Collared Chapter 5
Title: Collared
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John plus Mycroft
Rating: Eventual NC-17 (You'll have to be patient), this chapter hard R.
Genre: Slave!fic AU, drama, angst
Warnings (for entire fic, not just this chapter): non-con, slavery, violence, emotional and physical abuse.
Word count: 7800
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
CHAPTER 5
Supper wasn’t quite the humiliating experience lunch was. Sherlock accepted the food John cooked without much acknowledgment. He ate little of it, then told John to take care of himself however he saw fit. John, not particularly wanting to make another meal for himself, and loathe to waste both good food and his own effort, took Sherlock’s plate, cut away the part that Sherlock had touched, and ate the rest. Sherlock noticed, of course, but he didn’t say anything about it. He’d retreated to the sofa for another session of napping - or possibly thinking.
Sighing, John retrieved the laptop from it’s spot on the bookcase. Time to get the damn words over. He really didn’t feel like writing.
He took the laptop to the table and opened it up and stared blankly at the screen. For the last week he’d been writing impassioned essays on the horrors of slavery, it’s immorality, it’s impracticality, it’s hypocrisy, all in the hopes that some of it would reach Mycroft’s heart. Mycroft’s reaction that morning showed that it had all been for nothing. Whatever lay in that man’s chest, wasn’t human. There was no reaching something that simply didn’t exist.
Anger that had largely submerged itself that afternoon burst up again. He wasn’t going to waste any more effort on Mycroft. He had to fill a word count, but he didn’t have to put any thought or care into it. And, in fact, it was probably better that he didn’t. If Mycroft couldn’t be appealed to, the next best thing would be to lull him. Perhaps if he wrote something bland and domestic, Mycroft would think that Sherlock’s orders were beginning to have an effect on him, that he was becoming the dull automaton this damn collar was designed to produce. That would mesh better with John’s long term plans with Sarah. John wrote a hundred words on making soup and stopped mid sentence as soon as he’d reached his goal. It was possibly the most half-assed thing he’d ever written in his life.
Closing the computer down he went up to his room to ready himself for the night.
“John,” he heard sharply from behind him.
“Yes, master,” said John, his heart suddenly beating much faster. He turned and saw Sherlock messing with his phone. For half a second he worried that it was his phone (they were identical), but a quick pat found that still in his pocket. Nor was it the cheap phone that John had bought at Tescos that afternoon. That was wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden under the rubbish in the back of the building.
Sherlock glanced up from the screen to meet John’s eyes, and damn if there wasn’t something calculating about that stare. John felt for certain that Sherlock had somehow seen completely through him. “I have no further need of you tonight, go to bed.”
John deflated. Was that all? That skewering stare just for that?
“Well?” said Sherlock. “Go.”
Apparently it was. “Thank you, Master.” John turned and mounted the steps to his bedroom, eager to get away. In the safety of Sherlock’s laboratory, he stripped to his underthings and then went through the nightly ritual of inflating his bed. The sharp smell of chemicals from Sherlock’s laboratory mixed with dustiness.
Home sweet home.
Sherlock woke him just before six a.m by kneeling next to the bed and shaking him. John jerked to wakefulness with a scream pressed against his lips. For a second he had no idea where or when he was. Afghanistan? Oregon? Then he came down from his instinctive terror to the disconcerting feeling of Sherlock’s hands gripping his upper arms. Just Sherlock. Just Baker Street. Just another day of slavery.
“Wake up! Wake up now!”
“What’s wrong?” John’s eyes now searched the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was still very dark; the first creeping light of dawn had made the window a slightly paler rectangle and the laboratory equipment was nothing more than dim shadows. Sherlock himself was like a looming homunculi, crouched to his side and reaching over him.
Sherlock rocked back on his heels. “Nothing is wrong. It’s time for you to be awake. I have to head out on a new case within the hour. I’d like my breakfast. And it’s ‘master.” Or at minimum ‘sir.’”
For craps sake. John pushed his heart back in his chest and sat up. He was still bone tired. “Master what would you like for breakfast.”
“I’m not picky today. Whatever you can find that you can make in less than ten minutes. Make sure you make enough for yourself as well. There may not be an opportunity for you to eat until much later.” Sherlock stood. “Up, up, don’t make me punish you.”
John stood up and nearly groaned as the bliss took him. The collar. The goddamn collar. Even the tiniest stupid order triggered it. In the dark, Sherlock must not have realised its effect, because he continued with the barrage or orders, utterly heedless of the consequences to John. “Quickly, quickly, turn on the light. Now off with your pyjamas, don’t be modest, I’ve seen it all before. Here, this shirt. Put it on. These trousers will do.
John was trying to put on his trousers while his collar sent soothing shock after shock through him. He’s muscles felt like jelly under the assault. His cock, quite on it’s own accord, grew heavy and half-hard. John hoped the dim light and the angle of his body hid the fact.
Sherlock wasn’t paying attention. He was rifling through the closet John had half-claimed for his own. “Tell me where you’ve hidden your socks!”
“They are in the lowest drawer of the filing cabinet,” John managed to grit out. And then was hit again by yet another wave of pleasure for answering.
Sherlock turned to the filing cabinet, barely affording him half a glance to check the state of John’s dress. “Stop dawdling, man, we’re in a hurry. Here’s those socks, put them on,” he tossed a pair of balled socks at John’s feet. Wobbling under the assault of his collar, John leaned down for them. “No, don’t brain yourself, man, sit down, you look like you are about to collapse. Now put them on.”
John practically fell on the lilo. His hands trembled as he put he put the socks on. He tried to get his shoes before Sherlock ordered him to wear them, but Sherlock’s mouth was far faster than he could make his muscles work. “Stop!” he said desperately. “I’ll put on my clothes - just stop ordering me!”
“Heel, John.”
Pain should have cancelled out his the pleasure the collar was giving him, but it didn’t. Instead he was levered into that same confused state he’d been in when Sherlock had whipped him a week ago. The world was gone. For that second nothing existed but pleasure and pain, each making the other more exquisite. And then as if all the emotion and energy and sensation had to go somewhere, it pushed into his sexual centres. His cock, trapped awkwardly against his thigh by his trousers, throbbed. For a second, just as he came down off the high, he worried that he might just ejaculate in his pants. But he didn’t. Instead his balls ached.
Christ that was close. Unconsciously, John grabbed his groin and readjusted himself so that his inseam didn’t pinch quite so bad and willed himself to soften before Sherlock noticed.
Too late. “No time for playing with yourself, John, we’ve a case. ” Sherlock’s voice had a trace of teasing amusement. John went through ten stages of mortification, all of which were lost on Sherlock, as the detective turned his back on John and headed out the door, and down the narrow attic steps to the main floor.
By the time John reached the kitchen, he was largely composed again. He was half-steeled for teasing, or worse, a long verbal examination by Sherlock on the obvious effects the collar had on him. The scientist in Sherlock would be curious of course, and his arsehole side probably couldn’t resist. But by the time John reached the kitchen, Sherlock seemed to have already forgotten the incident. He was already pouring the tea, a job that had been exclusively John’s since the day he’d arrived. Grudgingly, John’s mind moved away from his own wrecked dignity to consider that perhaps Sherlock genuinely was in a hurry.
John set bread to toast. “How much do you want?” he asked.
“Oh nothing for me,” said Sherlock hurriedly. “I never eat before a case. Interferes with the thinking. Make as much as you think you’ll need yourself. We may not have an opportunity for you to eat for some time. Oh, don’t just stand there, John!” he snapped. “Detective Inspector Lestrade has put a crime scene on hold. If I take too long his forensics team will doubtless trample the evidence.”
John found himself jamming mostly dry toast down his throat while he put on a coat, his tea, half-drunk, left on the table. Sherlock pulled him along to a cab, barking out directions to the cabbie in the same voice he’d earlier commanded John. Still more than a little half-stunned by the speed of events, John vaguely appreciated that there really hadn’t been anything personal about the way Sherlock had ordered him around like a recalcitrant toddler. He apparently ordered everyone around that way.
As he relaxed into that idea, another surged to the fore: Sarah!
John had been helping Sherlock with his cases, in one capacity or another, from day one, but this was the first time Sherlock actually brought John along with him when he went out. On one hand, it was an opportunity for John to see the man in action, something he’d been aching to do since Sherlock regaled him with that first story of a case. On the other hand… Sarah! She was expecting him to call and set up a time for their coffee date. A date that Sherlock would certainly not allow if he got wind of it.
No, it’s still early, he told himself. Sarah wouldn’t appreciate a call at half-past six am in any case. If they were finished by early afternoon, he could slip away on the pretext of dinner shopping and neither she nor Sherlock would be any the wiser.
Reassured, he followed Sherlock out of the cab and into a unoccupied house in Bromley. An officer stopped Sherlock just inside the police line. “Who is he?” the woman asked in a distrustful voice.
“My assistant,” said Sherlock.
This clearly didn’t sit well with her. “You? Hire an assistant? Impossible. No seriously, Holmes, who is he? Some friend of yours come to gawp at a dead body? Another pervert who gets off on crime? Either way, he can’t come in. Hell, you shouldn’t be coming in. You’ll contaminate the crime scene.”
“My assistant and he’s coming in,” Sherlock repeated, his voice deadly firm. “Don’t presume to know about me, Sally, your investigative skills are so embarrassingly poor, if it weren’t for the need of someone of your gender to fill a quota, you wouldn’t be here yourself.”
