Moriarty's Musician

Knowledge Is Power, Part 4

Moriarty hiked along the river's edge, every so often glancing at the phone in his hand. The blip continued to mock him from the other side of the river. And with every step over the rough terrain, his shoulder throbbed all the more.

If Meg had known how much pain he was in, she would have insisted he stay in bed. She cared for him more than he deserved. She had always been there, a lifeline for him after his mother was killed. And he had almost lost her too.

Moriarty's mind wandered back to his conversation with Meg in the study. She said he was becoming more and more like his stepfather. His foot caught on an overturned stone, and he jerked his body to keep his balance, sending more waves of pain racing through him. With a deep breath, he leaned against a tree.

Mind over pain, isn't that what he had taught himself those many years before? His stepfather forced his mother to sit and watch her son's beatings while she begged the man to stop. It made his young heart grow colder as he met his stepfather's eyes. And as his mother clutched his battered body to her chest and cried into his hair, James Moriarty hardly heard.

The loud squawk of a bird sounded over Moriarty's head, yanking him back to the present. He wiped his hand across his mouth and pushed off the tree. He had to keep going. He swallowed down the bile in his mouth as visions of Byron touching Annabelle, kissing Annabelle, clouded his mind. His feet quickened.

He glanced down again, gripping the phone in his hand. The blip was somewhere past the small town of Glengarriff. He had to keep moving and find that part of the river narrowing enough for him to get across.

Moriarty kept pace, pushing away the low-hanging branches with his good arm as his eyes darted from the water to only a few feet in front of him. He could hardly see past the densely packed trees to plan his next steps as he tried not to fall into the river. All he could do was to keep pushing through the brush and hope his memory wasn't wrong.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Annabelle rested her hands on the sink as she stared up at her reflection. She almost didn't recognize herself. One side of her face was swollen from her eye down to her cheek, the other side had an ugly bluish bruise that traveled over her cheek and across her jaw.

She closed her eyes and slowly sat down on the edge of the bathtub. What was she going to do? With a deep sigh, Annabelle pushed in the bath stopper, turned on both faucets, and let the movement of the water caress her fingers.

She searched her mind for the music. She needed it. She needed to escape. It was there — it had to be!

She tried concentrating harder, but it was no use. Her head filled with a dull ache as she stood and pulled off her shirt. Where was the music? Why couldn't she hear it?

She tried releasing the button on her jeans, but it hardly budged without using both hands. She wanted to scream in frustration. Renewed tears ached in her throat, but she couldn't cry. She needed courage, not tears.

At that moment, the image of the toy soldier melting in the fire found its way into her mind. Annabelle leaned against the wall. She couldn't even hold onto a toy soldier. How could she hold onto what little courage she had left? Her hand strayed into the pocket of her jeans where the toy soldier had rested.

And as the sound of the water-filled the room, Annabelle's breath caught in her throat. Her fingers reached deeper into her pocket and pulled out the last bullet.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Numbers. Moriarty thrived in their complexity during those many years of study. Mathematics propelled him forward into a world he could finally control, to calculate. Numbers were impersonal. They didn't feel pain or suffer trauma; they never asked you to become weaker so another could be stronger. They never loved, and they never lost. They were always there, ready to be wielded with precision down to their smallest common denominator or as high as infinity.

There was power in numbers, and on their back, Moriarty launched himself to the highest possible standing in his graduating class. He quickly obtained his master's degree, and soon after, his doctorate in Mathematics, giving him the ultimate power. He was sought after by leading universities and academics, his theories hailed as genius. He was at the pinnacle of success in his career.

But there was a dark side — his dark side. He hated. The blackness constantly ate away at him.

Moriarty stared down at the river as he braced himself against a tree. The river's rushing flow was beginning to subside. Stepping around a large stone, he pushed away another overhang of branches and exhaled deeply. The river had indeed narrowed, and he could see the crown of rocks peeking out from the flowing water. He moved forward until he was in line with them, and suddenly he was a child again.

All those times he had dared himself to hop across the rocks made a corner of Moriarty's mouth curl. It was a dangerous game he played as a boy. One wrong step could have sent him careening into the river, and who knows what would have happened after that. He had never learned to swim.

The bird was back, squawking loudly this time as it flew over his head, and Moriarty had to squint to see it. The setting sun glared mockingly at him through the trees. The light was nearly gone, and the coming darkness would make it even more challenging to get through the woods, let alone across the river.

His eyes followed the bird as it found its way to a tree on the other side of the water. It sat quietly, watching him, waiting to see if he had the courage to cross despite the water flowing over the rocks.

Scowling, he took a deep breath and looked down at his phone. The blip called to him. It wouldn't be long now. He secured the phone in his pocket and focused on the first rock.

It was just like math. Baby math. One plus one. He set his foot on the first rock jutting out from the edge of the river. It was slippery. The bird squawked from the branch, and Moriarty resisted the urge to bend down to throw a stone at it.

"Quiet, you little bastard," Moriarty yelled at the bird.

He focused on the next rock. Two plus one. He stretched his leg and pushed off the stone and found his footing on the next and then the next. He gritted his teeth against the wrench of his shoulder as he struggled to balance on the rocks. And as the other side of the river came closer, the water level increased as well.

Moriarty's chest tightened. The water was now streaming over his shoes, up to his ankle, and he was only half-way across, smack in the middle of the river. He turned his head and stared upstream. The water was coming right for him.

He had a death wish when he was a child, always challenging, always tempting fate. When he was a boy, anger propelled him across the river. Anger and the desperate need for something though he never knew what it was.

Trying to ignore the threads of doubt gripping his chest, Moriarty moved his foot to the next rock... and the bird bellowed another loud, nerve-rattling squawk. He jerked his body to keep his balance and brought his foot back, glaring up at the bird who cocked its head and met his eyes.

Rage blinded Moriarty. He reached into his side holster and pulled out his gun, aiming at the bird and firing. The action made him slip on the rock and drop his gun as he tried to regain his balance.

And as the water rushed around him, Moriarty's mouth compressed into a hard line as he watched his gun, his only gun, disappear into the depths of the river.

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Here we are! As always, thank you for reading. And I love reading all your comments. You keep me writing this story about Moriarty and Annabelle. If you like this chapter and are looking forward to more, would you mind giving me a vote/star? I can see them come through my phone and it helps me stay motivated to keep writing! I can't express to you how much.

Thanks again for reading! ❤