𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐗𝐗𝐕𝐈𝐈.
everything in its right place
❝ I'M SORRY I GOT KILLED. ❞

BIRMINGHAM,
ENGLAND 1926

♜ ━━━━━ TODAY WAS THE DAY that Adeline Shelby would be murdered.

On her very last day of life, the girl woke in the light rather than the darkness.

Apparently, she'd been locked in a closet during those days in the dark, and now that she'd agreed to die, she was given a room of her own. It was a very nice room, much like the rest of the suite, and when she left it, she found everyone was already waiting for her. It was half past nine. It was nearly time to go. It was nearly time to die. One of the guys, Matteo, asked if there was anything she'd like to eat, last meal and all that. She requested a pear, but she couldn't eat it. She simply held it in her hands and hugged it close to her chest.

She drank another glass. The gasoline burned down her throat. She didn't feel a f—ckin' thing.

With his guys — locked and loaded, Mister Changretta stood by the door, dressed in an immaculate suit, leather gloves on his hands.

"Ready, Miss Shelby?"

It was time to go. It was time to die.

Del was ready. She stood from the carpet, walked 'cross the room, and put her hand in Mister Changretta's, and she found that she couldn't feel it. He guided her out the back exit of the hotel to avoid anyone seeing and assisted her into the motorcar when she was too numb to do it herself. Bundled between Mister Changretta and Matteo, the Shelby girl's final journey began.

Head lolling back against the leather seat, uneaten pear resting in her lap, Del stared out the windshield and took in the world as it passed.

Everything seemed to sparkle. There were no shadows or silhouettes or dark patches, just scatterings of light against windows and gravel and buildings she'd seen her entire life. The great big buildings towered like giants. Creamy white milk shook in diamond bottles upon wagons. Women shook out their laundry like raising sails before a voyage at sea. Strong men walked round the factory, fire bursting from its mouth like a dragon.

Small Heath had never looked so wonderful.

As they passed Watery Lane, Del thought she could spot her mates, her gang — Ruthie, Margo, Georgie, and Henry, laughing, innocent, hopeful... She was meant to be with them. They were meant to grow up, all of them, taking on the world together. She'd miss them, it wouldn't be for long but. Besides, they'd be so impressed when they heard she'd been shot and killed.

Della looked up at the sky which was wide and blue and magnificent. There were heavy beams of light stretching wonderfully across the road and into the motorcar, stroking her skin but she couldn't feel its warmth. The sun was sewn into the big blue expanse, clouds stitched round it. Arching their backs, they stumbled in and assembled stupidly in the sky. Big fat clouds; white and plump, bumping into each other.

It was such a beautiful world.

Mister Changretta talked round his toothpick, "You believe in heaven, Miss Shelby?"

"Mmm, dunno..."

"Anything's gotta be better than this sh—t, right?"

Del whispered back, "Right..."

Before they arrived at their destination, Matteo was instructed to tug a burlap sack over the girl's head. So she wouldn't be getting any ideas. So she wouldn't go running off. That was fine enough with Del. She'd seen enough. Besides, it might be too hard to see her da now. If she was to die, she didn't want to see his face when it happened. See his pain. It would be easier to see nothing at all.

Once they arrived, Mister Changretta plucked her out of the motorcar and his hand went back in hers. She couldn't feel the cool of the wind on her skin. She couldn't hear the crunch of her boots in the soil. She couldn't smell the smoke from the furnace. She didn't know where they were, but the world he led her into was familiar by sense alone.

Into the gin shed, in the middle of Charlie's yard, Adeline and the Italians walked in together.

The three remaining Shelby's awaited.

At their arrival, Tommy straightened, throat tight, fists hidden.

A little body was pulled into the shed with a sack over her head, dressed only in her bloodied shorts and camisole, wearing a suit coat to provide some sort of coverage. There was an enemy hand in hers, guiding her forward, though her feet were stumbling. The sack was suddenly yanked from over her head, and her eyes slammed shut as the light assaulted her once more.

Everything was swimming, colours bleeding into one another, everything far away like she was underwater. The ocean was back to roaring in her ears. Waves crashing upon the shore, rolling back just to crash again. Del felt woozy, like she'd fall over any moment. She squinted and swayed, trying to make sense of the unclear figures in her murky vision.

There was the mobster at her side, smirking as he always did, Della didn't care about him but. She cared about the other figures in her vision, the ones standing right across from her in Uncle Charlie's gin shed.

What little remained of her family. Finn. Aunt Polly. And her da: Tommy.

His silhouette was so familiar, she'd know it anywhere.

He'd come for her. He'd made a deal. It hurt to know this, and it hurt to see him. Standing there, hands in his pockets, shoulders rolled back. He was looking at her, she could feel it, but she couldn't look him in the eye. If she let herself look at him, she'd fall apart. She'd never be able to get through this. And her family needed her to get through this, to save him, to make sure he made it out alive.

Mister Changretta released Del's numb hand to walk closer to the desk and fold his hands before him. Then the mobster smiled, voice echoing through the shed:

"All that's left of the Peaky f—ckin' Blinders."

