The den's door bursts open before anyone can prepare for what was about to come through it. Polly and Esme are sitting at the bidding desks getting their books ready. They both are startled as the sound of heavy boots come thumping into the bare-boned house. Walls had been torn down to open up the living area, bare wooden planks being some of the only things still standing on the bottom floor. It was a gambling den, illegal of course but just as respectable as all the other ones. Two tall bodies quickly pour into the front door. Two men that are dressed the same and it is clear to everyone they are related with how similar their faces are built.
"Polly!" John's voice breaks the air first. He strides into the house, carrying a girl in his arms. She doesn't move. Motionless. Lifeless. So fragile looking while in his arms but she was the least easiest person to break out of all of them.
"Bring her into here. Quickly." She is already on her feet walking to the doors that sit at the end of the room. The doors that open into the houses old kitchen. Everything about Polly from the outside, the tone of her voice to the look on her face, gave off the impression that she was calm and collected. But on the inside, she couldn't have been further away from being calm. "What happened? Who did this?"
She pushes the curtains apart and swings the green doors open, the 5 bodies crowd into the limited space kitchen. Polly heads straight to the coal fireplace trying to get it started as fast as possible.
"Curly found her in the yard, she was in one of the stables with the horses he said. Just laying there." John is still holding his little sister in his arms, scared that setting her down would result badly. She practically weighs nothing in his arms. She, like her older sister, got her mother genes so she was thin framed in nature but she was tall like her father and brothers.
"Esme go upstairs, get some blankets from my room. Finn go outside, if there are any men waiting to make bets tell them we're closed today. John, give her here to me now." Polly wasn't the head of the Peaky Blinders, but when it came to the Shelby Family, it was Polly that took the lead. They immediately do as she says, all heading in different directions. John moves toward Polly and the fireplace, as Esme and Finn head out of the kitchen.
"She's cold Pol, who knows how long she was out there." John lowers himself to the ground as Polly adjusts her body to have the girls head in her lap.
"Go find Tommy. Don't tell him nothing, just tell him he needs to come home. And see if anybody knows where Arthur is." John doesn't move even after Polly has finished speaking. Even though there was a 5 year age difference between the two siblings they were the closest pair out of the 6 siblings. Esme has returned back downstairs in the less crowded kitchen as John finally stands. He straightens his vest and jacket and secures his cap back on his head, running his fingers lightly across the edge of the blade sewn in at the front.
"Right." The last word he mumbles before striding out of the doors, heading to do exactly as Polly has told him to do.
"Here you go Polly," Esme steps in after her husband has left. "Do you need more?"
"No this is fine, cover her legs they're bare." Poly cradles the young woman as if she were a child in her lap. "Oh my sweet Rose, who did this to you?"
Esme watches as Pollys motherly nature takes over her entire body. She carefully runs her fingers through the girls short dark straight hair, she was a perfect mix of her father and mothers genes. Dipping her fingers over the girls deep cheek bones every once in a while.
"Make sure the fire stays high Esme. And say a prayer to whoever or whatever you believe in." Polly clutches the Black Madonna that hangs around her neck as she starts to whisper Catholic prayers into the cold winter air. The fire quickly heats the kitchen and the three women still inside of it.
They hear the front door open and dress shoes stride in heading straight to the part of the house that still looks like a house. Finn appears in the doorway, his nose and cheeks blushed by the cold outside. Polly gives a sigh of relief as she see the young faced boy instead of the hard face of Thomas Shelby. She wasn't ready to talk to Tommy yet, she didn't have all the answers she knew he was going to demand. Finn's eyes get stuck on the sight of his older sister laying on the ground, paler than she already was.
"I sent all the men away." He finally mutters out. His eyes still locked on his sisters face.
"Good, good. Sit down and wait for your brothers now." Polly motions to the kitchen table that stands towards the center of the room. He pulls a chair out and sits down, pulling the cap from his head and tossing it on the table.
"Is she going to be okay Aunt Pol?" He speaks, Finn has a hard time of staying quiet when he's nervous. Reason why he stays out of the proper business of the brothers.
"I don't know." One thing about Polly, she will never lie to you.
YOU ARE READING
Bullets & Pearls
Fanfiction"You are protected by your brothers. You are respected by society. You are as well expected to hold yourself to higher standards. You are a Shelby." "Oh is that an order? I can't tell Thomas, are you saying that as a Peaky Blinder or as my brother...
