-Emily-
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There is a pain at the back of my head.
It's not a crippling pain, or a stinging pain – it's soft; a muted, blurred pain that cradles the curve of my skull in its upturned palm, dulled by morphine but not dulled enough.
I become aware of my own consciousness slowly, in patches. Fluid thought becomes solid, the hint of metal at the tip of my tongue becomes a taste, and I recognise my dark surroundings as the back of my eyelids, closed in swollen sleep. My chest is heavy. I can hear movement.
Something sharp pricks my arm.
Initially, I dismiss it as a doctor administering further medication – I know I'm in a hospital; I was half-conscious when they scraped my broken body from the pavement – but I feel it again, a pinch, metal piercing muscle, and then a thumb, the nail cold against my skin and pressing down on the pinprick. Curiosity prevails: I take a quick, bracing inhalation and attempt to shake myself free of the remnants of sleep, forcing my eyes open through the raw bruising and the tug of stitches–
Mary Watson looks back at me, her face very calm, lips red and eyes outlined in bronze.
The room is empty.
"Don't speak," she says, evenly. "It'll start working soon."
It takes me a moment to process her words and the sinister intent behind them. Mary is sifting through the contents of her bag, her fingers quick and ruthless, and I turn my head, struggling against exhaustion. The urge to sleep won't leave – it's artificially smothering, and I can feel the fatigue increase; lapping my head and throat with each, narcotised beat.
She's got a needle in her hand.
I try to move, but whatever she's injected into my bloodstream is holding me in place, keeping me silent. My tongue feels heavy in my mouth. I can't form letters. My eyes are dry, but I fear blinking. I'm unresponsive. Mute. My struggles stop. She retrieves a small vial from her bag and lifts it up to the light, inspecting the opaque, white liquid and shaking the glass to mix the contents. There's another needle – this one smaller, lethally compact – and Mary flicks the syringe, removing the cap with her teeth.
She takes the plastic pouch currently connected to the vein in my left arm, shifts in her seat, and looks at me steadily.
"You know why I'm doing this."
I laugh, humourlessly.
"You wouldn't keep quiet," she says. There's loathing in her tone – whether it is directed at me or herself, I can't tell. "I gave you a choice, a chance to wipe your slate clean. You could have started again. You could have been anyone."
I look at Mary Watson very, very carefully. If I were mobile, I'd take her head between my hands and wrench it back until her hair brushed the base of her splintered spine – and do so with a genuine satisfaction – but, seeing as I am currently pinned into place by a combination of morphine and an unnamed chemical, I content myself with a look I know conveys the intensity of my fantasy. Mary herself is blank-faced; she's alert, on edge, but still controlled, practiced in this art of feather-light fingers and homicide.
"You don't have children. You won't have children. You won't marry. You won't know what it's like to care about a person so much, so deeply, it rots you to know that they love a facade. But I'd die to keep that facade alive – I'll take lives. I live an illusion, and there is nothing I would not do to make that illusion a reality. Nothing."
Mary lifts the hand holding the syringe.
"You're stopping me from doing that, Emily."
She adjusts the plastic pouch and, taking care not to rupture it past repair, pierces it with the needle tip. I watch in coerced acceptance; her thumb tests the textured pad of the syringe, the white liquid swirls – a premature death suspended mid-spiral in liquid – and waits, poised to drain into my lifeless arm.
"Dear me, Mrs Watson."
If I am startled to hear Jim's voice, Mary is positively jolted; she reacts quickly, turning in the direction of the incoming threat but keeping the needle in position. Her hand moves to her coat pocket instinctively – I suspect she has a pistol concealed beneath the folds of red fabric.
I can see him in the corner of my peripheral vision. Having lost the ability to turn my head, I stay still, straining against sleep to watch him walk to the bedside and hear him say, in a voice reminiscent of a mock-American drawl, "Be a doll. Put the needle down."
Mary meets dark humour with cold, hard threat.
"Take one step closer and I swear," she says, her thumb positioned to administer the dose of liquid execution, "I will kill her."
Jim pulls out the chair next to the bed and sits down, settling back against the faded leather and crossing his legs – if anyone were to look in, they'd see two visitors engaged in casual conversation over a poor, beaten woman on the verge of unconsciousness. Nothing to warrant a second glance. Jim looks around, then reaches for the nearby fruit bowl.
"Apple?"
Mary's hands do not move; one positioned at her coat pocket, the other at the drip fluid.
"I'll take that as a no." He picks up a green apple for himself, and polishes it with the cuff of his sleeve – before addressing the brunt of her threat amicably. "Go ahead. I won't stop you."
She keeps very still.
"But know this," he says. "You push that syringe, I play my ace. You'll be a celebrity by the end of the week – a criminalised celebrity, true, but a celebrity nonetheless. I might ask for my signature now."
Her expression remains flat, but I can see her calculating; processing this new information, this new player, with a mechanical rationality not unlike the cores of the software I code.
