An Age of Silver (21/23)
"An Age of Silver" (21/23)
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14a / Part 14b / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20
----
The Brickwell Shipyards were majestic even in disuse, and the fact that they had been abandoned for years was not readily apparent. They weathered the neglect well, and anyone unfamiliar with the area would have sworn that they were still in business.
The vast complex was unguarded, and the massive gate that used to guard it from the outside world was left standing open. A paved road extended in front of them for nearly half a kilometer, and massive shipping containers lined both sides of it. Their cargo had long ago been removed; now only the shells remained. Each one was as large as a small warehouse.
“It will take hours to search all of these containers,” Donovan said as they pulled up alongside two other police cars from the Yard. The rest of Stanley’s team had already arrived. “And he doesn’t have hours.”
“Not in this heat,” Sherlock agreed, a knot sitting uncomfortably in his stomach at the thought. It was already late morning, and the day was promising to be a blistering one. As it was, the small of his back was already damp, and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead. If Stanley was in one of these containers, it was already dangerously hot inside.
But then something clawed at the back of his mind, an unsettling, persistent feeling that none of this was right. It didn’t make sense. For a man who had eluded the police and attention for more than twenty years, why leave so much evidence behind? The DNA on one victim, the clumsy break-in at Stanley’s house, the boot print, the dirt that led them here in the first place...
“This isn’t right,” Sherlock muttered, turning over the facts in his mind.
“How so?” Donovan demanded.
“They’re not here.” The realisation slammed into him like a ton of bricks. Oh, he had been so stupid. “Sally, they’re not here! The killer and Margaret at least - he wouldn’t have brought her here.”
“What?” Donovan whirled on him, her eyes accusing, as though he had known this all along and had simply been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make his reveal. Her fears weren’t unfounded, though this time they were untrue.
“He was getting careless with his kills,” Sherlock said with a slowly-dawning horror. “Twenty years of killing, and he was getting careless. Damn it!”
“What do you mean?” Donovan snapped.
“He was making mistakes, Sally, and not entirely on purpose. Not at first, at least. His image getting captured on a camera, leaving behind the DNA, the trioxipate that was left on the bottom of Sarah Burlough’s foot, us finding the kill room… those were mistakes!”
“So?”
“So he was slipping up, and he knew it,” Sherlock said quietly. “Twenty years, Sally. He’s getting old. That’s why he made those mistakes. And lately he’s been getting desperate. He needs this; he needs these killings. It’s an outlet; I’ve said it before. But we were catching on to him because he was slipping up, and as a result he was having difficulty satisfying his needs. He got lucky, with that last victim. Your supervisors decided to try to close the case, and the moment the kill site was free, he made his move. But he must have known that we would close off the room immediately after that.”
“So he kidnapped a woman in broad daylight as a result?” Donovan sounded incredulous. “In what world does that make sense? You said he didn’t want to get caught!”
“He doesn’t want the attention; there’s a difference,” Sherlock said briskly. “He’s been at this for twenty years, Sally. He’s aged. He’s going to make more mistakes, and he knows it. Someday, he’s going to make that last, fatal mistake. So instead of that happening, he’s ready to go out on his terms. This time around, he’s done everything on purpose. He’s kidnapped a known woman, knowing that eventually we’ll find her - and eventually we’ll discover who he is.”
“But why kidnap the Inspector, too?” Donovan demanded.
“The killer left evidence of his presence in Stanley’s home - the dirt and the boot print. On purpose,” Sherlock said vehemently. “He knew we would find it, make the connection to him, and then follow the dirt sample out here. He wanted us out here!”
“But why?” Donovan asked breathlessly, half an eye on her watch. They were running out of time. “What does all of that mean?”
“The killer knows that someday he’s going to get caught, so he’s going to go out with a bang. He’s going to have his fun with Margaret, he’s going to kill her, and the evidence he chooses to leave behind on her body will lead us to him. He knows that. This is his last chance to indulge in his desires, so he’s going to do it properly. That means the killer and the girl are elsewhere, so he can have his time with her,” Sherlock snarled in frustration. “But Stanley is here, somewhere. He’s - Sally, he must be a distraction. The killer lured us off his trail, sent us on this wild chase so that he could get away with his victim. He wants to have his fun with her without us in the way. We know Margaret’s missing, and he knows we’ll be looking for her. He wants us to find her-find him-eventually, but not right away. So Stanley… is a distraction.”