John’s eyes widened at the callous way Sherlock reeled off the insult. What the fuck was the man up to? Who the hell talked like that to a police officer.
Sally herself seemed to have gone grey with shock. “That’s Officer Donovan to you,” she managed, once her fury died down enough. “And I swear Holmes, you make an enemy out of me and you’ll sorely regret it.”
Sherlock levelled a faux-surprised look. “Are you suggesting we aren’t already enemies? Because that really doesn’t improve my opinion of your investigative skills.”
“Sherlock!” came a sharp voice from the door. A middle aged man, prematurely grey, stood in the doorway, flicking his wrist in their direction. Sherlock stepped quickly his way. “My assistant, Lestrade,” Sherlock said to answer the man’s questioning gaze. “I figured it was time I found myself a protege.”
John said nothing. He wasn’t sure what Sherlock’s game was. Lestrade, with his keen roving eyes, made him nervous. In the past, John had worked hard to avoid the notice of people like him, and every instinct now told him to saunter casually the fuck away.
“Does he have any skill?” asked Lestrade.
“He’s well versed in explosives, guns and various improvised weaponry as well as security systems and breaking and entering techniques. He’s hands on experience with terrorists. In addition he has a medical degree and extensive army experience. I dare say he has a richer background than any of the men - and woman - under you.”
Lestrade looked impressed up until the last words. Then his face grew stony and his eyes sharpened disapprovingly. “You leave Sally be, Sherlock. She can make things very difficult for you. I don’t care how many strings your brother can pull out of his arse, you are on thin ice with the Yard already. Much more and I won’t be able to call on you anymore.”
Sherlock shrugged. “I solve cases, Lestrade. She puts a politically correct face on the Yard. Tell me which is more important.”
“You sell her short, Sherlock,” said Lestrade. “I don’t hire incompetent people. Sally Donovan holds her own, which even you would admit if you didn’t have this childish feud going with her. Stop it.” Lestrade turned to John. “Tell him to stop it.”
Awkwardly, under the weight of expectation, John turned to Sherlock and said, “Stop it.” The collar rewarded him.
What the fuck!
Lestrade didn’t seem to notice but Sherlock’s eyes locked onto his as it happened. Then he turned to Lestrade. “Very well, I shall give Officer Donovan a heartfelt apology on the way out. Meanwhile you have a corpse cooling. May we see it?”
Lestrade nodded and lead them up the stairs. John, taken more off guard than he had expected dragged behind as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. He felt a tug on his shoulder and saw Sherlock standing on the landing, reaching over the corner of the rail to grab him. Lestrade had disappeared in an open doorway at the end of the upper floor hall. John trotted up the last steps as Sherlock pulled him close enough to whisper in his ear.
“Relax, all slaves have been programmed to follow the orders of police officers. Can’t have a owner such as myself ordering his slave to cause a disturbance.”
“Any officer?” John asked, looking back down the stairs. He could barely see Officer Sally Donovan’s leg through the open door.
“Any officer. It was in the brochure if you read it closely enough.”
“Christ.”
“Why do you think I didn’t introduce you as my slave. So long as they don’t know, they won’t order you about.” Sherlock winked. “Now come along.”
Not exactly reassured, John followed him. The house had been stripped down to the bare walls and hardwood floors for sale, but on the second floor a wooden chair had been splintered to large but identifiable chunks. There were dents in the wall plaster. And in the centre of the room, a man lay sprawled on his stomach, a pool of blood spread thickly around his battered body.
Sherlock knelt by the body, he lifted an arm and dropped it. “Not dead long. Two hours? John?”
John blinked and brought his mind back into gear. He tested the flexibly of the arm as well, and looked at the nails. “Yes, about two hours.”
“His clothes are wet. There was a squall that went by around five am. He was meeting someone here. Someone he knew but didn’t trust.”
“How do you know that?” asked Lestrade.
“He allowed himself to be lead to the second floor of an empty building at an ungodly hour of the morning, detective inspector. Had it been a stranger, he’d have struggled earlier and the fight would have taken place out in the yard or in the anteroom. But he didn’t fight, not until he came here. And yet he was not entirely trustful of the man who led him here, as he brought a weapon.” Sherlock pointed a gloved hand at what John had initially taken as part of the chair, but now saw the wood was a slightly different colour.
“That’s a weapon?” asked Lestrade. “It’s just a stick.” The detective inspector looked from Sherlock to John.
“A stick is as good as a club,” said John, feeling he had to put something or lose what little credibility he had for being there.
“Very true,” said Sherlock. “And considerably easier to come by at 4 am.” Sherlock searched the edge of the corpses long coat and lifted something up out of the coagulated mess. “A ring box.” He snapped it open. “Empty - now. It had a ring in it not long ago. A woman’s ring from the size of the indentation. Size … five and a half. A small woman. The ring was stolen. The box was dropped before this man collapsed and lay on it.” He turned back to the man. “Ah, American. The coat is manufactured in Washington Colony. It might be found at a second hand shop or a specialty outwear shop, but as it isn’t a particularly well made or popular manufacture, so it unlikely he’d find it as an import. Therefore he bought it in the colonies. Look, that tattoo on the inside of his wrist signifies he’s part of a gang.” Sherlock referred to his phone. “Yes. Yes. The talons, they are a gang that hails in Seattle.” Sherlock stopped and stared across the room. “That’s interesting.”
John turned his head. On the wall, someone had quite deliberately drawn a stripe of vertical stripe of blood, three inches long, five feet off the floor.
Sherlock stood up, handing the bloody case to Lestrade. “Yes, I saw that,” the older man said, pointing with his chin at the mark. “Do you have any idea of it’s significance? It’s obviously deliberate. I’d wager it was made with the victim’s blood.”
“Oh yes. It’s very significant,” murmured Sherlock in much the same sultry voice that he used when when John had done something that particularly pleased him. “It means that our killer isn’t done. There will be more bodies, Lestrade. And soon.”
Lestrade straightened up. “How do you get that?”
“It’s a tally mark, Lestrade,” said Sherlock. “A tally mark in blood. One, nothing.”
“So there will be more,” said Lestrade, as they exited the room. Sherlock had finished his survey to his satisfaction and it was obvious to John that Lestrade, though eager for Sherlock’s help, was even more relieved that he’d stopped poking the evidence about. John had no real idea what the typical police process of a crime scene was, but he was pretty certain that Sherlock’s fingers weren’t part of it. The fact that Lestrade allowed him to muck about at all seemed to be equal parts due to respect for Sherlock’s abilities and fear for Mycroft’s “strings.” John vaguely wondered why he was surprised that Mycroft might stick his meddling nose into London’s Finest’s business. In retrospect, it seemed logical.
“A score of one would hardly be worth tallying,” Sherlock said dryly to Lestrade as they skipped back down the stairs, turning sideways to allow the forensics team to file past them.
Lestrade nodded, then turned to John. “Learning anything about his methods?”
“Lots,” said John, fighting the defensive urge to avoid the Detective Inspector’s eyes. The first thing John learned about avoiding unwanted attention was to cultivate an aura that he belonged wherever he happened to be and had a perfect right to be doing whatever it was he was doing. As long as he seemed confident, he rarely earned a second look. On the other hand, start shying away and people look for a reason why. Police especially were attuned to guilt the way a hunting dog is attuned to the scent of pray. And now John, despite his efforts at nonchalance, could see that Lestrade had sniffed him out.
At the bottom of the stairs, Lestrade confirmed it by grabbing John’s elbow and stopping him. “I don’t think Sherlock actually gave me your full name, John,” he said. “I need to know it for the paperwork.” His eyes narrowed. “You do seem familiar somehow. I’m very good with faces - have we crossed paths before?”
“I don’t believe so,” said John, trying to be both stoic and suave, though his insides were flipping and he felt anything but.
Sherlock spun on his heel in the tiled anteroom and faced Lestrade. “Direct your questions to me, if you please. His name, for your records, is John Watson.”
Lestrade looked bemused for a moment, both by Sherlock’s behaviour and by the name. “John Watson. John Wats- A doctor? Army?” A light seemed to go on behind his eyes. Lestrade let go of John in favour of grabbing Sherlock and pulling him into the large empty sitting room. John hesitated to follow, but Sherlock flicked his fingers at him: come. John took a deep breath and complied.
“Are you nuts?” Lestrade hissed as Sherlock closed the door behind them to gain them some privacy. “Why is he not in jail right now?”
“It’s unnecessary.”
“What do you mean unnecessary - ‘familiar with terrorists’ - he is a terrorist!” Lestrade’s face flushed. John was torn between wanting to fade into the wall with shame, and brimming with pride that his reputation would provoke this sort of reaction.
“Was a terrorist,” said Sherlock. “He’s reformed.”
“In - what - two weeks? Three at most since that big raid? I don’t believe it.” Lestrade turned to John. “Do you really regret your abolitionism?”
“No,” said John firmly. He perversely relished the fresh look of trepidation on Lestrade’s face.
Sherlock sighed. “He’s in the process of being reformed. Mycroft - that brother of mine who, as you so delicately put it, pulls strings from his arse - has deemed him worthy of being rehabilitated. He’s in an experimental collar which uses both positive and negative feedback to reinforce good behaviour. It’s his feeling that if a man such as John can be turned into a useful, productive member of society, that anyone can.”
