Lost in Memories

"Tell your people to go back and train their pursuit skills. Even if they were chasing a desperado, they should have at least gotten on their trail."

The neurotoxin had dulled his mind for a time. Ignoring the attempts to stop him, he forced himself awake. He filled the sink with ice, plunged his head into it, and forced his logical thinking back into motion.

Water splashed as the piercing cold and suffocation made Sherlock's nerves contract sharply. His brainpower temporarily returned to its former level. He dried his face and drove everyone out of the room except Mycroft.

Without bothering to find a place, he spread the documents out one by one on the floor, searching for connections. The black pen the nurse had left behind served perfectly for drawing arrows to untangle the puzzle.

"Victor Trevor, the youngest son of the second young master of the Trevor family. His father was an army major who served as head of security at the Royal Academy for a long time. He had close ties to Ashton, but suddenly cut off contact one day afterward."

"He'd just lost his youngest son and still had to help raise someone else's child. Anyone would find that impossible to accept. That's normal."

"No, that isn't important. What have I forgotten, Mycroft?" Sherlock stood up and looked his older brother in the eye.

"I already know. Redbeard was never a dog. Our family never had a dog at all. It was Victor." Sherlock had already pieced together Victor's background while unconscious, but there was still something very important he couldn't remember. His intuition told him it was the key to everything.

Sherlock's voice was low, every syllable sounding as though he were chewing broken glass. "That army major who often visited Mother was his father, wasn't he? I remembered that summer, the child who stayed with us at the ancestral manor."

"No one knows where he was abandoned. In my memories, I wasn't punished either. I was the victim instead. So who was the suspect in this?"

"Defense mechanisms really are remarkable things. It managed to deceive my brain, covering up and rewriting my memories, but the nursery rhyme never stopped echoing in my ears."

The memories sealed away by the defense mechanism were coming back to him, a process that was undoubtedly painful. Sherlock's voice was calm, though his eyes were already bloodshot. "I need to know the purest truth, Mycroft."

"But the reality is that the truth is rarely pure and never simple." Mycroft considered it a well-meaning reminder, but the sadness in Sherlock's eyes made him hesitate.

"Who is she?"

Mycroft opened his mouth, but in the end chose to guide him indirectly. He had protected his younger brother and sister alone for so many years to keep that bond from being severed completely.

"The memories will resurface, and the wounds will open again, Sherlock."

"At intervals, I used potential trigger words to monitor changes in your mental state. Of course, I was really looking after you."

"Hypnosis. Brainwashing." Sherlock spat out the two words coldly.

"Eurus Holmes." Mycroft finally handed him the photograph, the true family portrait taken down from its frame at the Holmes home and left to gather dust for more than twenty years.

Mr. and Mrs. Holmes stood at the back, their three children in front of them. Sherlock was around eight or nine in the photograph.

The chubby, guileless-looking Mycroft stood on the far left, their father's hand on his shoulder. Sherlock stood in the middle, holding his brother's and sister's hands. The little girl on the far right was as tall as Sherlock, but her cute, childish face was unsmiling.

"Our biological sister, one year younger than you. Our abilities were professionally assessed several times. You were a clever child, while I was exceptionally clever. Yes, the kind who was much cleverer than you."

"But Eurus was a true once-in-a-century genius, surpassing even Newton."

"Then why don't I remember a single thing about her?" Fine beads of sweat appeared on Sherlock's forehead, and veins bulged at his temples as he forced his way into the memories beginning to surface. "Get me high-concentration nicotine patches!"

"Do you remember the playroom? The one in the old house." Mycroft was about to say more when someone pounded on the hospital room door.

"Sir, we've found the locations of both hostages."

"Where?"

"Mr. John Watson is currently at the bottom of a well on an abandoned estate in western Sussex. Our agents successfully infiltrated the surrounding area, but a large pump truck has been placed over the well, loaded with a huge amount of explosives. The bomb disposal experts are on their way. We don't dare act rashly for now."

"Musgrave Manor?" "That's the place."

Sherlock's head was splitting. The neurotoxin's effects ran far deeper than he had imagined.

"We don't have Miss Sitangna's exact location, but the tracker previously installed in the diamond necklace showed that her last movement was at-Sherrinford Prison on Sea Reef Island."

"Sherrinford?" Mycroft pressed a hand to his forehead. No wonder a helicopter had been used to abduct her.

"Mycroft, take the agents to rescue Watson. Arrange for me to enter Sherrinford on an official inspection." Without stopping to change, Sherlock took the coat from the rack and pulled it on over his hospital gown.

"One more thing, sir. Mr. Watson's condition is currently rather bad. The temperature at the bottom of the well is low. If we can't rescue him within an hour and a half, he'll be at risk of dying from hypothermia."

"Operator, call the warden of Sherrinford Prison immediately." Mycroft's expression turned cold. It turned out the surveillance had been a smokescreen; the prison's main problem lay with its leadership.

Given Eurus's abilities, presumably all of Sherrinford was under her control.

"Listen, David, I don't care whose orders you're taking now. You'd better make sure Miss Sitangna is safe."

Eurus had abducted the two people most important to Sherlock at once and placed them in different locations. She wouldn't act rashly, at least not before she achieved her goal.

"Long time no see, dear big brother~" Mycroft's anger was instantly extinguished. It was Eurus on the other end of the line. It seemed she had taken complete control of Sherrinford.

"Don't worry. I promise Miss Nana will be perfectly safe until Sherlock arrives. Now, are you getting ready to go save poor Little John?"

Eurus's sly voice came through the phone, and the hazy memory in Sherlock's mind became clear in an instant. He pushed open a door, and a little girl with pigtails was standing inside.

"Good luck. I'll be waiting for the good news." The call ended. Mycroft's jaw muscles bulged, and a sense of helplessness rose in him and spread through his body. The situation was no longer within his control.

"Have the plane standing by. Depart for Musgrave Manor immediately. After I land, take Sherlock to Sherrinford."

"Sir, there seems to be a puzzle on the body of the pump truck above the well. The prompt is just one word: memories."

"Memories, Sherlock." Mycroft pulled out a loaded pistol and pressed it into his arms. "She only ever liked playing with you when we were little. If you want to save Watson, you'll have to solve the puzzle yourself."

The helicopter's rotors whipped the air around them. Mycroft held his younger brother's head in both hands, forcing him to calm down. Seeing the redness in his eyes from forcing his brain to work, he couldn't help feeling sorry for him.