The man put papers on the table between them, talking and talking, but Della wasn't listening, unable to hear it over the sound of the ocean in her head. Besides, none of it mattered anymore. Not a bit of it. Tommy kept looking at her. Del kept looking away. She wanted him to turn away, to stop glancing at her, to stop trying to catch her eye. She didn't want him to watch as she got killed for his sake.

Surrounded by mobsters with guns, the girl dazedly watched as they searched her family, removing weapons and bullets and things. He even tore open Pol's blouse, nobody did anything but. Then Mister Changretta held up a pen and tossed it onto the table, waiting for her Tommy to do something with it.

Nothing happened.

Del realised that she wouldn't ever get to say goodbye to them. He'd kill her 'fore she got the chance. The girl wished now that she'd asked to send a letter so they'd know how much she loved them, how sorry she was. In her head, she started to write,

Dear Da,

Can you ever forgive me? I'm sorry I got taken and I'm sorry I got killed. But I'm meeting Muma, maybe in heaven if it's real. There must be a place for those of us who've loved you, and that's where I'll find her. You might think I don't love you 'cause of what I've done, but I promise I do.

All my love, your little trouble...

Della suddenly jumped when Mister Changretta overturned the table, roaring, "Get on your f—cking knees and sign!"

For a moment, Tommy didn't move.

Please, Del silently begged her da, Just obey. Just obey and it will all be over soon.

Slowly, Tommy got onto his knees before him. Yet this didn't seem like an act of submission. Della could've sworn... they still had the upper hand, something Mister Changretta didn't see comin'. But it wasn't possible. It just wasn't. She'd made a deal. She'd promised to die. Del held her breath, waiting for it, biding her time. It will all be over soon. It will all be over. Slowly, the mobster turned round and looked at them. Looked at Del especially.

This was it. It was time.

Mister Changretta drew his gun and aimed it for her head.

Adeline held her breath and she waited to die.

Tommy saved her. Her da was on her kidnapper in an instant, knocking away the gun with a kosh. It was a brutal thing to behold, and Del couldn't look away. Her father and the mobster were in an all out brawl. Tossling and tumbling, Tommy threw Mister Changretta into the rows of gin bottles and then banged his face into the table over and over and over. Blood and hair flying, grunts and shouts filling the room.

Everyone just watched.

Then came Uncle Arthur, like some sort of avenging angel, or a ghost from the other side. Alive, alive, alive. Del stared numbly as Tommy dragged the mobster up to his feet, chest heaving, eyes wide. Uncle Arthur raised his gun.

Bang!

Blood exploded into the air, blood and gin.

Then Mister Changretta fell to his knees and then onto his face, dead.

Del couldn't keep standing.

Like a puppet with her strings cut, Adeline collapsed onto the ground, face colliding with the rough texture of the concrete. There were only shadows and silhouettes and dark patches, no scatterings of light against barrels and rafters and sheds she'd seen her entire life. The girl was trembling, eyes blown wide and fingers digging into the earth. She couldn't hold up her weight as she tried and failed to crawl forward, hands sloshing through the puddles of glass and blood and gin.

It was such an ugly world.

Neither dead nor dying, Del wished she was. She was supposed to die. Why hadn't she died? She'd... She'd been ready. She'd been ready to die. She felt inexplicably disappointed, inexplicably heartbroken. No grandmother. No Martha. No John. No Greta. Gone. All f—cking gone. Gone without her. They slipped through her fingers just as she had slipped through death's. She had promised to die.

Why hadn't she died?

They seemed to be talking to the Italians, her family, she couldn't hear them but. Not Finn or Polly or Arthur. Not Tommy. Maybe because she had already let them go. She had let them each go; one by one like they were fireflies from a jar, like they were butterflies from her hands. She could not belong to them. She could not exist with them. There was no life left for her — not here, not now that she'd already said goodbye to it.

Why hadn't she just f—cking died?

Del just laid still. She couldn't pick herself up, not covered in blood like this, not when she couldn't feel her hands. She was breathing heavy, staring up at Tommy's face because her body couldn't do anything else. It felt like they stared at each other for a long time, Tommy and Del, but it could've only been a second, both breathing in and out, suddenly in time with one another.

In... out... in... out...

Del breathed in and by the next exhale, Tommy was already there, drawing her off the ground and up into his arms like she was a baby again. She flinched but allowed herself to be cradled, too numb to do anything but. Her legs hung limply below her and his arms were wrapped so tightly round her, it was hard to draw breath.

Della's fingers clawed into the collar of his coat, threading it through her fingers so she couldn't be torn from him again. Tommy's heart was pounding so hard she could feel it shaking her own ribcage, reminding her that her lungs ached and her stomach was hollow. Breath hitching on a sob trying to work its way through her throat, she buried her face into his neck.

He smelled of cigarettes and gin and rain, and it was so familiar, it brought tears to her eyes.

She was alive; why was she still alive?