“Collar,” said Lestrade. “So he’s already a slave. Mighty quick pushing through that paperwork. But never mind. I don’t care. How does this effect me? What should I do with him?” He lifted a device from his belt. John recognised it as a three button clicker. If he’d been wearing a standard slave collar, Lestrade could point, tune and deliver pain, unconsciousness or death to him, all with no more than a thumb to a button. “Will this work on him? I don’t even see his collar.”
“No, it won’t, and thank goodness,” said Sherlock quickly, eyeing the clicker with distain. “He responds to verbal orders. But I’d appreciate it if you left him entirely to me. His domestication is in a delicate phase right now and having multiple people ordering might confuse him. If you have any objection whatsoever to his behaviour, simply let me know and I will punish him swiftly.”
“Delicate phase… ah Christ.” Lestrade ran a hand through his short grey hair. “So I take it you’d rather I not inform my people of his status. Why else would he be without a visible collar.”
“Yes,” said Sherlock fervently. “Eventually it will come out, but not until he’s learned to accept his new status better. He’s not completely broken.”
John closed his eyes. Broken. And it didn’t seem like Sherlock was simply paying lip service to Mycroft’s agenda. Even Sherlock expected, no, wanted him broken. God, he didn’t want to break.
“And so you’ve taken him as a protege,” said Lestrade. His hand had smoothed its way down to the nape of his neck, where it rubbed as if he’d developed a headache. “I sure the hell hope you know what you are getting yourself into. You could be cultivating a monster.”
“I know perfectly well what I’m doing.” Sherlock walked over to John who froze in his spot, unsure of how to react. He couldn’t help flinching when Sherlock rubbed the side of his cheek with the back of his fingers. Petting. A small odd smile quirked up on Sherlock’s face as he withdrew his hand. “He’s quite a marvellous specimen, once you get to know him, Lestrade. Not a brute at all. He’s got very deep principles - wrong headed perhaps, poorly directed, but nonetheless solid. I envy him that.” Sherlock turned back to Lestrade. “I firmly believe in what Mycroft is attempting to do here. A man like John would be wasted in jail. Or worse, dead. So yes. He’s my protege. I will turn him into something unobjectionable.”
Lestrade looked deep into John’s eyes for a moment, then shook his head one last time and walked back out. “Very well. He’s your responsibility, Sherlock. Don’t let him become mine.”
John for his part was utterly undone by the flattery. He’d had no idea that Sherlock admired him for anything. He wasn’t even sure, until this moment, that Sherlock could admire anyone.
Sherlock took one look at his face and then rolled his eyes. “Oh please, John. Don’t let a little praise knock out what meagre brains you possess. We have a job to do here, and it won’t get done with you preening. Did you not see the viciousness of the blows on that man? The killer knows he’ll be eventually caught, he won’t waste any time in taking out his next target. This will be a bloody day if we don’t get to the bottom of it soon.”
And to the bottom they raced. Literally at times. John hadn’t run this much since Afghanistan. Thankfully, his sore knee decided to take the morning off. John didn’t even notice that he was pain free, until Sherlock made an offhanded comment about it. And then John didn’t know quite what to say. The injury had always come and gone, perhaps it was a sign that things were looking up for him.
Despite the eight hour time difference, Sherlock was able to get ahold of the police in Washington Colony and not only ID the victim, but have his rap sheet faxed to the MET. His name was Doug Plank and he had quite a reputation as a small time thug in Seattle. His list of “accomplishments” went on and on: Drugs, pimping, assault, a string of non-violent thefts so redundant that John hadn’t bothered to read all of them, and finally, buried at the bottom as if it were of no particular importance, suspicion of murder. John found himself wondering how Plank had avoided the collar for as long as he had, and then blushed with the shame of it. No one deserved a collar - not even this guy.
“What do you know of the Seattle Police,” Sherlock had asked as the two of them sat in the living room of 221B, side by side on the sofa, lap tops open, scouring Seattle’s newspapers for articles concerning the Plank’s various alleged misdeeds. The police records were far too sketchy to be of much use. “Did you have any run ins at all with them during your time in the Colonies?”
“No, I never got farther North than Portland.”
“Pity,” he looked at the printed rap sheet spread across the coffee table. “They appear to be utterly incompetent. Of all these arrests, the only conviction was a single count of possession of narcotics. Thirty days in jail. The murder appears to have been particularly bungled. He should not have been allowed to leave the colony with a charge like that pending against him. Look at this mess, John. They didn’t even list the victim’s name.” He flapped the faxes in John’s direction, but before John could get a clear look at it he snatched it back. “Ah wait. Thank god for dates.” He turned to his laptop made a few judicious clicks. “This must be it, Shelly Cho. A random passer-by caught in a drive by shooting. Who says the wild west has disappeared? She was due to be married in two days - that’s it! The ring, John. I will wager my reputation that that box contained a wedding ring.”
Sherlock’s face fell a bit and the excitement seemed momentarily to drain out of it. “Well, you are about to witness something I rarely have to admit,” he said suddenly.
“Sir?” John asked tentatively, closing the lid of the slick laptop Mycroft had given him. Sherlock obviously had found what he needed.
“I made a mistake. Big one, too. The ring at the crime scene wasn’t stolen. The one who brought it, also took it. It belonged to him. The box was soiled in the fight, so he left it. But the ring was precious - it belonged, would have belonged, to his dead fiance. That’s the reason for the viciousness, John. Revenge. The promise of a lifetime of love snuffed out by a callous bullet.”
John raised a brow. Sherlock rarely waxed poetical about anything. Apparently even he had a bit of a soft spot. “So both victim and murderer are American. What are they doing in England?”
“Exactly.” Sherlock covered his face with his long fingers and thought.
Before Sherlock could suss it out, Lestrade had called back. At ten a.m. the employees of a fruit-and-nut import business and found their boss beaten to a pulp in his own office. A silver letter opener was lying on the floor some five feet away from the corpse - a panicked excuse for a weapon. On the wall behind the desk, between the two windows were two bloody stripes. Two - zero.
Lestrade shook his head. “The sheer viciousness…” His gaze landed on the corpse. “Drugs you think? I hear PCP is rather popular in the colonies.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Sherlock answered. “There’s rage here, but also precision. There’s planning. Someone high could not move so invisibly from one crime site to the next. No signs of forced entry - he let his killer in, but why would he open his doors before business hours to a foreigner? Bah, this doesn’t make sense,” said Sherlock.
“Based on lividity, I’d place the time of death around seven,” said John as he examined the corpse. Lestrade stared at him speculatively for a second, but then nodded. “No one moved the corpse,” John went on, emboldened. “Death due to repeated blunt trauma to the head.”
“Death due to the contents of his skull being deposited on the carpet,” corrected Sherlock. “Now that John has stated the utterly obvious, we look at the real evidence. The killer is between six feet and six two. Sixteen and a half stone, but not fat. Weightlifter, able to comfortably bench 150kg. Amateur boxer. Unattractive face. Do we have a name for him yet? The Seattle police refuse to work with me. They say that I should check with you.”
Lestrade gave a wry look, “They called to say are still looking for67 the name of fiance. The main file appears to be with one of their investigators, and he hasn’t answered his phone.”
Sherlock tsked impatiently.
John stared down at the corpse. “How could you possibly figure that out? His attractiveness I mean. I can see getting the height and weight from the angle of the wound, and I suppose the damage is indicative of his bench-press strength - but unattractive? How can the victim’s injuries possibly show the assailant’s attractiveness?”
“The Seattle press included a picture of Cho,” said Sherlock. “I believe the term is ‘butterface’. Like is attracted to like.”
“A 7 marries a 7,” said John, nodding.
“And in this case a 3 marries a 3. Unless there is some mitigating factor, such as wealth or fame or talent, which their doesn’t appear to be.” He clapped his hands as if it remove the dirt, then nodded at Lestrade. “The corpse is yours, but I need access to the files. I need to know what possible connection this man has to Cho and her vengeful fiance. John,” he snapped his fingers. “Come.”
John followed him, and even though he he noticed that Sherlock had called him like a dog, somehow he was unable to muster any outrage about it.
For the next two hours, John read through shipping manifests. His eyes started to cross. Apples. Filberts. And not terribly cheap ones either. It bothered John’s sense of order and rightness more and more as he went on. While Yakima produced some tasty fruit it hardly seemed worth while airfreighting it all the way London, especially at these prices. What was wrong with the local crop? That’s what John wondered. What company would pay a premium for such things? And in such weird amounts… 34 lbs of nuts. 18 lbs of apples. One factory had ordered five crates of nuts, in three different random weights. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to divide the nuts up into even allotments?
Wait a second…
Then suddenly the yellow slip under his fingers seemed to sharpen. The sweep of the pen, the dust, the chemical smell, the slightly dog-eared edges, all stood out in high relief. John’s heart beat loudly.
“Sherlock!” he called out, his voice quavering just a bit. “Sherlock!” he called louder.
There was the thumping of feet and Sherlock poked his head into the filing room. “What is it?”
“These people don’t import fruit and nuts.”
Sherlock sighed as if John had stated something stupid again. “Well, obviously not. I’m still figuring out what it is. Probably weapons.”
“No,” said John. “Slaves. They are importing slaves from Washington Colony.” He handed Sherlock the yellow sheet. “Apples - women. Nuts - men. Crude. The weight would be their ages. Notice that they all are between 18 and 35. That’s the prime age for slaves.”
