Peaky Girl (Peaky Blinders ABO Omegaverse Smut Fanfiction)

Twelve

Matthew's eyes were dull, sandpaper tan, with irises rimmed in deep brown like the rings of an old fallen tree. Matthew's eyes haunted my nightmares, so I would have recognized them even in death, even if they weren't staring out at me from the sunken eyesockets of a teenage gypsy who had not slept in days.

The beta lad stood outside Charlie's yard on Garrison Lane, staring at me with hollow, empty brown eyes. He had a round, doughy face like Matthew, and ruddy brown hair like Matthew, and I knew with a sudden sinking feeling that this was Matthew's younger brother. I had killed the boy's brother with my bare hands, staring down into those brown eyes as the boy stared at me now. My hands twitched, remembering how the blood had flowed over my hands and wrists until I was elbow-deep in gore and Matthew was dead.

"Ruby Lee," the boy said as I approached, and his voice was young and high and cracked at the end like he might have been afraid, and he frowned because he most certainly was not afraid of me. The hatred in his eyes was like the deepest pits of hell, and they dragged me forward through the street until I stood only a pace away, drowning in the fire and brimstone.

"I'm Ruby," I said dully, looking into the boy's empty brown eyes. He looked void of his soul, and I wondered if he had lost it when I killed his brother.

Matthew's brother reached out his fist. The boy and I stared at one another, and it was clear that he knew who I was, and I knew who he was. I reached out a hand, palm up, and he dropped a small glinting piece of metal in my palm.

"The Lee pack declares war on the Shelby pack," the beta said, his voice no longer cracking, and he turned and walked away while I stared down at the bullet in my hand.

It was a simple bullet, metal catching in the sunlight of the high morning. Engraved on the side of the bullet was one word, a name: Tommy.

My entire body went completely numb, and I separated from my soul, trailing behind my body as I walked into Charlie's flat, ignoring his greeting and thudding up the stairs, one at a time, one foot after the other until I reached my room. I plopped the green trunk on the bed, scooped up my opium kit from the bedside table, and walked back downstairs, through the living room and the kitchen toward the back door.

Charlie was hunched over the kitchen counter, pouring himself a glass of water from a pitcher. He looked over his shoulder at me, raising a wild grey eyebrow. "Oi, Ru, what's gotten into you, eh?"

"The Lee pack declared war on the Shelby pack," I said numbly, and through the ringing that consumed most of my hearing, I didn't sound like myself.

"They – what? The hell did Tommy have you do down there?"

I was already out the door, walking across the yard to the stables. I gave Monaghan Boy a few pats, noting that Tommy must have taken the white horse for a ride, before crawling up the loft and settling down in the hay with my pipe.

It was difficult to light the opium resin because I couldn't unfurl my hand from around the little metal declaration of war pressed into my palm. The bullet throbbed in my hand, hot like it had been sitting in the fire, and the metal seared me, or maybe it was my imagination, because nothing was real anymore as I smoked and floated high above myself.

The bullet chained me to earth, painful in my grip, pulsing, screaming, Tommy. Tommy. Tommy.

"Why not Ruby?" I asked, and my voice was dull and empty. Monaghan Boy neighed in his stall, but everything was slow, lulled like I was underwater. Thinking was like trying to run through the lake waist-deep when every step pushed against the weight of the water.

It would have been easier if Madame Zilpha had carved my name on a bullet instead. It was all my fault, anyway. I would have offered myself to her, given up my throat to her silver knife so she could take her bloody red revenge.