✔️THE HEART| Sherlock Holmes

Seven

The world was so bright around her and Marnie's mind was spinning at a million miles an hour as she ran, shoes kicked off an abandoned, her silky stockings drenched with the mud and wetness of the earth as she sprinted as fast as her legs would carry her- she was so grateful for the years of military service she had carried out, it was thanks to them that she could run for so long. She had no idea where she was going, where she even was or how long she had been missing- the painfully long days she'd spent in the apartment were all fake, she couldn't put any weight behind the changing colours of the 'windows' because she now knew they were fake. It could have been a day, or equally just a week- she didn't know.

But what she did know was that she had to get as far away from that warehouse as physically possible. Sobs threatened to rock through her, complete overwhelmed pain and she regretted not having swiped Moriarty's phone, how idiotic of her, it would have been right there somewhere and she dind't even look- she was much more concerned with collecting a weapon and running as far away as she could.

She didn't look back but the gun in her hand was ready, she was ready to snap into action at a moment's notice. It would take her just a second to whip that gun into action and she promised herself that she would do so as soon as physically possible if she saw anybody she didn't trust. Marnie longed to be spending long days bored in the apartment with Sherlock and John playing Cluedo- those days couldn't come back around fast enough in her opinion.

She needed sleep, food too... Marnie needed a lot of things but none of them were priorities, she physically couldn't allow herself to stop running, she had to get away and hide and then... Come up with some sort of plan. She really hadn't thought very far ahead because stupidly, she thought they were in some place near to civilization whereby when a crazy lady in lingerie started crying and screeching about being kidnapped, there would be some people around to listen. Now, all she knew was trees and the changing colours of the sky. How long had she been running? Was she far away yet? Was Moriarty awake again? Did that man with the gunshot wound live?... She was a mess and the blood of her wound was seeping through the tissue, slowly soaking through. Marnie was in hysterics and she absolutely had to calm down to come up with a plan before it was too late.

But first, she needed a viable hiding place. Only as she allowed herself to slow and genuinely think did Marnie realise how completely freezing she was, her legs wearing only wet stockings and her entire body practically bare aside from scraps of neon lace and her tumbling hair pulled around her body. She needed shelter and a hiding place all in one, somewhere she wouldn't be spotted even as her stupid outfit lit her up like a christmas tree in the falling light of the day. When the sky started spitting, painting orange and threatening her with a complete downpour, did Marnie dart into a little cave she'd located. It wasn't very big, more of a hole than a cave but the lip covered her head and she was small enough to completely tuck into a shadowy corner, shivering away and holding onto herself for dear life as hammering rain cascaded down on the greenery of the world around her.

As the rain pummelled the earth, the first cracked sob shattered through her and she shook from the force so intensely that she thought it was split her completely in half. She wasn't the smart one of the group, she never had been. Sherlock would know what to do, if only she had been smart enough to take Jim's phone but it was too late now- She had missed her chance and there was no way she was heading back there willingly. Marnie didn't know what to do, she had always been strong- or at least, she'd pretended to be and now, at the worst possible time, she was completely falling apart at the seams. There was no right way to escape her predicament because she could easily run for hours without knowing where she was. The army had taught her many survival skills, they had to which was probably how she managed to come up with such a good hiding space.