NEW CHAPTERS COMING SOON.
Small Heath, Birmingham, was an unsafe place to be. Men stumbling drunk out of pubs, whores there waiting for them on the side of the street, with gang fights happening around the corner. Unsafe for young girls... but not i...
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• • •
"Living like we're
renegades."
• • •
I tapped lightly on the door at precisely six o'clock, just as the sun was beginning to set. The door creaked open a mere inch as a woman eyed me through the gap.
"Um, Mr Shelby told me to meet him here?" I spoke softly.
"Of course he did." She muttered to herself as she walked away from the door, leaving me to let myself in. As I closed the door behind me, I heard her speak to a small boy:
"Go upstairs, Finn." As she sat down at the table.
I walked over to the table, cautiously taking the seat opposite she had gestured to.
"So... You're the thief my nephew has hired?" The woman I now recognised as Mr Shelby's Aunt Polly questioned me. She was staring me in the eye, trying to read my face.
"Um... I guess, mam." Unsure of the tone she took towards me.
"Your full name?" She fired.
"Harry Spring," I replied.
"Family?"
"None to speak of."
"Date of birth?" The women continued.
"Sometime sixteen years ago in spring..." I tailed off, realising this interrogation had to stop sooner rather than later.
"Orphanage?"
"What's with the interrogation?" I queered back.
"Are you going to answer my question?" She spoke, unfazed by my questioning
"If you answer mine." I shot back, slightly annoyed at this women's meddlesome attitude.
"Hmm..." Polly hummed out, tapping her finger on the wooden table.
"Gutsy. You're either stupid, or there's a reason why you're here..." Her questioning was finally silenced by Mr Shelby entering through the front door, causing me to look over my shoulder at him.
"Pol, Harry. I see you, too, have gotten acquainted. Sorry, I'm late. I got caught up in some business." He spoke, glancing between the cold women and me.
"You could say that..." I trailed off, looking back at the woman staring daggers at me.
"What's he doing here, Thomas?" Polly questioned, finally dropping eye contact with me.
"Harry's going to stay in the Arthurs old room until we sort somewhere more permanent."
"Over my dead body" She laughed out
"It's temporary." He replied.
"Family stay under this roof, and he is not family!" She seethed out, pointing at me.
"I can go if you want, Mr Shelby; I'm used to sleeping on the streets. It's no trouble, honest."
"There we go, " Polly said, dramatically raising her hands in the air.
"No. I'm not having you on the streets." He replied with anger lacing his words.
"And why's that, Thomas" Polly chuckled, obviously getting at something I was unaware of.
"Because I'm not having him be a liability. For our enemies or the police to get to him. Now, Harry, you will be staying with us. End off. Have you got your things with you?"
"I better not wake up tomorrow to a gutted house." She half aimed it at me as she did Thomas, who brushed off the comment with a quick glare.
I stood there, slightly shocked by his abrupt authority, until I nodded slightly. I had nothing with me because I wore everything I owned. Tommy realised this as he looked down at me, rubbing the back of his neck.
I followed Mr Shelby up the rickety stairs I had sneaked up a few weeks ago. We turned to the door on the left opposite the one I knew as Thomas' bedroom. He opened the door to a small bedroom with a single sprung bed with blankets neatly laid on top. The bedroom had a small window at the end of the bed and a wooden stool by the door. To many, the room was cramped and dull; but I couldn't remember the last time I had slept in a bed I could call my own.
"It's not much..." Thomas spoke as I sat down on the bed, amazed by his generosity.
"It's more than enough. Thank you, Mr Shelby," I replied.
"Please call me Thomas. You're welcome to help yourself to food downstairs, and there's a bath if you want a wash."
"Are you saying I stink, Mr Shelby?" I replied with a chuckle, ignoring his request to lose the formalities.
"I'm saying, when was the last time you had one?" He replied, slightly amused.
"Fair point," the only baths I had to take in recent years were in streams, if you could count that. "Thank you again; I don't understand why you're being so generous to me?" I asked sheepishly.
"Maybe I don't know either." He replied as he walked out of the room as if pondering the question to himself.
