CHAPTER SIXTEEN:
FANGS TO FLESH
( trigger warning: implied sexual references )

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THERE WAS A POINT long since passed where God himself turned his back on Helen. Even as she gorged on the fruits of the Garden of Eden, lips red and bloodied, Helen slammed her raging fists against the great ethereal doors until her knuckles had crumbled, defeat was imminent and God was none the wiser. Then, in the aftermath, with her mouth burning from one searing kiss and her tongue tasting of smoke and sin, of fruits so tantalising, she tried in vain to repel the ache that had once again returned to its home in her heart. To plead her case. To loosen the grip her legs had on Tommy's waist, her eyes widening as he pressed fleeting kisses to the smooth juncture of her neck.

She didn't expect it to end like this. With her perched on the edge of his desk, her navy skirt hiked up around her thighs while his cold, calloused hands rediscovered the curves of them. He held her close to him like he truly wanted her — no, like he needed Helen and Helen only. It was as if his mind couldn't rest until he remembered what it was like to claim her mouth and body with his own. Only then could the numbness return. Only then could he focus.

Helen had no right to seek God and His forgiveness. Two weeks had crept by since Grace was murdered. A month, maybe, since Patrick preceded her. Helen was halfway through her pregnancy now and Tommy surely could feel her protruding stomach as he curled her into him. A stomach that grew the life of another man's child, for Helen wasn't his anymore. She hadn't been his for a long time. Deep down, she knew he didn't want her to be, not like it was before.

But for just one second. . .

Helen inhaled sharply. "Tommy."

He didn't acknowledge her at first. With a shockingly gentle touch, he pried her head back with his fingers threaded through her hair, his mouth finding hers once more. Then, "Nellie," he whispered. His lips were decedent, like wine, and Helen swore nothing else mattered but how they tasted when they curved around the syllables of her name.

Nellie, her mind echoed.

She was an animal hungry down to her delicate bones. She wanted this, even when her eyes fluttered open again and her unfocused vision landed on the picture frame at the corner of his desk that Tommy had angled away. Oh, how she missed this familiar feeling. Missed him. Even missed that version of herself, the one he called Nellie.

Nellie, who never would've kissed him with a dead woman watching her through black and white print. What was wrong with her? How was this helping him?

"Tommy," she said again, this time with more urgency.

She pushed her hands against his shoulders, grimacing when desire for the corded muscles of his back warred against the logical reasoning chasing circles in her head. I didn't come here to be his distraction, she thought. Reminded herself. Practically screamed into the void of her mind.

"This," she didn't need to say anything more. Tommy's eyes glinted as he leaned away from her, one hand lingering on her hip like he was committing the softness of her to his memory again, but that was it. He was already fading away; not just from her, but from his own body, his own head. Back to the tunnels he never properly escaped from. "I can't. We can't. I'm sorry."

Thirty Minutes Earlier

SHE WASN'T SURE WHY she was here. Standing at the end of the driveway, she stared up at the dreary red brick structure that was Arrow House and noted just how much it seemed to reflect its owner's visceral misery. The curtains were firmly drawn over the upstairs windows, preventing any unnecessary light from shining through. The gardens were damp and slick with mud, the flowers withered in their pots. Helen didn't imagine Tommy as the type to hire a gardener, but perhaps Grace had been. Maybe she even tended to the garden herself in her spare time; now that she was gone, Tommy might've let it run wild as a physical reminder of her permanent absence.

Above her, the sky wept in sorrow at the thought. Low-hung grey clouds brimming with coal smoke from homes and the fumes of the nearby factories were trapped beneath the atmosphere like cigarette smoke under The Garrison ceiling. Subconsciously, Helen shivered and wrapped her coat around her securely. With every step she took bringing her closer to the front door, she knew in her heart she was making a horrible mistake.

But she wanted to check on Tommy. She wanted to know he was alright, that someone was looking after Charlie, a boy who would be lost now without his mum. Someone's son, like her James, lost and confused without his support system.

In truth, Helen just wanted to feel useful, to stop sitting at home replaying that horrifying moment; the wide, unseeing eyes. Splattered blood. Vicious screams. The grim faces of doctors who arrived to find a man — the man of Birmingham — sobbing in agony with his dead wife already growing cold in his arms. She couldn't stop thinking. Couldn't help but let her mind haunt her.

So there she was. Watching from a view outside her body as her hand lifted and her knuckles rapped against rough wood. Waiting, breath-baited, as she listened to footsteps approaching on the other side of the door. Wincing as she plastered on a tight red-lipped smile and greeted Ada, who seemed relieved to see a familiar face on their step instead of a line of strangers whose grief looked forced on them.

"Helen," she said, then quickly stepped aside to let her through. "Please, come in."

