Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter LI - Temptress

-Millie-

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Her reaction is cataclysmic.

I am seized by the lapels of my coat and pushed backwards, pinned against the wall with enough force to bruise the notches in my spine. Her fingers find my throat, and I see it all in fine detail; the thin lines between her eyebrows, the purple shadow – concealed beneath layers of make-up – under her eyes, the flush in her cheeks. I hear myself make a pained exclamation as Emily takes my jaw in her hand, her nails digging little crescents into the skin. She twists my head to one side, holding it at an unnatural angle with a ferocity that leaves my neck exposed; a white canvas, prepared for a lashing of red paint.

"Give me one reason," she says, her voice unfamiliar, "why I shouldn't. One reason."

I swallow, and – trying very hard not to whimper in the wake of what I fear is about to be inexplicably brutal – coerce myself to look away and keep my mouth shut, unwilling to betray Jamie's position. Emily snarls something incoherent and hauls me forwards, only to force me back into the wall, the base of my skull hitting the marble with a dull, dry crack. Colour flares. My vision shatters into a fistful of crushed glass. In that moment, I grapple with sudden unconsciousness; the room flickers, lit by a stuttering bulb that does not exist, and I feel something akin to cold water run from neck to spine. I regain control in time to see her raise her fist: my eyes close, my breath hitches, and I flinch in anticipation of the pain to come–

The bottle hits the side of her head with enough force to splinter the glass in a burst of crystal fragment and red, red wine.

Jamie stands holding the remaining end of the bottle, wide-eyed and horrified. Freed from her grip, I stagger, clutching my head in both hands. Emily spits a profanity and presses her palm to her temple.

It comes away bloody.

Whatever she must be feeling at being struck around the head by her presumable lover is surpassed; irrelevant in what is now veritable insanity, rationality crushed like fine bone in fury's scarlet fist. She turns her attention to Jamie, tilting her head from side to side to crack the stiffness from her neck. My skull is ringing, ringing, and I can't see properly; Emily moves in and out of my sight in a blue-tinted nightmare, battered and bearing a gash to her head like some gruesome rendition of war paint.

However, before she reaches Jamie – who is holding his broken bottle with white-knuckled terror – the door opens.

We all turn around.

Emily visibly falters. Jamie's shadow stands in the hallway, darker, slicker, with a defining restlessness in his expression that I recognise from my few face-to-face encounters with this man; a movement behind his pupils, an unplaceable motive in his smile.

Emily looks at Jamie, then Moriarty, then at Jamie again.

I watch the tension in her shoulders slacken. She looks around at her audience, numb in confusion.

And then it clicks.

"What a reunion," says Moriarty. He steps into the room, his hands in his pockets, and addresses his brother in what must be the first time in thirty years. "All this time and no contact. It wouldn't have hurt to send a card."

Jamie couldn't move if he tried, clutching the broken remnants of his bottle as if his very existence depended on it.

"You've been giving the Moriarty name a bad reputation, so I hear," he continues, tutting in disapproval. He lifts his gaze in wicked levity. "That's my job."