IN BAD FAITH | peaky blinders | T.S

TEN

BIRMINGHAM, ENGLAND, 1921

MARTHA

10.

Martha tried to control her breathing as she followed him, hiding in the shadows of the buildings that lined the street. The night was dark and empty, not even the moon offering a glint of light. A thin fog had accumulated so that she could hardly see her feet beneath her, moving without being told to do so. In fact, in her mind she questioned whether this was the right thing to do, but something pushed her forward, giving her no other choice.

It was him. She was sure of it, couldn't have mistaken it if she'd tried.

"I'm going to find every single one of you and kill you." That's what she had said, what she had promised. This was the start of bringing her family back together, slowly mending what was torn by these men. They deserve to pay, Martha bargained with herself. They deserve to feel the same pain we did.

His silhouette grew even more obscure as the distance between them increased. Martha shook all thought from her head and focused on keeping him in her sight.

Suddenly he ducked round a corner, disappearing between two narrow houses. Martha cursed under her breath, sped up until she was running. The air was bitter, biting at her chest, and as she turned the same corner, Martha was plunged into darkness.

She didn't know these alleyways. Her hands trailed the side of the wall, guiding her. She paused for a second, held her breath to listen, but it was silent. She continued, stepping through the dark night as best she could.

If this was London, Martha could've ran through the streets with her eyes closed and landed back at home in time for tea. The ones she ran through now, though, were alien to her and impossible to navigate. At the end of the alley lay three more, each leading off in separate directions. There was no sight of the scarred man anywhere.

"Fuck," she breathed, damning herself for losing him. This was her chance, one of her only leads on Josephine. She wanted to sink to the floor and cry but her sister's face appeared again, followed by Sabini's, and then the scarred man's, and she knew that her only option was to find him and chase him, even if it took her until the sun came up. She would not stop until she had her sister back.

She asked Josephine which alley to take, found her body running through the left one. It led her straight towards the canal, the one she had traced and retraced earlier that day. She took another left, careful not to run too closely to the edge of the water, her hand still running across the brick wall to her right. Her palm stung and for a second she wondered whether it was bleeding, but the thought did not have time to pause in her head when she saw a figure in the distance.

He was not moving. She slowed down completely, caging her breath in her chest so it wouldn't give her away. As she got closer, it became clearer, the scene in front of her.

Two men. The scarred man - who was short and thick and burly - stood the furthest away. There was just enough light from the lanterns of the boats to make out his purple face and the way his eye leaked and squinted. He stared nervously into the barrel of the gun that pointed at him, held by another man, taller and slender and turned to the side so that Martha could not see his face.

She was so close now that she could hear his voice. The man with the gun spoke without emotion.

"You're one of his. You know what's going to happen to you now."

The scarred man gulped loudly, his tongue swiping his lips crazily like he had in Martha's bedroom as he pulled Josephine away from her. The thought of his disgusting hands on her made it flare up again, the instinct to hurt him. It was primal, something she'd never felt so intensely before, that rattled deep in her stomach. It made her lose control. Martha had built her entire life upon caring for her sisters. Without them she was nothing, and she would be nothing forever if she couldn't save them. If this is what it takes, she thought as she unclipped the bag Ed had given her and held the pistol in her shaking hand, then this is what I do.