“So what do we do?” Smith demanded.
Sherlock raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you dare, Holmes,” Donovan said angrily. “No. Don’t you dare. You’ve come this far. Think. Why did he go so far out of his way to draw us off his trail? Why the distraction?”
Sherlock stared at her.
“Because the killer needs this,” he said softly. “He never left London because these are his hunting grounds… And because his kill site is here. The only problem is, we have his kill room. This final crime has to be perfect, and you already said yourself that the kill room is the most important part of this. He needs to have it, or there’s no crime at all. God, Sally - for the past twenty-four hours, he’s been trying to figure out a way to gain access to that room. And thanks to Stanley, he has it. He’s gone back to McCormack Industries with Margaret Hayes.”
“Because it’s accessible to him now since all the teams were pulled out when the word of a kidnapped Detective Inspector came through.” Donovan’s eyes widened in horror. She signaled for her people to go, and they ran for their cars. “My God, he played us.”
“We’ll deal with that later. Go.”
She shook her head.
“No. You need me. Hopkins has barely a chance in hell in getting out of here alive. I won’t let that chance diminish further.”
“Listen,” Sherlock said, grabbing her arm, “if that woman dies because of this delay, he will never forgive you. If she dies because you chose to save him over her, he will never forgive you. You know it as well as I. Go. I’m no more use to you, but I will find Stanley.”
Donovan stared at him for a moment, and then gave a quick nod.
“I’ll leave you the one car and call for some backup,” she said over her shoulder as she turned and jogged away. But Sherlock knew as well as she did that he couldn’t afford to wait for them to arrive.
And neither could Stanley.
Sherlock clamped his eyes shut, the darkness flaring red as the bright sun beat down upon his face. Distantly, he heard the squeal of tyres as the two other cars sped away. He tried not to pay them any mind.
Think.
Stanley wasn’t a target, he was just a distraction. The killer wasn’t interested in seeking revenge or making a point. He had no interest in Stanley, and no interest at all in publicity. He just wanted to be left alone to indulge in his perverse desires one last time, and Stanley was a means to that end.
Which meant that Stanley was being kept somewhere that had been easily accessible to the killer, given the timeline. The killer must have realised that the only way to free up his kill room was to create an even bigger crisis. He took the opportunity to abduct Stanley, and then would have needed to stash him somewhere that was quick and easy to access. Somewhere that would have taken Stanley’s team ages to find, but also somewhere that was fairly easy to get at so that he could quickly get away with Margaret.
Sherlock spun on his heel and jogged over to the vehicle Sally had left behind. He jammed it into reverse and sped off towards the other end of the complex.
Years ago, King’s College had set up a satellite facility on the grounds of the Brickwell Shipyards, and the students working in the Robotics Research Centre had used it for their research. They worked in conjunction with the Shipyards, and built robots for their use or developed new technology that could be used on the low-Earth-orbit craft that the Shipyards manufactured. The facility had been abandoned along with the Shipyards, but while the large shipping containers had been tightly sealed and locked upon the Shipyards’ closure, the robotics building had no locks, and no protection from people accessing it. In recent years, vandals had looted everything from inside, going so far as to pry up the bolts that had secured the long lab tables to the floor and carrying them off.
The satellite facility no longer had a name, as its sign had been removed when the college pulled out, but apart from that it appeared as though it could still be in use today, as was true of the rest of the complex. It was a long, narrow brick building, and the closest door was a heavy metal one that would not have been out of place on one of the shipping containers or a warehouse.
Sherlock parked the car haphazardly next to the building and bolted for the warehouse door. It had been closed, and Sherlock couldn’t tell if this was done recently or had been that way for a while. He had no clue of Stanley was in there, or if his conclusions were correct.
His idea was flimsy at best, and it was Stanley’s only hope.
Sherlock threw his entire weight against the door, blood pounding in his ears, muscles straining tight enough to snap -
- And it gave way.
The door gave a tremendous groan and then slowly began to slide aside, giving an ear-shattering squeal as it did so. Sherlock winced in pain, but continued to push until the opening was large enough for him to slip through.
It took his eyes some moments to adjust to the near-total darkness inside the facility, but once they did, he could make out the faint outline of a man sitting on a chair in the center of the room.
“Stanley?” he tried.
There was no response. Sherlock grabbed the small torch from his belt and turned the thin beam of light it emitted on the man’s face.
