Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XXVII - Sleeping Beauty

Nothing. It's a cruel word, and one that resonates with her as she turns the corner and gives a crumpled can a vicious kick. Emily – the alcoholic, the prostitute, the exhausted woman who sobbed in her sleep – said that she, Trisha, the addict who has given out kindness one too many times, was nothing. She decides that she's angriest at Jim; this name, this whisper, this person without a face who took her friend and moulded her into a suit-wearing sadist.

She's glad she never met him. She'd have spat at his feet – and she's not sure she would have got away in one piece, if the whispers have any truth behind them.  

Trisha pulls the borrowed jacket around her sparrow shoulders and crosses the road. It's ongoing, this cyclical process of love and hate, never-ending and ever-looping. She's tired. She can't remember a time when buoyancy lasted; her mother would pale if she could see her now, her school friends wouldn't recognise her, she's targeted by the judicial system she fervently hoped to join. It is a dark irony indeed. She's so enveloped by this bleak sense of self-analysis that she doesn't see the man walking in the opposite direction; they collide, front-on, and Trisha reels backwards.

"Watch it," she spits, before stopping abruptly.

The dirty face, the grizzled hair, the silver jewellery. He's one of Carver's men – the very individual who tried to slice the guts from her abdomen in last week's confrontation.

There's a moment of mutual acknowledgement. He smiles, all gum and gold, and she feels her heartbeat drop.

It all happens very quickly.

She brings her knee up between his legs, hard, twists, then turns around, running full-pelt towards the network of alleys and poorly-lit backstreets she knows will aid her concealment. Her heels catch on the concrete and her damaged lungs heave, their papery tissue unfamiliar with this sudden exertion – she takes a sharp right at the upturned skip and in doing so wrenches the joint in her ankle; the bone clicks, the sinews strain, and she feels herself falling, falling with force towards the asphalt floor.

She braces herself for impact.

It does not come.

There are hands on her arms, cold hands, helping her to her feet. She doesn't think; she reacts instinctively, spinning around and throwing a fierce punch in the direction of her unprecedented Samaritan's face.

She stops when she realises that this isn't one of Carver's men. He's too expensive, too young, too attractive to be a leading figure in the prostitution business. He looks distinctively out of place in these backstreets; dressed formally, strikingly – and holding up a hand to catch the heavy drops of blood from his nose.

"Oh Lord, I'm sorry-"

He smiles sardonically through the thick red and waves off her apology, reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief and dabbing at the blood on his chin.

A shout echoes in the distance.

She apologises again and explains – a little breathlessly – that she needs to leave now, because she's being followed, and that he should really think about leaving too if he wants to guarantee his own safety. He frowns, troubled, and asks her if she is alright, and why she is out at this time alone. Trisha processes the unusual quality to his voice and tells him that she is quite literally running for her life, and that she can't stay to share the details. He sniffs, removes his bloodied handkerchief and enquires as to whether she has a place to go. She says she doesn't. He responds by telling her that he couldn't possibly let her walk away with a clean conscience, and asks her if she would be interested in a spare room at his lodgings.