A broad smile creeped across Sherlock’s face. He impulsively grabbed John around the shoulders and squeezed. “Oh, yes. I knew you’d be useful to me. I knew it. Yes, exactly right. The Seattle police must in in on it. And their jailers as well. There simply aren’t enough slaves to feed the needs of these bigger companies. And what with the disruptions in supply from Oregon, it looks as if it’s sister colony has taken up the slack with a bit of illegal entrepreneurship. The British company gets slaves on demand, Washington colony keeps the all the cash. The Empire gets nothing.” Sherlock let him go and began rifling through he files John had looked at and discarded.
The disruptions in supply from Oregon… John sat back, feeling sick. “Are you suggesting that what I was doing in Oregon lead to this company selling illegal slaves here?”
Sherlock looked up. “What?” his voice was tinged with irritation. “Oh, you feel guilty.” Sherlock nearly spat the words, so heavy was his distain. “Done’s done, John. You can’t blow up the records of twenty-thousand slaves and cause the cancellation of eight major auctions without there being some fall out. The hunger for slaves remains steady, even if the supply dwindles. Those with the resources will get their pounds of human flesh one way or another, and criminals will fill in where legitimate authorities fail.” Sherlock was giving John only half his attention. The rest was to a large file of yellow manifests. “It’s always the way of things, above board or black market - until the demand is gone, there will always be a supply.”
John pressed his lips together. “How do you propose we get rid of the demand?”
“I don’t propose anything. Not my area, John,” said Sherlock. “If you really care to know, solving problems of that nature is more Mycroft’s love. Next Wednesday you can bring it up with him.”
John snorted. “But he likes slavery. It makes a lot of money for the crown.”
Sherlock shrugged. “Well, that would be a problem then. Forgive me, John, I know this is a huge matter to you, but matters of politics and policy are a dreadful bore, and I have an actual crime here to work on. And it keeps getting bigger and more deliciously complicated as time passes. So, take these,” Sherlock put several files in John’s hands, “And give me the names of everyone you can find. If I’m to get ahead of the murderer, I need to know who he’s targeting next.”
Another corpse was found an hour later, this time in a posh hotel next to Heathrow. Though it was the third found, the tally mark was up to five. Somewhere out there were two other bodies. The team investigating had swollen. Gregsson and Dimmock were now on board. Neither of them liked Sherlock much, but they were resigned to his interference. From little John could glean from their expressions and indirect responses, it was more a matter of bruised professional pride than anything else. They didn’t like the fact that Sherlock had shown them up in the past, and they weren’t very excited to see him doing it now either.
Sherlock was oblivious to the chilly looks. His eyes danced and his wiry body grew more energetic as the day went on. Now he examined the corpse of a charter airline pilot. His corpse was a bit less brutalised than the previous two, but still quite, quite dead. “He’s tiring,” said Sherlock gleefully. “The fires are burning out. He’ll slip up soon.”
“Not soon enough for this man,” said John staring at the body.
“Oh, well, don’t waste too many tears for him. He transported slaves he had no right to. You saw the plane.”
John had. The converted DC-9 had a luxurious forward section. Comfortable chairs, full galley, entertainment systems. Through a hidden door in the rear was another matter. The jet had been stripped to the ribbing and fitted with manacles. It’s human cargo had not been released to relieve themselves for the long trans-atlantic flight. Urine, blood, vomit and worse, had been left smeared about. The smell was abominable.
“How many more bodies do you think there’ll be?” John asked.
“If I knew that,” said Sherlock. “It would be none.”
Eventually someone woke up in Washington and was able to cough up the name of their suspected murderer. Danny Fryling, caucasian, a very tough looking young prison guard with, as Sherlock had suggested, a very unattractive face. His nose had been obviously broken, more than once, his ears had the cauliflower appearance of a boxer’s. Flight lists concluded he’d flown in the day before.
They raced as quickly as they could to his hotel room, a seedy, cheap bed-and-breakfast in the centre of London. The dark, grubby room showed little sign of use. A slept in bed. A suitcase left open on the floor. A few items of clothing still neatly folded inside.
A note tucked down at the bottom.
Lestrade popped the paper into a clear evidence bag, then let Sherlock read it. John watched him scan the sheet and hand it back. “That’s that then,” he said after a minute. He sighed as if disappointed. “I believe you can handle the rest from here, Lestrade. Call me if his corpse isn’t found, but I suspect that he’ll be with Mr. Andrews.”
John never did read the note, but the contents came out in the cab drive back to 221B. “He was approached two months ago to help select and transport of prisoners from the Seattle Jail to the airport for a flight to England. They were looking for non-violent offenders, addicts, vagrants, prostitutes, anyone who was not promptly bailed out and appeared to have no one who would raise a fuss for their loss. For his efforts he would be paid an extra thousand dollars per month and have the choicest shifts at the jail. The work was presented in a way that made it seem almost legal. It was extremely tempting for a young man looking forward to his marriage.
“At first the only thing that prickled his conscience was that none of the potential slaves had been convicted of their crimes, and many were there for misdemeanours that would not warrant collaring. However they were also those who seemed likely to reoffend, and as a guard, he knew that many would end up in a collar after a few years anyway. Why not cut to the chase and earn some extra money?”
“Despite minor misgivings, Fryling played along for a month - long enough to be sent to England to meet his employers and see their operations. And that was their mistake. Fryling, while superficially callous and indifferent to his charges, nonetheless had a core of inner decency that they hadn’t counted on. Put plainly: He was horrified by the inhuman conditions that the slaves were kept in. He had been naive enough to think that selling homeless addicts to work in a factory in England might actually help give them a better life. He could not justify his actions once he saw his charges being left to languish in their own filth for days, then taken to a factory where they were chained to their machines, and kept crammed together without any regard to modesty or hygiene in dank, underground barracks. Every law concerning the treatment of slaves was flagrantly violated. It was impossible to believe that what he was doing was for the good of anyone but his employers. Fryling was utterly devastated.
“Somehow Fryling was able to maintain an facade of not caring until he reached Washington. Then he confessed to his fiance. When the morning came he was still on the fence about reporting, but she was not, figuring that while some of the Police force were in cahoots, surely all of them weren’t. While he was at work, she stopped by the police department. Fryling never knew what she said to whom there, but soon after she left, she was shot on the street in a poorly investigated drive-by. And that’s when he began planning his revenge. He was known to these people, so when he contacted them asking for a meeting to help facilitate the transfer of slaves, they each were willing to make appointments with him. It’s possible they knew nothing about his fiance.”
Sherlock sighed. “He didn’t say why he chose to take the people out in England rather than those closer to home who he knew were directly involved with her death. Perhaps he considered the English to be ultimately more at fault. Perhaps he knew that any scandal involving English end of things would eventually lead back to Washington and take down his enemies there. Perhaps it was simply because the people here had never been his friends. We’ll never know.”
Sherlock’s phone buzzed and he looked at the text. “They’ve found Frying. He hanged himself after killing the head of the Sussex textile factory in his Hampstead home. Seven dead in twelve hours. Not a bad score. A bit anticlimactic, but overall not a bad days diversion.”
Diversion, thought John. Is that all Sherlock thought of it as? It was a fucking tragedy. “What will happen to the slaves?” asked John.
“I really have no idea,” said Sherlock. “And I honestly don’t care. Lestrade will sort it out.” Sherlock’s phone buzzed again.
Suddenly John remembered his plans for the day. He had to call Sarah! It was already past seven pm. Late for coffee, but perhaps not too late. And Sherlock seemed to be in a generous mood.
Keeping his voice calm, he said, “I need to go to the store.” He’d take out the trash, retrieve the phone from behind the skip and maybe talk Sarah into the cafe inside Tescos. Not the most romantic first date, but she might find it quirky enough to be charming.
But Sherlock shook his head. “Not tonight, John. Do you really need a daily sojourn from me? I thought we got along rather well together. And I believe we’ve both done enough leg work for the day.”
“But we haven’t any food,” said John.
“How about ordering take out and having it delivered. I’m rather in the mood for curry.”
John swallowed. Damn it. There was nothing for it but to order the curry and then pay for it when it was delivered. After cleaning up the boxes, John tried to take the sack of trash down to the skip. John’s heart thumped. At least he could give Sarah a call and tell her that he wasn’t blowing her off.
But again Sherlock told him to stop. “Oh, John. Do relax. The rubbish can wait until tomorrow. You’ve earned an evening off. Rest. Cruise the internet, watch telly, write your blog. Yes, that last one. You finally have something a bit more interesting to blog about than soup and pedantic abolitionist rhetoric.”
Pedantic abolitionist rhetoric? Is that what Sherlock thought about it? How could Sherlock work on a case all day that so absolutely outlined the horrors of slavery and still come up with such a callous dismissal of abolitionism?
Sherlock’s eyes met his and then he rolled them. “Oh, have I disappointed you, John? Was seeing the dreadful treatment of those slaves supposed to melt my heart to your cause? Is that what you thought I’d get out of this experience?”
“How can you feel nothing for them?” asked John. “How is it even human not to when you see people like that.”
Sherlock’s eyes grew dark. “I’m afraid you’ll discover that being heartless comes easy to me, John. I’m in a really good mood about you right now, John but I don’t suggest you push it. Write. Keep Mycroft off our back. And stop defying me, I’m actually trying to be nice.”
John did not call Sarah that night.
Chapter 6
Pairing: Eventual Sherlock/John plus Mycroft
Rating: Eventual NC-17 (You'll have to be patient), this chapter hard R.
Genre: Slave!fic AU, drama, angst
Warnings (for entire fic, not just this chapter): non-con, slavery, violence, emotional and physical abuse.
