devil's backbone 🗝 tommy shelby

chapter 14

But as his heavy shoes made contact with the floor, he heard it.  The soft, fearful whimpering that he swore he never wanted to hear again after the night in the alley.

Sybil.

Not even thinking nor hesitating, Tommy rushed down to her room and threw the door open, where he was met with a soul-crushing sight.

Sybil, his Sybil, was tucked away in the furthest corner of her room, wielding some sort of curling rod (which Tommy had assumed was the quickest and most effective thing to be used as a weapon in short notice).  Her room was just as dark as the rest of the house, but he could still make out the glimmer of fear in her dark brown eyes as she looked up at him, clenching her teeth.  At the sight, his heart broke, but he approached the woman slowly anyways.

"Sybil," he spoke soothingly, holding his hands up slightly. "Sybil, it's me, Thomas.  Are you alright?"

Sybil, realising that it wasn't her stalker, but instead the man she grew to trust more than most any other man she had ever known, softened her features.

"Tommy?"

At the recognition and her visibly more relaxed disposition, he stepped closer.

"Yeah," he nodded. "It's me, Sybbie."

Sighing a sigh of nothing but pure relief, the young woman tossed the curling rod to the side and dashed over to the man, tackling him in a hug.  And without missing a beat, he welcomed it, cradling her head with one hand whilst the other rested on the small of her back.  Although the embrace was more than appreciated and reciprocated, he was still perplexed as to why she was hugging him like so.  Nevertheless, he held her close for as long as she needed, and was there for her, just as he always would be.

After a while, Billie took a deep breath and pulled away from the man's warm embrace.  She didn't want to, seeing as in his arms she felt the safest, but she knew that she had to.  She could only imagine how suspect she looked at the moment, and she didn't want to do anything else to further deem herself as suspicious to Tommy.

"Why are you here?" she asked breathlessly, trying her hardest to come back down from her adrenaline rush. "H-How did you get in?"

"There was a key under the mat," Tommy answered, looking down at the woman with concern. "There's business I need to take care of, and right now, I need Finn to be safe."

At the mention of the young boy, Sybil's feelings of intimidation were replaced by a different type of fear.

"Finn? What's happened with Finn? Why wouldn't he be safe?"

Tommy sighed, running a hand over his face before walking over to the door and shutting it.

"The betting shoppe was done over," he informed. "And the people that did it over, they tried to kill me. Put a bomb in my car, Sybil. Attached it to the door, so that if anyone opened it, it'd blow."

Sybil felt her heart sink further and further into the pit of her stomach at his words, beginning to panic all over again.

"What's this have to do with Finn?! Is he alright?!"

Sensing her overwhelming panic, Tommy was quick to ease her worries.

"Finn's alright, Sybbie. I promise you, he's alright."