smoke storm. peaky blinders

𝗦𝗶𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Nursing a dark drink between his hands, Adelaide found Tommy in the Garrison. She'd slipped past John and the others easily, the shoes she'd stolen from her brother falling flatly against the floor, far quieter than her own. He only turned to her as she sat beside him, levelling him with a narrowed look.

"You're supposed to be at home."

"I thought you knew I didn't take orders from anyone," she said, fighting the urge to take the drink from him and spill it out over her shoulder. Kimber and his men were coming and it looked as if he was wallowing in his own self pity. He didn't suit the look.

"I thought you would understand that at a time like this maybe it's more of a warning than an order, Adelaide."

"Don't take your anger out on me," she said sharply, finally giving in to her urges and ripping the drink from his hands.

For a moment he only stared at her, eyes dark and unreadable.

"Polly thought it was you," he said with a quiet voice. "We were betrayed. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. There's four men for every one of ours, coming down that lane. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen."

"Polly thinks it was me?"

"Thought," Tommy corrected.

But it might've been, had they been given the chance, had she not changed her mind. Tommy's plans had lain in the balance of her own decisions without him even knowing. The knowledge of such made her feel dirty, sitting so calmly beside him.

"Why?"

"There's only one thing that blinds a man," he said, glancing to the clock on the wall.

The meaning of such words only sank in when he turned to her. Such rawness made her stop and look back. There's only one thing that blinds a man and Polly though tit was her. Slowly, she brought her hand upwards, to brush her fingers against his cheek. 

"I'm not leaving. I'm not leaving until you come back." He watched her with wonder, from behind his thick eyelashes. Her nose nuzzled closer to his. "I'll be beside you."

As Adelaide looked upon the mob of men that walked down the street towards the Blinders, it was not Kimber's face she saw, but her brother's.

Her feet were running before she could stop them, carrying her past the first of Tommy's men, pushing past John so she could stand between them. her body covering Harry's, her hands pushing him back, her eyes meeting Tommy's.

"Adelaide, what are you doing?"

"Don't do this."

But Tommy's gun hung in the air between them, pointed forward to the only face he recognised out of the new crowd of gangsters: Harry's. She felt her brother stiffen behind her and knew his hands were gripping harden onto his gun. They were supposed to have been subtle, but this was anything but.

"Move out of the way."

She shook her head, jaw tightened.

"They won't shoot," she said, watching as Tommy's eyes shone bright and dangerous. "I won't let them."

"We're here to help against Kimber and his men," Harry explained.

"And who the fuck are you?" John's voice burst through the ranks.

"You don't remember?"

"Mr Smith's representative," Tommy said, and then he was looking straight past her, to her brother, watching him with careful eyes.