Stanley’s face was so battered, it took Sherlock some seconds to pick out his recognizable features. For a moment, he was convinced that this must be a stranger; another unfortunate victim. But the man’s nose was as prominent as Stanley’s, and his faded grey t-shirt had an Arsenal logo in the corner--a shirt Sherlock recognised from the nights they had spent together. And then the man gave a soft groan and cracked open an eye, and when the grey gaze met his own Sherlock felt the last of his doubts flee. They were replaced immediately by cold, unforgiving anger.
It was clear that Stanley had been ambushed before he had a chance to get ready for work that day. He was dressed in jeans and his sleep shirt, and his feet were bare. Blood caked his face from a gash just above his left eyebrow. Though it had long since stopped bleeding, the skin was split along half of his forehead and blood had slid down the left side of his face and neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. His arms were bound behind him, while his ankles had been secured together with a thick rope.
The light grey of Stanley’s t-shirt had darkened to the colour of slate; in the oppressive heat of the room, sweat had soaked through all his garments and dripped from the ends of his hair, which hung limply in his eyes. He was breathing heavily, great gasping breaths, and when Sherlock reached out for him, he hissed, “Don’t.”
Sherlock jerked his hand back, startled, and Stanley grunted, “Leg.”
Sherlock turned the torch on Stanley’s legs and saw immediately what Stanley had been trying to warn him of. Two bullets had been put through Stanley’s left thigh. The wounds had been tied off with a tourniquet. It was obvious that the killer didn’t intend to mortally wound Stanley; he only meant to immobilize him. Nonetheless, Stanley’s jeans were sodden with blood and his face was pinched with pain, and Sherlock felt as though he stepped out into thin air as his stomach dropped.
Not again, not again...
“Margaret,” Stanley whispered and Sherlock sank to his knees at his side, wondering if there was a way he could move Stanley without causing him too much pain. It didn’t seem likely.
“We found her already,” Sherlock lied briskly, pulling out a penknife and severing Stanley’s bonds. “Look at me.”
Stanley lifted dull eyes from the bullet wounds in his leg and stared at Sherlock.
“Shit,” was all he said.
“I’ve got you,” Sherlock said in a low voice. Stanley sagged, slipping from the chair as the blood loss rapidly weakened him, and Sherlock caught him.
“Easy,” he murmured, easing Stanley into a sitting position on the floor before turning his attention to Stanley’s injuries. He ran quick, exploratory hands over Stanley’s chest and torso, feeling for additional wounds. The blade of a knife had bit into his side, opening the skin like a smile, and blood still flowed freely from that wound. Distantly, Sherlock wondered where he had put his phone, and then realised that the car he had borrowed from Donovan was the only one in the complex. When help arrived, it wouldn’t be difficult to find them.
He needed to focus on Stanley.
Stanley’s strength was quickly leaving him, and he leaned forward, gravitating automatically toward Sherlock. Sherlock cupped Stanley’s face with one blood-soaked hand and forced their eyes to meet.
‘I’ve got you,” he said quietly. His hands were beginning to tremble, and he hoped that Stanley couldn’t feel it. “I promise. Do you hear me? But Stanley, you need to stay awake.”
“I am awake,” Stanley grunted, but his voice was weak and his eyelids kept fluttering. Sherlock stripped down to his plain cotton tee and began methodically shredding his shirt. He pressed the makeshift bandages against the gash in Stanley’ side.
“Fuck,” Stanley hissed. He tried to shove Sherlock’s hand away, but Sherlock held on fast, sinking teeth into his lower lip at Stanley’s yelp of pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered breathlessly, the words tumbling over one another in his haste to get them out. “I know, it hurts. But we must stop the bleeding, Stanley, or you’ll never -”
Sherlock cut himself off, biting the inside of his cheek in order to forcibly stop the words. Stanley looked at him, the sliver of grey around his pupils contrasting sharply with the streaks of sweat and grime on his face. Mutely, he reached for Sherlock’s free hand and then brought it to rest over the wound, pressing down with what little strength remained in him. Sherlock leaned his weight into it, Stanley’s hand resting on both of his and Stanley’s blood flowing, hot and sticky, between his fingers.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Stanley hissed, his words strangled but fierce all the same. He bit back a pained groan and sought blindly for purchase, finally closing a hand around Sherlock’s elbow and holding on tight. Their eyes met again, and Sherlock didn’t dare to look away. Stanley was staring at him, staring into him, as though Sherlock himself held the last of his strength; the last of his fight. A thin film of blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, and then burst.