"Doesn't strike your fancy? Not to worry. The newspapers will love it." He bites into his apple, then gestures widely, as if displaying a headline. "Housewife gone bad. No? What about 'Mother, nurse, and part-time assassin'? I've got quite a few in mind."
"Don't try to play me."
"Oh," says Jim, leaning forwards. His voice drops the jollity. The smile is gone. "I'm not playing, Mrs Watson. I'll have your life history sold to every major company before you step out of this building. It'll be on every news station, every tabloid front, every book cover in every shop in England – but don't worry. I'll make sure your husband gets the first copy. A hand delivery." Jim lifts the apple to his lips. "I want to see the shock on his face."
Slowly, with painstaking reluctance, Mary removes the needle. A bead of water rolls down the plastic contour from the perforation.
"Atta girl."
"From a man of your reputation, I expected better," she says, putting the cap back on her needle. "I'm a little disappointed."
Jim holds a hand to his chest; theatrical offence.
"You two are co-dependent," she continues. "I didn't believe it at first – but this? This is proof. Our world is survival and self-preservation, not alliance, not partnership. It's savage. She's got you blind."
"That's rich, coming from an assassin pretending to be a mother. Between the bullets and the homicide, how do you make time for domesticity?"
"I keep my two worlds separate. You don't. You're besotted in the worst kind of way."
He laughs. "Oh, what I wouldn't give to see that black tongue torn from your mouth."
"You're running out of time. The police are on their way."
The door catches on its hinges and, for one, drugged second of paranoia, I think Mary's foreshadowing has become a premature reality – that the police have found us, that this was a set-up, and that I'm going to spend the remainder of my life in that network of small cells, sweat and surly women. Jim turns in his seat. Mary freezes.
Ivan blinks at the number of people in the room, taken aback. He's considerably ruffled, his hair mussed, lips pink, pale lipstick printed on his collar – I would bet money on a coital catch-up with a nurse in the back office. He looks around, half bemused, half concerned.
Mary's hand rests on the jut of her pistol. "Who are you?"
"Ah," says Ivan, his eyes piercing in both their pigmentation and their dislike. "You are Mary Morstan."
"Watson. Who told you my name?"
He looks at Mary, and he smiles. It is by no means a nice smile; it's insincere in its entirety, with an underlying, unsettling vindictiveness that does not match up with his external countenance.
"We were comrades-in-arms once, Ms Adamek."
Mary stiffens, her fingers paused over her pocket.
"Your Poland, my Russia. Slavic blood." He shakes his head; a mimicry of nostalgia. "We fight like cat and dog now. It is a shame. The Polish knew how to enjoy themselves."
Her voice is glacial, and she repeats, "Who told you my name?"
"No need to be ashamed. It is your redeeming feature, Ms Adamek." He leans against the doorframe and says, with honeyed fluency, "Надо отдать должное и дьяволу. Be fair to the devil."
"Who are you?" She turns to Jim. "Who is he?"
Jim speaks then, his eyes very dark. "A dead man."
Ivan laughs – it's not a mocking laugh, or a nervous laugh – it's completely genuine, as if he finds good-natured humour in Jim's words. "It is true. He would have me shot here if the sound did not carry."
"You don't look concerned."
"Mr Moriarty is a very dedicated man."
The monitor beside me beeps, and Ivan turns suddenly. He takes in my battered exterior; the heavy stitching, the bruises, the dried blood – I've inflicted enough of this kind of damage to know precisely how grisly I must look to him now. The smile fades from his face, slowly, as if he can't quite make the connection between my current state and the woman in his casino. He takes a hesitant step in my direction, then changes his mind, explaining in broken English that he will come back at a convenient time.
Jim's expression could kill a man mid-speech.
Ivan pauses, unwilling to leave the room; I open my mouth to attempt speech, but he shakes his head and says, quite courteously, that I should rest, and that he will be in further contact.
Once his reluctant footsteps have faded, Mary takes a step towards the door; distracted and rallied by a new determination.
"Are you sure you don't want to stay?" says Jim, his joviality restored in Ivan's absence. "I'm sure the police would appreciate the identification of Magnussen's murderer. A triple catch."
Mary smiles, briefly, and pauses by the exit.
"I don't know what you're talking about."
Jim watches her leave. I'm beginning to lose my grip on consciousness; the furniture is starting to shift, moving slowly, and the desire to close my eyes and block it out is almost insatiable. He waits until all is silent, then moves out of my line of vision – I feel another pinch as he removes the drip feeding its dash of poisoned remedy into my vein.
I look up at him, blearily sedated, his face moving in and out of focus. I couldn't speak if I tried.
"You owe me your safety, you owe me your shelter, and now," says Jim, pleasantly, "you owe me your life. You're going to have to pay me back soon, Ms Schott."
I make an indiscernible noise through closed lips and watch as he leans back, retrieves the phone from his pocket, and begins typing; languidly indifferent. He takes another bite from his apple.
I can still smell the sharp-sweet scent of bitten fruit as I relinquish my control and fall back, back into a merciful sleep.
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