CHAPTER 25
DIVE INTO THE BLUE
❝ It isn't blood that makes you my sister,
it's how you understand my heart
as though you carry it in your body. ❞
"You should get your arm checked." Below the flickering lights of the waiting room, Kaya's voice sounded far as she came closer to Rose. There were people all around them, yet Rose's silhouette by the window felt lonely, like a small boat amidst an unmoved ocean.
"There's no point." Her vision was reduced to the four lines of the window frame as she peered into the grey streets. Soon the morning would be greeted with drizzle. And no matter how tight the lump in her throat was, she would greet it with dry eyes.
"There are new treatments now, you'll regain movement." Sienna said from her other side. Behind them, Christopher and Angeline kept pacing back and forth like a clock with a bothersome tick. Rose wished she could block the sound; she wished she could block that dreadful hospital scent that always sent her back to Amiens, and most of all she wished she could punch her way through her chest and stop her heart from waging war against itself.
Renée had regained consciousness, but no one could enter her room while her burns were being taken care of, and every second away from her felt like a year. No one had told them anything about the baby yet. If he didn't survive, the cracks seeping through her family's tissue would be ruptured completely.
"Not all."
"Some."
"Not enough to play." Rose kept her eyes on the puddles, watching as the first droplets made ripples out of them. Violin tears, Audrey used to say. Liquid emotion. If she'd been there, she'd tell her it was okay to cry. That it was okay to pour her pain onto the world instead of having to carry it all on her own. But Audrey wasn't there. And the world had enough pain on its own. "To play like I used to, like I'm meant to play. Not enough to play the violin as it deserves to be played."
"Rose..."
"It's funny, isn't it?" She chuckled; a chuckle so dry it could have stopped the rain midair. "Steaphan killed the person that gave me life. Then Tavish went and killed the thing that made me live."
She turned her back on them and ambled to another window, the stinging, sterile smell of antiseptics shooting through her nostrils. She ran a finger along the casing, cutting the tip in a splinter. If only grief was like that. An acute pain, felt all at once. Instead it was thousands of slashes coming in waves, one after the other, stronger, than softer until you thought it almost bearable, than stronger again, stronger than anything you'd ever felt, until it was dragging you down with it. Grief was water in your lungs. It was dirt in your throat. It was everything awful in all of the wrong places.
She clutched the window frame until her knuckles turned white. Dots of darkness sprouted amidst all the grey. She'd lost too much sleep. Or maybe she was losing her mind.
"We're going back to France." Christopher said from beside her. His voice was a downpour, harsh and curt, sawing through her defenses and spinning her world out of orbit. "We've been talking about it for a while, but now... this is it. I'm taking her back to France and away from this madness you call life. There's no way I'm raising my child amidst this hell. That is, if he even survives."
Rose nodded, her eyes falling on the cross around his neck, then his wedding ring. A man of faith and love. Rose was neither, and she envied him for both.
She knew one way or another she would lose her family. She'd put their lives on the line, gambled with their futures. She deserved nothing less than to be drizzle shaken by the wind, thrown around in every direction it desired, with no choice or will of her own. A lonely petal caught in the hurricane's eye.
"I'll send you money regularly."
"It's always about that, isn't it?" He huffed, his hand grasping the cross brusquely. "Salvage means rescue, no? That's what you did to me. I was a man drowning in sorrow, and now I'm a man drowning in money. And I can't tell which one is worse. So I'm going back to my roots to remind myself what it's like to have a life outside sin, outside murder. Renée deserves that."
Rose closed her eyes. She could stand the rain and the greyness no longer. If only Thomas was there. If only Thomas was there so the blue in his eyes could make the gloom of her world a little more tolerable.
Then Christopher spoke again. The fingers around his cross softened. His other hand found Rose's shoulder.
"And so do you. You could come with us. Leave all of this behind and start over in your country. Make it your home."
She wished she could say yes. She wished she could throw it all away, follow them into France and live a happy, normal life. But some people were meant for the broken hollows and sharp edges of life, not for the paved paths and flowery meadows. Some people ran freely through corn fields; others had to cut through the thorns.
"You know I can't do that, Chris. There are too many things that keep me here, too many people that depend on me. Besides, I help France more when I'm not in it."
"You're afraid to go back. You're afraid the pain will follow you there."
"Perhaps." Rose shrugged. The rain was getting stronger now, blurring the road between her and the world. "I guess some people can only love at a distance. We're better when we're away from the things we love."
