Paths Woven

Prologue - Elly

A little girl was hiding behind a couch in her flat.

"Tell me where your daughter is! I need her! Tell me or you die!" A man with black hair and dangerously glittering eyes was holding her father by the shirt, a gun pressed to his forehead.

"No! I will do whatever it takes to keep her away from you! You're a psychopath and she must be protected from your kind!"

The girl wanted to scream, cry out, save her father. But her daddy had told her that at no cost should she reveal her hiding place. She had tears streaming down her face, her throat sore from holding in the sobs.

"TELL ME!!!" The man roared.

"NEVER!!"

"Then I guess you'll have to DIE!!"

The stranger pulled the trigger and her father fell to the floor, blood seeping out from a perfectly circular hole in his forehead.

"Daddy!"

She scrambled to the laundry chute, and the man saw her and shot several rounds until the bullets ran out. She cried out in pain, but kept running. A single shot hit her back and the piece of metal stayed inside her as she escaped up the narrow pipe.

Once she was out, she ran, jumping into the back of a truck that was on its way to London. Not just anywhere in London, though. A very specific flat.

It took her five hours and a stolen map to find the place. At last, she beheld the door she had been searching for for so long.

221b Baker Street.

She stumbled to the door and began pounding on it as hard as she could.

*****

John heard furious knocking at the door. It got weaker as he ran to answer it. He opened it and a small girl, maybe ten, tumbled into his arms. She looked up and he saw his brother's eyes in the child. He helped her inside. John could see a bullet wound in her back. She started coughing, covering her mouth with her hands. When she pulled them away they were covered in a thick, wet crimson. She collapsed and John caught her just before she hit the ground.

"Sherlock!"

*****

John and Sherlock had carried the girl between them up the stairs to 221b. She was currently on the dining table, unconscious, John examining her injuries. She was a teensy little thing, no taller than four feet, with slim arms and legs.

"One of her lungs collapsed. You called the ambulance already?"

"Of course. They're on their way now. I believe you recognize the girl?"

"I think she's my niece. I mean, her eyes, they're the same as my brother's."

"Are they blue?"

"No. Black. Unusual, I know. My brother was the only one for five generations that had them. Apparently she inherited them."

Sirens blared down the street. The EMS personnel (and Molly) ran in to retrieve the girl. They gently lifted her onto a stretcher, rushing to the ambulance. Molly turned around and said to John,

"I'll call your cell when she's stable. Follow us if you want to."

John promptly ran outside to his car to follow the ambulance to Barts. Sherlock dashed after him. What he managed to deduct from the girl interested him. He wanted to know more.

When they arrived at the hospital John was the first inside. He ran to the front desk and asked where the ambulance patient was. The woman said floor two, room twenty one. Sherlock raced after him. They waited outside the door until Molly let them in. When she did, an hour or two later, they saw the girl on the bed, several machines attached to her tiny body. She had bandages wrapped all around her waist, obviously from emergency surgery. Her heart was still beating and she was breathing. John walked over to her and held her hand. She let out a soft groan, opening her eyes. She looked at John.