Sherlock’s heart knocked painfully against his ribcage, and he swallowed hard. From somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint wail of sirens, and tried to tell himself that it was all right; reinforcements were nearly there. They would see the car outside the warehouse; they would know to come here immediately.
It was going to be fine. It had to be fine.
He brushed a sweat-damp strand of hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. Stanley was barely conscious now, though his fingers twitched on top of Sherlock’s hand every now and again. Sherlock wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling Stanley against his side, bearing the weight of his sagging form and trying to ignore the memory of holding Victor just like this all those years ago, trying to staunch the bleeding of another nearly-fatal wound.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against Stanley’s sweaty forehead, tasting salt on his lips. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I know.” Stanley turned his head, seeking shelter in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock bent his head to accommodate him. He was now almost completely curled around Stanley, shielding him, providing what solace he could until the ambulance arrived. “Glad… you’re here.”
Sherlock pressed his lips to Stanley’s cheek, and then his nose and closed eyelids, feeling the heated flesh against his lips and taking comfort in the fact that it meant that Stanley was still here.
“You’re going to be all right,” Sherlock whispered. It seemed he couldn’t stop saying it, repeating it over and over like a mantra; an invocation; a prayer. “You’re going to be fine, Stanley, because there’s so much… so much left. So many years. You still have work to do, and so do I. And there’s so much about you I don’t know yet, so many things…”
He trailed off. Stanley had curled a hand around his upper arm, and he squeezed lightly.
“And there are the bees.” Sherlock ducked his head further so that he was whispering in Stanley’s ear. Stanley’s face was pressed into his neck, and he let out a quiet whimper. “There are the bees, and the country, and you must be there for that.”
Stanley’s response was murmured against the side of Sherlock’s throat, but it was drowned out by the sound of screeching tyres just on the other side of the door.
Then there came the sound of pounding footsteps, and someone was calling their names.
---
Part 22
Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3 / Part 4 / Part 5a / Part 5b / Part 6 / Part 7 / Part 8a / Part 8b / Part 9 / Part 10 / Part 11 / Part 12 / Part 13 / Part 14a / Part 14b / Part 15 / Part 16 / Part 17 / Part 18 / Part 19 / Part 20
----
The Brickwell Shipyards were majestic even in disuse, and the fact that they had been abandoned for years was not readily apparent. They weathered the neglect well, and anyone unfamiliar with the area would have sworn that they were still in business.
The vast complex was unguarded, and the massive gate that used to guard it from the outside world was left standing open. A paved road extended in front of them for nearly half a kilometer, and massive shipping containers lined both sides of it. Their cargo had long ago been removed; now only the shells remained. Each one was as large as a small warehouse.
“It will take hours to search all of these containers,” Donovan said as they pulled up alongside two other police cars from the Yard. The rest of Stanley’s team had already arrived. “And he doesn’t have hours.”
“Not in this heat,” Sherlock agreed, a knot sitting uncomfortably in his stomach at the thought. It was already late morning, and the day was promising to be a blistering one. As it was, the small of his back was already damp, and a thin sheen of sweat had broken out across his forehead. If Stanley was in one of these containers, it was already dangerously hot inside.
But then something clawed at the back of his mind, an unsettling, persistent feeling that none of this was right. It didn’t make sense. For a man who had eluded the police and attention for more than twenty years, why leave so much evidence behind? The DNA on one victim, the clumsy break-in at Stanley’s house, the boot print, the dirt that led them here in the first place...
“This isn’t right,” Sherlock muttered, turning over the facts in his mind.
“How so?” Donovan demanded.
“They’re not here.” The realisation slammed into him like a ton of bricks. Oh, he had been so stupid. “Sally, they’re not here! The killer and Margaret at least - he wouldn’t have brought her here.”
“What?” Donovan whirled on him, her eyes accusing, as though he had known this all along and had simply been waiting for the perfect opportunity to make his reveal. Her fears weren’t unfounded, though this time they were untrue.
“He was getting careless with his kills,” Sherlock said with a slowly-dawning horror. “Twenty years of killing, and he was getting careless. Damn it!”
“What do you mean?” Donovan snapped.
“He was making mistakes, Sally, and not entirely on purpose. Not at first, at least. His image getting captured on a camera, leaving behind the DNA, the trioxipate that was left on the bottom of Sarah Burlough’s foot, us finding the kill room… those were mistakes!”