"Locking yourself away won't protect you. It will just make your loneliness more real. I know you don't believe in God. But I believe he did not make you fight a war just so you could spend your life in another. You have to sign your own armistice, Rose. You always fight for a peace you can't even give to yourself."
Rose spun on her heels. Her eyes landed on his cross. She smiled, but ran a thumb through her splinter and flinched.
"You'll be a good father, Christopher. And I am sorry that I dragged you and Renée into a life that almost killed your God. But stop trying to rescue me like I'm a small bird with a broken wing. Some of those have poison in their beaks and may bite if you try to help them."
Christopher huffed again. His shoulders dropped and he sauntered towards Jules, who was sitting on a chair with his head in his hands.
"You try putting some sense into her stubborn head." Christopher slumped down beside him. "If faith won't help her, maybe music will."
Rose almost smiled. She found it both endearing and depressive that they were taking turns trying to cheer her up. She saw Jules' shadow in the glass before he made his voice heard.
"Death is not the only way you can die, is it?" His voice was soft, like sunlight on skin, like wine on sober lips. "I've known you for so long, Rose, and you've been through so much and you've never stopped dying. And you've never stopped trying to make others live. But you have to stop. You have to stop or one day it will be fatal. Stop killing yourself to make others live."
Rose swallowed. Maybe it was because he played piano and felt music the same way she did, but Jules always knew how to strike her chords.
"How can I when others have died for me?" Rose turned her back on the window, faced Jules. The scar on his left cheek often looked like a dimple when he talked with Angeline. Now it just looked like a scar. "I should have stopped after my mother died. That's what a normal person would do. They would have cut all ties to illegitimate business and try to live as normally as possible. But was that what I did? No. I went bigger. Instead of stopping, I just tried harder and harder, became more ambitious, put all of you in more danger. And now people are dead. Andrea is scarred for life, and Nicolas is in jail. Renée could have died. All because of my fucking ambition."
"It's not ambition, Rose. It's fear. Fear that if you don't keep moving, that if you have even a second to stop and think, your trauma will catch up to you, that you'll have to face it. And you need to face it. But you also need to stop feeding yourself lies."
His fingers wrapped around her wrist, forcing her to release the window frame.
"Your mother didn't die because of you. Evelyn and Élodie and Audrey... they didn't die because of you. You're not responsible for other people's wrongdoings. And we're not machines nor mindless soldiers. If we decide to risk our lives for you or for a cause or for anything else, that's our choice to make."
Rose scoffed. "You know what's worse? Even after all of this, I still want more. It's like all these deaths taught me nothing. I still want more power, more money, as if those things will ever be able to fill the void they left."
"That's not what you want."
"Have you been with Angeline so much that you've taken on her habit of contradicting me?"
Jules smiled. For a moment, his scar was a dimple.
"She does rub off on people. You want to know what you want? You want the same as your Shelby. An empire strong enough to protect your family, that will stand on its own even if you die. You want to become so untouchable and feared no one will dare attempting against one of your own again. And all those things you do for France, sending your money there, building hospitals and schools and orphanages so the kids there won't have to grow like you did, all that, it's because you feel like you've failed your country during the war. You don't think you've helped enough. You're making up for a failure that was never your own to begin with. You're trying so hard to heal the world's wounds you forget you have wounds of your own to attend to. And so you keep people at bay. Where you can love them, but they can't hurt you."
His words screeched inside her head like a poorly tuned instrument. She turned her back on him as well, marched out of the room. They were right. Her solitude was her own fault. It was her who pushed people away, not the other way around. But she didn't know how to stop doing that, how to start pulling them closer. She always felt like her heart was a grenade about to explode. And she doubted anyone could be brave or foolish enough to come closer and pull the safety pin.
She turned the corner in a hurry, bumping into someone and stumbling. A pair of hands grabbed her arms, pulling her closer so she wouldn't fall, and then their stares met and grief came a little softer. His eyes were a stroke of blue that hued color back into her monochromatic world.
She'd been wrong. The safety pin around her heart had been pulled long ago. She was only now feeling the aftermaths.
"I've heard about Renée and Élodie. And about Nicolas. Are you alright?" Thomas' voice was raspy, as if he'd just been smoking and the smoke still hadn't left his lungs. Like raging wind that accidentally takes the boat ashore.
Her brows raised. "You've heard about them, but you're asking about me?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Infatuated men tend to be selfish."
