Bancroft - Peaky Blinders Reverse Harem x Reader

Chapter 64

I have never been one to go gently.

Perhaps that is why my body refuses to die.

I feel every tube shoved down my throat, every needle piercing the crook of my elbow. I hear the doctors and surgeons and orderlies talking, day in and day out.

I'm paralysed. I can give no indication.

But I'm here.

I feel them beside me. Though I cannot see, I know when it is Ada's weight on the bed, her fingers brushing my hair. I know when Arthur changes the flannel on my forehead, and when Tommy presses his lips to the same spot. I can hear Michael reading a biography about the Wright Brothers, and feel Polly's hand when it wraps around my own.

I shouldn't be here. I float along a current of oceans unknown, journey-bound for a destination with no map and no compass. No boat. Just drifting, anchored down by each and every detail, by each and every person I love too much to leave.

I have never been one to go gently.

And so, after days of the deep unknown, when I hear the doctors and nurses preparing me for the adrenaline shot straight to my heart, I do not feel fear.

"It's a method of last resort," the doctor says. "If this doesn't work..." He cannot finish the sentence. "And if it does, she'll be in for a shock."

I feel Tommy's fingers curl around my own. "Brace yourself, love," he tells me. "Come back to us."

My sternum cracks. Ice plunges into my heart and it freezes for a moment, my chest a vault of silence.

It kicks back into action with a vengeance.

Battering against the walls of my chest, I can feel every pulse of blood through every chamber, kicking with the force of a thoroughbred in an open field.

I gasp my first voluntary breath of air.

And then I want to crawl out of my skin.

My vision is blurred at first, just shadows in a white room, then sharpens — sharper than it's ever been. I pant a little in relief, while adrenaline soars through every vein in my body. The chaotic thumping in my chest becomes overwhelming, and I clutch at Tommy's arm, gasping.

"Too high a dose," a doctor says. "Bring a sedative."

"Not a fucking chance," Arthur snarls, pulling his gun free. "You're not putting her under again. Couldn't get her out of the last coma until now."

"Mr Shelby, If she doesn't calm down, she will go into cardiac arrest and there'll be nothing more we can do."

Tommy presses one hand to my face. "Look at me," he orders. "Look at me."

My eyes are wide. Panic, and terror, rack my brain, distorting my thoughts. I see double of him, but I stay looking at him, just like he said. I pull all my willpower to focus on his eyes. Every streak of sapphire, of ice, every otherworldly shade I've never been able to name.

"Breathe, love," he says, and I try to remember how. "Remember our first time camping together? Remember I showed you the stars?"

I nod, trying to fight the pounding in my ears.

"What did I show you first, eh? Remember."

I fight to pull the thoughts from my panicked brain. "Canis major," I manage to say, my voice hoarse.

He nods. "What else?"

I squeeze my eyes shut. "And... and Canis Minor. The dogs. They're Orion's hunting dogs."