coming for me."

I'm sorry if this chapter wasn't as great as the others I had a lot of explaining to do and I thought it was be best to write this chapter from Syn's point of view. PLease let me know what you thought of if you have any suggestions! Thanks for reading!