Tommy drew away, still holding her up with one arm, cupping her face with the other. Del could feel his hand trembling against her skin, his palm settling on her cheek, in her hair, back on her cheek. He was so pale, and he was so much thinner looking round his wrists and cheekbones. There were bruises on his knuckles, and cuts and blood on his face.

He looked terrible. Then again, so did she.

Del became distantly aware Tommy was talking to her, saying her name, fingers still running through her tangled hair. Their faces were so close, his nose nearly touching hers. It felt as if she was underwater, the world round her bubbled off and distant. She tried to focus on his moving lips, but there was nothing that made sense to her. Absolutely nothing.

Polly was just over his shoulder, along with Finn and Arthur; each of them looking at her with... with...

Her head was spinning, everything was shifting out of focus.

Tommy stroked her cheekbone, the pad of his thumb running over crusted blood, accidentally splitting the gash open again, bringing back all the pain from the past few days with it.

"Adeline."

It was a scratchy sound, still muffled beneath all the ocean filling her head. Del blinked up to meet his familiar blue eyes, mouth going dry.

Her father sniffed, sounded like he was choking, sounded like he was crying, "Did they hurt you, my little trouble?"

Del felt that rock lodged in her chest loosen. She tried to speak but couldn't, only a sob choked from between her shaking lips.

"Speak to us, Lamb?" Pol whispered softly, fingers cupping her chin, "Let me hear your voice."

The ocean was crashing in her ears again. Roaring, overwhelming every other sound. Del sluggishly glanced between her family blankly, blinking slowly. Pol kept staring with those soft eyes, it was soothing, like when she got sick when she was little.

"Della?"

There was a flash of something in Tommy's face, something she'd barely seen before. It was... panic, or fear, something that scared her. Del didn't respond because she wasn't sure. She looked back down at herself, at the blood on her skin, the tears in her clothes, the lack of stockings that she knew she was wearing at some point.

Then, "Orright," a whisper, barely a sound.

It was what Tommy needed to hear. But it was a lie, it had to be. Still, she couldn't find it within her hollow chest to feel guilt; she'd lied to spare him. Just like she had every time before.

Her father let out a big breath, like he'd been holding it, let the exhale linger until she was certain there'd be no air left in him.

Polly didn't believe her. She knew better, looking at her as if she knew something so terribly secret. Her aunt was full up of tears, a wet smile and swimming eyes. She had a hand to her pale lips, like she might be sick. Del felt woozy, like she'd fall over any moment. Pol shook her head over Tommy's shoulder, the girl pretended not to notice but.

Del was trembling, eyes blown wide and fingers digging into his shoulder. She suddenly felt floaty, like at any moment she'd start rising, lifting, drifting away from her father and the blood and her body. Her skin was tingling, her blood pulsing against it, waiting to be let out. The muscles in her face slackened and all the breath in her lungs seeped out from her lips. Still murmuring to her, Tommy held her chin and tilted her face up towards him, looking at her pupils.

"Are you on something, my Del? Eh?"

The drink. The gasoline. There was something in that...

"I... I wouldn't behave..."

Tommy's jaw tightened, lowering Del ever so gently onto the ground behind him, like she was precious cargo, fragile and made of glass.

A little glass trinket, liable to shatter at any second.

Del's legs went out fairly immediately and he caught her, Tommy, tucking her into his side, keeping her upright. She'd turned to water, dripping, pouring over, nothing solid about her. She couldn't hear him again, he was talking to her but. Maybe she wasn't floating, after all. Maybe she was sinking, pulled under by the current, drowned out by the waves.

"Come on, eh?" His mouth was against her ear, choking out, "Let's go outside a bit."

He wanted to get her away from all this blood, from all this death.

He just didn't know death had already made itself a home within her.

With his daughter in his arms, Tommy turned and limped them slowly away. Del wanted to look back, see if she was slipping over onto the ground, see if she had left behind her body. She couldn't seem to get her neck to cooperate, and Tommy was holding her far too tightly to go anywhere but forward.

"Is our Charlie safe?" Del mumbled into his side. 

"Yea, he's home, my little trouble, waitin' for you."

Her knees were going weak again, the ground was turning into the sea. How her da knew to walk on water, she didn't know. She was slipping from his grip, but Tommy picked her up and wrapped her legs round his waist, like she was a much smaller child, holding her closer 'til it started to hurt, until it would leave bruises along with all the others. Totally numb, tears trailing down her cheeks, she stared into the darkness that was his shoulder.

"I was ready, Da..." Della whispered softly, "I was ready..."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Tommy and Del were losing it.

They went back to Arrow House. Del didn't recall when or how. Suddenly she opened her eyes and then she was just there, bundled and hidden away in the big house. People were coming and going, and lots of things were happening all at once. Del had a hard time processing any of it. Doctors were round a lot. Charlie had been hanging off her hip, and Polly and Ada checked her over and over. Michael had been exiled to America, from the sounds of it. Del didn't know what he'd done, she'd lost the ability to care but. The ability to care about anything, really.

She was waiting.

Just waiting to move on, trapped somewhere between life and death.

