TROUBLE - peaky blinders

32. not yet a corpse, but still i rot.

☆

CLARA FELT HER SHOULDERS BEING VIGOROUSLY SHAKEN. She loudly groaned in protest at the aching pain that flared through her veins at the sharp movement. The girl pried an eye open, coming face to face with Finn who stood menacingly above her, his fingers prodding her cheek. The girl moaned and pushed at his legs trying to get him to leave before he lightly kicked her in the side.

"Piss off," The girl grumbled as she stretched her arms and legs as her body protested the movement of her limbs. She pushed herself to a sitting position, her knees close to her chest as Finn merely stood back and watched as she tucked a small, blue bottle into her pocket and out of sight.

"You smell," was the first thing he said, his nose wrinkled as he stood back even further.

"Yeah? Well, you try mucking out the Yard stables, sleeping in straw, arrested and then held in a damp cell," she spat angrily, more annoyed that she was aching and tired. "then you can comment on how bad I smell, you bald-headed, freakishly tall, twat."

Finn shrugged nonchalantly, "Okay...you should wash though because I could smell ya out in the hall. It's that bad." He added. "Besides, you missed breakfast and someone's downstairs waiting for ya."

"Who?"

"Nah, I'm not telling you now."

"Get out," Clara rolled her eyes as she pulled herself to her feet. Finn followed suit and rolled his eyes before he stalked out of the room. She pushed herself to her feet and cautiously stripped herself of the dirty clothes.

She looked towards the mirror on her dresser, her face screwed up as she examined her body. Big splotches of purple and blue littered her back, some of them stretching around her shoulders and neck. There were scabbed cuts across her face, one of them just underneath the pink scar that ran along her cheekbone. It was a gory sight, one which made the girl wince and want to curl up.

Clara sighed, holding a hand to her sore ribs as her other hand dipped a cloth into the washbowl on the dresser. She carefully washed the dirt from her skin, being careful around the tender bruising. Her eyebrows pinched together as she hissed through her teeth. With a grunt, she placed the cloth down, her hands on the dresser to steady herself as she took a few deep breaths in.

Clara shook her head lightly before she slipped her hand into her pocket to retrieve the blue bottle that weighed down the material ever so slightly. She tapped out a pinch of white powder onto the back of her hand and sniffed it up in a swift movement. It numbed the pain or at least fogged up her mind just enough so that she couldn't feel it.

The girl ran a trembling hand through her hair, her body shaking like a leaf. She shut her eyes, sinking into the familiarity of her room, longing to fall into the hazy cocaine world of dreams where everything seemed to flash in a cinematic blur of colour and shapes. No. She had to go downstairs. She cautiously pushed herself to her feet and grabbed a stack of clothes from her dresser.