"even when she was lying, there was a certain truth she always told"
A pretty girl, a deal gone wrong, an ultimatum, and a death...
Another average week for the Peaky Blinders.
[T. Shelby]
[Under Editing]
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She could hear drumming.
To Thalia's credit, her first instinct had been to grab for the revolver in her clutch on the bar. If it hadn't been for Thomas fucking Shelby, perhaps she would have been able to reach it (and retain some dignity in the process). Alas, the man, the garnement, had grabbed her by the arm and practically thrown her, with abnormal strength for a man of his build, over the bar and nearly on top of the cowering barmaid behind it. She came down hard on her hands and one knee, scraping her left palm against a worn patch of the wood floor, which garnered a slew of curses from her. As if that act alone wasn't cause enough for Thalia to wish to shove her gun down Thomas' throat, he'd had the nerve to tell her to "stay down" behind the bar.
As another shot rang out, drowned out in the cacophony of men yelling, and all hell broke loose. Thalia tensed at the sharp sound of a bullet whizzing past, her chest tight with anticipation and adrenaline.
Run away.
Giving the barmaid a stone cold look, Thalia gestured toward the back room with an intense urgency, keeping quiet for no reason other than as to not add to the chaos and draw attention to herself. The barmaid seemed to comprehend what Thalia was telling her to do rather quickly, and she began crawling on her hands and knees to maneuver her way out of the line of fire, with Thalia glancing above the bar every few seconds to ensure a clean escape for the poor woman.
A shot whizzed by; the bottle it hit smashed open; the barmaid yelped.
Thalia made a very undignified noise out of indignation before turning away from the sight of the fleeing barmaid, who had almost reached the safety of the back room, and grappling for her clutch that had been knocked with her onto the ground behind the bar. Shelby was lucky her revolver hadn't misfired as it hit the ground, for she would have been a lot angrier with him had she been struck by the bullets she'd carefully loaded into her own gun. She dug around in her clutch, needing only a moment to find her revolver, safe and sound within its cloth containment.
Warm fingers met the bite of cold steel.
She hummed as the rush of familiarity came flooding back to her. She couldn't tell if it was the gun stirring up painful memories or the bar fight erupting next to her, alight with men shouting and the scream of bullets, but the coppery stench of blood struck her nose so hard that she thought she might faint from the smell alone. It must have been a memory; fresh blood doesn't carry the same pungent odor.
More shots and the sounds of fists on flesh broke her from whatever memory she seemed to have caught herself in. Her mind was an ocean in that moment, and all her trepidation and past pain rushed out like the tide, back to sea to be buried beneath the waves. Now was not the time for hesitating. Now was not the time for remembering emotions. Now was the time to take action, and she should focus herself on other feelings.
