Astor // Arthur Shelby x Reader - Peaky Blinders

Chapter 51

"Lucky Luca picked the empty wing," the man mutters to himself.

It stirs something in my memory. But I only acknowledge a ripple of fear in my chest, as though my heart is seized in ice for too many beats.

"Luca?" I ask. "Is that the name of the man who found me in the library?"

"No. That was John." There's a tightness at his jaw as he opens a door, leads me outside.

"And what is your name?" I ask him.

"Thomas Shelby." He releases my hand now we're out of the labyrinth of hallways, but keeps me moving just as urgently as we head up a bank and to an empty road. "What's yours?"

I have to think for a moment. And then for a moment longer.

"Everybody keeps calling me Changretta," I say slowly. "But I don't think I like my name very much."

I stumble and my legs give out from under me. I push myself upright, but everything in front of me tilts on an axis, first one way then the other. I realise only when I'm swept back up to my feet that I've been staring at a patch of grass for an indeterminate amount of time. Trying to make sense of it. To re-orient myself.

"Almost there," Tommy says gruffly, hoisting me into his arms and carrying me the rest of the way.

There's a strange surge and a zap inside my head, and suddenly I'm in the backseat of a car. This happens to me sometimes — I'm not sure why, and I don't have the words to ask.

"Just fucking tell her, Arthur," someone's muttering from the seat beside me. "She won't freak out again. She won't even look at us."

My gaze snaps instinctively to him at those words, and he has the grace to look sheepish.

Then the man with the moustache clears his throat and my attention snaps to him. My breathing quickens slightly, my eyes widening as my heart begins to thump in my chest.

I can't get the image of the melted man out of my head.

It's like I've been waiting for it to happen. My brain stubbornly clings to it, uncaring that it sends a tremor through me, a wave of emotion I don't understand. Don't know what to do with. And so it catches in my throat and it burns when I swallow it down.

He clears his throat again. And when he looks at me, I'm momentarily immersed in his eyes. I cannot for the life of me work out what lies behind them. What his thoughts might be.

Probably because he's a psychopath, I reason with myself. Who melts faces off.

But it's not enough to quell my curiosity.

"Astor," he says quietly. "I'm your husband."

I flinch at his words. And then, after my reaction, he refuses to look at me. His face creases, and he delivers the rest of his words while staring resolutely past me, out of the window.

"We've been trying to find you for months," he says. "Trying to get you out of there. All of us. It's all we've done."

"Speak for yourself," John mutters. "I pulled a bird or two in the meantime."

"Pulled a bird?" I ask. "Wouldn't that hurt it's wings?"

John grins at first like he might laugh, and then covers his face with his hands, like he might cry. I look all around the car. I don't understand these people. Their words do not make sense to me.

But they haven't hurt me yet. They haven't put me to sleep.

"Arthur," I hear someone murmur from the driver's seat. I focus intently, and remember it's Thomas, who led me from the building... Why was he taking me from the building? I strain, I think, like trying to clutch the last wisp of a dream before it disappears forever... fire. There was a fire. That's how the man... Arthur, I remember with a flash of victory, killed the other.

My attention refocuses, and I catch the tail end of what Thomas is saying. "...Make the preparations. We'll stay with her there until everyone arrives and gets set up."

"You sure, Tom?" Arthur asks.

"I want my brother well again. Can you manage that if Astor's in a public hospital?"

Arthur's voice thickens. "No."

I'm not sure if nobody speaks for a while, or if I've had another brain zap, but my eyes are a lot heavier and I'm leaning against the window frame when they speak again.

"She might not get better, Arthur." Thomas's voice is quiet now. "We'll do the best we can, but... Even so."

"You don't know her like I do, Tom." His voice swells. "That's my girl. And I'm not giving up on her until I'm buried six feet fucking under."