holmes ➢ sequel to athena

Chapter Eleven

Crippling Feelings and Late Night Starbucks Runs

A scream pierced the air, drawing attention from bystanders on the street. She felt like such an idiot as they stared up at her. She got herself in this situation and for what?

She heard him cock the gun again, and her stomach flipped. There was no way Athena could take the chance and hope he missed again. So she did probably the stupidest, most dangerous, wildest thing she had probably ever done.

She let go.

A few people below her screamed, and she heard the sirens of Scotland Yard growing louder and louder, but all she could do was let herself free fall into the ground.

If she was going to die it would be on her own terms.

"ATHENA!"

She truly didn't have the capacity to gulp down the lump in her throat at the sound of John's nearby cry. As she flew down and down like a rag doll, she heard him, and she found the strength to curl into a ball as she fell.

The impact came as a bullet landed five feet to her left. Hard and earth shattering, she crashed knees and elbows first into the pavement. A loud CRACK rang through the air. The rest of her body gave out and hit the ground a bit softer. Her forehead felt hot and sticky like blood was pooling out.

The sides of her vision darkened, slowly, like the vignette of an awful Instagram photo. Everything in her line of sight looked wavy. She thought she was people's feet around her.

"ATHENA! ATHENA! MOVE THATS MY DAUGHTER!"

She couldn't tell if that was John or Sherlock. She couldn't really process anything well.

Was she dying? She felt hazy, like everything was underwater.

A groan fell from her lips as someone picked her up. Everything grew a tiny bit darker.

"Joseph..." she choked.

A small bit of chatter came crashing into her ears, something she couldn't quite make out. A hand gripped hers, making the fractured bones in her hands ache and scream loudly. She didn't really have the energy to fight it.

A moment later, she was in the back of an ambulance, and people were attaching her to numerous machines.

Then, she lost consciousness.

***

Where was she?

The walls burned white into her corneas, and everything smelled like Clorox. Her head pounded with a vengeance and her mouth felt like she swallowed sand.

"What the hell?" she groaned as her sight slowly adjusted.

Both of her arms and a leg were in casts, a bandage was wrapped around her head, and a large bandage over huge amounts of gauze rested on her stomach. What happened to her?

"Athena?" she heard someone say. Who was that?

A man with curly black hair stood next to her bed, caressing her hand. He was wearing a disheveled peacoat, his eyes looked tired and dull. The skin around them was puffy and red.