In a flurry of movements Helen barely kept up with, Ada had her coat hanging up on the rack that stood beside the door, right next to the familiar black cotton of Tommy's own. She followed Ada across the dimly lit foyer, eyes tracing over the dozens of paintings on the walls encased in rich gold frames, until they reached the living room where a fire burned low in the grate. It provided little warmth for the large, echoing room. Helen wasn't sure what to make of it.

"Tommy's not back just yet," Ada commented, for she wasn't entirely blind to the way Helen glanced around as if she was searching for something. To make matters worse, her face flushed red at Ada's words. "I can make you tea while you wait, if you like."

"I'm alright," Helen murmured. "Do you know when he'll be back?"

Ada hesitated. "I'm not sure. He's been out at the stables all morning. But he's supposed to be meeting Polly and Michael within the hour, then John and Arthur. I'm sure he'll want to see you first."

Helen pretended not to notice Ada's slip-up, the sliver of information she probably wasn't supposed to know. Tommy never did things in half-measures. He always had a plan, even at rock bottom. Still, it surprised her to hear he was seeing his brothers separately. Their family meetings used to be one cohesive unit. She wondered how Arthur and John would react, if she would be present at the house long enough to witness their rage unfolding.

Helen sat on the plush velvet lounge, listening to Ada's light comments about Karl; simple, distracting things that made the time pass just a bit quicker. Before she knew it, Michael was introducing himself to her while Polly gazed at them with heavy, knowing eyes from the spot she had taken up beside the living room window. She'd thrown open the curtains and was scanning the yard every few seconds, so she would be the first to know when Tommy finally returned.

"Where's James?" she asked, when the silence started to make itself at home.

"Who's James?" Michael added curiously. He was a nice enough boy, roughly nineteen or twenty. Young. Youthful. But Helen could already see the effect the Shelby name had on him. He was rough at the edges, a flicker of darkness coming and going in his eyes. Polly's consequential dread felt contagious.

"My son," Helen explained. "He's with Mrs Scott for the morning. She volunteered to watch him, should I need the help."

Polly scoffed. "Oh, I'm sure she did."

Helen smothered a smile.

She had heard plenty over the years about what Polly thought of Mrs Scott and her love for gossip. She had no doubt that, when Helen first left Birmingham pregnant with James, Mrs Scott would've been the first of many to make her opinions known. Now, she seemingly adored the boy. She'd made him scones that morning, asking Helen with a maternal gleam in her eye if he could have some cream on the side. Helen had said yes, just to keep James' hopeful, gap-toothed grin in place. She wasn't above accepting a busy-body Mrs Scott's help if it meant her son was happy. Helen would do anything for her children.

"Here, Nel," Ada said, bringing her tea despite Helen's initial refusal. "You might as well have some, if Tommy is going to take much longer."

Clearly, they hadn't expected him to keep his aunt waiting. Michael, perhaps, but never Aunt Pol.

"Thank you," Helen murmured, and sipped her tea with a twisting stomach.

What would she say when she did see him? When the air between them was thin and the only space between them was his desk? How could she put into words what she was thinking? Would all reasoning escape her, as it always seemed to? She hoped not.

"He's back," Ada gasped, thankfully interrupting Helen from her spiral while also simultaneously flooding her with anxiety once again. She set her teacup down on the side table, careful not to let the liquid spill over onto the cream-coloured doily, then approached where the three of them had gathered to shamelessly spy out the window.

"Was he out there all night?" Michael asked, brows furrowed as he watched his cousin dismount the magnificent black horse he'd ridden up the drive.

"Every night since the funeral," sighed Ada. "Comes back in the morning to see Charles and feed the horses, and when it gets dark, he goes off again."

Helen knew that feeling, the inescapable pit of dread and the web it had tangled Tommy in, too. It was much worse during the night, when the world went silent. The absence of noise left a space for her thoughts to fill. They screamed in rage until her head hurt, where not even the occasional cigarette or a drink could calm her. She had to fight the urge to flee, to run until the repetitive pounding of her heart racing in her chest blocked out the rest. Even then, there was no end, no relief. The only shred of solace she found was watching James sleep. The soft rise and fall of his chest, the innocent way he smiled. For just a second, she believed she'd make it through. She'd write her own ending.

Maybe sleeping out in the fields was Tommy's solace. And if not a solace, then one of the many fleeting distractions.

"He used to sleep out when he was a kid," Polly said, putting Helen's thoughts into words. "Curly would find him in the pasture." A brief smile tugged at the corner of her mouth, though it faded as she folded over her newspaper and forced herself to ask Ada, "How's the baby?"

Ada folded her arms, shaking her head. "He asks for his mum at night."

