Y O U R C R U C I B L E
"May you be in heaven a full half hour before the devil knows you're dead."
Lottie Thorne, sister of the notorious Freddie Thorne, is counted as part of the Shelby family. And her loyalty is...
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"We couldn't do anything. He had us cornered"
Lottie's eyes kept wanting to shut, but she knew she couldn't allow that to happen. She had to stay awake until she knew she was safe. Safe in Birmingham. She bought a train ticket and she sat in a compartment. She never let go of Freddie - not once. He had fallen asleep in her arms as she had rushed through the night. Unable to help it, she thought back to the last time she had made this journey all those years ago. Last time she was heartbroken; she had betrayed the man she loved and now she had killed the man she hated.
Her coat was buttoned all the way up, hiding the blood on her dress; she had knicked a scarf in the train station and wrapped it around her neck to cover any bruising or blood that had dropped down from the back of her head. Her hat managed to cover the matted blood but also the mess that her hair had become. One thing that couldn't be covered was the look of shock in her bright blue eyes that she couldn't seem to hide. Her heart was still erratically beating in her chest. Whilst she waited for the train to start, a stupid part of herself feared that James would appear on the platform. Irrational and stupid. He was dead. He was gone. He would never be able to hurt her again.
She was free.
She was going home. To Michael. To Maxim. To Tommy. To the Shelby's.
As she watched the city disappear out the window, she felt her adrenaline slowly disappear from her body. But as it did, her body ached and hurt angrily, especially her swollen belly. Contraction-like feelings pierced her insides, but she tried her best to ignore them. It was too early for that and she was too exhausted. Against all her tries, her body seemed to be screaming at her to let it rest and the plump pillows in the compartment seemed so inviting. As her body relaxed, her eyes fluttered shut.
***
She was sharply awoken by the slamming of the compartment door and she saw a man in uniform walking away. Clearing her throat - which was now incredibly sore and she was sure it was swollen. She shifted her scarf nervously. Lottie looked at the only other passenger in the compartment - an old woman.
"Ex - excuse me," Lottie began, her voice weak and barely above a whisper. She put her hand to her throat as the pain when she spoke reminded her of hands pressing down on her windpipe. She tensed at the memory.
The old woman seemed to have heard her and she looked up.
"What did the conductor say?" Asked Lottie quietly.
"That we should be arriving in Birmingham in five minutes," she replied in a croaky voice.
Lottie smiled in thanks and looked down at Freddie who was sitting in her arms, very awake at this point - his blue eyes wide and his blonde tufts of hair messy - not too different from hers, she was sure. As she smiled fondly down at him, she noticed some blood on his chin. Nervously peering at the old woman who had gone back to looking at the newspaper, Lottie wiped the blood off him and held him tightly to her. They were almost there. Almost.