It hurt when he said that. But if love wasn't painful, was it even love?
"Thank you for taking care of all the bodies. And for bribing the police."
"I covered up Nicolas' arrest and your involvement in the case. The explosions won't be linked to you." He took out his cap, ran a finger along the razor. In an instinct, before he'd cut himself, Rose snapped his hand away.
He stared at her. Then he grasped her own hand, turned her palm up, brushed his thumb against the splinter on her skin. So softly it made her heart ache.
"You will hurt yourself, but cannot even stand the thought of others doing the same?"
Not others. You. He was testing her. She knew. She liked when he did.
"Yes. Infatuated women tend to be selfless."
He rubbed his nose, hiding how the corners of his lips slanted upwards.
"What's the next step?"
Rose almost sighed of relief. Thomas got her. They both needed to keep their minds busy with future plans to escape the errors of the past and the horrors of the present.
"Well, the café and the absinthe distillery are gone, two of the gang's main sources of income. I'll just have to find different markets, make different deals."
"When you do, don't forget I'm your business partner, eh? I'd prefer you make deals with me instead of Alfie."
Rose raised a brow. "You sound like a jealous man."
He ran his tongue over his bottom lip, took a step closer to her. His cologne clung to her body like a naked lover. His eyes kept calling her to some unknown place. She wanted to dive into them. Dive into the blue. Not to disappear. But to be found.
"I am a jealous man."
His pupils dilated. She wanted the blue back. She didn't like the hunger in them. She didn't like how it pulsed through her just the same.
"I'm not yours, Thomas."
"No, you're not mine." His voice was a hand slowly running up her spine, clasping at her neck. "And yet I don't want you to be anyone else's."
Her fists clenched. She didn't know if she was fighting him or herself. After Steaphan, she swore she would never give herself to a man again. But Thomas had a way to make her convictions stumble. He made her crumble. Like she was made of clay. Like a ruin that's been standing for too long.
"I'm not your property, Thomas, and I never will be."
"I know." Another step towards her. He curled a finger in her hair, pulled gently at the lock. Then his hand was going to her neck. Like she'd feared. Like she'd hoped. "But I still want you to be mine. And nobody touches what's mine."
Her lips parted. She wanted to let her heart speak but she couldn't hear it. She could tell him all the words in the world and it still wouldn't have been enough. Thomas was the kind of war you didn't mind staying in.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" A door slammed behind him, and Angeline stomped out of the waiting room, accusing eyes fixed on Rose. She broke away from Thomas instantly, noticing how his lips tightened when his hand fell from her skin to nothing at all. "Renée is lying on a fucking stretcher and you're here flirting with him?"
"Angeline, I—"
"Whatever. I don't know why I expected anything better from you."
Thomas spun around, his long coat flapping behind him, a hawk on a hunting flight. "Y'know, for someone with such a lovely voice, I like you better with your mouth shut."
Angeline scrunched up her nose and marched into the room. Rose followed her, only to find out everyone was standing up and flailing around, their tempers running high.
"Are you serious when you say you still want more power?" Angeline turned to Rose. She glanced at Jules, staring guiltily at the floor. He could never keep anything from Angeline. "We're in a fucking hospital! We could have lost Renée the same way we lost Audrey. She believed in you the most and look where that got her. And all you can think about is ways to make more money and get into that Blinder's bed."
"Angeline!" For the first time Jules' voice boomed above all others. "For Christ's sake, calm down. This is not the time to be making accusations—"
"It's okay, Jules. Angeline can say all she wants. It doesn't mean she's right." Rose walked over to her sister, held her heavy glare. "You used to break my heart only when you sing, but lately you've been doing it even when you speak. I know empathy doesn't come easy for you, and I'm not asking you to be kind. But I don't allow you to paint me in that light when you have no idea of everything I've done for you."
"Like what? Falling for a man who got our mother killed? Falling for another who could get us all killed?" She gestured towards Thomas, her jaw completely tensed. "Maybe the reason why I despise kind hearts is because you have the kindest of them all, and I know how badly that worked for you. So don't go and tell me what I can or can't—"
"Oh for the love of Scott Fitzgerald, I can't leave you alone for five minutes before you're all trying to kill each other?" The double doors of the room burst open, shutting everyone up. Mouths fell agape, eyes went bulging out. Rose's heart skipped a beat, then another. For a moment the waves stopped. She had hoped, but she hadn't had the opportunity to be sure.
