EYES LIKE RAZORS

(18) Jacob

"Fucking hell." Madison snaps, kicking one of the chairs in the betting den over.

"What the bloody hell happened here?" Arthur questions Scudboat, as he poured the bagman a drink. "The Lees. All of them. Cousins, nephews, even their bastards." Scudboat states.

"They've taken anything they can lay their hands on. Four cash boxes-" Polly states, stopping when Tommy walked into the room with a set of wire cutters in his hand, "they left these."

"Wire cutters. Why would they leave wire cutters?" Polly asks, about to take a step but being stopped by Madi who was shaking her head. "Nobody move." Arthur says.

"I think our friends are playing the game." Tommy says.

"What game?" Polly queries, going to move again, this time being physically yanked back by Madison who placed her against the wall, standing infront of her aunt just in case.

"Pol, just don't touch anything, okay? Nothing. Don't move." Madison says, "some of the Lees were in France. But they did the same thing in Belgium."

"Whenever we'd give up ground to the Germans, we'd leave behind booby traps, set up with wires, then we'd leave wire cutters as part of the joke." Tommy states. "Somewhere in here there's a hand grenade." John clarifies.

"Holy Jesus." Polly says, though she'd taken notice of how her niece had placed herself between her and the rest of the room, she knew Madison wasn't good at expressing emotions, in fact she was probably worse than Thomas, but this- it made Polly realise that her niece was more than prepared to throw herself in front of a grenade if it meant protecting her family, without a second thought.

"Don't move any chairs or anything. Go easy." Arthur says, as he, John, Madi and Scudboat all crouched down, trying to spot the wire.

"Easy, John Boy, go easy." Arthur says.

"No. It's not in here. If it was in here, it would've blown by now. 'Specially since Mads has kicked half the shit." Tommy speaks, "it was my name on that bullet Erasmus sent. He's set up a trap alright. But he's set it up just for me."

"Your car. Tommy, your fucking car." Madison realises. "You're a freaking genius." Tommy says, "no, no, Finn and Isaiah, they're out there." Madison exclaims, sprinting out of the door, Tommy close after, both running until they reach the garage, stopping in their tracks when they see the two boys sat in the front seats.

"Finn. Isaiah." Madison speaks softly, slowly approaching the vehicle with Tommy. "Don't move, stay where you are." She says.

"We were pretending we were you." Finn giggles. "Which doors did you open to get in?" Tommy asks.

"We didn't. We climbed in." Finn answers, still grinning, though Isaiah, being a year older could tell the older siblings were nervous.

"What you two need to do, right, you need to climb out exactly how you climbed in." Madison tells them, and Isaiah nodded, beginning to push himself out of the car, Madi helping him down, Finn on the other hand pushed open the drivers door.

"No! Finn!" Tommy shouts, reaching into the car, and throwing the grenade down the lane, yelling for people to get out of the way.

"Duck." Madison says, dragging Isaiah to the floor with her, and hugging him to her chest, covering him, flinching as a loud explosion sounded, and Isaiah watched as her eyes widened, looking sort of crazed.

"No, no, no." She whispers, pushing herself off of the floor.

To her, it was like she was back in Belgium, running through the trenches, explosions everywhere, shots being fired, dead bodies littered about.