Gone

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

John didn’t remember passing out but when he woke up, he was alone. His captors had vanished and his wounds were stinging and throbbing horribly. Closing his eyes, he ran through the memories of the last hour or so. The pain of the whip, the quiet anger in Sherlock’s voice on the phone and flash of the camera as they took a picture of him for Sherlock chased each other around John’s head. He hated himself for being so stupid and now Sherlock would be trying to get him out of there, which will almost certainly end up with Sherlock getting hurt. John would never want Sherlock hurt. After about 10 minutes, his captors returned and John opened his eyes. In front of him there was a laptop, and on that laptop, there was a video feed showing a very shocked Sherlock Holmes.

……

Sherlock hated waiting. He was waiting for the kidnappers to make a mistake, a small slip that would lead him to John, but there was nothing. The only picture he had showed only John and darkness around him, nothing else. His laptop lay open on the desk in front of him and Lestrade was pacing his office. Gritting his teeth, Sherlock steepled his hands and sighed. Then, without warning, his laptop screen went black and a video feed appeared on it, showing John. John had his eyes shut and was still tied up, his injuries as frightful as ever. Looking and feeling shell-shocked, Sherlock whimpered almost silently and John opened his eyes.

“John…” gasped Sherlock. John’s eyes were dulled with pain but he looked lucid enough.

“Sherlock… good to see you,” John breathed. Lestrade rushed over and looked at the laptop.

“Bloody hell, John!”

“Greg… nice to see you too.” A small smile slid on to his face but was almost immediately replaced by a grimace of pain. A hooded person stepped into view, wearing a mask on the lower half of its face. Pulling a face, Sherlock noted that the kidnappers had thought of everything; he couldn’t tell anything about where John was or who had him because of the location and the hood and voice-changing mask. Or at least Sherlock presumed that was what the mask was for; otherwise it would be a pretty pointless mask. The captor began to speak and Sherlock knew he was right – the voice sounded robotic and monotonous.

“Good afternoon gentlemen. Well, it’s good for me, not so sure about you.” The figure gestured to someone off screen and another hooded figure walked in holding a cloth and a bucket. John seemed to know what was going happen and Sherlock was already guessing. John writhed in his bonds, his small body swaying from side to side.

“This is a wonderful mixture of bleach and saltwater, a superb mixture for torture,” said the first figure as the second pulled on a pair of gloves and dipped the cloth into the substance. Sherlock’s heart crawled into his mouth but he couldn’t tear his eyes away because of pure horror. No, it was more than that. He knew that John wanted him to stay, so he stayed. The first figure disappeared off the camera and the second raised the dripping cloth to a gash on John’s chest, almost laughing at John’s futile struggling. Sherlock noticed that, in order to keep John still, they had also chained his ankles to the floor. But then Sherlock stopped noticing as the cloth was pressed the cut and John screamed. Lestrade fell over and Sherlock gripped the table so hard he almost broke it, as the captor almost loving stroked the dripping wet cloth on to John’s wounds. His screams almost broke Sherlock’s speakers; they were so loud and tears frequently fell from his eyes. Sherlock yelled angrily, rage taking over his body but then the captor threw the bucket over John, drenching him in the agonizing substance and John screamed. He screamed so loud and with so much pain that Sherlock entirely broke and started to cry.

“No, no, no… John… please stop, please,” Sherlock begged. The first figure appeared again and said in that robotic monotonous voice,

“Goodbye Mr Holmes.” And the screen went black. Sherlock stood up for a second and then his legs wouldn’t take his weight and he collapsed, sobbing silently, beside Lestrade.