They had a party, to celebrate the holiday or their success or whatever else. It didn't matter. There were people and noise and warmth. She had her family. Her friends. Del couldn't hear any of them. People hugged her, kissed her head. She couldn't feel that either. What she could feel was her father's eyes on her most of the night, watching, watching, always watching.

He looked away every time she looked back.

Tommy'd gotten the kids a horde of sweets, all Del's favourites, she noticed but didn't partake. She watched them run and laugh and play like nothing had changed at all. Something had changed. Irrevocably, with no way of ever going back. No one else seemed to notice. Del didn't understand any of them; it was like they were speaking in a foreign tongue. They suddenly felt much younger than her, so much younger like they were years and decades and centuries below her.

Uncle Arthur talked about peace.

Del wasn't sure what that meant.

She could barely even hear him over the white noise of waves crashing in her head.

If she couldn't hear them, if she couldn't feel them, maybe she'd turned into a ghost. Maybe death took some time, maybe just bits of her were passing away one by one 'til she was finally allowed to leave earth. It seemed right. It felt right. It was like she was invisible, like her physical form had disappeared all together. Like it had finally happened, that last bit of her still lingering on earth had finally faded away. After all this time, it was almost a relief.

"War's over. No one wants to kill us." Uncle Arthur raised a glass, "To peace."

Della stood up in the middle of the toasts, stood straight up and no one looked her way. So she ran, focused on reaching the meadow and lake on the other side of the far wall. But at the last second, her body reappeared and she collided into the wall and knocked herself out.

It resulted in a concussion and three stitches, and it gave the family something to talk about the rest of holiday.

The problem was, she didn't feel a f—cking thing.

If there was pain in her head, in the cigarette burns on her arms, in the bruises along her ribs, Del didn't feel any of it. She was losing her mind, Del was. Bit by bit, a piece at a time. Could feel the madness infect her like a poison turning her brain black.

Spirits, ghosts, tablets. Somewhere before life and death, waiting to move on.

All going down the drain. She was going down the drain.

For hours, Adeline would sit in a bathtub filled to the brim of cold water, goosebumped and unable to feel it. Now, she closed her big eyes and she let herself sink. The water enveloped her, and she hysterically considered breathing it in for a moment. For longer than a moment. Maybe she should do something daft... Her lips parted, the water flooded into her mouth, and she felt her chest heave — preparing her lungs to push out the oxygen to make room for the water.

Let it cleanse her of the curses. Purify her of the sins. Wash away the person that she was.

She heaved. She prepared. And then, in the last moment, instead of breathing in, she belted out. Eyes shot open, pupils blown wide, watching bubbles burst from her lips and explode out on the surface. She let her body scream until she was certain she would die.

Del erupted from the water, bursting forth like a whale breached the sea.

The girl gasped in, heart hammering behind her eyes, lungs begging for relief.

"Della?" A loud knock followed the small voice, "Della, you orright?"

"Yea, orright, Charlie!" She was hoarse, couldn't talk right, "Go away, now. Time for bed."

Her brother didn't fight her on it. She collapsed against the cool porcelain, hair clinging to her back, what could have been a tear dripping down her cheek. She'd stay for now. Because he needed her. Because maybe they both did. The water beckoned her deeper. She had to close her eyes to resist temptation.

Del was always on the wrong side of the water.

Everything else was on the other side, and nothing could penetrate its surface to pull her from the current. She was only floating, Del, floating through the big house. No matter how many times she checked to be certain, her feet still touched the ground even if she couldn't feel it. She'd taken off her shoes and she'd gone round barefoot, willing herself to feel something — anything.

When wood didn't work, Del tried glass.

Frances had screamed when she found her. Della hadn't known it was possible to have so much blood inside of one person. She'd felt swollen with it, weighed down by it. And she felt so much lighter when she'd bled out on the bathroom floor, feet slashed and gouged, sitting stretched out with her back to the wall. It hadn't hurt, not even a little, not even at all.

She didn't even feel it when a doctor was called to stitch and bandage them.

Her da stood in the corner, looking faded, as if a picture that'd been too long in the sun.

"Will they heal?"

The doctor gave her a little clear bottle that had a storm swirling inside it.

"With time."

Del didn't think enough time existed.

The little clear bottle was emptied so fast. The storm started to swirl inside of her, instead of outside. She needed more of it. She needed so much more. It was wrong to steal from your own. Del did it, anyway. She went into her father's things and found a little blue bottle full of clear liquid. It tasted like gasoline. She took it and kept taking it.

Opium, that was what it was called.

Light with opium, barefoot and blank, Della left one morning.

She wasn't going anywhere, not really. Frances kept pestering her to get some fresh air, and Tommy kept telling her to mind Frances, and so Del just went. She hadn't even noticed it was raining, a nearly biblical deluge pouring from the sky. Then, once she started walking, she just hadn't been able to stop. She didn't come back 'til long after dark, in the pouring rain, only lightning guiding her path back to the big house.

