The crow and the beast - Kaz brekker

chapter 2 - hiding in plain sight

After that fateful encounter in the streets cara laid low for a while. She did not return to the streets in her animal form but rather stayed at her apartment. Her apartment is situated down the street from the crow club, making it the perfect place to watch what goes on there.

she did notice the wraith of the crow club lurking about but saw nothing else out of the ordinary. Laying low had another outcome, she was getting low on kruge. The apartment was left to her by her mother, it was the only thing she had.

being a dog on the street she heard everything, all the secrets and all the places where easy kruge is hidden. In the night she sneaks in, steals what she came for and gets back out. She has never been caught while doing it.

So today she decided to go to the harbor, she packed her gun and her sword and went outside. While walking to the harbor she felt vulnerable. Her mother taught her she is always safer on the streets as the wolf, nobody that suspects anything and nobody that looks twice.

once she got there she knew her target right away, a Wealthy looking ship was docked. A traders boat. She carefully waited until she saw everybody leave the boat and then went for it. The lock was small and simple so it only took a few seconds to get past that.

once inside the kruge was behind a second layer of vertical metal bars. She took 2 bars and forced them open, it took some time and strength but the opening was big enough after a few minutes. She took as much kruge as she could safely carry and made her escape.

when she was walking back to the apartment she looked at the crow club again, cara had always been a curious person ... she couldn't resist and walked over to the club. She entered without any problems and sat in a darker corner of the club, opening her book and started writing.

while writing she listened to everything that was happening, being able to hear better than the ordinary human she could listen in to almost all the conversations in the club. After listening for a while she decided she heard nothing that she did not know yet and focused more on her writing.

it took another 30 minutes before she felt it, she was being watched. She didn't immediately lift her head up to oversee the situation but she also couldn't hear any conversations about her so after a few more minutes she decided that she needed to take a look. She lifted her head and stared straight into the eyes of kaz brekker.

damn, she knew this was a bad idea. She helt eye contact for a few more seconds and then went back to her writing. Inside she was panicking, she didn't know what to do now. Would she get up and leave? No that would only make her look suspicious. She decided to stay for a few more minutes before leaving.

then she heard it. 'tick ... tick' the sound of his cane coming closer and closer. She started panicking again inside. "who are you?" she looked up and yep .. she was right. She looked straight into the blue eyes of kaz brekker again. "I'm sorry, I didn't know this club was only for acquaintances" she quickly closed her book and stood up.

"it isn't" shit she wasn't getting out of this so easily. "wel, my name is cara. I arrived here today by ship". She immediately regretted saying her real name. kaz scowled. " it isn't safe for you to be out alone at this time of night here, you should head home now." She slightly bowed her head. "thank you for the advice, it was nice to meet you." Kaz nodded slightly but did not respond as she put away her book and walked out.

as soon as she got out of the club she went the opposite direction of her apartment. He had said home instead of the place she was staying at. He knew she was lying and was most likely going to make somebody follow her.

not even a minute later she heard it ... footsteps. The wraith was following her. She did not change her pace. She knew this city, she knew that the wraith was going by the roofs of the buildings. So she went over to a crossroads where she knew the wraith would loose sight of her for a moment. She knew the exact location of the wraith and as soon as she knew she was out of sight she changed.

it only takes a heartbeat for her to change now, she ran as fast as she could staying in the shadows. She knew the wraith lost her. She headed back to the apartment making sure nobody else was following her, going around so she did not have to pass the crow club again.

*a few days later*

everything looked calm, it was slightly raining on the day she decided to walk the streets again. This time as her usual form. Nothing deemed out of the ordinary. She was walking slowly along the streets when she saw him again.

he was talking to his crows and after a little listening in she realized they were getting things ready for a heist. She knew the building they were going to .. she really shouldn't ... but right then and there she decided she was going to watch from the shadows as they performed their heist.

she did not know the building that good so she decided to head over to it while it was still daylight, it was a museum of some sorts of a rich person in town. It looked very sturdy and a lot of guards were posted outside.

but something wasn't right. She saw people with lion tattoo's in their neck talking to a guard. She dared a little closer to hear them talking. "he is coming tonight together with his crew, give us a sign when his crew is inside." The guard nodded. She was shocked, this wasn't going to end well. She had to help them somehow.

