Nothing New / Peaky Blinders

𝘅: the murderer

He stumbled over his words. "I—"

The copper huffed, "Spit it out, boy."

"I saw..."

❋

Olivia Shelby hadn't been able to forget what she'd seen last night. She hadn't forgot the murder she'd committed. It felt like it was engraved in her memory, always there for her to never forget.

The act she'd committed: stabbing that man with a green, sharp, bottle neck in his neck and then proceeding to cut his wrists in a display of her anger haunted her. And yet, Olivia couldn't remember his face. Somehow, that felt worse to her. Not knowing the man she'd killed made her feel even more on edge.

This blurred image of a man had kept her up all night. Her Aunt Pol had wrapped her tight in blankets, duvets and any form of bedding you could think of and sat there with her hand rubbing Olivia's back from the moment she got into her bed and till the sun had fully rose and Finn awoke, and not even the blankets and her Aunt's comfort had driven Olivia to sleep.

Olivia doubted anything would ever make her sleep again. Every-time she'd closed her eyes, her wrists stung and his words ringed in her head. A constant reminder that she was supposed to die last night. And to the man, it had felt like a rite of passage to kill her, but instead it had been his body left unrecognizable covered in both their bloods.

Olivia had been disheveled upon arrival to her house, but she wasn't unrecognizable and left for dead in an alleyway.

She lay on her back staring at the ceiling of her bedroom in Watery Lane. Olivia definitely drew the short stick when she'd picked her bedroom. The deal was, when the Shelbys were younger, that once you reach a certain age you chose a bedroom and you stick with it for the rest of your life. Younger Olivia had prioritized being closer to Tommy's room than space, and the room closest had been the box room. It was a box. The smallest possible space you could imagine in a house in Birmingham. And yet, it was Olivia's. The small 4x4 was hers.

And even if she had slight regret for the size of the room, she could never hate her room. It was her safe haven. The wallpaper had always been this dark green color with an odd pattern that despite its ugliness, felt perfect for her room. The bed was right under the window, with many figures, knick-knacks and teddies decorating the windowsill. The teddies there were the ones that Polly claimed Olivia had no room for on her bed, considering the girl had more pillows, blankets and teddies than she did room for herself on her bed. But, she couldn't bare to let any of them go, especially since all of them held some form of meaning to her. At the end of her bed, with the remaining room she had on that side of the room was a skinny desk, littered with pens, perfumes she'd stolen from Ada and sheets of homework she hadn't bothered to hand in, alongside many framed photos of herself, friends and siblings. Above the desk was a framed photo of her and Tommy, her and all her siblings and a separate one of just of her and Polly.

On the other side of the room, was where Olivia housed all of her books, or at least all the books she'd stolen from Tommy and then claimed as her own. In her defense, the boy had been away fighting a war so he couldn't exactly stop her. The shelves of her bookcase were filled to the brim, nearly over spilling with content. And you could guarantee Olivia had read all of them, and if not all then only a few had gone unread. She was quick reader, but also even if she didn't like a book she was committed in seeing it front cover through back cover. Olivia Shelby could never leave anything unfinished, especially not a book.

Maybe that's why she'd slit the man's neck, and then proceeded to slit his wrists. Couldn't leave the job unfinished.

She shuddered at her own thought. And then sighed. She deserved these thoughts to haunt her, she deserved to think them.