The whole d—mn family was awaiting her return. They'd been out lookin' for her, apparently. All of them soaked and terrified she'd done something daft. Soaked to the bone and no shoes on, Del walked into the foyer and found everyone staring at her. No one yelled at her. No one whacked her. Polly just bundled her in a blanket, took her upstairs, and tended to her with Ada.

The living didn't say a f—cking word.

The dead said far too much.

Their voices were so loud. So f—cking loud. Louder than they'd ever been. Del ducked down in her bed with her hands pressed over her ears, baring her teeth to force it all away. The dreams were the worst. They haunted her both in sleep and waking hours. She was seeing things. Seeing a woman she'd only ever known from a photograph. Greta. Her mother was with her always, standing over her shoulder, watching from the corner, waiting by the door.

Della had the shakes. She couldn't get herself to stop f—cking shaking. Maybe the voices and her mum scared her. Maybe that was why she trembled all the time, everywhere. As she laid in bed, as she sat by the window, as her da came to check on her.

Tommy'd been gone and away a bit, taking care of business, forcing himself to go on holiday. It didn't look to be going very well. He was home, wounded and bandaged once more. She'd asked about it. He told her not to worry, said it wasn't time to worry. He was wrong. They both knew it.

Her da came to see her nearly every day. He didn't know what to ask. She didn't know what to answer. She'd no idea what he wanted from her, especially when he wasn't at all well himself. They both were so f—cked in the head, there was never any point. Usually, Tommy was off his face, Del was sure, drunk and trying not to let it show. He held onto her doorway with a white—knuckle grip as if he needed a tether for the storm in his head.

He growled, "Orright?"

"Orright." She lied, "And you?"

"Yea..." He lied right on back, "Orright."

It was no longer better than nothing. It was all he could give her, and it was not enough.

"Frances says you've not been yourself, my Del..." Tommy was watching her in a way that made her want to cry, and he struggled for the words to say, "D'you... If there's... The f—ckin' Changretta's—,"

No. No. She couldn't speak of it. She couldn't even think of it.

Whimpering, Del swiftly covered her ears and began to sing as loud as she possibly could, trying desperately to drown out the sound of his words, "Please tell me, it's time that I knew, will my heart have to pay?"

Tommy seemed to come to himself, eyes wide and flinching as he kept calling to her.

She kept singing louder and louder, "Will you send me away? Am I wasting my time on you—?"

"Eh, eh, it's orright, Del." Her da quickly grasped her shoulder, raising a hand in f—cking surrender, "We don't have t' talk about it, Della. Adeline, we won't talk about it, s'orright. We won't talk about it, eh?"

She kept her hands over her ears long after he looked away and left the room.

For days after, Del stayed in bed. Every morning and every evening, Charlie knocked on the door and asked if she was still sick. The girl was not sick. She was horribly, absolutely, alive.

Alive but not well. Slipping away from reality. Starving herself to death. Her da hadn't bothered comin' to the dining room in ages. So Del didn't bother either. She always followed him in everything he did, anyway. 'Sides, she liked the feel of the hunger, the way it pierced her guts with varying degrees of pain. Still, that didn't matter. She couldn't eat, anyway.

Trays with food would appear in her room, almost as if by magic, put there by an invisible hand. The utensils had grown too heavy, as if made of solid gold, as if a thousand pounds each. A fork could never make its way to her mouth. And when she'd turned savage, when she'd tried to scoop the food with bare hands, she'd only throw it up.

At night, she'd fist her hands into her sheets 'cause she was scared the moment she let go, she'd start rising, lifting, drifting away. She made it a rule for herself. She couldn't sleep, she had to keep vigil. She was only little but. And weak. And pathetic. And sometimes Del couldn't help but drift away into sleep, and when she closed her eyes, she could hear it again: the ocean. The waves weren't high now, the tide'd gone out, but she could hear it coming.

He'd wander into her room at night, Tommy, when she lay gripping her blankets, eyes on the ceiling. He never said anything. Nor did she. He just sat down on the chair by her window and he watched over her, eyes dark, body slack. He looked away every time she looked back.

One time she went to him. But only once.

Frances wanted them to say goodnight to Tommy. Del let Charlie lead them down the long hallways that she barely recognised. Pushing open the door a bit, the children found their da standing and stumbling, arms outstretched, eyes on the ceiling. A cigarette between his fingers, a bottle of gin at his lips, smoke in the air all around him.

In the hazy white light, Tommy looked nearly holy.

He tripped and stumbled over nothing, colliding hard against the dresser and then onto the floor. The bottle of gin shattered beneath him, palms immediately cut and bleeding. Once again, his hands were covered in blood. Just his own this time.

Del wrapped an arm round Charlie's shoulder. Her brother pushed the door open a little more.

Tommy heard them, his huge eyes darting up, and he looked bloody terrified.

"Del?" His voice cracked, sounding breathless, "Charlie..."

Tommy struggled to get up, falling back on himself again and again. Charlie huddled close to Del's side, his face hiding away in her shirt. They both watched him; blank—faced, afraid. Frances took Charlie's shoulder and put a hand on Del's back, quickly guiding them back out of the room. The sounds of their father struggling and sobbing echoed in her ears long after she'd walked away. 

