Astor // Arthur Shelby x Reader - Peaky Blinders

Chapter 48

Water washes over me.

Somebody tips a small bucket over my limbs, my head, in a steel bathtub. The water is somewhere between lukewarm and freezing, but I cannot work it out.

I cannot work out anything.

There are flashes of memory. Bright lights. Questions. Entire days play out in my mind, only for none of it to be real.

At some stage, I realise I am not restrained. I am free to move. To run.

The urge to run is primal within me, and I throw myself over the side of the bathtub, scrambling madly across the tiles for the door.

Arms lock around my waist and I scream, I scream in the dim light, I fight and claw and try and —

"Do you know your name?"

"Do you know where you are?"

"Do you know today's date?"

An American accent. A few words of Italian. I see Luca Changretta approach, an awful smile on his face. I see the Doctor looking nervous behind him.

"As I told you, Mr Changretta, we are beginning to make brilliant progress. The changes appear to be lasting longer and longer between treatments. Your wife has been awake for over two weeks now, and aside from, ah, a single isolated incident, we've had no issues. The restraints today are merely a precaution. She has been isolated from the outside world. Seeing her husband may trigger other memories, too."

Luca stands and stares at me. In silence. In my head, it lasts minutes and minutes and minutes — but then most things do now.

"Well?" He asks me.

"We have noticed a few side effects of the treatment," the Doctor says quickly. "Her speech is struggling. But we can work on that."

Luca's smile grows wider. More smug. "Nothing to say to me?" He asks.

Like a tree that blossoms in the spring, things begin to unfurl in my mind. Things that have been buried, but not forgotten. Things I've stubbornly clung to and refused to release.

When I remember Arthur, it is like falling in love all over again.

And when I remember Luca, my face hardens. He notices the change in me. The Doctor holds his breath.

He's right. My speech is struggling. But there's no struggle as I stare Luca in the eyes and tell him, "Fuck you."

There's silence. I realise I am in my own room now. No ward.

I realise if he chooses to kill me, nobody would ever know.

But he smiles even wider. He leans down, resting his hands on his knees.

"I think you're ready to know this now," he tells me. "I think you're ready to know that I killed Arthur Shelby. And his brothers. I made them bleed, and cry, and scream. And then I killed him. I can show your their bodies if you like... not that you'd recognise them now."

"You're lying," I whisper.

"You really believe that?" He asks me. "If I'm lying... My wife, it's been half a year. Why hasn't he bothered looking for you? If I'm lying, you don't mean a fucking thing to him after all. But believe me." He straightens up. "I gain no satisfaction from lying about a man's death." He turns to the Doctor. "Put her under again," he says.

My last thread of hope snaps. The last thing anchoring me anywhere is gone. I scramble in the darkness for a reason, for anything, but there's nothing. There's nothing anymore. There's nothing. A sting at my leg, a tube down my throat, the wave of the sedatives setting in.

I have lost my reason to endure.

***

The strange dreams come again as I wake, and this time, it is a woman I think I may have dreamt of before. For some reason, she reminds me of someone, someone important... She's wearing a nurse's uniform and whispering to me in the darkness. I'm on the ward once more, and there's no light but thin rays from the moon casting in through the small window up by the ceiling.

"Astor," she whispers. "Astor, come on. Let's move."

She takes me by the arm and sits me up, but I fall back down again as soon as she draws away from me.

"Fucking hell," she mutters. "I only gave you saline water in your last three doses, what have they done to you?"

My arms tremble as I try to hold my weight. My surroundings are spinning, and there's an ache forming at the base of my skull, searing behind my eyes.

This doesn't feel much like a dream anymore.

"Come on," she tells me, and there's an urgency in her voice that sends waves of terror through me. "We don't have long they'll be back soon—"

"Who are you?" I ask, shaking. "What are you doing?"

"Astor, it's me." She gives my shoulder a squeeze. "It's Ada. We have to go."

"You're not Ada." I gulp, my throat dry. I have more to say, to demand to know if this is some new torturous treatment they've dreamt up, but the words won't form on my lips. "I know Ada. You're not Ada."

Her eyebrows stitch together as she stares at me. "Astor, would you please come with me? I can explain everything once we're out of here. Tommy's waiting in the car, we've got to go now."

I shake my head. Vehemently. I remember somebody might try something like this, might want to torture me about these people. I won't do it, I can't do it, they'll put me to sleep once more. I force myself to my feet and instantly collapse. The woman approaches me with an outstretched arm and I push myself away from her but she keeps approaching, a figure in the darkness, she's going to put me back to sleep, she's going to —

I scream, painful and strangled, out into the night. The woman's eyes widen and she tries to shush me, tries to say something, and I'm so scared she's going to restrain me once more. I back against the wall and continue to scream, unable to form words, my head in my hands. Every cell of my body is burning. I just want it to end, I want her to go, I want them all to leave me alone.

"Astor, please," she begs me, finally retreating, running to the door. "Please fucking come with me. Arthur—"

But the rest of her words are drowned out as the sound of hurried footsteps approach. She has no choice but to run for it, and I'm so scared she'll come back, and then there's two, three, four, five people in the room, there's a sting at my arm.

Then there's nothing once more.