✓ | GOLDEN LIAR ↠ Thomas Shelby.

04.

CHAPTER FOUR.

               THE FLAMES LICKED AT the sides of the building: creeping up the brick walls, devouring the greying stone slabs and swallowing each side of the building one by one. A scream was frozen in her chest and she couldn't tear her eyes from the sight of the burning property, her throat closing up as the smoke drifted through the already smog-ridden air and obstructed her breathing, causing her to cough and splutter. The chocolate fog was low and only the glow of the moon and the light of the flames were visible: the rest, as it were, was cloaked in darkness and obscured from sight as the locals were either asleep or out and roaming the more popular streets of Small Heath. Only Felicity Woods was there to witness the arson that was taking place, and the man who was committing said crime knew she would never, ever have the courage or the bravery to tell the police. Thomas Shelby had everything the way he wanted it to be, with the coppers on his payroll and the new, blonde Woods girl working at the very same place he spent his days, drowning his problems in the later hours with whiskey or smothering them with the smoke of cigarettes.

A soft babble soon filled the air: a sort of inaudible hum that swept along the streets just like the fog did. Felicity couldn't see where its source was, and her feet were frozen, preventing her from finding out. All she could do was stare at the building as the flames creeped up the walls with nothing to stop them.

The blaze grew, engulfing her vision completely. The humming stopped. The screams in her ears ceased to be heard anymore. The only thing that was left to pay attention to was the final point of the pub's roof: the one section that had yet to be consumed by the bonfire. It wouldn't take long for it to disappear like the rest of the pub. Not long at all.

Before it could occur, though, her eyes snapped open and Felicity sat up with a gasp, her heart pounding furiously inside her and a cold sweat beginning to take over her body. Flashes of the blaze streaking across her mind in streaks of crimson and deep orange. It had only been a dream, she knew that, of course, but that didn't stop her from knowing that it was at least a fragment of the truth. Thomas Shelby had burned down that stupid pub, and for what? So he could get her to work where he wanted her, when he wanted her, and all while he knew she didn't have an inch power to decline his offer.

She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and the shockingly cold floor hit her back to reality, unclouding her mind for just a moment, and that short space of time was enough for her to gather her trespassing thoughts and replace them with sensible ones. Felicity wasn't a genius, and yet she had realised long ago that she had no way of changing her new fate, and that the best thing to do was to get on with what she had to do: the sooner she did it, the quicker she could go back to living her normal - although incredibly dull - life.

By the time she was properly awake and had rubbed the exhaustion from her face with a cold towel, all thoughts and remnants of the dream had been pushed aside. If she had learned anything from the years she spent alongside her father, it was to make the best of everything. Not that John Woods had taught her that specifically - if anything, he had taught her the opposite - but growing up in a house where her father and five other siblings hardly noticed her, Felicity had adapted to think of it as more of a blessing than a curse. She could do what she wished to do, at least most of the time, that is.

And so, in the past week, Felicity had remembered everything she had ever believed in and had tied on an apron around her waist, pasted a pretty, innocent smile onto her face as she cleaned up after the early drunkards. She found that working at the Garrison was no different to working at the Black Swan, although she couldn't think of why that surprised her. The only stark difference was that she spent her days hoping that the infamous, blue-eyed gangster wouldn't reappear. As it happened, she had no such luck.