you want it darker { tommy shelby }

nineteen: how to disappear completely

"i walk through walls
i float down the liffey
i'm not here
this isn't happening."

{a/n: without giving too much away this chapter is super graphic so if u aren't into that or whatever , u have been warned (: )
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Iris tried to stay awake once she was chucked into a cell, but she physically couldn't. She was exhausted. Every tiny bit of fight she had left in her had evaporated.

Her cell was a single, but it was barely wide enough for her to lie down properly. It stunk of damp, and there was a incessant dripping of rain in the corner that made her wince every time it hit the floor. There was a huge grate at the top of the wall which the brutal wind slithered through and slapped her face mockingly. She had no blanket and her excuse of a mattress was a sodden piece of cardboard that had blood stains on.

But she didn't care. She was so exhausted that she fell asleep almost as soon as the prison-guard locked her metal door.
                       ——
The few hours of restless sleep she got were the last peaceful moments she would experience for a very long time.

A cane tapping against the cement floor woke her from the sleep, and even in her grogginess she knew who was approaching. Inspector Campbell.

Even though her body screamed in protest as she sat herself up, she did. If he was going to come in and gloat, she would at least hold her head high while he did it.

Keys slipped into the lock and opened the door, and in he came, with an infuritating smirk on his face. Had her face not been so swollen she would have glared at him. "Hello, Mrs Shelby."

Iris didn't respond, but she held his gaze.

"You don't want to talk to me? I see. Then I will do the talking." He moved his wolf headed cane so it was in front of him and leaned his weight on it. "You see, Mrs Shelby, it's your husbands fault that you're in here. He is under orders of the Crown to carry out a mission, and he hasn't convinced us that the mission will indeed be carried out."

"Alfie teamed up with you to have me arrested?" Iris asked, though it came out more as a hoarse croak.

He let out a chuckle. "God, no. I won't be partnering up with any more of you venomous snakes unless I can help it. No, your arrest was just a stroke of luck for me. I was coming to pay you a visit anyway. So, Mrs Shelby, I have been given the task of creating an incentive for Tommy Shelby to carry out the mission. Do you understand?"

She nodded.

"Good. Get up."

As soon as Iris managed to get to her feet, two men charged in and marched her in the direction that the Inspector had just limped off in.

Campbell gestured to a chair in the middle of a dimly lit side room and the men sat her down in it. "Should we tie her to it, sir?"

"No, she's not stupid enough to try and make an escape." He said with a sinister smile. "Goff, you can go. Mason, I would like you to stay. I'm not as strong as I once was, so you will probably be more... effective."

All Iris could do was watch in fear as Mason approached her with his fist clenched. In seconds, he raised it and sent it flying at her cheek. Then again. And then the other cheek. And again. He didn't stop, even though she screamed in agony with every punch.

At one point during her vicious beating, Iris collapsed to the floor and curled into a foetal position. All she could think about was her baby. She had to protect her baby.

The man didn't relent for what felt like hours. When she first fell, he started kicking her in the back, the legs, the arms. But he eventually got bored. He grabbed Iris by her bloodied collar and dragged her to her feet. He began punching her in the chest and jaw. Iris didn't know how she was still conscious, but she wished she wasn't. The police officer suddenly brought  Iris close to him before throwing her into the wall as though she was a rag doll. She slid down it and landed with a pathetic thud.