It's nighttime now, Tewkesbury had already left, because he had a meeting in the morning. So, Enola and I decided to start looking through all of the local newspapers.
"Look at this!"
Enola walks over to me, holding one of the newspapers. She lays it down on the desk in front of me, and points to a section at the bottom.
"Someone's looking for help to find their missing son!"
I read over the ad, something about it seems off.
"Enola, are you sure this isn't a scam?"
She tilts her head, "Why would anyone use that as a scam? What would they gain from it?"
"Two young women," I say.
"I'll ask Sherlock to come with us."
I read over the ad again, "What time do you wanna meet?"
"We'll meet here at eight in the morning."
"Alright then, I'm gonna go home now. See ya tomorrow!"
We wave bye to each other and I begin my walk home. It's dark outside, but the lanterns are bright enough for me to see. Although, I feel like someone's following me.
I look up at the street signs, Sherlock's apartment should be around here. I'm sure he wouldn't mind if I stopped by for a second, given the circumstances. Unless, he isn't home which is very likely.
Something falls over behind me, I whip around to look, but there's nothing there.
I'm definitely being followed.
I pick up my pace, there's a few people on the street, but none of them would even bat an eye if I were to be snatched right now.
"Hello, miss," a man slurs, while stumbling over to me.
I jump away from him and continue walking, the feeling of being followed is even more intense now.
Sherlock's apartment complex finally comes into view, and I waste no time in hurrying inside.
The door shuts loudly behind me, making me flinch, I look out the window before heading upstairs. I seriously hope Sherlock's home, I don't even care if he's annoyed.
The door downstairs opens and I freeze. Surely the stalker wouldn't be dumb enough to follow me into the apartment complex. Right?
I frantically knock on Sherlock's door, as the person from downstairs starts walking up the stairs. Their footsteps get closer, and my heart begins to race.
I don't even realize I'm still knocking until the door swings open.
A man steps off the stairs and into the hall, he gives me a sinister grin.
"(Y/n)? Are you okay?"
Sherlock's voice is muffled, all I can hear is my pounding heart as I stare back at the man. He raises her finger to his lips in a shushing motion, and quickly enters the room beside him.
I slowly turn back to Sherlock and his eyes widen, "What happened?"
He pulls me into his apartment, locking the door behind us. My hands shake, and my eyes dart around the living room in fear. I sit down on the couch and he sits on the coffee table in front of me.
"Can you hear me? What happened?"
My hearing finally goes back to normal and I look up to see a man standing behind Sherlock.
The man notices me staring at him and smiles, "I'm Dr. John Watson, Sherlock's flatmate. You must be (Y/n)."
"It's nice to meet you. Sorry, I'm not normally like this," I reply meekly.
I look at my shaking hands, "I'm sorry to show up unannounced, but I believe someone was following me and I was afraid to go home."
Dr. Watson nods, "No need to apologize, love. I'm sure that must've been terrifying."
"You and Enola have been followed before, you didn't react this badly."
Dr. Watson slowly retreats to what I assume is his bedroom, and I stand up and begin to pace.
"This time was different, I can't explain it, but I feel as though this person truly meant to do me harm."
Sherlock watches me pace, "Was it the man in the hall?"
"I don't know, I never saw them."
"Well the look on your face when you saw him tells me everything I need to know," he says, standing up.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
"I'm going to talk to him."
I run over and block the door, "Are you crazy? You can't say anything!"
"Why can't I?"
"Because I said so!"
He tilts his head, and I sigh. "If you talked to every guy that looked at me weird you'd run out of breath."
"He scared you, nothing ever scares you," he says.
"I'm just a little on edge right now," I reply.
"And why is that?"
"My mom's left town so I'll be by myself for a few days, it's nothing serious," I say, shrugging.
He stares at me, studying my body language. This is why it's hard having a conversation with this man.
"I'm sorry. I feel super embarrassed for the way I reacted, I just want to go home, and sleep all of this off," I say unlocking the door, and opening it.
Sherlock pushes the door shut, and I slowly turn around to see him leaning over me. God, why does he have to be so tall and attractive?
"Stay here for the night, you can sleep in my room, I'll sleep on the couch."
"Absolutely not!"
He rolls his eyes, "It's not safe for you to go home."
"Then I'll go bunk with Edith and Enola."
He points to a door, "Go get some sleep."
I know there's no use in arguing, because as stubborn as I am, Sherlock Holmes is three times more stubborn. As much as I hate the idea of this, I am absolutely terrified to go outside.
