Dahlia was a pretty young woman, with brown eyes so dark they only ever took colour in direct sunlight, and skin sallowed by exotic climes. Her dark brown hair was long and straight and she only ever tied it back while she worked with her flowers in her flower shop. It wasn't the fashion, but she had had enough of having it pushed and pulled by foreign-tongued women, painted with white faces and red lips. Her shop was a splash of colour and juxtaposition of civility within Small Heath, Birmingham. If men forgot their wives' birthdays or their own anniversaries, Dahlia brought around flowers and charged them later. They all paid, for a happy wife makes for happy men. Children particularly loved Dahlia's shop for her sweets. Living independently, she avoided loneliness by baking, and could never eat more than half a slice. She tried, but eating meant stilling, and stilling meant remembering. So the kids got cake and biscuits and sweets.

Most of Small Heath paid Dahlia no mind, she was pleasant and kept to herself, save for the flowers turning up on those forgotten occasions.

Therefor, John Shelby was supremely surprised to walk in to her shop, ignoring the 'CLOSED' sign as he always did, and find Dahlia with her arms over her head, the cane striking across them spreading the blood and reddening her skin. He lifted his hand to his hat as she grasped the cane, fighting back. John saw blood from her scalp had covered her face so she could hardly see through it. He would have liked to help her, but a gun had swung into his peripheral vision. His muscles reacted before his brain did. The toothpick disappeared from between his lips to the floor and he beat the gun out of his attacker's hand. While he wrestled with one of them, the other fought the cane from Dahlia and struck her as she fled with the handle of his cane no her back, where her kidneys would be found. He followed up quickly with a strike to her knee and she crumpled. He stomped and stomped until John pulled him from Dahlia to the floor. His razored cap cut deep into the flesh of this man, and he struggled to stop as the other one got up and dragged his friend out the door. He left to chase them, but they started a car and roared away. He turned back to the shop and demanded,

"Who, the fuck, were they?"

Dahlia seemed not to breathe, just bleed. He kneeled over and put his hand below her nose to make sure. She was alive, so he picked her up and took her back to his own house.

Esme jumped with fright as her husband threw open the door and pushed in with a bloodied stranger in his arms. He ordered his children outside or upstairs, and for Esme to bring a basin of water and a cloth. He set Dahlia down on their couch and his wife soon appeared, asking,

"Who is this?"

"The florist. See to her."

"What happened to her?"

"She got beat up, just see to her."

"Where are you going?"

"It's like twenty bloody questions with you!"

"And it's like," he was gone so she stopped shouting, "getting blood out a stone with you."