"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]
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
The Garrison was empty that following morning.
Thalia had waited for every man to clear from around it, and even the barmaid had gone out to the races with Thomas. She patiently observed the building, but she didn't dare approach it until she was certain that no one was inside. After several minutes spent loitering about as naturally as she could, Thalia crossed the street and walked along the building at the end of the road.
The Garrison was small, smaller than most pubs she'd been around, but definitely well loved. Her fingertips brushed the door handles, and a small smile fluttered to life on her lips. The brass of the handles had been worn away in small patches, leaving a smoothed metal surface a few shades lighter than the surrounding area. The little pub was so well loved that it was falling apart under the weight of affection.
She leaned with her back against the door, but her hands were busy at work behind her picking the lock. She done this many a time before, and her surefire fingers worked mostly on muscle memory until there was a small click, and she slipped inside unnoticed.
It was strange to see the bar so empty. It had been cleaned since the last time she'd been in there, and the polish of the new tables gleamed in what little light of the morning sun filtered in through the shuttered windows. She stepped slowly around the room; even with the absence of others, she still wanted to move quietly. One could never be too sure.
She made her way around the room, her feet barely ghosting the floorboards as she glided to the back rooms. She needed only to memorize whatever plans the Shelby's had (if she could find them), a simple mental exercise she'd grown very good at during the war, and then report back to her brother. Goddamn her brother for making her do this.
It didn't take long before she found a ledger and a calendar, both of which she studied for anything that would help her and her brother either now or in the future. She mentally tagged a few dates, but she was taken aback by one date in particular.
Talk to the Lees.
What the bloody hell did that mean? Thalia had limited knowledge about the dealings of the Shelby boys, but she did know that Tommy was looking to work with Billy Kimber. To her understanding, the Shelby's had had a falling out with the Lees, and the two no longer got along.
BANG!
Her head snapped up, all questions shoved to the back of her mind. The door had been opened and then slammed. She crouched low to the ground, her eyes flying to the back shelf of liquor bottles. A distorted reflection of Harry, the bartender, was barely visible. Damnit. He must be getting ready to open.
Thalia stayed low, biding her time. Careful hands replaced the ledger and calendar in the exact way she found them on the shelf. She waited... waited... waited. When Harry ducked behind the bar to store his jacket, she swiftly made her way up the stairs. Any small creak would give her away, so she tiptoed on surefire feet. When she reached the top floor, she opened a window slowly, painstakingly slowly, before swinging both legs out. She sat, perched on the edge of the window, for several moments, staring down the fifteen foot drop. She'd survived worse, but that didn't mean it looked like any more of a fun idea.
The sound of feet stomping up the stairs made the decision for her. She gripped the ledge with strong hands, sliding out enough to close the window. Then, she lowered herself down until she ran out of arm. Deep breath in, deep breath out.
She let go.
She hit the ground in a crouch before rolling to a standing position. That did not feel nice on her stomach. She sprinted down the road with a slight limp as she tried to get away from the Garrison. She had to get back to her flat.
"Merde!" She swore, needing to finally say something after too long spent silent. She huffed, slowing her pace so as to not draw attention to herself.
She should have done a stakeout to figure out exactly when Harry would show up. Of course, she only had today, as all of the Shelby boys and the barmaid were guaranteed to be gone. Regardless, it was too close of a call and much too sloppy of a job. She cursed again.
Her feet carried her to her shared flat automatically, as if working of their own volition, and she stomped up the steps with adrenaline still coursing through her veins. Her brother was not in, so she snagged his pen and scrawled down everything she'd memorized. As soon as she'd done so, she threw down the pen and stormed off to her room, slamming the door behind her. She didn't know what she gained from it, as there was no one in the flat to want privacy from, but, damn, did it feel good to slam it.
She stood in the center of her room, hands itching to do something, as those pesky thoughts creeped back into her brain.
Her heart ached at the prospect of betraying Tommy, but she knew it was silly. Whatever thing she thought they might have going was clearly built upon falsified grounds, as he was taking that barmaid out in what was obviously an attempt at courtship. She couldn't understand why that stung so much. She'd only known the man for a few weeks, for fucks sake.
And yet it hurt. And she was betraying him.
She wasn't sure what she was doing but before long she began slipping into an intense... something. A complete and utter mess, she was, sulking around her room like a stubborn teen, feeling too much of everything. Perhaps it was loneliness that stripped away her common sense and triggered the tears beginning to convene at the edges of her eyes. Maybe she was bitter, about the war, about her brother turning her against Tommy, about everything she'd been forced to endure and everything she was still struggling through. So many intense but unnameable feelings swirled around her head like a raging storm on the open seas, but her chest—her chest was empty.
And then suddenly she couldn't breathe.
She tasted her tears more than felt them, the saltiness of them lingering on her lips far longer than she'd like, and she began scratching at her arms as if something foreign was trapped beneath the skin and she had to claw it free. She was wild in those few moments, like a caged animal looking for an out. Her breaths came quick, shallow, and her vision blurred, from tears or lightheadedness she did not know, and her chest tightened as her whole body shook violently, like a leaf in a hurricane, and there was a pounding in her ears so loud it felt like drums had replaced her brain, which no longer seemed to be able to form cohesive thoughts, and she scratched and she scratched and scratched and she—
And then it stopped.
Her arms, an angry red color from the abuse, slowly stopped shaking as she looked around her little room. At some point during her fit, she had fallen to her knees, and she took two deep breaths before hauling herself off the ground. She wiped her face clean of tears and closed her eyes.
Then, just as she'd done in wartime, she turned everything off.