Word count: 7800
Summary: Written for This Prompt: In a world where the British Empire is still strong and slavery is her economic backbone, John has become a terrorist for the abolitionist movement. He is caught by Mycroft, enslaved, and given to Sherlock for training. The goal: To test a new kind of slave collar with the power to break even the strongest willed fighter. One that will make even John learn to love being a slave.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
CHAPTER 5
Supper wasn’t quite the humiliating experience lunch was. Sherlock accepted the food John cooked without much acknowledgment. He ate little of it, then told John to take care of himself however he saw fit. John, not particularly wanting to make another meal for himself, and loathe to waste both good food and his own effort, took Sherlock’s plate, cut away the part that Sherlock had touched, and ate the rest. Sherlock noticed, of course, but he didn’t say anything about it. He’d retreated to the sofa for another session of napping - or possibly thinking.
Sighing, John retrieved the laptop from it’s spot on the bookcase. Time to get the damn words over. He really didn’t feel like writing.
He took the laptop to the table and opened it up and stared blankly at the screen. For the last week he’d been writing impassioned essays on the horrors of slavery, it’s immorality, it’s impracticality, it’s hypocrisy, all in the hopes that some of it would reach Mycroft’s heart. Mycroft’s reaction that morning showed that it had all been for nothing. Whatever lay in that man’s chest, wasn’t human. There was no reaching something that simply didn’t exist.
Anger that had largely submerged itself that afternoon burst up again. He wasn’t going to waste any more effort on Mycroft. He had to fill a word count, but he didn’t have to put any thought or care into it. And, in fact, it was probably better that he didn’t. If Mycroft couldn’t be appealed to, the next best thing would be to lull him. Perhaps if he wrote something bland and domestic, Mycroft would think that Sherlock’s orders were beginning to have an effect on him, that he was becoming the dull automaton this damn collar was designed to produce. That would mesh better with John’s long term plans with Sarah. John wrote a hundred words on making soup and stopped mid sentence as soon as he’d reached his goal. It was possibly the most half-assed thing he’d ever written in his life.
Closing the computer down he went up to his room to ready himself for the night.
“John,” he heard sharply from behind him.
“Yes, master,” said John, his heart suddenly beating much faster. He turned and saw Sherlock messing with his phone. For half a second he worried that it was his phone (they were identical), but a quick pat found that still in his pocket. Nor was it the cheap phone that John had bought at Tescos that afternoon. That was wrapped in a plastic bag and hidden under the rubbish in the back of the building.
Sherlock glanced up from the screen to meet John’s eyes, and damn if there wasn’t something calculating about that stare. John felt for certain that Sherlock had somehow seen completely through him. “I have no further need of you tonight, go to bed.”
John deflated. Was that all? That skewering stare just for that?
“Well?” said Sherlock. “Go.”
Apparently it was. “Thank you, Master.” John turned and mounted the steps to his bedroom, eager to get away. In the safety of Sherlock’s laboratory, he stripped to his underthings and then went through the nightly ritual of inflating his bed. The sharp smell of chemicals from Sherlock’s laboratory mixed with dustiness.
Home sweet home.
Sherlock woke him just before six a.m by kneeling next to the bed and shaking him. John jerked to wakefulness with a scream pressed against his lips. For a second he had no idea where or when he was. Afghanistan? Oregon? Then he came down from his instinctive terror to the disconcerting feeling of Sherlock’s hands gripping his upper arms. Just Sherlock. Just Baker Street. Just another day of slavery.
“Wake up! Wake up now!”
“What’s wrong?” John’s eyes now searched the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. It was still very dark; the first creeping light of dawn had made the window a slightly paler rectangle and the laboratory equipment was nothing more than dim shadows. Sherlock himself was like a looming homunculi, crouched to his side and reaching over him.
Sherlock rocked back on his heels. “Nothing is wrong. It’s time for you to be awake. I have to head out on a new case within the hour. I’d like my breakfast. And it’s ‘master.” Or at minimum ‘sir.’”
For craps sake. John pushed his heart back in his chest and sat up. He was still bone tired. “Master what would you like for breakfast.”
“I’m not picky today. Whatever you can find that you can make in less than ten minutes. Make sure you make enough for yourself as well. There may not be an opportunity for you to eat until much later.” Sherlock stood. “Up, up, don’t make me punish you.”
John stood up and nearly groaned as the bliss took him. The collar. The goddamn collar. Even the tiniest stupid order triggered it. In the dark, Sherlock must not have realised its effect, because he continued with the barrage or orders, utterly heedless of the consequences to John. “Quickly, quickly, turn on the light. Now off with your pyjamas, don’t be modest, I’ve seen it all before. Here, this shirt. Put it on. These trousers will do.
John was trying to put on his trousers while his collar sent soothing shock after shock through him. He’s muscles felt like jelly under the assault. His cock, quite on it’s own accord, grew heavy and half-hard. John hoped the dim light and the angle of his body hid the fact.
Sherlock wasn’t paying attention. He was rifling through the closet John had half-claimed for his own. “Tell me where you’ve hidden your socks!”
“They are in the lowest drawer of the filing cabinet,” John managed to grit out. And then was hit again by yet another wave of pleasure for answering.
Sherlock turned to the filing cabinet, barely affording him half a glance to check the state of John’s dress. “Stop dawdling, man, we’re in a hurry. Here’s those socks, put them on,” he tossed a pair of balled socks at John’s feet. Wobbling under the assault of his collar, John leaned down for them. “No, don’t brain yourself, man, sit down, you look like you are about to collapse. Now put them on.”
John practically fell on the lilo. His hands trembled as he put he put the socks on. He tried to get his shoes before Sherlock ordered him to wear them, but Sherlock’s mouth was far faster than he could make his muscles work. “Stop!” he said desperately. “I’ll put on my clothes - just stop ordering me!”
“Heel, John.”
Pain should have cancelled out his the pleasure the collar was giving him, but it didn’t. Instead he was levered into that same confused state he’d been in when Sherlock had whipped him a week ago. The world was gone. For that second nothing existed but pleasure and pain, each making the other more exquisite. And then as if all the emotion and energy and sensation had to go somewhere, it pushed into his sexual centres. His cock, trapped awkwardly against his thigh by his trousers, throbbed. For a second, just as he came down off the high, he worried that he might just ejaculate in his pants. But he didn’t. Instead his balls ached.
Christ that was close. Unconsciously, John grabbed his groin and readjusted himself so that his inseam didn’t pinch quite so bad and willed himself to soften before Sherlock noticed.
Too late. “No time for playing with yourself, John, we’ve a case. ” Sherlock’s voice had a trace of teasing amusement. John went through ten stages of mortification, all of which were lost on Sherlock, as the detective turned his back on John and headed out the door, and down the narrow attic steps to the main floor.
By the time John reached the kitchen, he was largely composed again. He was half-steeled for teasing, or worse, a long verbal examination by Sherlock on the obvious effects the collar had on him. The scientist in Sherlock would be curious of course, and his arsehole side probably couldn’t resist. But by the time John reached the kitchen, Sherlock seemed to have already forgotten the incident. He was already pouring the tea, a job that had been exclusively John’s since the day he’d arrived. Grudgingly, John’s mind moved away from his own wrecked dignity to consider that perhaps Sherlock genuinely was in a hurry.
John set bread to toast. “How much do you want?” he asked.
“Oh nothing for me,” said Sherlock hurriedly. “I never eat before a case. Interferes with the thinking. Make as much as you think you’ll need yourself. We may not have an opportunity for you to eat for some time. Oh, don’t just stand there, John!” he snapped. “Detective Inspector Lestrade has put a crime scene on hold. If I take too long his forensics team will doubtless trample the evidence.”
John found himself jamming mostly dry toast down his throat while he put on a coat, his tea, half-drunk, left on the table. Sherlock pulled him along to a cab, barking out directions to the cabbie in the same voice he’d earlier commanded John. Still more than a little half-stunned by the speed of events, John vaguely appreciated that there really hadn’t been anything personal about the way Sherlock had ordered him around like a recalcitrant toddler. He apparently ordered everyone around that way.
As he relaxed into that idea, another surged to the fore: Sarah!
John had been helping Sherlock with his cases, in one capacity or another, from day one, but this was the first time Sherlock actually brought John along with him when he went out. On one hand, it was an opportunity for John to see the man in action, something he’d been aching to do since Sherlock regaled him with that first story of a case. On the other hand… Sarah! She was expecting him to call and set up a time for their coffee date. A date that Sherlock would certainly not allow if he got wind of it.
No, it’s still early, he told himself. Sarah wouldn’t appreciate a call at half-past six am in any case. If they were finished by early afternoon, he could slip away on the pretext of dinner shopping and neither she nor Sherlock would be any the wiser.
Reassured, he followed Sherlock out of the cab and into a unoccupied house in Bromley. An officer stopped Sherlock just inside the police line. “Who is he?” the woman asked in a distrustful voice.
“My assistant,” said Sherlock.
This clearly didn’t sit well with her. “You? Hire an assistant? Impossible. No seriously, Holmes, who is he? Some friend of yours come to gawp at a dead body? Another pervert who gets off on crime? Either way, he can’t come in. Hell, you shouldn’t be coming in. You’ll contaminate the crime scene.”
