ᴀꜱʏʟᴜᴍ :: ᴛ.ꜱʜᴇʟʙʏ

xix: vengeful angels

Even the shadows of the anteroom were painfully familiar, like a vision torn from an old nightmare, the agony grown dusty with age.

As the door fell shut, the thunderous roar of the crowd at Tommy's back fell to complete silence, leaving only the quiet sound of his footsteps against the tile. In the half-light, he strode to the centre of the anteroom and cast his gaze around it, mapping out where others had once stood.

There: the foul priest from Section D, who had met his rightful end at Michael Gray's hand. Black cat or no, Tommy could acknowledge a deed well done, and a deed deserved. That pitiful excuse for a man of God had deserved every inch of pain he received at the end of Michael's blade.

And there: the bald fucker from the House of Commons, his lips curling in a sneer whenever Tommy said a word he disliked. To this day, Jarvis looked upon Tommy in the House with that curdled disdain in his eyes, forever a rotten seed in the heart of England. Tommy spat at the memory of him, then lifted his cigarette to his lips. He would have hoped he, too, was rolling in his grave—but the Peaky Blinders had not been lucky enough to gift him with one. Yet.

Light flickered at the end of a match, and heady smoke clawed its way into Tommy's lungs when he breathed. He stared into the dark and refused to close his eyes. He knew what he would see behind his lids, the torture of it, the jagged edges of a broken heart and the slick feeling of bloodied hands, calloused from the blades and the shovels. He had spent six lifetimes washing his hands and her blood and the mud had never cleaned from them.

Ah. So it seemed he could see the nightmares with his eyes open, too. A faint, humourless smile twisted his lips, there then gone in an instant. Of course he could; he always had.

The gold band of Tommy's wedding ring pressed into his skin as his fingers furled into a fist, and somehow it felt like a sapphire, as fat as an egg and ten times as heavy. It felt like a curse. It felt like the weight of remorse and the desolation of knowing that he could die one thousand deaths and never feel the mercy of the angels. The angels, for him, were vengeful gods, and they would tear him limb from limb before they allowed him to taste a smile.

Just outside, mere minutes prior, people had danced over the place where she had died, laughing and spinning in wide circles, their heels clicking and dresses swaying with the sleek movements of the Charleston. What was a dancefloor to them was a bloodstain to him. What was a splendid hall of gold was to him a mausoleum, a hall of ghosts, each of them chanting his name.

And her. Above all, her, reaching out from the dark.

"Get away from here, Grace," he murmured, speaking into the dimness. He breathed slow, breathed smoke, and tried to let it calm him. Here, in this hell, he could not afford to lose his wits. "Leave this place." He tipped his head back and exhaled, and a plume of smoke rose to the ceiling. "Stay where it's warm."

The door opened, and so did Tommy's eyes. He didn't move, but he listened as the door closed again, and to the sound of soft footsteps as they trailed uncertainly into the room and stopped a few feet shy of him. It was a woman, but it wasn't Lizzie; he knew her bold stride.