smoke storm. peaky blinders

𝗦𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗲𝗻

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Bodies clogged the streets like a battlefield. Harry David watched over the sight like a man reborn. This was what war was. Killing. Death. It didn't seem so glorious, so worthwhile. Their interests with the Peaky Blinders had been protected, their guns acquired. They would be able to slip back up north with more power than they had descended south with. Yet it didn't seem enough.

His sister sat against the walls of the Garrison. The gun still sat clasped in her hand. No matter how many people passed her, she would not enter the pub. Harry had a feeling he understood why.

Tommy Shelby was a foreboding figure. As they'd advanced down the road, he'd almost wanted to turn back after catching sight of him, standing in the lane in a long, black coat, a razored flat cap pulled lowly over his eyes. He was like a living shadow, hanging at the end of the street, sucking away the protection of daylight. The man commanded victory. Harry was glad he stood on his side, wanted or not.

The revelation of his sister's identity had not yet broken. Thomas had marched away from the battlefield with a fresh bullet wound piercing his chest and a fallen comrade on a stretched on his tail. Such arguments could wait.

Adelaide ignored his as he breached the doors to the pub, pushing through into the Garrison for a second time. He tried not to think of the last: of the bodies dropping to the floor like flies, of the gun warm in his hands. But as the attention fell onto him at his arrival, that evening was all he could think of. He hoped there would be no repeats.

Blue eyes settled on him clearly as he saddled up to the bar. A Shelby, the youngest one he gathered. John Shelby.

"You're Adelaide's brother?"

Harry only nodded.

"And she's...?"

He nodded again. John shared a glance with his eldest brother.

"Tommy knows how to pick them," Arthur said, blowing out a sigh with a grimace. They swung down a glass of whisky to stop at his hand and Harry took it with a thankful nod. "I'm still not sure what the fuck just happened."

Tommy Shelby watched from behind the bar as the people celebrated. The air was filled with a buzz of noise, but no singing. Grace was long gone, off to New York. In the wake of her betrayal, he couldn't think of her, couldn't care about where she went. It was Adelaide who occupied his thoughts completely. Emilio Smith.

The northern gang had outmanoeuvred them completely. They'd stolen the guns, warned him of the Irishmen, helped him against Kimber. It was Adelaide herself who'd pulled the trigger against their supposed mutual enemy, seeing him dead by her own hand.

Adelaide. Emilio Smith. It both made no sense and too much. She was a clever woman, clearly, with enough gumption to make things happen. Perhaps he'd been the arrogant one not to see it. But she'd double crossed him just as Grace had. They'd been enemies, in the beginning.

She was waiting for him in the private room. It'd been five minutes since she'd pushed her way through the doors and ensured they fell shut behind her. All the while. Tommy had been working up the gumption to talk to her without anger. But that was the only thing powering the pumping of his blood. A low boiling rage. A raw sting from the cut of all the lies. You don't know me. Her words rang fresh in his mind. She hadn't really lied then, had she?

Adelaide stood by the windows, staring out of them despite the fact she couldn't see anything. The light had illuminated her face, and in that instance, she looked different to how he'd seen her before.

"Miss Smith," Tommy said, closing the door behind him but not moving further into the small room. His hands remained tightly buried in his pockets. "It's good to finally know who you are."

"I'm not the name."

"You're not Adelaide, you're not Emilio Smith," he said, watching her as she finally turned. "Then who are you?"

"I don't know," she said, and he thought now he could hear the truth in her voice where before there must have been lies. "It wasn't all a lie."

"I don't know what was real and what wasn't."

She stepped closer then. So close that he would be able to reach out and touch her if he tried. In the back of his mind he could see the image of her beneath him, draped and clothed in only her long, dark hair. That hadn't been a lie. He could feel it.

"You do," Adelaide said. He thought she might reach out to him then, just as he wanted to do with her. "You know exactly what was real."

But she didn't. She dropped backwards, hands resting awkwardly by her side.

"You would have done the exact same in my position. You can't blame me of that," Adelaide said. "Don't act like you're a saint."

Tommy only blinked down at her, letting her speak. She was right. He would have done the same.

"John says you're going back to Newcastle."

"John's been speaking to my brother," she said. Her brother. The man who'd shot the two Irishmen and broken the trap meant for him. Adelaide shook her head. "Harry will go home for a bit. Then he'll join me."

"The same direction we'll be going in," Tommy said, though he felt stupid with his words. They were past that now, weren't they?

Adelaide laughed, confirming his thoughts. "Flip your coin, Tommy. Let it decide your fate." She was close again. Close enough to touch. This time she made the move, touching his face with a tenderness that had him thinking again of the night in her apartment. "But should it come knocking at my door, know I'm not the woman you thought I was."

Kimber was gone, killed by her hand. The relief that owned Adelaide was indescribable, a weight off her shoulders. One that had only been replaced by the memory of Thomas Shelby. He lingered in the past, so close that she wanted to reach back and pull him back towards her again, back towards her present. He remained there solemnly, a ghost.

The morning was dark as they pulled up to the station. Robert drove, leaving them in the same manor in which they had arrived, with a laugh and a hug, yet this time with the knowledge that they would see him again soon.

"Time to strengthen ourselves again," Adelaide said as they came to their parting stop. "We'll regroup in London."

"Don't go all boss man on me again now. I thought we were past that," Harry said, eyes teasing a roll. He pulled her into a hug. "I'll miss you, Addy. I worry about you."

"There's nothing to worry about," Adelaide said, squeezing her arms around his shoulders. "I'll miss you too, but I'll see you soon, alright? Once I'm settled I'll call for you."

He nodded against her cheek, the movement tickling her face with the fringes of his hair. Eventually, he pulled away, fixed her with a sad smile, and lifted his suitcase. They parted at the platform crossroad, and as Harry went home to Newcastle, Adelaide ventured to London, the guise of Emilio Smith in full effect.