Shelby Madness

Chapter 39,'I have an announcement to make'.

3rd December 1919, Small Heath Birmingham

Thomas Shelby's screams echoed through Garrison lane, a bullet had been lodged in his chest in a showdown with Kimber. Jeremiah Jesus, veteran of the Small Heath Rifles and ex comrade of the Shelby boys was desperately digging for the logged bullet in Thomas' shoulder

His son, Isaiah, meanwhile was comforting the wounded man's daughter. Libby was clinging to him like he might disappear if she let go. Everytime Tommy screamed, Libby winced.

She hated the fact that her father, the man that many feared and even more envied, was crying in pain.  "I can't listen to this." Libby claimed, unwrapping herself from Isaiah, "I'm going for some air."

"Do you want me to come with you?" Isaiah asked, their relationship was still secret except from Ada and Freddie who had been spying on the two that day on the river bank and seen them kissing, John and James who had walked passed them on that same field when they were kissing a couple of weeks later, Esme who had know since her wedding to John because apparently, 'her vardo wasn't a good hiding place to have a snog', Polly who knew the matters of the heart very well and the fact Ada had blabbed, Jeremiah knew when he had walked in on Libby and Isaiah in his room one day when he was meant to be out preaching and lastly Arthur and Finn because John couldn't keep his mouth shut. So basically the whole Shelby family minus Tommy knew but they had all been sworn to secrecy so now one knew the others knew.

"No, I'll be fine, just need to breathe." Libby reassured her boyfriend.

Libby didn't smoke unlike her brother, who never seemed to have a tab out of his mouth. He was very much like their father in that aspect whereas she was like their mother, who according to Polly had never smoked and despised the habit their father and his brothers had picked up.

That, however, wasn't the mother she remembered. The woman she remembered would bring random men home and sleep with them for money infront of her children's eyes, allow men to burn them with their cigarettes to put them out, maybe that's why Libby didn't like cigarettes, bad memories.

Maddy would leave her kids alone for days on end, only to return off her face on whatever drug she could get her hands on and scream in hers and James' faces until they cried.

Libby had never told the Shelbys or anyone for that matter the abuse she and James suffered, she in a way didn't want her father to know and feel guilty, feel like it was his fault his kids had no childhood, even though for years Libby had blamed the man in the picture her mother had given her.

She blamed him for not being there but in reality it wasn't his fault, he didn't know and as soon as he found out he came for them, even after Libby's stunt of running away, he refused to leave them.

The Shelby's had opened their home to two kids who shared nothing with them apart from the obvious one, Tommy was their dad. He wasn't the best dad at the start and he would be the first to admit that but John had stepped  up and made sure the pair mended their relationship.

Before the 18th of april 1919, Libby could honestly say she had never felt the true love of a parent but now there was an abundance of people behind her, supporting her and wanting her to do better than they had done.

9 months ago, Libby had sat on the banks of the Tyne and thought about ending it all but something stopped her and as bad as it sounds it wasn't James, she knew he would struggle a bit at first but after he gout over it he would be fine, he always was. No, it was something else but that what yet was still unknown.

Libby has not released how long she had been standing outside until Polly had come to find her, "Libby, darling, are you alright?" Polly asked, she always had this way, although Polly could be a cold hearted bitch she always had this maternal look about her, Libby just wondered why she hadn't had her own kids.