𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐈𝐧 𝐚 𝐃𝐞𝐚𝐝 𝐋𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐮𝐚𝐠𝐞 🍞PEAKY BLINDERS 🥖

Chapter Twenty-Six

Next chapter is what we've all been waitin' for. And it'll be out later today. It's about to be midnight where I am and I gotta go to sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

"Bitch is bloody mental."

Campbell sighed and put more weight on his cane. "She was raised by animals and has the brain of a fish. Why are you at all surprised?" He opened the back of the police car and Kezia almost tumbled out. A welt the size of a frying pan formed at the side of her head where she continuously beated her head into the glass.

"You will be pleased to know, Ms. Shelby," he told her, once she realized the door was opened. She looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and paper thin skin. "That Thomas is alive. I'm to see him now."

The handcuffs held her wrists behind her back, and they were chained around the grate that separated the trunk from the seats; it was the only way to keep her in one place. She coughed and pulled hard against her bindings. "Tommy."

"You will be going home."

Kezia bared her teeth and screamed, but at this point, her voice was sawdust and shattered glass. "Tommy."

Campbell slammed the door shut and the girl screamed louder. "Get her out of here."

"With all due respect," Inspector Moss intervened. "She's a good kid. Never gets in it with us. Keeps to herself."

"I'm sure her record is beautiful. Which is why you will be taking her back home."

Kizzie hit her head again and again and again. She felt her shoulders tear from the pressure she put on them. The bad Irish man stumbled away, down the hospital courtyard and inside. They've been here all night, waiting for news.

"Tommy!"

"Shut it, girl!"

Clear tears and snot flowed down her face and into her quivering mouth. She heard nothing but her own pain and Tommy's broken bones mashed against the mud. "Please! I want Tommy!"

"Let's go. At this point, I won't be able to hear for a fucking month."

☻

This was the second time Tommy woke to Kizzie's screams.

Guttural and labored. Nothing he had ever heard before. From the morphine, he told himself. Makes you dream about some crazy things.

"Ready for a visitor, Mr. Shelby?" asked the nurse from the door.

"No."

"I am here on the king's orders. I'm afraid I must insist." Campbell made his way over and took note of the morning light. "Ah! Paid extra for sunlight. The racketeering business must be booming." He stood at the end of Tommy's hospital bed. "Are you not gonna thank me for saving your life?

Tommy could only see with one eye, but he managed to motion to the dresser beside him. "Pass me cigarettes?"

The bastard did as he was told and plopped them down on Tommy's chest. "Three nights ago, at the cooperative stables in Montague Street, there was a murder. A man named Duggan." Tommy steadied his already painful heart. "The Oxfordshire constabulary found his body in a shallow grave."

"I need to piss." He sat up until the pains rocked him. "Nurse!"

Campbell's cane came down at the center of Tommy's chest like a sword. "I know it was you who carried out the murder of Mr. Duggan." Satisfied, he sat beside Tommy.

But Tommy wasn't finished. He spoke of Grace, her marriage. If it had any impact, Tommy was too drugged to notice.

"You've been under my microscope for some time now. I've been observing every move you make. And that is why I was on hand to save your life."

"I imagine being shot by a woman hurts just as much as being shot by a man. Just a bit more shameful. You know, Mr. Campbell, when I got shot, they gave me a medal. No medal for you I bet."

He banged his cane on the ground and stood. "Mr. Shelby, our reunion is part of a very carefully worked out plan which has been in place for some time now."

"Every time you lean on that stick, I bet you see her face."

"And as a result of the information in my possession, I can charge you with murder at any time. And provide two impeccable Crown witnesses whose testimony will lead you directly to the gallows." Campbell gripped Tommy's throat and heard the satisfying grunt of pain. "And you should know, it wasn't I who saved you. Not quite. Your sister, Kezia, was there. Clung to you like a baby bear clings to its dead mother."

Tommy fought against the fist gripping tighter around his throat. The very fucking world was flipped under his feet.

"Yes. You're so damned careful of her, but she has a habit of finding herself inches from death. Perhaps you aren't capable of caring for her after all."

"You put your fucking hands on my sister."

"Oh, come now, Mr. Shelby. Give me some more credit than that. She was safely put in the back of our car. But we couldn't stop her from banging her head against the glass. She should be in a hospital herself. But not like the one you're in."

Tommy gritted his teeth and heard a crack. "Bring her."

"She's already been sent home. But I know what you've done. Forged her papers to get her out. Killed the doctors and nurses. But believe me, I can get her sent right back in another one if you don't do what I say! You and your entire family get hanged and she goes right back to where she belongs. You are on my hook, Mr. Shelby." He raised the man up, so close their foreheads almost touched. Tommy was quickly losing consciousness. Between his constricted throat and the fire burning tracks through his veins. "And from this moment forward, you belong to me."

☻

Not even the worst meltdown of her life could prevent Kizzie from fizzling out.

She wanted to continue banging her head and screaming. It felt good, felt right and felt appropriate. But her body was exhausted. She heard one of the officers say her lips turned blue from lack of air. She couldn't do anything now. Kizzie just sat still as statues in the park.

The car stopped in front of the Shelby home. Around mid-day.

Timid hands unlocked the cuffs around her wrist. "Out you go."

She didn't move. Didn't even hear him.

The officer gently nudged her toward the opened door. And like a stack of books, she fell onto the road.

"Christ!"

His companion came out from the car and placed her on the sidewalk.

"Will she be alright?"

"Don't know. But it ain't our business anymore. We were to drop her off and that's it."

"Right."

They drove away from Watery Lane, leaving behind a trail of dust.

Author's Note:

I am positively floored with the reception this story has been receiving. You have all been so sweet and so encouraging. I haven't felt good about my writing in a long time but maybe I shouldn't be so hard on myself after all. 

Thank you again for all the love 🥰🖤