"He will for a while," Helen murmured. "He'll stop eventually."

James had asked for Patrick everyday since he died. A whole month of 'where's daddy?' He stopped asking three days ago, and Helen had sobbed the first morning; when she got up and James greeted her with his bubbly giggles instead of a confused, bruising whimper of longing.

"Tommy made a list," Ada told them, nudging past Michael to the writing desk set up in the corner. Helen presumed it was Grace's form of a study. The locked door at the other end of the room surely was Tommy's own space, and the delicate vase perched on the side table beside it seemed too feminine for his own simple tastes. "Helen, you can see him before everyone else. He's not expecting you, though I'm sure it won't matter. Then, out of the family, he wants to see you two first."

"What about John and Arthur?" Polly frowned.

In the foyer, the door suddenly opened and closed with a sharp click. Loud, confident footsteps echoed towards them a moment later — after all this time, even in his own home, Tommy walked like a soldier on duty. He marched with his head held high, arms firmly at his sides, face notoriously blank. For an instant, when he entered the room and noticed Helen peering over Ada's shoulder with Polly and Michael on either side of them, a flash of... well, something crossed his face. It was gone before she could name it, though he raised his chin the slightest bit in acknowledgement, and she knew he'd noticed her.

"Helen," his low voice uttered her name. He didn't stop to greet his family, as he might have once. He just kept walking, the brim of his cap pulled low over his eyes. "Come."

She glanced at the others for some kind of guidance. Tommy had closed his study door behind him but she knew he would be waiting for her. Gently, Polly pushed her forward. "Go on," she urged.

And that was that. The moment of truth.

Tommy didn't look up when she knocked, nor when she let herself in and closed the door softly behind her. His coat hung from the back of his chair, leaving him in a long-sleeved white buttoned shirt and fitted black vest. His hat had been discarded, hair messy but pushed back from his face. The rough scratching of his pen faltered when she sat down. His eyes flickered to the lace of her gloves as they carefully smoothed down her skirt.

"Tommy, I..."

At the last moment, she stopped the words from rolling off the tongue. I'm sorry. How she hated hearing those words after a while. What would her apology change for Tommy? He already knew the pain of Grace's death. He knew it better than anyone else. He didn't need her to sit there and preach to him about how it would hurt for a while. It was something that he'd have to carry forever, right there with his mother's death, and everyone else who'd been taken from him.

"How's Charlie?" she asked instead.

Slowly, Tommy blinked at her. Jaw locked, eyes dark. Then, just when Helen thought he would finally blow up, he let out a heavy sigh and dropped his pen onto the desk. He leant back in his chair with his head pressed to the rich leather, running his hands down the sides of his face where stubble had begun to grow on the sharp line of his jaw.

"He won't stop crying," he admitted, and Helen was almost certain, if she was anyone else, he would've deflected. But this was Helen. A face from the past, sure, but a face who understood.

"Ada said he asks for her," she murmured, to which Tommy scoffed.

"Asks for her? She's the only bloody thing he can talk about."

"It's to be expected, Thomas, he doesn't understand—"

"I know," he snapped, lowering his hands and finally looking at her. Helen's whole body burned. He wouldn't look away. "I just want him to stop."

"No, you don't," Helen shook her head. She stood then, rounding to the other side of his desk so she could lean against the edge. He must've only opened the curtains when he came in. They were half-drawn, a fine layer of dust clung to the window edge, left uncleaned since she seriously doubted Tommy had let in the maids. "James stopped asking for Patrick a few days ago. Every morning without fail, I would break his little heart. Now, he's stopped, and I miss it. I actually miss it. I'd talk about Patrick forever if it meant he never forgot his dad. And as much as it ails you, you don't want Charlie to forget."

She caught his eye again, breath catching.

"Don't let him forget, Thomas. Don't give him that choice."

That was when he kissed her, no mercy as he crushed her mouth to his. She hadn't hesitated, and he'd taken this as a sign to bring her flush against him. Now, it was eating her alive. She should've fucking hesitated.

Tommy turned his back on her to stare out the window. His haunted face was reflected in the glass. "If we're not going to fuck, you should go."

"Tommy, please," she whispered. "Let's just forget it happened. I wanted to ask you if I could bring James around. Maybe having a friend might help Charlie—"

"Helen, go!" his voice suddenly raised but at the same time the fury in him fled. "Please just leave."

So she did.

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A/N: Well this happened lol. Before anyone says anything, yes, Helen and Tommy are kinda messed up for kissing so soon. Both of them are aware of this. It's not them getting back together (yet) and it's certainly not to be romanticised. They're grieving, and they've made a mistake (a mistake they'll keep making.) But yeah, just so y'all know, this is all planned.