soon the night came, cara never left the building. Scared that she would miss it otherwise. She had positioned herself on top of a building underneath a black blanket. Soon she saw the crows .. wel .. she saw jesper and wylan first. From what she heard they were supposed to go in first, kaz was staying outside with a carriage down the street to make a quick getaway if things went bad.

it only took a few minutes until she saw it, one of the guards purposely dropped his hat. Seconds after that she heard footsteps, at least 10 men. She jumped up and jumped across the rooftops to get a better view of kaz.

in her mind she begged him to hear them, she prayed he was able to overpower 10 men. He did hear them and he did overpower at least 6 of them before he was overpowered. 8 lion people were left as kaz had murdered 2 of them. they grabbed him and put him in the carriage, leaving his cane behind. She couldn't let this happen. She thought of a way to help, she jumped down and took the cane between her jaws and jumped back to the rooftops following the carriage from the rooftops.

she changed into her bigger wolf, the size of a small pony. She cut them off and waited in the shadows. Once the carriage was close enough she growled. A low deep growl, one that scares everybody to their deepest core. Including the horses. They immediately stopped and reared.

the lion men tried everything to get them to calm down but the horses knew, they did not want to go any further so the men yelled to get out of the carriage.7 people pooled out of the carriage, brekker did not look well again. He was breathing heavily she could definetly smell the strong smell of panic on him.

they dragged kaz to an alleyway. She followed them from above and once she had them where she wanted she growled again. The men stopped. "it's the beast" they looked around "that is not a real thing you idiot" said another one. She dropped the crow cane down from above.

it fell right on the head of one of the guys. They threw kaz against a nearby wall and looked up. before they good and well knew what was happening she jumped down on top of 2 men, digging her teeth in one mans neck almost instantly killing him. the others yelled out, scared.

she quickly turned around and threw 2 more men against the wall with her body weight. Leaping onto another biting him in the shoulder shaking him she did to make the bite deeper and he bled out when she released him.

that is when the first shot connected. One of the men had managed to take out his gun and shot her, scraping over her shoulder just barely missing the muscle but making a deep cut. She yelped out in pain. She turned to the man, seeing that kaz had gotten his cane and was fighting another man.

while she was distracted for a second by the sight of kaz another shot rang out, connecting with its target. Hitting her in her belly, missing vital organs by millimeters. Everything became blurry after that, somewhere you heard somebody yelling, it sounded as if they were yelling no.

you heard another shot, pain struck her shoulder and she went down. she closed her eyes feeling tears form. When she opened them again she saw kaz being forced onto his knees while he was punched in the face.

then came anger.

kaz looked over at the wolf, hearing its breath slow down. he looked back at the man standing in front of him who was readying for another punch. There is not a lot that scares kaz brekker but what he heard next scared him. he thought the growl of before was intimidating but this, this was on a whole new level.

When he looked at the wolf again it was no longer laying down, fighting for its life. It had somehow grown. He estimated that the wolf stood almost 2 meters tall now. It stood on its hind legs, it let out another growl.

it lunged for the man standing in front of me. As soon as the wolf made contact kaz heard bones breaking under its force. The man was instantly dead, the wolf turned around in a heartbeat and slashed at another man trowing him against the wall with such force that she man would never get up again.

he turned again grabbing one of the 2 remaining men and lifting him up in the air. It roared at him, a roar that would surely be heard all over ketterdam. Then another shot was heard and the wolf stumbled forwards. The bullet had scraped its arm. It trew the man down with force, killing him from the impact before turning on the last man biting the arm that held the gun and biting straight trough it. leaving the man bleeding out on the floor.

then the wolf turned to kaz. It walked towards him until it stood right in front of him. green eyes staring straight into blue eyes. That is when it all clicked, recognition struck kaz. "Cara don't do this." As soon as the words left his mouth the eyes of the wolf changed. They became softer.

the wolf stumbled back grabbed the gunshot wound on its stomach, looked at kaz one more time and then fell to the floor. "from all the things that could happen today, I did not expect that" kaz looked to the sky for a second while he regained his composure.

when he looked down again there was a human girl laying in front of him, unconscious. "maybe you will make a good investment"