ᴀꜱʏʟᴜᴍ :: ᴛ.ꜱʜᴇʟʙʏ

xiv: ten quid

"Winnow." Tommy reached out an arm and pushed her behind him, holding out the umbrella for her to take. "Stay behind me."

There was a warning in his tone, an edge which spoke of danger. All the warmth she had glimpsed in him mere moments prior, the flickers of brokenness and vulnerability, disappeared behind closed shutters, his face once more a mask carved from steel. In the grey half-light of the stormy day, he looked like a statue, glaring coldly out into the rain.

"Who's your little friend, Shelby?" came the voice at the other end of the canal, coming slowly closer. From around Tommy's shoulder, Winnow saw a craggy face, narrowed eyes, and a jaw dusted with orange stubble. A moment later, those eyes met her own, and the man laughed so sharply that Winnow almost flinched. "Is this your way of making deals with the Chinese? Eh?"

"Leave it alone, McCavern."

"Wouldn't be right to leave it alone, would it boys?" The men on either side of them gave sounds of assent, and their leader grinned. "No. Not at all."

Their accents were Scottish—Winnow knew that much. And the realisation made her eyes widen, her breath quicken. Birmingham was dangerous enough, but everyone in town had heard of the Glaswegian razor gangs. Everyone knew not to go north of the border.

When Tommy said nothing, the leader turned his head to the side and spat into the drizzle, his grin twisting into an ugly leer.

"I heard Aberama Gold drowned in his own gypsy blood," he taunted. "And your bitch of an aunt ran off to fuck his ghost. Or some goats." The men to either side of him laughed, but his expression remained twisted into the same dark grimace. "More's the pity. I would have liked to take her myself."

This close, Winnow could feel the iron tension in Tommy, and the measured way he breathed, as though any moment he might snap. His fingers were tight around the gun in his hand, his grip white-knuckled. But his expression didn't even flicker.

"Turn back, McCavern." Tommy's words were hard, slow, as cold as ice. "Don't you walk that route."

For a long moment, the two men only stared at each other, nothing but tension hanging between them. The rainfall had quietened, and the quiet drops which poured from the slanted rooftops and clattered against iron in its wake felt strangely eerie. Winnow was struck with the bizarre need to reach for Tommy's arm.

Silence. Endless, horrible silence, with Tommy and his gun on one end and McCavern's fierce leer on the other.

And then he laughed, and his men laughed with him, the sound as abrasive as stone against stone. He spread his arms wide, as though daring Tommy to come at him and try his hardest.

"The deal's off!" he called, turning in a half-circle, as if before a crowing audience. Instead, his voice echoed in the silence of Small Heath. "The deal's off." His smile plummeted, his face once more carved from stone. He took a step forward, and Winnow glanced down to see Tommy's fingers flex around the gun. "And that means you and I—what binds us but the blood between us, eh?"