TO BE FOUND : Book One

To Be Found PROLOGUE {Revised AGAIN}

Victoria's life had suddenly changed at the incredibly bizarre age of fifteen. Her body was changing, she was taller than most boys, and her face would sometimes breakout because she had a soda the night before. Her life had been changing rapidly within the past couple of months, her father had a promotion, and her mother had early retirement, and soon her sister would be headed to uni somewhere up north. Victoria's personal life had changed immensely, entering a new private school, where uniforms were required. She hated her dull gray skirt that reached her knees, the heavy loafers, and the navy blue sweater that itched.

Of course on the first day of school she had found herself completely lost. Her head was in the clouds while the head master attempted to show her around. Victoria's wandering had caused her to arrive at a dead end, so she peeked into classrooms, which were all empty. Finally she discovered a lab that wasn't empty, it was being occupied by a young man, probably about her age.

Thunder rumbled just outside, rain was falling and the day was bleak. Victoria sighed in frustration as she looked at her schedule, "Should've known. This is all because I didn't listen to the head master. I suppose this'll make for a good story when I get home." Victoria spoke to herself. She looked back into the lab, deciding to  ask the lonesome boy. Perhaps he'd know where to find her first class of the day.

Victoria opened the door with a twist of its knob, peeking her head in she was able to have a closer look at the curly haired student. "Excuse me." She knocked on the door, making the boy look up with piercing eyes, "Sorry, I sort of lost my way. Could you help me?"

His eyes scrutinized her for a moment, "New student, then?" he asked quickly.

She laughed softly, "Don't have to be a detective to guess that."

"Hm, suppose you're right, Victoria." The boy said looking back in the microscope.

Victoria raised a brow ,"I'm sorry-Do I know you?"

The boy sighed, leaning away from the microscope to write something in his open journal, "Nope. Haven't the faintest idea as to who you are. However, I do know your name is Victoria Phillips and your first class is journalism, but you're new and lost., wandering the halls in search for someone to help you."

She narrowed her eyes in curiosity, "Oh? And how did you know that?"

"Your schedule is on the back of your binder. I see that your name is Victoria M. Phillips and that you are taking journalism, then I noticed the date that schedule was printed. Just yesterday. Therefore, you're a new student, lost and on a desperate search for your class that started roughly six minutes ago." He stated, peering at the clock that hung on the wall.

Victoria grinned "Wow. You're clever, really clever. It seems unfair."

He looked up at her and was taken aback, "Thank you, but why does that seem unfair?"

She looked at him seriously "Got all that information from a single glance, but I'm afraid I don't even know who you are. No binder, no schedule, no nothing."

He chuckled and gave a sweet smile, letting the silence fill the room. Victoria looked down to her binder, blushing, she guessed if he wouldn't get his name, he would at least tell her where she needed to go. "So do you know where the class is?"

"Just go out the door there, down to the very end of this hall and it's the last door to your left." He said with the small smile still on his face.

"Thank you." Victoria nodded her head, then began walking toward the door, "Wait, you didn't give me your name."

"Sherlock Holmes." he replied.

"Hmm," Victoria smiled and walked out the door before peeking back in, "I hope to see you again, Sherlock."

Sherlock watched the new girl walk out of the lab, gathering his bag that was hidden away from sight, just beneath the desk and smiled to himself, "Victoria." He hummed in  thought and checked the time, deciding to head to his own class. The boy often showed up late to class, after all he never seemed to learn anything new.

That day was the start of something new. A bond that the two had never shared with anyone else. For the first time Victoria and Sherlock had discovered how it felt to have someone that could go through the strange times of growth and change. For three years they shared their lives, during holidays and birthdays, and everything in between.

It seemed almost perfect. Eventually that was stifled. A new light was shed on her family's well-kept secrets.  Victoria's father and mother spoke with her and her sister about everything. As a detective inspector turned special agent he was all too aware of the surrounding word. The troubling truth about what lies beyond the comfort of their undeniable comfortable lives. The crimes in the cruel world her father bear witnessed eventually started to seep into their domestic bliss. This new development caused grief. What remained of her families somewhat normal life transpired into a series of traumatic events. What happened couldn't be stopped. It was too late. Life had new plans. The disruptive kind.

One too many years of Victoria's life didn't belong to her, instead it was in the hands of someone else. She was a pawn in his game. An insane man who wasn't much older than her, he was a spider at a center of a web, and she was a fly trapped at the center with him.

On one side of the coin Victoria's father was bound to a life of investigation, gathering data and evidence of crimes on an international scale. A life that brought about the end of life as he knew it. Victoria was the opposite side, contrasting his work with crimes she carried out as a puppet. Constantly, the youngest Phillips had to remind herself that what she had done was similar to what her own dad had done.  She was doing it for those she loved. Her mum, her sister, and the Holmes family. This would cost her almost twenty years.

Seventeen years later...

Victoria was sat nestled in the back of a cab, watching the buildings pass. She started to feel the heavy nervousness build up within her, somewhere in her gut it weighed on her. It had all gone to her head, this was something she had waited for, but now that she was here, a part of her felt the need to run away.

"Miss, you said Baker Street, right?" The driver asked, looking into the rear view mirror to the red headed girl in the back seat. It had seemed that he'd been attempting to get her attention.

She offered him a kind smile, "Yes, sorry. Just daydreaming."