“So?”
“So he was slipping up, and he knew it,” Sherlock said quietly. “Twenty years, Sally. He’s getting old. That’s why he made those mistakes. And lately he’s been getting desperate. He needs this; he needs these killings. It’s an outlet; I’ve said it before. But we were catching on to him because he was slipping up, and as a result he was having difficulty satisfying his needs. He got lucky, with that last victim. Your supervisors decided to try to close the case, and the moment the kill site was free, he made his move. But he must have known that we would close off the room immediately after that.”
“So he kidnapped a woman in broad daylight as a result?” Donovan sounded incredulous. “In what world does that make sense? You said he didn’t want to get caught!”
“He doesn’t want the attention; there’s a difference,” Sherlock said briskly. “He’s been at this for twenty years, Sally. He’s aged. He’s going to make more mistakes, and he knows it. Someday, he’s going to make that last, fatal mistake. So instead of that happening, he’s ready to go out on his terms. This time around, he’s done everything on purpose. He’s kidnapped a known woman, knowing that eventually we’ll find her - and eventually we’ll discover who he is.”
“But why kidnap the Inspector, too?” Donovan demanded.
“The killer left evidence of his presence in Stanley’s home - the dirt and the boot print. On purpose,” Sherlock said vehemently. “He knew we would find it, make the connection to him, and then follow the dirt sample out here. He wanted us out here!”
“But why?” Donovan asked breathlessly, half an eye on her watch. They were running out of time. “What does all of that mean?”
“The killer knows that someday he’s going to get caught, so he’s going to go out with a bang. He’s going to have his fun with Margaret, he’s going to kill her, and the evidence he chooses to leave behind on her body will lead us to him. He knows that. This is his last chance to indulge in his desires, so he’s going to do it properly. That means the killer and the girl are elsewhere, so he can have his time with her,” Sherlock snarled in frustration. “But Stanley is here, somewhere. He’s - Sally, he must be a distraction. The killer lured us off his trail, sent us on this wild chase so that he could get away with his victim. He wants to have his fun with her without us in the way. We know Margaret’s missing, and he knows we’ll be looking for her. He wants us to find her-find him-eventually, but not right away. So Stanley… is a distraction.”
“So what do we do?” Smith demanded.
Sherlock raked his fingers through his hair. “I don’t know.”
“Don’t you dare, Holmes,” Donovan said angrily. “No. Don’t you dare. You’ve come this far. Think. Why did he go so far out of his way to draw us off his trail? Why the distraction?”
Sherlock stared at her.
“Because the killer needs this,” he said softly. “He never left London because these are his hunting grounds… And because his kill site is here. The only problem is, we have his kill room. This final crime has to be perfect, and you already said yourself that the kill room is the most important part of this. He needs to have it, or there’s no crime at all. God, Sally - for the past twenty-four hours, he’s been trying to figure out a way to gain access to that room. And thanks to Stanley, he has it. He’s gone back to McCormack Industries with Margaret Hayes.”
“Because it’s accessible to him now since all the teams were pulled out when the word of a kidnapped Detective Inspector came through.” Donovan’s eyes widened in horror. She signaled for her people to go, and they ran for their cars. “My God, he played us.”
“We’ll deal with that later. Go.”
She shook her head.
“No. You need me. Hopkins has barely a chance in hell in getting out of here alive. I won’t let that chance diminish further.”
“Listen,” Sherlock said, grabbing her arm, “if that woman dies because of this delay, he will never forgive you. If she dies because you chose to save him over her, he will never forgive you. You know it as well as I. Go. I’m no more use to you, but I will find Stanley.”
Donovan stared at him for a moment, and then gave a quick nod.
“I’ll leave you the one car and call for some backup,” she said over her shoulder as she turned and jogged away. But Sherlock knew as well as she did that he couldn’t afford to wait for them to arrive.
And neither could Stanley.
Sherlock clamped his eyes shut, the darkness flaring red as the bright sun beat down upon his face. Distantly, he heard the squeal of tyres as the two other cars sped away. He tried not to pay them any mind.
Think.
Stanley wasn’t a target, he was just a distraction. The killer wasn’t interested in seeking revenge or making a point. He had no interest in Stanley, and no interest at all in publicity. He just wanted to be left alone to indulge in his perverse desires one last time, and Stanley was a means to that end.