Eventually, when Frances convinced her to return to bed, Del laid in bed with her hands folded across her chest, staring at the ceiling. The vision of Tommy and the cold moonlight would not leave her. Listening to the banging and crashing of her father's misery, the girl's eyes remained open. She waited for the suffocation of sleep.

"Della?"

Her brother's little voice drew her burning eyes downward. She rolled over, the sheets twisting round her waist, seeing him trembling there in her doorway. He looked so small. So in need of her protection.

"Yea, Charlie?"

His voice wasn't above a whisper, "Can't sleep, Della.... He's..."

"He's too loud?"

Charlie nodded, just a bit.

"Lay down next to me, Charlie, lay down and fall asleep."

The girl folded herself around him and held him close. Del had been taken and beaten and drugged. She was broken. Their father was broken. She wouldn't let that happen to Charlie. No one'd f—cking touch him. They'd have to get through her first.

Sometime in the night, there was a noise downstairs in the office. It found Del in her room, still curled protectively round her little brother. She awoke and remained still, thinking of ghosts and Italians and intruders and her da. There was the sound of thumping and dragging, then a final thud, and finally the dull silence that followed. Don't move. Leave him be. She thought these things over and over and over, but it wasn't enough to keep her still.

The sound of silence propelled the girl to her feet.

Her feet touched the floor. Cold air swept up her sleeves. She padded through the corridor and down the staircase in the direction of silence that had once been noisy, toward the thread of moonlight seeping through the partly open office door. She stopped just outside it, feeling an imaginary gust of wind on her ankles and hands.

She fearfully peeked inside.

It took a long while for her eyes to adjust, and when they finally did, there was no denying the fact that Tommy was sitting on the floor against his desk with a crystal bottle of whiskey pressed to his chest. Like an anchor, it pulled him downward. His body was sinking. An empty embrace, hugging something that could give him nothing in return. The cold bottle remained hugged to his chest. When he bowed his head, it slipped limply to his lap. Del watched. She knew that for the next few days, Tommy would be walking round with the imprint of that crystal bottle on his body.

Del stayed and watched.

Time dripped sluggishly past.

There was only the moonlight, Tommy, and Adeline. He did not move. He didn't even appear to be breathing. Her father appeared dead. The observation was so terrifying that she found herself tripping closer, but then she could see it. Tommy was just staring at her.

She stood above him, voice hoarse, "Come back."

He kept staring, face blank, a storm brewing in his eyes.

"I need you t' come back now."

Tommy looked away.

Something angry swirled up inside of Del, something angry and hurt and terribly broken. No more. No f—cking more. With a sudden jolt, she ripped the whiskey bottle from his arms and hurled it into the dying fire, the crash followed by an explosion of flame. She was on a warpath now. In a fury and illuminated by flame, Della finally felt something.

"Are you watching now?! Eh?! Can you f—cking see me now?!"

With both hands, Del swiped across his desk and scattered its contents bloody everywhere. She broke another glass. And another. And another. Her hands sliced and bled, and she just broke more. She took his gun and spilled every bullet to the floor before she took the telephone and hurled it against the bookcase. She kicked over chairs and turned over the table and hurled pictures off walls, screaming and shouting all the while. Tommy was pressed back against his desk, eyes huge and lips parted, properly in shock of his daughter for the first bloody time. 

"You b—stard! You f—cking b—stard!"

As if brought back to life, Tommy finally tripped up to his feet and lunged for her raging body. 

"F—ck! F—cking stop, stop it now!" He grasped her by the wrists and forced her still, his huge eyes blazing down onto hers. He nearly bared his teeth down at her, "What the bloody hell are you on about?!"

Del tore her arms free and started bashing at his chest, "I know what you're bloody doing! I know—!"

He had her by the front of her shift now and he ripped her so close that their noses nearly touched, temporarily pinning her arms to her sides. His face was pale with terror and his eyes were dark with fury. She matched him for every heaving growl, every vicious glare, every bare of his teeth. Tommy's fists were clenched. Del clenched hers, too.

"Don't you f—ckin' test me, girl..."

It was a threat, it didn't matter anymore but. His game was up. She knew him too well. He wouldn't ever beat her. He wouldn't ever hurt her. All he could ever do was hide himself away from her, and she wasn't gonna let that happen anymore. No f—cking more.

Eyes wild, Del snarled up at him, "No more dancing! Stop bloody dancing round it!"

"What the f—ck..."

As if he couldn't bear to look, Tommy tried to turn away but Del grabbed onto him and refused to let go. She would never let him go. She hadn't before and she wouldn't now. Her fingers curled into his wrinkled shirt and she shook him as hard as she could.

"Look at me, Tommy!" Della roared, throat screaming for relief, "Just look! You always look away! You're always turnin' away from me to hide in a bottle, in a fight, in some f—cking woman!"

Lizzie, Grace, May, Tatiana, Jessie, the list went on and on.

