Human Error ~ A BBC Sherlock Fanfiction {Book IV}

Chapter XXIII - Snow White

Just as a premature warning, the following chapter contains certain themes that will be unsuitable/unpleasant for some individuals. Please take this into consideration before you continue.

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The wheels tear at the gravel; flecks of flint and stone are spat from the rubber as the car slows down and pulls into the driveway. She lifts her head, startled from her floating state of unawareness, and rubs her eyes with her filthy fists, disoriented by the sudden change in scenery.  

The engine is silenced.

He helps her out of his car, waiting as she tries to process her surroundings, catching her as she stumbles. The cocaine hasn't quite released its grip on her senses—she doesn't know where she is or what she is doing.

She does know that he came back for her. The woman in the brothel with her vodka bottle didn't believe her—she could tell by the look on her face—but he did.

This keeps her going.

He has to guide her to the entrance, because her mind is spinning inside her skull and she can't seem to put one foot in front of the other. She leans on him heavily but he keeps her upright, his arm soft around the jut of her thin shoulders. She doesn't feel scared, although she knows she should be. Her mother told her to refuse offers like his. She made her daughter promise.

But her mother is gone and she is alone, now.

Besides, she needs the drug. He gave her some when he came looking for the other woman and it was of a standard she had never experienced before, comparable only to powdered diamond—but now she needs more. She doesn't want to go to the brothel again.

He holds open the door as she steps inside. Her breath hitches in her throat and her cheeks colour, turning left and right with wide-eyed awe. This place is magnificent: after fourteen years spent in various shelters and streets and eventually cartels, she finds something of this scale and splendour difficult to comprehend. This is the grandeur you see in pictures, hear about in stories, have it read to you in books.

Fairy tales.

They pass one of his bookshelves. It is a beautiful construction; dark wood carved in curls and studded with metal pins. She stops and lifts her finger, tracing the gold-brushed spines and feeling the little peaks and dips of embossed titles. She wishes she was taught to read. These letters don't look like the impossible symbols she's used to seeing—but it makes no difference either way. They mean nothing to her. Her mother used to read stories aloud, old stories, about royalty with long names and wicked queens and poisoned apples. That was before addiction claimed them both as victims.

He notices her looking and smiles, a warm smile, not sinister like the gold-toothed grimaces of the men who usually provide her with needles. His teeth are very white. He asks her in his strange voice if she likes books, and she says yes—she's too embarrassed to tell him that the words are just markings on paper. He says that he likes books too and enquires as to which one is her favourite, but she just shakes her head, suddenly shy.

He tells her that her fix is only a little bit further, and he offers her his arm. She takes it, unable to suppress the red colouring that creeps up her neck and brushes her cheeks. He's older than her, much older—thirty, she guesses—and she knows she should be wary, but he's treating her properly. For the first time in months, she's being treated properly. Like an adult. They descend the spiral staircase, slowly, with grace; the characters in her broken imagination.

If only the woman in the brothel could see me now, she thinks, proudly.

He leads her down another flight of stairs and then a corridor, talking to her constantly—pointing out the paintings on the walls, the stories behind the locked doors, the large, ornate mirrors that reflect her pinched face as they pass. She listens in earnest, nodding, looking, making quiet noises of affirmation. The cravings are getting worse now, and she's coming down from that last wonderful high. She realises that it's cold, down here. Darker too. The temperature is dropping with each step they take in the direction of the wooden door at the end of the corridor. She frowns. Her confidence starts to waver.