Which meant that Stanley was being kept somewhere that had been easily accessible to the killer, given the timeline. The killer must have realised that the only way to free up his kill room was to create an even bigger crisis. He took the opportunity to abduct Stanley, and then would have needed to stash him somewhere that was quick and easy to access. Somewhere that would have taken Stanley’s team ages to find, but also somewhere that was fairly easy to get at so that he could quickly get away with Margaret.
Sherlock spun on his heel and jogged over to the vehicle Sally had left behind. He jammed it into reverse and sped off towards the other end of the complex.
Years ago, King’s College had set up a satellite facility on the grounds of the Brickwell Shipyards, and the students working in the Robotics Research Centre had used it for their research. They worked in conjunction with the Shipyards, and built robots for their use or developed new technology that could be used on the low-Earth-orbit craft that the Shipyards manufactured. The facility had been abandoned along with the Shipyards, but while the large shipping containers had been tightly sealed and locked upon the Shipyards’ closure, the robotics building had no locks, and no protection from people accessing it. In recent years, vandals had looted everything from inside, going so far as to pry up the bolts that had secured the long lab tables to the floor and carrying them off.
The satellite facility no longer had a name, as its sign had been removed when the college pulled out, but apart from that it appeared as though it could still be in use today, as was true of the rest of the complex. It was a long, narrow brick building, and the closest door was a heavy metal one that would not have been out of place on one of the shipping containers or a warehouse.
Sherlock parked the car haphazardly next to the building and bolted for the warehouse door. It had been closed, and Sherlock couldn’t tell if this was done recently or had been that way for a while. He had no clue of Stanley was in there, or if his conclusions were correct.
His idea was flimsy at best, and it was Stanley’s only hope.
Sherlock threw his entire weight against the door, blood pounding in his ears, muscles straining tight enough to snap -
- And it gave way.
The door gave a tremendous groan and then slowly began to slide aside, giving an ear-shattering squeal as it did so. Sherlock winced in pain, but continued to push until the opening was large enough for him to slip through.
It took his eyes some moments to adjust to the near-total darkness inside the facility, but once they did, he could make out the faint outline of a man sitting on a chair in the center of the room.
“Stanley?” he tried.
There was no response. Sherlock grabbed the small torch from his belt and turned the thin beam of light it emitted on the man’s face.
Stanley’s face was so battered, it took Sherlock some seconds to pick out his recognizable features. For a moment, he was convinced that this must be a stranger; another unfortunate victim. But the man’s nose was as prominent as Stanley’s, and his faded grey t-shirt had an Arsenal logo in the corner--a shirt Sherlock recognised from the nights they had spent together. And then the man gave a soft groan and cracked open an eye, and when the grey gaze met his own Sherlock felt the last of his doubts flee. They were replaced immediately by cold, unforgiving anger.
It was clear that Stanley had been ambushed before he had a chance to get ready for work that day. He was dressed in jeans and his sleep shirt, and his feet were bare. Blood caked his face from a gash just above his left eyebrow. Though it had long since stopped bleeding, the skin was split along half of his forehead and blood had slid down the left side of his face and neck, disappearing under the collar of his shirt. His arms were bound behind him, while his ankles had been secured together with a thick rope.
The light grey of Stanley’s t-shirt had darkened to the colour of slate; in the oppressive heat of the room, sweat had soaked through all his garments and dripped from the ends of his hair, which hung limply in his eyes. He was breathing heavily, great gasping breaths, and when Sherlock reached out for him, he hissed, “Don’t.”
Sherlock jerked his hand back, startled, and Stanley grunted, “Leg.”
Sherlock turned the torch on Stanley’s legs and saw immediately what Stanley had been trying to warn him of. Two bullets had been put through Stanley’s left thigh. The wounds had been tied off with a tourniquet. It was obvious that the killer didn’t intend to mortally wound Stanley; he only meant to immobilize him. Nonetheless, Stanley’s jeans were sodden with blood and his face was pinched with pain, and Sherlock felt as though he stepped out into thin air as his stomach dropped.
Not again, not again...
“Margaret,” Stanley whispered and Sherlock sank to his knees at his side, wondering if there was a way he could move Stanley without causing him too much pain. It didn’t seem likely.
“We found her already,” Sherlock lied briskly, pulling out a penknife and severing Stanley’s bonds. “Look at me.”
Stanley lifted dull eyes from the bullet wounds in his leg and stared at Sherlock.
“Shit,” was all he said.