Tommy was glaring daggers, it didn't matter now but. He was crumbling like a brick wall, sinking like a busted boat, gasping like she'd stuck a blade between his ribs. She was right, he knew she was right. It was tearing him up inside.

"Adeline—,"

"Why can't you look at me?! Face it! Just face it!" She was struggling to stay upright, breathing ragged as she choked, "You're so terrified of what hurts, you bury it! You're still f—cking burying it. I bet you looked away when my mum died, too! I bet you didn't even care! And you know what? You f—cking buried me with her."

It was too far. It was just far enough.

He faced it all for the first time in twelve years.

"Love." Tommy started in a brutal voice, calling her something he never had before, "I was there with your mum; I loved her, I looked right at her, I f—cking held her when she went."

Del's entire body shook as she fought to hold back tears, chin and bottom lip wobbling.

"Don't you think I wanted to save her, eh?! Don't you think I miss her every day? Don't you f—ckin' think I want to be the father you deserve?!" Tommy spread his arms out wide and then dropped them uselessly to his sides. "I failed you," he said. "I failed."

Then he did something Del couldn't believe.

He started to cry.

Her father, the great Thomas Shelby, was f—cking weeping. His shoulders were moving up and down, chest heaving as he sobbed right there in front of her. Della just looked up at him in complete bewilderment, utter shock. She'd never seen him truly cry before. She did not know he could. She did not know he was capable. It terrified her more than she could possibly say.

Tommy's pale hands covered his face, his voice muffled, "You're orright, Adeline, I'm orright, I've made it all orright..."

"No, you f—cking haven't!" It was a furious reproach, tears battlin' to be freed, "You're f—cked, Tommy. You're all f—cked in the head and so am I... So am I! We've buried it and we're broken, and now we're..."

Del's first cry wrestled free, strangling out of her with a hoarse sob. Weakly, her body careened 'til her face collided into his sternum. Instantly, he wrapped his arms round her shoulders just as she wrapped her arms round his waist. Tommy and Della f—cking clung to one another. He was weeping so hard, he started shaking. She was shaking, too. They'd somehow ended up on the floor, wrapped and intertwined, blood and tears shared between them.

He kept repeating, "They won't get you again, my Del, I won't let them get you..."

It was the promise she needed.

Then, it all flowed out of her.

All the fear and the grief and anger ripped free. Del's chest shook when she gasped and began to sob. Everything hurt so much. It was all just too much. Her da understood that better than anyone else could.

She was partly in his lap as he rocked her, and she buried her face into his chest, clinging onto him like she'd wanted to all her life. Tommy brought her infinitely closer, his arms a shelter from the wicked world round them. Words tripped and stumbled out of her, tear—soaked and unintelligible.

"Take your time." Tommy cradled her close, voice soft by her ear, "I'm here, my little trouble. 'M not looking away. You can tell me when you're ready, eh? Tell me everything..."

In the destruction of his office, there were only her sobs and his hoarse breathing and the certain way he held her. Tommy kissed the top of her head and gently stroked at her hair, nails scratching at her scalp in that familiar way. Slowly, the tears died away and Del just panted a little, soothed by the steady rhythm of his arms rocking her. Her lungs and jaw ached from all the screaming and crying, and now she felt tired. Just so d—mn tired. Exhausted and breathless, the girl pressed her damp cheek into her da's trembling chest and felt the wild beat of his heart beneath her.

The chain around her neck twisted painfully, and Del shakily yanked it free of her night gown so the pendant caught a bit of light and her father's attention. He hummed a bit, gently picking up the small locket that used to hang round his own neck.

"Thought I lost this." Tommy didn't sound angry, just rasped, "You steal it off me?"

"That day, in Wales." Her da tensed at the mentioning, and Del ignored that to whisper, "Was it hers?"

They both knew who she meant. Hers. Greta's.

"Yea... Saint Jude. Patron Saint of Lost Causes."

"Somehow it seems fitting, doesn't it?"

Tommy looked sharply up at her, and Del offered him a weak near smile. He'd heard that before, hadn't he? It was as true now as it was then. Her father nodded again, snuffing hard and slowly slouching them back against his desk. For a moment, they just breathed together — in... out... in... out...

Then, when she was ready, the words drifted out of her, "I broke our deal... I've lied to you."

So, Del was the first to break their deal, the first to lie. Who would have thought? She wondered if he might be angry with her, he wasn't but. There was no tension, no frustration. She desperately wanted him to understand.

"Yea?"

"Yea. I lied when I said they didn't hurt me." Della's voice was flat, if a bit shaky, "They did hurt me."

Tommy's arms flinched and his chest shuddered beneath her. His chin shifted above so his cheek rested on the top of her head. He waited, silent and patient, letting her go on when she was ready.

"He was gonna kill me, Da."

Tommy stopped. Just briefly, enough for her to notice but. Then his rocking arms tightened just a bit, heart skipping a beat against her cheek, "He said that t' you?"

"Yea. He said he'd kill me, if I wanted, and he'd let you live instead."

