Peaky Girl (Peaky Blinders ABO Omegaverse Smut Fanfiction)

Twenty-Five

Ten Lee boys. Ten hands on ten triggers. Ten men dead on the bar floor. Ten bullets from my gun. I had pulled the trigger, and I pulled it again and again in my nightmare, watching their bodies drop over and over and over and over and over and over and over until

I shifted awake, a whine parting my lips as I came to life to the pain stretching across every inch of my body. I blinked open my eyes, squinting through the faint sunlight that filtered through the dark blinds in the nest room. I barely remembered Tommy carrying me upstairs and settling me in the nest, but I didn't have to wonder where he was because he was sitting against the wooden headboard next to me, smoking a cigarette.

"Gimme that," I mumbled, reaching up a hand and plucking it from his upside-down lips. Still lying on my back, I pressed the cigarette to my mouth and inhaled, wincing as I took a deep breath inward and then exhaled.

"Careful, love," Tommy said softly. He reached down to pet my head. "You have broken ribs."

"Ribs?" I muttered, closing my eyes. "Thought it was just one."

"You're not that lucky, Ruby."

I groaned as I lifted myself against the headboard, and Tommy moved like lightning, piling up pillows behind me so that I could rest against them instead of the hard wood that would surely ache in my bones.

"You don't have to fuss over me," I sighed, sinking back into the pillows and dragging again from the cigarette.

Tommy ignored me. He leaned carefully over me to the nightstand, retrieving a little brown bottle of liquid morphine that he uncorked. He took the cigarette from my lips and pressed the bottle to my lips. "Drink it all."

The morphine had a bitter taste, and it went down with difficulty because even swallowing was so painful I thought I would throw up, and I remember Reg's hand around my throat and shivered, then winced at the way my muscles tensed.

"Relax, Ruby," Tommy said, and he set the empty morphine bottle on the nightstand and pressed the cigarette back between my lips. He settled back against the headboard, lighting another cigarette for himself, and we sat in pain-filled silence until there was a knock at the bedroom door.

"You better be decent!" Arthur called as he opened up the door to the nest room. He was dressed only in his undershirt and pants, and he was holding a huge tray of eggs and bacon and toast and jam, enough for four of us, and John stepped through the door behind him with another tray.

"Why would I not be decent?" I yawned, crinkling my nose even an action so small renewed the ache in my body. I looked down at myself and realized I was still wearing Polly's old night shift. "Guess this isn't exactly decent."

"You hungry, baby?" John asked, and he and Arthur came and sat at the end of the bed, setting their two trays between me and Tommy. John stole a piece of bacon from a platter and crunched down on it.

"No," I said honestly. I couldn't feel anything beyond the pain, even with the morphine running thick through my veins.

"Eat anyway," Arthur said, and he set a plate of bacon and eggs on my plate. He dipped a knife in the jam and spread it over a piece of toast, and then put that on my plate, too.

I stared at the food. It looked superb, and I was sure it was because Polly's wine-tasting perfume wafted around it like a signature.

Arthur grabbed a fork, scooped some eggs on it, and pressed it to my lips. "Open up, gypsy girl."

I opened my mouth taking the eggs off the fork with my tongue and swallowed slowly. Arthur fed me while John and Tommy munched on their own breakfast, and I was grateful for Arthur's attention because for the first time since I had committed murder, a little bubble of joy was starting to fill my stomach again, and it wasn't the food.