The Fall - Sherlock Fanfic 2

Chapter 9

Sherlock had gotten through three packs of nicotine patches in three days. It was insane - how could one person need so much help from nicotine to stop his craving to smoke? i thought it was crazy - but then again, he was a psychopath.

Sorry.

I meant a high-functioning sociopath.

School was boring, as ever, but it was worth putting up with - I got to hang out with Allie, didn't I? It was so good to have a friend who would just sit at the back, not really listening, and talk with me for the whole lesson, whatever the teachers said. Allie didn't bother with school seriously, either - her parents hurt her anyway, they couldn't punish her any more than they already did, but I doubt they even knew what her levels were.

Don't get me wrong; my friends talked to me during lessons in Southend. but not as much as Allie would - they had to pay attention.

Alice had always been worried about getting into trouble, so she mainly kept her head down and did the work immedeatly when she was told to, and didn't speak when the teacher was trying to teach. Helena and Natasha would always talk to me, but as soon as the teachers pulled the 'Warning' card (meaning, they said, 'stop talking or I'll put your name on the board'), they stopped and listened. Izzy was always worried about teachers phoning home, because they always said, 'Be quiet, or I'll be phoning home,' and talking to Mycroft. But the whole 'Phoning Home' thing was an empty threat - the teachers would only say that to scare you, seeing as those two minutes it takes to find your phone number (typing your name into the school database and clicking on 'Phone Number, then dialling it into a phone and pressing 'Call') are two minutes too many, and they 'Never get around to it.' And anyway, if they did call Mycroft about me and Izzy, the conversation between him and us after he was done on the phone would have gone a bit like this:

Mycroft: Apparently, you two hve been misbehaving in class lately. Is this true?

Izzy: Yes, we have.

Me: We spoke to each other whilst the teacher was trying to explain that you have to write 'Would Have' instead of 'Would Of'.

Izzy: Because, we are so terrible at English, seeing as he gives us level 8's, whilst he isn't supposed to award above a level 7.

Me: So, obviously, we don't know how to be gramatically correct in the simplest sentences.

Izzy: Because we are so dumb.

Me: We are only the smartest people in our class, we need to hear the lectures our teacher gives on all of these stupidly obviously things! It will so make a difference, him boring us out of our minds to tell us things we already know very well.

Mycroft: Okay, never mind. That's all very true.

I really didn't see why Izzy ws so worried.

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Monday: Boring

Tuesday: Boring

Wednesday: Boring

Thursday: Slightly interesting.

Okay, very interesting.

And sad.

Especially when combined with what happend the week later.

Let's just say school was a place I wanted to go to a lot less, now.

On Thursday, Allie wasn't in school. If i knew two things about her (other than the things about her brother and parents hurting her) were that a) She would never ditch school without permisson, and she would tell me, and b) Her parents hadn't let her have a day off school - well, Allie never asked. Getting away from home for six hours a day every weekday seemed pretty good to her - well, it would, seeing the way she lived .

So, it looked weird.

I texted her - she always replied to my texts withing five minutes. If she was off school sick, her parents would have called the school to tell them, and her name wasnt marked with an I (for ill) on the register. So she wasn't ill. The only other explanation was that she was ditching - but she would have told me, I knew it.

So something must be seriously wrong.

So many possibilities ran through my head, but I had been taught a few things from Sherlock since I moved in - Once you have eliminated the impossble, whatever is left, however improbably, is what must have happened.

So there were three options:

She had been kidnapped.

She was ditching, and she hadn't told me.

She had run away from home.

The former was more probable.

That wasn't just me saying, 'Oh, she's my friend, she'd tell me anything,' like most people. I meant, that I had called her phone, and it cut straight to voicemail. This meant her phone was off, or out of battery. And Allie always had her phone on and charged, even if it wasn't with her. She could have forgotten it, easy, but I thought that unlikely. But it was still possible.

As for running away, she had nowhere to go. She doesn't know my adress - she would've had to come to school to mind me for help. She had no other family or friends, I knew that, and she woukd have been found by the police by now if she was on the streets. Or by me. That's why I knew she wasnt dead in an alley somewhere - yet, I had to add, reluctantly - because she definatly would have been found. Killers are generally bad at hiding bodies. She had no money - she wouldn't have been stupid enough to take that risk, or at least, I didn't think so, but she still could have.

Kidnapped on the way to school... that was possible. The kidnapper would have taken her phone. Because thats what people do - they offer pretty, injured-looking girls help, but trick them into coming along with them. But Allie knew how to hold back the pain - it seemed doubtful, but I thought it the most likely possibility.

But there was a fourth option, one that I didn't want to consider. But it could happen, so I had to. And, when I thought about it, it was the most likely. Because everything that I thought could possibly contradict it, I could also contradict again.

The option was that she had been killed.

And the killer did have a good hiding place for her body. Because he had a house that she had been hidden in.

She had been killed...

By her brother.