“My assistant and he’s coming in,” Sherlock repeated, his voice deadly firm. “Don’t presume to know about me, Sally, your investigative skills are so embarrassingly poor, if it weren’t for the need of someone of your gender to fill a quota, you wouldn’t be here yourself.”
John’s eyes widened at the callous way Sherlock reeled off the insult. What the fuck was the man up to? Who the hell talked like that to a police officer.
Sally herself seemed to have gone grey with shock. “That’s Officer Donovan to you,” she managed, once her fury died down enough. “And I swear Holmes, you make an enemy out of me and you’ll sorely regret it.”
Sherlock levelled a faux-surprised look. “Are you suggesting we aren’t already enemies? Because that really doesn’t improve my opinion of your investigative skills.”
“Sherlock!” came a sharp voice from the door. A middle aged man, prematurely grey, stood in the doorway, flicking his wrist in their direction. Sherlock stepped quickly his way. “My assistant, Lestrade,” Sherlock said to answer the man’s questioning gaze. “I figured it was time I found myself a protege.”
John said nothing. He wasn’t sure what Sherlock’s game was. Lestrade, with his keen roving eyes, made him nervous. In the past, John had worked hard to avoid the notice of people like him, and every instinct now told him to saunter casually the fuck away.
“Does he have any skill?” asked Lestrade.
“He’s well versed in explosives, guns and various improvised weaponry as well as security systems and breaking and entering techniques. He’s hands on experience with terrorists. In addition he has a medical degree and extensive army experience. I dare say he has a richer background than any of the men - and woman - under you.”
Lestrade looked impressed up until the last words. Then his face grew stony and his eyes sharpened disapprovingly. “You leave Sally be, Sherlock. She can make things very difficult for you. I don’t care how many strings your brother can pull out of his arse, you are on thin ice with the Yard already. Much more and I won’t be able to call on you anymore.”
Sherlock shrugged. “I solve cases, Lestrade. She puts a politically correct face on the Yard. Tell me which is more important.”
“You sell her short, Sherlock,” said Lestrade. “I don’t hire incompetent people. Sally Donovan holds her own, which even you would admit if you didn’t have this childish feud going with her. Stop it.” Lestrade turned to John. “Tell him to stop it.”
Awkwardly, under the weight of expectation, John turned to Sherlock and said, “Stop it.” The collar rewarded him.
What the fuck!
Lestrade didn’t seem to notice but Sherlock’s eyes locked onto his as it happened. Then he turned to Lestrade. “Very well, I shall give Officer Donovan a heartfelt apology on the way out. Meanwhile you have a corpse cooling. May we see it?”
Lestrade nodded and lead them up the stairs. John, taken more off guard than he had expected dragged behind as they climbed the stairs to the second floor. He felt a tug on his shoulder and saw Sherlock standing on the landing, reaching over the corner of the rail to grab him. Lestrade had disappeared in an open doorway at the end of the upper floor hall. John trotted up the last steps as Sherlock pulled him close enough to whisper in his ear.
“Relax, all slaves have been programmed to follow the orders of police officers. Can’t have a owner such as myself ordering his slave to cause a disturbance.”
“Any officer?” John asked, looking back down the stairs. He could barely see Officer Sally Donovan’s leg through the open door.
“Any officer. It was in the brochure if you read it closely enough.”
“Christ.”
“Why do you think I didn’t introduce you as my slave. So long as they don’t know, they won’t order you about.” Sherlock winked. “Now come along.”
Not exactly reassured, John followed him. The house had been stripped down to the bare walls and hardwood floors for sale, but on the second floor a wooden chair had been splintered to large but identifiable chunks. There were dents in the wall plaster. And in the centre of the room, a man lay sprawled on his stomach, a pool of blood spread thickly around his battered body.
Sherlock knelt by the body, he lifted an arm and dropped it. “Not dead long. Two hours? John?”
John blinked and brought his mind back into gear. He tested the flexibly of the arm as well, and looked at the nails. “Yes, about two hours.”
“His clothes are wet. There was a squall that went by around five am. He was meeting someone here. Someone he knew but didn’t trust.”
“How do you know that?” asked Lestrade.
“He allowed himself to be lead to the second floor of an empty building at an ungodly hour of the morning, detective inspector. Had it been a stranger, he’d have struggled earlier and the fight would have taken place out in the yard or in the anteroom. But he didn’t fight, not until he came here. And yet he was not entirely trustful of the man who led him here, as he brought a weapon.” Sherlock pointed a gloved hand at what John had initially taken as part of the chair, but now saw the wood was a slightly different colour.
“That’s a weapon?” asked Lestrade. “It’s just a stick.” The detective inspector looked from Sherlock to John.
“A stick is as good as a club,” said John, feeling he had to put something or lose what little credibility he had for being there.
“Very true,” said Sherlock. “And considerably easier to come by at 4 am.” Sherlock searched the edge of the corpses long coat and lifted something up out of the coagulated mess. “A ring box.” He snapped it open. “Empty - now. It had a ring in it not long ago. A woman’s ring from the size of the indentation. Size … five and a half. A small woman. The ring was stolen. The box was dropped before this man collapsed and lay on it.” He turned back to the man. “Ah, American. The coat is manufactured in Washington Colony. It might be found at a second hand shop or a specialty outwear shop, but as it isn’t a particularly well made or popular manufacture, so it unlikely he’d find it as an import. Therefore he bought it in the colonies. Look, that tattoo on the inside of his wrist signifies he’s part of a gang.” Sherlock referred to his phone. “Yes. Yes. The talons, they are a gang that hails in Seattle.” Sherlock stopped and stared across the room. “That’s interesting.”
John turned his head. On the wall, someone had quite deliberately drawn a stripe of vertical stripe of blood, three inches long, five feet off the floor.
Sherlock stood up, handing the bloody case to Lestrade. “Yes, I saw that,” the older man said, pointing with his chin at the mark. “Do you have any idea of it’s significance? It’s obviously deliberate. I’d wager it was made with the victim’s blood.”
“Oh yes. It’s very significant,” murmured Sherlock in much the same sultry voice that he used when when John had done something that particularly pleased him. “It means that our killer isn’t done. There will be more bodies, Lestrade. And soon.”
Lestrade straightened up. “How do you get that?”
“It’s a tally mark, Lestrade,” said Sherlock. “A tally mark in blood. One, nothing.”
“So there will be more,” said Lestrade, as they exited the room. Sherlock had finished his survey to his satisfaction and it was obvious to John that Lestrade, though eager for Sherlock’s help, was even more relieved that he’d stopped poking the evidence about. John had no real idea what the typical police process of a crime scene was, but he was pretty certain that Sherlock’s fingers weren’t part of it. The fact that Lestrade allowed him to muck about at all seemed to be equal parts due to respect for Sherlock’s abilities and fear for Mycroft’s “strings.” John vaguely wondered why he was surprised that Mycroft might stick his meddling nose into London’s Finest’s business. In retrospect, it seemed logical.
“A score of one would hardly be worth tallying,” Sherlock said dryly to Lestrade as they skipped back down the stairs, turning sideways to allow the forensics team to file past them.
Lestrade nodded, then turned to John. “Learning anything about his methods?”
“Lots,” said John, fighting the defensive urge to avoid the Detective Inspector’s eyes. The first thing John learned about avoiding unwanted attention was to cultivate an aura that he belonged wherever he happened to be and had a perfect right to be doing whatever it was he was doing. As long as he seemed confident, he rarely earned a second look. On the other hand, start shying away and people look for a reason why. Police especially were attuned to guilt the way a hunting dog is attuned to the scent of pray. And now John, despite his efforts at nonchalance, could see that Lestrade had sniffed him out.
At the bottom of the stairs, Lestrade confirmed it by grabbing John’s elbow and stopping him. “I don’t think Sherlock actually gave me your full name, John,” he said. “I need to know it for the paperwork.” His eyes narrowed. “You do seem familiar somehow. I’m very good with faces - have we crossed paths before?”
“I don’t believe so,” said John, trying to be both stoic and suave, though his insides were flipping and he felt anything but.
Sherlock spun on his heel in the tiled anteroom and faced Lestrade. “Direct your questions to me, if you please. His name, for your records, is John Watson.”
Lestrade looked bemused for a moment, both by Sherlock’s behaviour and by the name. “John Watson. John Wats- A doctor? Army?” A light seemed to go on behind his eyes. Lestrade let go of John in favour of grabbing Sherlock and pulling him into the large empty sitting room. John hesitated to follow, but Sherlock flicked his fingers at him: come. John took a deep breath and complied.
“Are you nuts?” Lestrade hissed as Sherlock closed the door behind them to gain them some privacy. “Why is he not in jail right now?”
“It’s unnecessary.”
“What do you mean unnecessary - ‘familiar with terrorists’ - he is a terrorist!” Lestrade’s face flushed. John was torn between wanting to fade into the wall with shame, and brimming with pride that his reputation would provoke this sort of reaction.
“Was a terrorist,” said Sherlock. “He’s reformed.”
“In - what - two weeks? Three at most since that big raid? I don’t believe it.” Lestrade turned to John. “Do you really regret your abolitionism?”
“No,” said John firmly. He perversely relished the fresh look of trepidation on Lestrade’s face.
Sherlock sighed. “He’s in the process of being reformed. Mycroft - that brother of mine who, as you so delicately put it, pulls strings from his arse - has deemed him worthy of being rehabilitated. He’s in an experimental collar which uses both positive and negative feedback to reinforce good behaviour. It’s his feeling that if a man such as John can be turned into a useful, productive member of society, that anyone can.”