"Del..."

"We agreed he'd kill me, and I think he did, somehow."

Del pulled away from Tommy. She dragged up the sleeves of her shift and she showed him the cigarette burns on her arms. She showed him the bruises on her ribcage. She showed him every evidence of her suffering she received at other's hands and at her own. Tommy gently ran his thumb over her burns and bruises, tortured gaze locked on her wounds.

"Now, I can't feel anything. Not one f—cking thing." She bit her lip, whispering, "I think he killed the part of me that feels things. I think he killed the part that wanted to feel anything. S' all buried six feet under, and I can't get meself to face it."

Her father's gaze suddenly slipped up to hers, and she was shocked once more to find tears in his eyes.

"I think I'm dead, too, Della."

Tommy said it, and Del knew it was true. He understood. Finally, someone understood.

When he didn't go on, she softly asked, "Is that why you always look away?"

He scoffed out a bitter sound, shaking his head against her, "I look away 'cause you see me, Del. Better than anyone. And I don't want you t' see what I am."

He drifted back into another contemplative silence, and she shifted on his lap for a better view of his face.

"Part of me died in France, the good part, 'fore you even got to know me. 'Fore I even got to be the sort of man you deserved." Del's da was thinking as he said it, and he wasn't burying what he was feeling six feet under, "I was under the ground, with nothing but your photograph, and I watched us digging and fighting and murdering each other, and that good part of me you deserved died so I wouldn't lose my mind instead."

The singing. The sleeping. The opium. The deal with Changretta. The gin shed. The absolute inability to feel any d—mn thing since. She did all of that so she wouldn't lose her mind instead. It made sense. It made so much sense. It felt so wonderful to be understood.

"I was scared. But I wanted to die."

Del was frightened her confession would anger him. Upset him. But Tommy just slowly nodded, "I was, too. 'Cause I think the parts of us that would be scared, wouldn't be able to get us through it, were the parts that had to die. Now, we've to live with what's left."

Della couldn't see her way through this, "How?"

"Don't know, do I?" Tommy gave her a bitter sort of smile, though his quiet voice was shaking a little, "I've made a mess of it. Every bit of it. You know, Del, after France, when I came back, I'd planned to pack you up and go. I'd wanted to get you as far from the smokestacks and the shite and all the rest of Small Heath as I could. Just you and me, we'd go somewhere green and quiet and stay there. I thought... I thought your mum would like that."

Del's fingers fiddled with the pearled buttons of his shirt, "And then?"

"And then..." He sounded so f—cking exhausted, "There was always something else, another problem to solve, another job to do. I put first things first. Shop needed to be run and family business needed sorting — Ada having Karl, Arthur hurting himself, Finn with his schooling, John and his lot... The thing was, Del, I thought I was doing best for the family, and all the while... there was you, needing me to be what I was before. But there was no coming back."

"D'you think we can ever come back again?"

"Dunno..." Tommy murmured, face darker than ever as he pondered, "No. No, I do not. What's gone is gone, we've to let the dead lie with the dead."

"Maybe we can but... Maybe... if we face it." She looked back up at him, eyes huge and hopeful, "We can if we're brave, Da."

"I'm not brave, not like you, Del. You're the bravest girl there ever was."

"Then I'll help you be brave." She got on her knees and put her hands on his shoulders, "I'll be brave for you."

"Ah, Del." There was a hint of a smile when he cradled her cheek with a rough hand, "My Del... I didn't bury you with your mum. I think, I buried part of you when I buried part of myself. You've always been half of me."

Teary—eyed and smiling tiredly, she leaned further into his touch, "Da?"

"Mm?"

"I think I love you very much."

Tommy's hand tenderly shifted to the back of Del's neck so he could draw her in once more, cradling her against his chest like she was a much smaller child. He held her so close, it started to hurt, she just clung tighter but. She tucked her head under his chin and let the rise and fall of his chest calm her, matching her heartbeat's rhythm with his.

"Love you, my Del..." His lips buried in her hair, murmuring, "We'll be orright."

"You promise?"

No lies. That was their deal, and he had kept it.

"I promise, my love. I promise."

━━━━━━ annie speaks ━━━━━━

SCREAMING. what an emotional roller coaster. poor del can't catch a break, she's almost killed and now depressed and addicted to opium and she is not doing well. BUT we have a beautiful (painful) moment with tommy and della. you guys, this was the huge emotional breakthrough that i have been waiting for since the start of this book. this huge confrontation sets the tone for their relationship for the rest of this story. also, this whole experience really affects del for the rest of her life. it's going to be wild. i can't wait.

also, so sorry for the delay in updates. in case you haven't heard, i've been extremely busy and unable to contact the outside world because of a hurricane that hit my city. thankfully, my internet just came back on even if my power hasn't. weird right? anyway, that meant i could FINALLY post this chapter!

now, this is the second to last chapter of act 2. who is ready for our finale before we hit act 3?!! it features depressed del, baby ruby, protective dad!tommy, and... bonnie gold. see you next sunday xx