I slowly walk to the door and he opens it before gesturing for me to go in. Once I'm inside he shuts the door behind me.
I look around curiously, his room is super clean, except for the messy desk in the corner. Now would be a perfect time to learn more about the closed off man. So, I obviously have to take this opportunity.
I walk over to his desk and look at the papers, they're all messy notes from the cases he's working on. None of them look that interesting so I move on to the other side of the desk.
Sitting on top of a messy stack of papers is a copy of my book.
I slowly pick it up and smile, the corners are beaten in, and there's random splotches of ink on the cover, yet it somehow makes the book look even more beautiful.
I set the book down and crawl into the bed, I really should get some sleep.
~~°°••°°~~
I wake up to a loud thud followed by quiet curses. I sit up and rub my eyes tiredly, the sky is still dark, so it must be around three in the morning by now.
I slowly open the door and peek into the living room. Sherlock is standing at his bookcase, picking up random books and tossing them on to the couch.
"Do you ever sleep?"
He flinches at my voice and turns around to face me, "Did I wake you up?"
I walk over to him, stepping over the thrown books. "I never sleep through the whole night."
I look at the books all over the floor, "Doing some light reading?"
He sighs and rubs his face tiredly. "I'm trying to find a certain book, but I can't find it anywhere. I know I left it on this bookcase."
I turn to the shelves, "What's the book called?"
"Principal Psychology."
My eyes scan the several bookshelves, I walk to the end of them before finding it.
"Here you go," I say, handing the book to him.
He takes the book from me, "How did you find it? I've been looking for an hour."
"Sometimes you need a fresh pair of eyes," I say, crossing my eyes at him.
He chuckles and walks over to sit on the couch. I follow him and the two of us sit in silence.
Until I broke it of course.
"What made you want to be a detective?"
He continues reading his book but answers, "I've always been good at figuring stuff out, so I thought I might as well do it as a career."
He's so very vague.
He turns to me, "What made you want to be an author?"
A question I didn't really have an answer for.
"I didn't really want to be one, but what I really wanted to be doesn't allow women."
"And what is that?" he asks.
"A psychiatrist."
He widens his eyes in surprise, and I laugh.
"Didn't expect that answer, did you?"
He shakes his head, "Not at all."
He goes back to reading his book and I close my eyes and lean on the armrest of the couch.
~~°°••°°~~
"Sherlock?! Are you there?!"
Loud knocking rattles the door, I open my eyes to see that I'm still lying on the couch.
"Enola, how are you?"
"No time to chat, Dr. Watson, my best friend is missing!"
I slowly sit up and see that Sherlock is at the other end of the couch, rubbing his eyes tiredly.
Enola paces around the room before she finally notices me, "(Y/n)! You're okay!"
She rushes over and pulls me into a tight hug. "I was so worried when I saw that you weren't home!"
She pulls away and looks to Sherlock, "Why is she here?"
Sherlock, who is obviously still half asleep mumbles incoherent words. Enola laughs loudly and turns back to me, "Did you understand a word he said?"
"No, but I can answer your question. I'm here because I was being followed last night, and thought it'd be best to hang out here for a bit before going home. However, your stubborn ass brother insisted that I spend the night."
Sherlock sighs, "She had a panic attack it'd be foolish of me to let her go back out there."
He walks to the kitchen and I repeat what he said mockingly with a horrible accent.
"I heard that," he says.
I roll my eyes and turn back to Enola, "What time is it?"
"Seven-thirty, which is perfect timing because we needed to meet up anyway."
Enola follows Sherlock into the kitchen and immediately starts telling him about the ad we had found. I turn back to Dr. Watson who was sitting in the chair across from me.
"They're a very unique family," Dr. Watson says.
"Very," I respond.
"Alright, Sherlock will meet us at your place, (Y/n)!"
She pulls me to my feet and drags me out the door, we stumble into the hallway and I notice the man from last night is entering his apartment. He smiles at us, and I instantly feel chills run down my spine.
Enola continues dragging me along with her until we finally reach my house.
She pushes me towards the stairs, "Go freshen up! I'll be down here eating all of your oranges."
I make my way to my room and sigh, I seriously hope this ad isn't a scam.
Author's Note: Hello! Hope you've all enjoyed these new chapters. I just wanted to pop in and say that I made an Instagram account for my Wattpad! Follow me if you want! @/WhelmedGraysonWP