“I’ve got you,” Sherlock said in a low voice. Stanley sagged, slipping from the chair as the blood loss rapidly weakened him, and Sherlock caught him.
“Easy,” he murmured, easing Stanley into a sitting position on the floor before turning his attention to Stanley’s injuries. He ran quick, exploratory hands over Stanley’s chest and torso, feeling for additional wounds. The blade of a knife had bit into his side, opening the skin like a smile, and blood still flowed freely from that wound. Distantly, Sherlock wondered where he had put his phone, and then realised that the car he had borrowed from Donovan was the only one in the complex. When help arrived, it wouldn’t be difficult to find them.
He needed to focus on Stanley.
Stanley’s strength was quickly leaving him, and he leaned forward, gravitating automatically toward Sherlock. Sherlock cupped Stanley’s face with one blood-soaked hand and forced their eyes to meet.
‘I’ve got you,” he said quietly. His hands were beginning to tremble, and he hoped that Stanley couldn’t feel it. “I promise. Do you hear me? But Stanley, you need to stay awake.”
“I am awake,” Stanley grunted, but his voice was weak and his eyelids kept fluttering. Sherlock stripped down to his plain cotton tee and began methodically shredding his shirt. He pressed the makeshift bandages against the gash in Stanley’ side.
“Fuck,” Stanley hissed. He tried to shove Sherlock’s hand away, but Sherlock held on fast, sinking teeth into his lower lip at Stanley’s yelp of pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered breathlessly, the words tumbling over one another in his haste to get them out. “I know, it hurts. But we must stop the bleeding, Stanley, or you’ll never -”
Sherlock cut himself off, biting the inside of his cheek in order to forcibly stop the words. Stanley looked at him, the sliver of grey around his pupils contrasting sharply with the streaks of sweat and grime on his face. Mutely, he reached for Sherlock’s free hand and then brought it to rest over the wound, pressing down with what little strength remained in him. Sherlock leaned his weight into it, Stanley’s hand resting on both of his and Stanley’s blood flowing, hot and sticky, between his fingers.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Stanley hissed, his words strangled but fierce all the same. He bit back a pained groan and sought blindly for purchase, finally closing a hand around Sherlock’s elbow and holding on tight. Their eyes met again, and Sherlock didn’t dare to look away. Stanley was staring at him, staring into him, as though Sherlock himself held the last of his strength; the last of his fight. A thin film of blood bubbled at the corner of his mouth, and then burst.
Sherlock’s heart knocked painfully against his ribcage, and he swallowed hard. From somewhere in the distance, he heard the faint wail of sirens, and tried to tell himself that it was all right; reinforcements were nearly there. They would see the car outside the warehouse; they would know to come here immediately.
It was going to be fine. It had to be fine.
He brushed a sweat-damp strand of hair out of his eyes with the back of his hand. Stanley was barely conscious now, though his fingers twitched on top of Sherlock’s hand every now and again. Sherlock wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling Stanley against his side, bearing the weight of his sagging form and trying to ignore the memory of holding Victor just like this all those years ago, trying to staunch the bleeding of another nearly-fatal wound.
“I’ve got you,” he whispered against Stanley’s sweaty forehead, tasting salt on his lips. “It’s going to be fine.”
“I know.” Stanley turned his head, seeking shelter in the crook of Sherlock’s neck, and Sherlock bent his head to accommodate him. He was now almost completely curled around Stanley, shielding him, providing what solace he could until the ambulance arrived. “Glad… you’re here.”
Sherlock pressed his lips to Stanley’s cheek, and then his nose and closed eyelids, feeling the heated flesh against his lips and taking comfort in the fact that it meant that Stanley was still here.
“You’re going to be all right,” Sherlock whispered. It seemed he couldn’t stop saying it, repeating it over and over like a mantra; an invocation; a prayer. “You’re going to be fine, Stanley, because there’s so much… so much left. So many years. You still have work to do, and so do I. And there’s so much about you I don’t know yet, so many things…”
He trailed off. Stanley had curled a hand around his upper arm, and he squeezed lightly.
“And there are the bees.” Sherlock ducked his head further so that he was whispering in Stanley’s ear. Stanley’s face was pressed into his neck, and he let out a quiet whimper. “There are the bees, and the country, and you must be there for that.”
Stanley’s response was murmured against the side of Sherlock’s throat, but it was drowned out by the sound of screeching tyres just on the other side of the door.
Then there came the sound of pounding footsteps, and someone was calling their names.
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Part 22