TROUBLE , kaz brekker

xv. when this is over, you'll tell me everything

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

WHEN KAZ WAS YOUNGER, in a time before Ketterdam had bitten him with bloodstained teeth, he liked to climb the looming willow outside his window.

He still remembered the feeling of freedom as his hands gripped the truck, so impossibly sturdy that it washed away the illusion that he could fall. He was invincible as he manoeuvred the bark and wispy branches until his head broke the foliage and his mother's frantic cries were drowned out by the bird song. But most of all, he remembered the colour. A sky so blue no jewel could compare and an emerald green so bright it was a chorus of nature and a song that his childish heart craved.

It did him well to remind himself he wasn't always Dirtyhands, that somewhere under that unfeeling visage was a heart that used to beat loud and true. When he was just Kaz and not a murderer and a liar and everything in between.

But when his father died, the world turned grey. Colour had been washed out of Kaz Brekker's world in a single instance and the next, he was on a ship to Ketterdam. All that he had left was one last fleeting glance to the weeping branches of his childhood before he was whisked away to a country that never gave him a chance to fall in love with anything the way he had the trees.

And Kaz had almost grown content with the monochrome facade of Ketterdam, until the day she walked into the Crow Club with his stolen kruge and an attitude that could make the devil flush. But that wasn't what shorted the breath in Kaz's throat. No, that had been her eyes.

So green that he was just a boy again, scaling the maze of leaves with two working legs and a mind that revelled in the touch of another rather than repelling it. Nothing that vibrant would survive in Ketterdam for long. So he'd given in to her offer. Kruge for protection. She didn't need to know the truth.

If he were anyone else, perhaps the truth would have been enough. But it wasn't. And right now, Echo Caddel was in his bad books again.

Kaz had commandeered the uniform of the Darkling's personal guard ( a fine good job if he did say so himself ) only to return to an empty tavern. His first thought was kidnapping! , but, rationally, there was no reward that could persuade anyone to abduct both Jesper and Echo. The sheer irritation alone...

So it was clear they were gone. Gone where? He never did find out. Instead, Kaz waited for his trio of deceptive criminals to slink back alongside him several hours later with a mysterious package and far too much alcohol on their breath.

"Have fun?" He'd asked.

"Not at all."

"Absolutely not."

"Echo says we can't answer that."

Jesper had received a sharp jab to the ribs for that, courtesy of the red-head but strangely enough, Kaz didn't pursue it. It was already enough that he was asking them to risk their lives for his own greed, what was the point in policing their every waking moment too? If they were going to die, at least die happy.

Or, as happy as anyone could be facing certain death.

She'd turned to him as Jesper and Inej disappeared into the upper floors of the tavern.

"Get some sleep, Brekker."

"Don't you have anything else to do other than baby me, Caddel?"

"It's hard to find the time for anything else. You're so stubborn."

But despite himself, Kaz had closed his eyes, if not for a few moments.