The stench of death permeated the air, until not a single breath was spared from the oxidized burn of bloodshed and loss. A bitter coating, like the particles of oxygen were suddenly bathed in the metallic bite of her blood and suddenly the smoke that lined Thomas Shelby's lungs, no longer seemed to be the densest matter to cloak them in an aching element.
Through shallow inhales, the scent he knew all too well from this cursed life, carried over his senses. Like it was a red river running down stream, gliding down his throat in a narrow trickle of thick, heavy moisture, until he could just about taste the splatter of lost droplets on the tip of his tongue.
It was a sensation he'd known since the moment his bullet tore through that Prussian boy not much older than him, the one whose name would forever remain a mystery, but whose piercing eyes of green would haunt him until the day the devils came back to claim him.
Tommy knew what it felt like, when it oozed through the creased lines of his palms like thin canals, never to be cleansed. He knew what it smelled like, when it burned his senses as it dripped down from the blades once rimmed along his peaky cap, staining itself into the fabric of stitched tweed. He was not a stranger to bloodshed, his life rather bled at the seams of his war-torn mind that he'd poorly sewn back together, his sight bathed with an evocative taint of crimson.
But even with the mark of the devil etched on the flesh of his hands and the weight of restless souls burdening his weary conscious, Thomas Shelby knew no amount of life taken by his own doing or witnessed by his own eyes, could ever make watching it seep from that of the one he'd allowed his heart to love any easier.
The rain hadn't ceased since it'd begun the night before, when the gunshot rang out and the resounding bang of a bullet ignited the floods from the heavens above. As the echoing sensation of the gun clattering to the ground and the rush of chaos ensued, the clouds blew in and rained vengeance down upon the misery laden streets of Birmingham.
Thunder roared as though it were the Gods shouting with outrage and anguish, lightening flickering across the ebony-stained sky like Zeus's own bolts had been sharpened and flew through his fists in a blur of fury. The downpour was heavy and laced with a chill that could have only fallen from the lashes of mournful angels, as it seemed to pierce through the mid-summer warmth like the harsh breath of winter's memory. The storm refused to let up, even when it was the sun's turn to surely rise over the horizon and bathe the land in the sparkling promise of a new day, the rain persisted, and the sun was nowhere to be seen.
Thomas's swift and imposing gait echoed within the bleak room, as the conviction dipped down from his each and every step and pounded the cement as if he were striding into battle. A weight bored down upon him, like it was the very hand of the universe itself. And Thomas knew when the palm was wretched away, a handprint laced with the evidence of his own blood was bound to be stained against the fabric of his crisp black jacket.
For the hand that reached down and nearly cemented his footprints in the concrete beneath him, was coiled in the strings of his severed heart. Like ivy woven around fingers of calloused and harsh flesh, the nerves and the arteries once safely tucked away, now dangled over the edge like roots ripped up from the Earth.
The mortuary was empty, a stark grey room of surrounding stone and cold cement that only seemed to accentuate the very feel of death that lingered in its presence. Not a window in sight to let in the futile light, not a lamp brighter than that of a flickering citrine glow, dusty and saturated. It struck him, as his confident strides were undeniably slower than they had ever been known to be before, the bewildering sensation of being the only living, breathing being in this very place, but feeling like a dead man walking towards the very rope that they'd used to hang him.
