The Darkness Within (Peaky Blinders) Thomas Shelby

4. A Promise

My past has tasted bitter

For years now

So I wield an iron fist

Grace is just weakness

Or so I've been told

I've been cold, I've been merciless

But the blood on my hands scares me to death

Maybe I'm waking up today

- I'll Be Good, by Jaymes Young

Sixteen. She was 16 and still getting punished for swearing. Her father, her brother who thought she should still have the innocence of a five year old and now her teacher. You would think she would have learned by now. Well... she had, but sometimes it just slipped out.

She was given a detention which cut into her free time after school, but when she refused to apologise of course that cut into more time until she was now walking home just after dark. Her father would be furious. It was the belt tonight for sure, maybe a fist to the stomach or two. Riley stayed out later these days. He was 20; Cacey didn't care what he did anymore. Not that he would have been able to stop their father anyway. He never could. It was the reason for his overprotectiveness. He thought he was making up for all the beatings he could never stop. Their father never touched Ailia, Kiara always got the worst of it. The way she snapped back never helping either.

Kiara had a theory. Riley had only scoffed at her theory and told her not to think too much about how their father's brain worked, but she thought she was right.

Cacey... for all his atrocities, loved their mother. She had never escaped his beatings, but for however much he was capable of caring she had received it. They weren't the richest family even if they were well respected around town. Cacey had promised their mother a better life once upon a time. He'd never been able to deliver. Ailia was so much like her. Not just in appearance, but there was a kind of sweetness there that was all their mother. Cacey saw that. Kiara believed he had hopes for his youngest daughter. Hopes that she could live a better life than what he was able to give their mother.

But... of course this was just the daydreams of a teenager who liked to think there was something about their father that could be redeemed.

Kiara trudged along the damp cobble ground, passing a few strangers as she went, in no great hurry. She was already late, the sun was gone. Now all she could do was postpone the beating.

"Little girls should be seen and not heard." Her father used to say to her when she was younger. Why didn't she just listen to him? Why did she always have to snap and get mad? Why did she have to swear when she got mad? Why was she too god damn stubborn and filled with pride to apologise? Why did John not get detention for doing the exact same fucking thing the day before? Because he was male, of course.

She scoffed out loud over the thought.

And then it happened.

The streets were practically empty and dark as all hell. She walked past an alleyway, like she had done a dozen times already, but this time there was someone there.

He didn't say anything, he was silent, but he was fast. The stranger came up behind her before she could even notice the movement and pressed a knife to her throat, a threat to stay silent as he pulled her into the alley.

"Let me go!" She demanded.

"Quiet, missy. Or I'll slit your throat." He growled in the local Birmingham accent.

She wasn't afraid. She had been taught well both by her brother and John Shelby. The man hadn't been expecting a good fight and she was easily able to gain the upper hand, kicking him hard in the balls as she pulled the knife back from her neck. The pain that radiated through him was a big enough distraction for her to yank the blade from his grasp entirely, swing around and ram it hard between his ribs, pushing up towards the heart, just like John had taught her. John, not Riley. Riley had only showed her punches, swings, kicks. Enough to gain the upper hand and run... run to him.

The man hit the ground hard, blood quickly pouring out of his body as shock took over and he remained silent with wide eyes before those eyes went blank and his body fell limp.

Then her adrenaline stopped. She glanced at the body, to her knife and then her bloody clothes. And then she thought of Riley.

"No." She breathed.

He would lose his mind. Who knows what he would do; go after the man's family, get arrested, hung. No, no, no. It couldn't happen.

Then she heard his voice, like thinking of him had summoned him. He was yelling... no... he was singing. Kiara took slow steps, poking her head out of the alley to see her brother, Thomas, John and Arthur Shelby, and Freddie Thorne all stumbling about the street having been drinking at the pub. One of them, Thomas maybe, said something that she couldn't hear which caused the others to laugh. Then it looked like they were saying goodbye. When Riley stepped back and began to walk off in the opposite direction from Kiara she felt a sigh of relief.

"John. Please, John walk this way." She silently begged as if praying. She could trust John, she knew. She could always trust John Shelby. "John, please."

He began to walk towards her, but behind him was Arthur. No, she couldn't trust Arthur. She didn't know him well enough and he didn't know Riley well enough to understand the importance. They walked past the alley and Kiara pinned herself up against the wall, thanking every god she could think of that they were too drunk to look for threats in the darkened corner. That left Freddie Thorne and Thomas Shelby. They said their final goodbyes for the night and it was Thomas that walked her way, heading in the same direction his brothers had been moments before.

The other two Shelby's were well ahead, but she still hadn't moved from her hiding place as he walked past. She couldn't speak at first. This was Thomas fucking Shelby. She had known him her entire life, but they had barely spoken or even looked in each other's direction. But he was alone and he knew what Riley would do if he found out. She couldn't just leave the body. There would be questions. So many questions.... And the blood. Her bloodied dress. No. She needed help. She needed help from someone who would help her and knew what they were doing.

"Thomas." She finally managed to croak once it was his back that faced her.

She didn't need to say his name twice. He heard and he turned. It was the body he saw first as he stepped closer.

"Who's there?" He demanded of the darkness that had called his name, reaching for the gun concealed under his long coat. "Step out."

"Please don't tell Riley." Kiara breathed before she even moved, before she had even thought about what he had said or the gun he reached for.

He froze. He didn't say anything, he only stared blankly as his eye began to adjust and he saw the faint outline of a 16-year-old girl with raven black hair.

"Kiara?" He asked.

"Promise me, Thomas." She breathed. "He'll do something. You know he'll do something. He'll lose his mind in rage." Her voice was breaking, breaking in fear over what her brother would do. What consequences he would be forced to face because of his love for his sister.

Tommy let go of the handle of his gun and stepped towards his friend's sister, stared at her, glanced at the dead body and then back at her.

"What happened?" He demanded.

She told him. The man hadn't done anything to her, but rape was most likely his intention and Thomas knew that the utterance of the word would curdle Riley's blood. Yes, Kiara was right. He couldn't know.

He helped her with the body, they dumped it in the cut, he covered the blood stains on her dress in mud, they made a promise not to speak of it again and then he drove her home.

She of course had to tell the truth about her detention and that didn't end well after Tommy had left, but otherwise he had just said he found her walking home after her detention and didn't want to let her go off alone in the dark so he offered to drive. The car got bogged in some mud and she had to help him get it out, hence her ruined dress that she threw out the next day.

Both kept their promise and never uttered a word of that night to anyone.