"W-what—" Kaya stammered. Sienna wobbled. Jules let out a scream. Christopher grabbed his cross tighter.
With her golden curls gracing her glowing face, Audrey chuckled, a radiant smile on her lips as she stared at the dumbfounded crowd. Between her stood a bald, chubby man, and a taller one with a grey cap on his head.
"Come on then, what are you waiting for?" She asked, waving her arms around. "Don't I deserve a hug, at least?"
Angeline squealed. Rose blinked; suddenly too much blue and gold were pouring over her black and white world. Then they ran to her sister together, engulfing her in her arms like they had done when she was born.
"You're alive..." Angeline said, tugging at Audrey's sleeves with a childlike innocence she had lost years ago. "You're really alive."
"Of course I am." Audrey flashed her a grin, her eyes glancing back to Rose, then Thomas. "Thanks to those two. The Machiavellians."
Every neck snapped in their direction. Rose and Thomas shared a look, then Thomas sauntered towards the two men who'd arrived with Audrey.
"Charlie, Curly, thank you for bringing the lady back safe." He patted them both once on the back. Curly giggled. Charlie snorted. "Everything good back in the yard?"
"Everything alright, Thomas. If any Scot had dared come near it, I would've blown his buttocks out, ya know that," Charlie said, his voice thick with the Birmingham accent.
"I'm so sorry I couldn't save you, that I didn't go to you sooner," Rose whispered, pulling Audrey into another hug. Her heart was a little less shattered now, as if Audrey herself had picked up the pieces from the ground and put them back together. "Did they treat you well?"
"Splendidly!" She leaned in to murmur into Rose's ear. "I told the Great Gatsby story to Curly. I think he shed a tear or two."
"How... what..." Kaya shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. Audrey went to her and hugged her tight, dragging Sienna along. "Is Alfie rubbing off on me? Am I seeing things? We thought you were dead!"
"That's what we wanted the Saurets to think," Rose said, feeling the weight of everyone's eyes on her. "Thomas and I knew that if they thought they'd taken one of us down, they'd get sloppier. More arrogant. And they did."
"But how did Audrey survive?" Sienna asked, her voice raw and strained from emotion, her eyes brimming with tears. "We saw her falling down the bridge, saw the stain of her blood in the water."
Rose's heart wrenched at that. She'd gambled with her sister's life, she knew. But she'd trusted Thomas. And she wouldn't forget it had paid off.
"Rose and I suspected the Saurets would choose the bridge for the confrontation, just like we suspected of the theater." Thomas stepped out once he realized Rose was too distressed to speak. "We knew it was likely that during the fight someone fell to the river. So I asked Charlie to have his boat ready further down the channel, where the current would take them. In case someone got injured or needed to escape."
"Curly and Charlie rescued me from the water," Audrey continued, giving both men a grateful look. "They treated my wounds. I was lucky I didn't hit a rock when I fell, and that the bullet wound was peripheral. I still lost a lot of blood. I thought Curly was my grandfather at first."
Light chuckles passed between the Kissers. This was Audrey's effect. The first ray of sunshine after a stormy night.
"So there we went on the boat, up to Charlie's yard. I've stayed there all this time, recovering. It's a nice place, if you can ignore the smell."
"Thomas contacted Charlie soon after the fight at the bridge. When we learned Audrey was safe, we decided it was best to pretend she wasn't. So I only told Renée and Angeline about it, and I didn't risk going see her." Rose glanced at Kaya and Sienna, asking for forgiveness. But they were Kissers. They could be hurt, but they understood the stakes. They both nodded.
"You knew too?" Jules turned to Angeline. "Then what was that scene earlier?"
"I knew Audrey had been rescued. I didn't know her state." Angeline shrugged. "Besides, when do I ever have a valid reason to pick a fight with Rose? I thought I'd better just seize the opportunity."
Jules scoffed. "You're unbelievable."
"One of the hundreds of reasons why you fell in love with me."
Jules rolled his eyes, a small smile tugging at his lips.
"Once Thomas told us it was safe, I asked Charlie and Curly to bring me to you. I knew you two would be worried sick about my state." Audrey ambled back to her sisters, pinching their cheeks at once.
"It must've been tough, eh, not knowing if your sister would make it." Charlie eyed Rose, scratching the nape of his neck. "Ya got a tough one this time, eh, Thomas?"
Thomas rubbed his nose again. "The toughest."