“Collar,” said Lestrade. “So he’s already a slave. Mighty quick pushing through that paperwork. But never mind. I don’t care. How does this effect me? What should I do with him?” He lifted a device from his belt. John recognised it as a three button clicker. If he’d been wearing a standard slave collar, Lestrade could point, tune and deliver pain, unconsciousness or death to him, all with no more than a thumb to a button. “Will this work on him? I don’t even see his collar.”
“No, it won’t, and thank goodness,” said Sherlock quickly, eyeing the clicker with distain. “He responds to verbal orders. But I’d appreciate it if you left him entirely to me. His domestication is in a delicate phase right now and having multiple people ordering might confuse him. If you have any objection whatsoever to his behaviour, simply let me know and I will punish him swiftly.”
“Delicate phase… ah Christ.” Lestrade ran a hand through his short grey hair. “So I take it you’d rather I not inform my people of his status. Why else would he be without a visible collar.”
“Yes,” said Sherlock fervently. “Eventually it will come out, but not until he’s learned to accept his new status better. He’s not completely broken.”
John closed his eyes. Broken. And it didn’t seem like Sherlock was simply paying lip service to Mycroft’s agenda. Even Sherlock expected, no, wanted him broken. God, he didn’t want to break.
“And so you’ve taken him as a protege,” said Lestrade. His hand had smoothed its way down to the nape of his neck, where it rubbed as if he’d developed a headache. “I sure the hell hope you know what you are getting yourself into. You could be cultivating a monster.”
“I know perfectly well what I’m doing.” Sherlock walked over to John who froze in his spot, unsure of how to react. He couldn’t help flinching when Sherlock rubbed the side of his cheek with the back of his fingers. Petting. A small odd smile quirked up on Sherlock’s face as he withdrew his hand. “He’s quite a marvellous specimen, once you get to know him, Lestrade. Not a brute at all. He’s got very deep principles - wrong headed perhaps, poorly directed, but nonetheless solid. I envy him that.” Sherlock turned back to Lestrade. “I firmly believe in what Mycroft is attempting to do here. A man like John would be wasted in jail. Or worse, dead. So yes. He’s my protege. I will turn him into something unobjectionable.”
Lestrade looked deep into John’s eyes for a moment, then shook his head one last time and walked back out. “Very well. He’s your responsibility, Sherlock. Don’t let him become mine.”
John for his part was utterly undone by the flattery. He’d had no idea that Sherlock admired him for anything. He wasn’t even sure, until this moment, that Sherlock could admire anyone.
Sherlock took one look at his face and then rolled his eyes. “Oh please, John. Don’t let a little praise knock out what meagre brains you possess. We have a job to do here, and it won’t get done with you preening. Did you not see the viciousness of the blows on that man? The killer knows he’ll be eventually caught, he won’t waste any time in taking out his next target. This will be a bloody day if we don’t get to the bottom of it soon.”
And to the bottom they raced. Literally at times. John hadn’t run this much since Afghanistan. Thankfully, his sore knee decided to take the morning off. John didn’t even notice that he was pain free, until Sherlock made an offhanded comment about it. And then John didn’t know quite what to say. The injury had always come and gone, perhaps it was a sign that things were looking up for him.
Despite the eight hour time difference, Sherlock was able to get ahold of the police in Washington Colony and not only ID the victim, but have his rap sheet faxed to the MET. His name was Doug Plank and he had quite a reputation as a small time thug in Seattle. His list of “accomplishments” went on and on: Drugs, pimping, assault, a string of non-violent thefts so redundant that John hadn’t bothered to read all of them, and finally, buried at the bottom as if it were of no particular importance, suspicion of murder. John found himself wondering how Plank had avoided the collar for as long as he had, and then blushed with the shame of it. No one deserved a collar - not even this guy.
“What do you know of the Seattle Police,” Sherlock had asked as the two of them sat in the living room of 221B, side by side on the sofa, lap tops open, scouring Seattle’s newspapers for articles concerning the Plank’s various alleged misdeeds. The police records were far too sketchy to be of much use. “Did you have any run ins at all with them during your time in the Colonies?”
“No, I never got farther North than Portland.”
“Pity,” he looked at the printed rap sheet spread across the coffee table. “They appear to be utterly incompetent. Of all these arrests, the only conviction was a single count of possession of narcotics. Thirty days in jail. The murder appears to have been particularly bungled. He should not have been allowed to leave the colony with a charge like that pending against him. Look at this mess, John. They didn’t even list the victim’s name.” He flapped the faxes in John’s direction, but before John could get a clear look at it he snatched it back. “Ah wait. Thank god for dates.” He turned to his laptop made a few judicious clicks. “This must be it, Shelly Cho. A random passer-by caught in a drive by shooting. Who says the wild west has disappeared? She was due to be married in two days - that’s it! The ring, John. I will wager my reputation that that box contained a wedding ring.”
Sherlock’s face fell a bit and the excitement seemed momentarily to drain out of it. “Well, you are about to witness something I rarely have to admit,” he said suddenly.
“Sir?” John asked tentatively, closing the lid of the slick laptop Mycroft had given him. Sherlock obviously had found what he needed.
“I made a mistake. Big one, too. The ring at the crime scene wasn’t stolen. The one who brought it, also took it. It belonged to him. The box was soiled in the fight, so he left it. But the ring was precious - it belonged, would have belonged, to his dead fiance. That’s the reason for the viciousness, John. Revenge. The promise of a lifetime of love snuffed out by a callous bullet.”
John raised a brow. Sherlock rarely waxed poetical about anything. Apparently even he had a bit of a soft spot. “So both victim and murderer are American. What are they doing in England?”
“Exactly.” Sherlock covered his face with his long fingers and thought.
Before Sherlock could suss it out, Lestrade had called back. At ten a.m. the employees of a fruit-and-nut import business and found their boss beaten to a pulp in his own office. A silver letter opener was lying on the floor some five feet away from the corpse - a panicked excuse for a weapon. On the wall behind the desk, between the two windows were two bloody stripes. Two - zero.
Lestrade shook his head. “The sheer viciousness…” His gaze landed on the corpse. “Drugs you think? I hear PCP is rather popular in the colonies.”
“No, I don’t think so,” Sherlock answered. “There’s rage here, but also precision. There’s planning. Someone high could not move so invisibly from one crime site to the next. No signs of forced entry - he let his killer in, but why would he open his doors before business hours to a foreigner? Bah, this doesn’t make sense,” said Sherlock.
“Based on lividity, I’d place the time of death around seven,” said John as he examined the corpse. Lestrade stared at him speculatively for a second, but then nodded. “No one moved the corpse,” John went on, emboldened. “Death due to repeated blunt trauma to the head.”
“Death due to the contents of his skull being deposited on the carpet,” corrected Sherlock. “Now that John has stated the utterly obvious, we look at the real evidence. The killer is between six feet and six two. Sixteen and a half stone, but not fat. Weightlifter, able to comfortably bench 150kg. Amateur boxer. Unattractive face. Do we have a name for him yet? The Seattle police refuse to work with me. They say that I should check with you.”
Lestrade gave a wry look, “They called to say are still looking for67 the name of fiance. The main file appears to be with one of their investigators, and he hasn’t answered his phone.”
Sherlock tsked impatiently.
John stared down at the corpse. “How could you possibly figure that out? His attractiveness I mean. I can see getting the height and weight from the angle of the wound, and I suppose the damage is indicative of his bench-press strength - but unattractive? How can the victim’s injuries possibly show the assailant’s attractiveness?”
“The Seattle press included a picture of Cho,” said Sherlock. “I believe the term is ‘butterface’. Like is attracted to like.”
“A 7 marries a 7,” said John, nodding.
“And in this case a 3 marries a 3. Unless there is some mitigating factor, such as wealth or fame or talent, which their doesn’t appear to be.” He clapped his hands as if it remove the dirt, then nodded at Lestrade. “The corpse is yours, but I need access to the files. I need to know what possible connection this man has to Cho and her vengeful fiance. John,” he snapped his fingers. “Come.”
John followed him, and even though he he noticed that Sherlock had called him like a dog, somehow he was unable to muster any outrage about it.
For the next two hours, John read through shipping manifests. His eyes started to cross. Apples. Filberts. And not terribly cheap ones either. It bothered John’s sense of order and rightness more and more as he went on. While Yakima produced some tasty fruit it hardly seemed worth while airfreighting it all the way London, especially at these prices. What was wrong with the local crop? That’s what John wondered. What company would pay a premium for such things? And in such weird amounts… 34 lbs of nuts. 18 lbs of apples. One factory had ordered five crates of nuts, in three different random weights. Wouldn’t it have been simpler to divide the nuts up into even allotments?
Wait a second…
Then suddenly the yellow slip under his fingers seemed to sharpen. The sweep of the pen, the dust, the chemical smell, the slightly dog-eared edges, all stood out in high relief. John’s heart beat loudly.
“Sherlock!” he called out, his voice quavering just a bit. “Sherlock!” he called louder.
There was the thumping of feet and Sherlock poked his head into the filing room. “What is it?”
“These people don’t import fruit and nuts.”
Sherlock sighed as if John had stated something stupid again. “Well, obviously not. I’m still figuring out what it is. Probably weapons.”
“No,” said John. “Slaves. They are importing slaves from Washington Colony.” He handed Sherlock the yellow sheet. “Apples - women. Nuts - men. Crude. The weight would be their ages. Notice that they all are between 18 and 35. That’s the prime age for slaves.”
