Shadows: A Six of Crows Fan fic

Chapter five: Kaz

Kaz was not fine. He'd told a lot of lies and half truths in the past. Heck, half his reputation was based on lies and exaggerations and he preferred it that way. But what he'd said to Wylan might have been the biggest one he'd ever told. He was not fine.

His leg hurt, his shoulder was killing him, his clothes were a mess, he was a mess, he still hadn't gotten any more than an hours' worth of sleep in, and worst of all his mind kept betraying him. As soon as he'd seen that blasted star and heard that people were after Inej, the critical-thinking portion of his brain hadn't barely been able to get a word in edgewise. All he could think about was how he would keep her as far away from this mess as possible. The critical part of his brain, the part that had gotten them through the ice court, that had gotten him as far as he'd come in the Dregs, was thinking that this wasn't his battle. That Inej could handle this herself, and that they needn't bother with the issue. But then the other side of his brain would step in. The part that still remembered the feel of her hand in his, that still remembered how close they'd been under the stars on Wylan's porch, that still remembered the way her lips moved when she smiled; that part couldn't fathom leaving Inej to do this on her own. He hated it.

The worry, the stress, the way it made him unhinged and unfocused like this. He'd made a fair point to Jesper and Wylan, they should go to the meeting to get information and they wouldn't need disguises; but the real reason that he'd wanted to meet these people unhidden was so that they could see who it was ending their lives. There was no way he was letting them walk out of that meeting with their heads still attached if they meant to go after Inej.

But Wylan's right, Inej would hate you dealing with her issues alone, his critical brain thought. Well, yes, he did know Inej would hate it, but it didn't matter. She'd just risked her life for him in the Van Eck job because he screwed up and made her a weakness. And it was his fault she'd turned into a person who would have enemy's seeking revenge anyways.

He could practically here her telling him not to fight her battles. In fact, a number of months prior to the Ice Court job, she'd said those exact words to him. It was the day prior to her sixteenth birthday, nearly the one-year anniversary of her joining the dregs, and it was the first day since then that she'd been forced to actually walk the West Stave. It'd been the last part of a mission they were on. He'd known that she would have reserves about it, knew, whether she wanted him to or not, that Inej hated that strip and always found ways to get around going there, much less actually walking along the bustling street that wound through the West Stave. But, at that point his rational brain was still functioning when it came to her and so he didn't care. He didn't care how she might have felt about it, all he knew was that this was the best way to execute his plan and that was all that mattered. He supposed he could have asked Roeder to slip in and do the deed, but if he was caught, he'd have a much worse time getting out of the situation than Inej would. And, even at that point in time, Inej was still better.

So, he'd asked her to do it, and though it took a small bit of intimidation, threatening, and bullying, she'd done it. Kaz bet that she'd probably agreed mostly just to spite him and prove that she could do anything, even if that meant facing a shadow so large. Then, that night, when the final piece of his plan needed to be laid, she mustered the courage, dropped off the package, threatened the man needing threatened, and then walked back down the West Stave unscathed and unnoticed. Until she started to pass the Menagerie. Even from the dark alley a few brothels down from where Kaz had been waiting for her to meet back up with him, he could see her small body in the bustling street begin to slow down in front of the exotic building. She'd begun to visibly shake, and she looked like she was trying so hard to keep walking and keep placing one foot in front of the other, when suddenly she stopped. Frozen completely in her breathing, her blinking, everything. She barely even flinched when a few hurried tourists brushed past her. By this point Kaz had already pushed himself off the wall he'd been leaning against and was pushing his way towards her. He'd had a small fear that something like this might happen so he'd decided to wait in that alley for her, hoping that he wouldn't have to help her at all and wouldn't even need to reveal to her that he was there. Show her that he'd even thought about it enough to set up the precaution. But now he was glad that he had because the fear and terror that had rooted her to that spot was almost palpable.