"Wait, where's Renée?" Audrey asked suddenly, her voice raising with every word. "Why are we at a hospital?"
"Better that you sit," Angeline said. "You did not survive a bullet wound just to die from a heart attack."
***
"Rose, stop looking so heartbroken." Straightening herself up on the bed, Renée pulled lightly at her hand. Her face was pale, as if snow had fallen right on her cheeks. "Audrey's here. I'm alive. And the baby survived."
"Looking heartbroken is her normal state." Angeline snickered, but she kept her arm around Rose's shoulders. The white hospital room seemed full with them. Almost colorful.
"I just realized the two of you love in exactly opposite ways. Soft versus tough love," Audrey remarked, drumming her fingers on the bedside table. "Rose loves so gently and fearfully it almost hurts. And you love so roughly and fiercely it doesn't seem like love at all."
"Thank you for the compliment." Angeline grinned. She grabbed Renée's hand and turned serious. "I'm really glad the baby is well."
"So am I." Renée sighed, fixing the pillow behind her back. "And that you're all here."
"You shouldn't talk so much," Rose said. Her eyes kept drifting to the reddened, blotched skin on Renée's arms that sneaked up from the bandages. "You need to rest."
"Are you my nurse now?" Renée smiled, letting go of Rose's hand to mess with her hair.
"I'm sorry that I couldn't get to you sooner." It seemed like she was repeating the same words over and over again. "That I let them arm the house with bombs."
"You couldn't be everywhere at the same time. You all did a good job."
"Everything would've worked out just fine if Evelyn hadn't... and Élodie... I never thought she..." Audrey mumbled, her eyes getting heavy with unshed tears.
"Élodie might have betrayed us, but she died saving me." Renée's voice was strong and clear, the tone she always used to bring comfort to her sisters. She glanced at Rose. "If you had killed her when you found out she was a traitor, I wouldn't be here now. So sometimes compassion pays off in the long run."
"It wasn't compassion. Just hesitation."
"But it was compassion that made you hesitate. When you went off to help in the war, I thought the world was going to sharpen all your soft edges, to devoid you of the one thing that makes you the most human. Your empathy. But if anything, it has only increased it. The more suffering you see, the more you want to ease it. Don't lose that."
Rose swallowed. "I'll try. Christopher told me you were going back to France."
Renée passed a tender hand over her belly. "Yes. To raise the baby. Like you said, I need to rest. And the baby needs to grow somewhere safe."
"Will you go as well?" Rose gazed at Angeline and Audrey, then dropped her head. The thought of her three sisters leaving her there alone hurt more than any stab she'd received.
"We probably should." Audrey let out a dramatic sigh. "But I love British men too much to go."
A chuckle escaped from Rose's lips, but it was more of a sob, and soon enough she was crying, shedding all the violin tears she'd kept inside her for so long.
"I'll stay as well." Angeline added, handing Rose a tissue while Audrey patted her back. "I'm not good with babies. Give me a knife or a gun and I'll handle it but for the love of God don't ever ask me to change diapers. Besides, life's more exciting here anyways. I need to see for how long you'll keep your resolution of not sleeping with Thomas. Believe me, I'm counting."
Rose rolled her eyes and sobbed harder.
"I'll visit you often." Renée said, squeezing her sisters' hands. Color had returned to her cheeks, as if roses had cut through the snow and bloomed there. "And if my baby is a girl, I'll name her Evelyn."
Between her sobs, a smile blossomed. Suddenly her grief subsided from a roaring wave to a feeble ripple.
***
It was late in the night when Rose got the call. It was later still when she grabbed her scarf and coat and made her way through the snow towards Thomas' house. She rang the bell once, twice. She didn't need to ring it a third time.
He opened his mouth to speak when he saw her, but she didn't let him.
"Thomas... they did one last thing. Had one last trick up their sleeve."
"The Saurets?" His eyebrows raised, his body tensed. It took him a second to be on full alert, maybe not even that.
"Yes. One of the Kissers who works at the court just called me. The Saurets bribed a local judge, and the executions were brought forward." She stopped, studying his face. "Your family is due to be hang... tomorrow."
author's note.
hi guys!! I'm sorry for the long wait, I hope all of you are safe and well <3
I'm so curious as to what you thought of that Audrey twist! Peaky Blinders is not Peaky Blinders without a fake death, am I right ;)
I hope you enjoyed the chapter and I'll leave you with this wonderful cover made by wandology ♡