A broad smile creeped across Sherlock’s face. He impulsively grabbed John around the shoulders and squeezed. “Oh, yes. I knew you’d be useful to me. I knew it. Yes, exactly right. The Seattle police must in in on it. And their jailers as well. There simply aren’t enough slaves to feed the needs of these bigger companies. And what with the disruptions in supply from Oregon, it looks as if it’s sister colony has taken up the slack with a bit of illegal entrepreneurship. The British company gets slaves on demand, Washington colony keeps the all the cash. The Empire gets nothing.” Sherlock let him go and began rifling through he files John had looked at and discarded.
The disruptions in supply from Oregon… John sat back, feeling sick. “Are you suggesting that what I was doing in Oregon lead to this company selling illegal slaves here?”
Sherlock looked up. “What?” his voice was tinged with irritation. “Oh, you feel guilty.” Sherlock nearly spat the words, so heavy was his distain. “Done’s done, John. You can’t blow up the records of twenty-thousand slaves and cause the cancellation of eight major auctions without there being some fall out. The hunger for slaves remains steady, even if the supply dwindles. Those with the resources will get their pounds of human flesh one way or another, and criminals will fill in where legitimate authorities fail.” Sherlock was giving John only half his attention. The rest was to a large file of yellow manifests. “It’s always the way of things, above board or black market - until the demand is gone, there will always be a supply.”
John pressed his lips together. “How do you propose we get rid of the demand?”
“I don’t propose anything. Not my area, John,” said Sherlock. “If you really care to know, solving problems of that nature is more Mycroft’s love. Next Wednesday you can bring it up with him.”
John snorted. “But he likes slavery. It makes a lot of money for the crown.”
Sherlock shrugged. “Well, that would be a problem then. Forgive me, John, I know this is a huge matter to you, but matters of politics and policy are a dreadful bore, and I have an actual crime here to work on. And it keeps getting bigger and more deliciously complicated as time passes. So, take these,” Sherlock put several files in John’s hands, “And give me the names of everyone you can find. If I’m to get ahead of the murderer, I need to know who he’s targeting next.”
Another corpse was found an hour later, this time in a posh hotel next to Heathrow. Though it was the third found, the tally mark was up to five. Somewhere out there were two other bodies. The team investigating had swollen. Gregsson and Dimmock were now on board. Neither of them liked Sherlock much, but they were resigned to his interference. From little John could glean from their expressions and indirect responses, it was more a matter of bruised professional pride than anything else. They didn’t like the fact that Sherlock had shown them up in the past, and they weren’t very excited to see him doing it now either.
Sherlock was oblivious to the chilly looks. His eyes danced and his wiry body grew more energetic as the day went on. Now he examined the corpse of a charter airline pilot. His corpse was a bit less brutalised than the previous two, but still quite, quite dead. “He’s tiring,” said Sherlock gleefully. “The fires are burning out. He’ll slip up soon.”
“Not soon enough for this man,” said John staring at the body.
“Oh, well, don’t waste too many tears for him. He transported slaves he had no right to. You saw the plane.”
John had. The converted DC-9 had a luxurious forward section. Comfortable chairs, full galley, entertainment systems. Through a hidden door in the rear was another matter. The jet had been stripped to the ribbing and fitted with manacles. It’s human cargo had not been released to relieve themselves for the long trans-atlantic flight. Urine, blood, vomit and worse, had been left smeared about. The smell was abominable.
“How many more bodies do you think there’ll be?” John asked.
“If I knew that,” said Sherlock. “It would be none.”
Eventually someone woke up in Washington and was able to cough up the name of their suspected murderer. Danny Fryling, caucasian, a very tough looking young prison guard with, as Sherlock had suggested, a very unattractive face. His nose had been obviously broken, more than once, his ears had the cauliflower appearance of a boxer’s. Flight lists concluded he’d flown in the day before.
They raced as quickly as they could to his hotel room, a seedy, cheap bed-and-breakfast in the centre of London. The dark, grubby room showed little sign of use. A slept in bed. A suitcase left open on the floor. A few items of clothing still neatly folded inside.
A note tucked down at the bottom.
Lestrade popped the paper into a clear evidence bag, then let Sherlock read it. John watched him scan the sheet and hand it back. “That’s that then,” he said after a minute. He sighed as if disappointed. “I believe you can handle the rest from here, Lestrade. Call me if his corpse isn’t found, but I suspect that he’ll be with Mr. Andrews.”
John never did read the note, but the contents came out in the cab drive back to 221B. “He was approached two months ago to help select and transport of prisoners from the Seattle Jail to the airport for a flight to England. They were looking for non-violent offenders, addicts, vagrants, prostitutes, anyone who was not promptly bailed out and appeared to have no one who would raise a fuss for their loss. For his efforts he would be paid an extra thousand dollars per month and have the choicest shifts at the jail. The work was presented in a way that made it seem almost legal. It was extremely tempting for a young man looking forward to his marriage.
“At first the only thing that prickled his conscience was that none of the potential slaves had been convicted of their crimes, and many were there for misdemeanours that would not warrant collaring. However they were also those who seemed likely to reoffend, and as a guard, he knew that many would end up in a collar after a few years anyway. Why not cut to the chase and earn some extra money?”
“Despite minor misgivings, Fryling played along for a month - long enough to be sent to England to meet his employers and see their operations. And that was their mistake. Fryling, while superficially callous and indifferent to his charges, nonetheless had a core of inner decency that they hadn’t counted on. Put plainly: He was horrified by the inhuman conditions that the slaves were kept in. He had been naive enough to think that selling homeless addicts to work in a factory in England might actually help give them a better life. He could not justify his actions once he saw his charges being left to languish in their own filth for days, then taken to a factory where they were chained to their machines, and kept crammed together without any regard to modesty or hygiene in dank, underground barracks. Every law concerning the treatment of slaves was flagrantly violated. It was impossible to believe that what he was doing was for the good of anyone but his employers. Fryling was utterly devastated.
“Somehow Fryling was able to maintain an facade of not caring until he reached Washington. Then he confessed to his fiance. When the morning came he was still on the fence about reporting, but she was not, figuring that while some of the Police force were in cahoots, surely all of them weren’t. While he was at work, she stopped by the police department. Fryling never knew what she said to whom there, but soon after she left, she was shot on the street in a poorly investigated drive-by. And that’s when he began planning his revenge. He was known to these people, so when he contacted them asking for a meeting to help facilitate the transfer of slaves, they each were willing to make appointments with him. It’s possible they knew nothing about his fiance.”
Sherlock sighed. “He didn’t say why he chose to take the people out in England rather than those closer to home who he knew were directly involved with her death. Perhaps he considered the English to be ultimately more at fault. Perhaps he knew that any scandal involving English end of things would eventually lead back to Washington and take down his enemies there. Perhaps it was simply because the people here had never been his friends. We’ll never know.”
Sherlock’s phone buzzed and he looked at the text. “They’ve found Frying. He hanged himself after killing the head of the Sussex textile factory in his Hampstead home. Seven dead in twelve hours. Not a bad score. A bit anticlimactic, but overall not a bad days diversion.”
Diversion, thought John. Is that all Sherlock thought of it as? It was a fucking tragedy. “What will happen to the slaves?” asked John.
“I really have no idea,” said Sherlock. “And I honestly don’t care. Lestrade will sort it out.” Sherlock’s phone buzzed again.
Suddenly John remembered his plans for the day. He had to call Sarah! It was already past seven pm. Late for coffee, but perhaps not too late. And Sherlock seemed to be in a generous mood.
Keeping his voice calm, he said, “I need to go to the store.” He’d take out the trash, retrieve the phone from behind the skip and maybe talk Sarah into the cafe inside Tescos. Not the most romantic first date, but she might find it quirky enough to be charming.
But Sherlock shook his head. “Not tonight, John. Do you really need a daily sojourn from me? I thought we got along rather well together. And I believe we’ve both done enough leg work for the day.”
“But we haven’t any food,” said John.
“How about ordering take out and having it delivered. I’m rather in the mood for curry.”
John swallowed. Damn it. There was nothing for it but to order the curry and then pay for it when it was delivered. After cleaning up the boxes, John tried to take the sack of trash down to the skip. John’s heart thumped. At least he could give Sarah a call and tell her that he wasn’t blowing her off.
But again Sherlock told him to stop. “Oh, John. Do relax. The rubbish can wait until tomorrow. You’ve earned an evening off. Rest. Cruise the internet, watch telly, write your blog. Yes, that last one. You finally have something a bit more interesting to blog about than soup and pedantic abolitionist rhetoric.”
Pedantic abolitionist rhetoric? Is that what Sherlock thought about it? How could Sherlock work on a case all day that so absolutely outlined the horrors of slavery and still come up with such a callous dismissal of abolitionism?
Sherlock’s eyes met his and then he rolled them. “Oh, have I disappointed you, John? Was seeing the dreadful treatment of those slaves supposed to melt my heart to your cause? Is that what you thought I’d get out of this experience?”
“How can you feel nothing for them?” asked John. “How is it even human not to when you see people like that.”
Sherlock’s eyes grew dark. “I’m afraid you’ll discover that being heartless comes easy to me, John. I’m in a really good mood about you right now, John but I don’t suggest you push it. Write. Keep Mycroft off our back. And stop defying me, I’m actually trying to be nice.”
John did not call Sarah that night.
Chapter 6