dark paradise - t.shelby

00

DARK PARADISE

Every time I close my eyes
It's like a Dark Paradise

Elizabeth Lovelace had lived in the soot of Small Heath, born and raised. Before the war, some might have called her pure, innocent, almost angelic. But, as everyone knew, the war held no mercy against anyone, and as a frontline nurse Elizabeth Lovelace didn't return the woman she left as.

Eighteen was no age to see the things she did. Burnt flesh, open bones, revealed organs. Things no human should be witness to. Things that plagued Elizabeth's mind long after she returned.

A volunteer was all she was, supposed to remain on the Western Front for a total of six months. Those six months stretched for four years and three months until finally she returned home to her family on a cold November morning.

Things were never the same. Not friendships, not relationships, families were torn apart from loss and grief. The war may have concluded in November of 1918, but it continued to live on back home. Elizabeth could fix bullet wounds and stitch cuts with her eyes closed, but mending her own broken heart and her family's was beyond her capabilities.

The Peaky Blinders caused fear in every corner of Small Heath. They were a gang not to be reckoned with, and the residents of Small Heath learned that soon enough.

Elizabeth returned home to her family, her mother and elder brother. Daniel played the protective older brother well after having raised her while their mother worked to fund their life. Him and Tommy were friends long before the war, but the events they experienced together brought them closer to a bond neither of them could describe. They shared the same experience, and that was enough to be inseparable.

Elizabeth returned to work shortly after her arrival back home. She worked alongside Harry behind the bar of The Garrison, a job she did prior to her volunteering. It was the Blinder's pub, everyone knew that, but she was protected only because of her brother's connections. At least that's what she assumed, Elizabeth was blind to the leniency she was given, only others who bared witness to it could see it for what it was.