The crow and the beast - Kaz brekker

chapter 10 - the pits

As they got back to the slat kaz went back to work while Cara prepared herself to spend some time training her horses. As she left her room kaz was standing in the hallway. "where are you going?" he asked her. "to the fields outside of ketterdam."

kaz didn't like the idea of Cara being somewhere he couldn't immediately reach her if need be but he knew he couldn't keep her at the slat either so he nodded and went back to his room. Cara took a pleasant walk to the fields.

Once she arrived she greeted both elvis and venus. She quickly saddled venus and got on, he was a spirited stallion and really wanted to go forward. Cara wouldn't say she was a very good rider but she could handle a young stallion pretty well she would say. Until she didn't.

when Cara was doing some groundwork with him he got spooked from something and took off. Running straight into the forest where a low hanging branch was waiting for her. She hit it hard and all the air was knocked out of her lungs as she landed hard on her shoulder.

she however never gave up and after a little bit of groundwork with venus while she stood next to him she got back on him and did some jumping. Venus was definitely not a jumping horse and it took a lot of effort to keep in the saddle as he tried to avoid every jump possible. He did need to learn how to jump in case they ever needed to get away quickly.

she ended the training with some bareback riding. She wanted her horses to be prepared in as many situations as possible. And it didn't take long for venus to start trowing her off again. "you know what buddy, I think we did enough for today." Looking at the sky she saw it was getting dark. She put all her gear in the shack and said goodbye to her horses as she slowly made her way back to the slat.

Meanwhile kaz had been working on the pit, he liked to work on that particular subject when he knew for sure Cara couldn't see it. He had arranged for a boat to take any shifters they saved from the pit to novyi zem where they could start a new life.

he had also identified almost all the guards, he knew when and where they should be when the fights were happening. It was only when they were happening that they could infiltrate the building and shut it down. When there were no fights the building was locked down completely.

Cara didn't know it yet but the plan was set for midnight tonight. He hoped she wouldn't be mad with him for keeping it a secret as he didn't want to cause her more stress than she already had because of that place.

Kaz was downstairs talking to jesper by the time Cara returned. Jesper was the first one to spot her as kaz had his back turned to the door. "god Cara what happened to you?" Jesper giggled. Kaz turned around and was surprised by the sight. Cara looked like she had had a rough day. He could see the bruises that were already healing and she held her shoulder trying to find the way it hurt less while walking.

"my 4 year old stallion had other ideas about training, he rather wanted to play the 'throw Cara against as many trees as possible game'" Jesper giggled again at her joke. Kaz hadn't said anything but Cara could see he wasn't happy that's he got hurt.

"give me 30 minutes and I will be fine." Kaz nodded. "please meet me in my office after, I need to tell you something its important." Cara nodded and went upstairs to take a shower while jesper turned to kaz again. "she is going to be very mad at you for not telling her sooner." Kaz glared at jesper "that is her choice then, get the crows together and meet me in my office in 50 minutes for a meeting."

After Cara was done with her shower she headed over to kaz's office. She knocked before opening the door, not waiting for him to respond. "I already know it's something I won't like so lets get this over with." She said as she sat down across from him.

"how did you ... never mind, we are shutting down the pit tonight." Cara looked genuinely surprised. "tonight? Why did you not tell me sooner? I would have prepared myself better, I would have trained more I would have –" kaz interrupted her by placing a gloved hand on top of hers.

"the whole team is going, I don't expect big trouble. I have been preparing this for a while and this is going to work." As if on queue the door opened up and in stepped the other crows. Kaz quickly removed his hand as he stood up. Cara stood up as well as jesper and wylan came to stand on either side of her.

Kaz has placed the map Cara drew for him down on the desk. So here is the plan. Jesper and wylan will infiltrate the crowd and cause a distraction so most of the guards will be send over there. Once that has happened me, Cara, Matthias and nina will go through the second entrance. We will take out the guards there and free the first room of shifters first.

The first shifters will be greeted by inej outside who will lead them to the docks where a ship will be waiting for them. I will then go to the office to deal with the people there while Cara Matthias and nina will enter the second room of shifters.

they will open the cages and Matthias and nina will escort them to the docks where another boat will be waiting for them. Cara will then join me in the office where we light the place on fire to destroy it.

all the crows nodded knowing what to do and after a few hours the time had come to put their plan into action.

the group waited 10 minutes after jesper and wylan has snuck in and then went through the second entrance down to the underground tunnels. There were only a few guards here and nina easily took care of them.

When they entered the first shifter hall everybody was shocked at the sight, except for Cara who had already seen it once. She started breaking cells open, luckily she was a lot stronger now than she was back then, it also helped that the cages weren't as big as the carnivore cages.

after all the cages were open nina pushed the shifters out towards the exit, a total of 8 shifters were in the first group. Kaz made his way towards the office when Cara, nina and Matthias made their wat to the second room.

a row of cages on both sides of the room Cara estimated there were at least 15 shifters here. Loud crashing and banging could be heard in the distance, they guessed it came from the pit where jesper and wylan were causing chaos.

they were about halfway down to opening the cages when the door on the other side of the room burst open. A massive brown bear standing at the opening. His eyes were full of murder and anger and Cara immediately knew he had lost control.

"whatever happens get them and kaz out of here." Cara said as she turned to nina. "but –" Cara had already turned around ad turned to her big wolf. She and the bear charged at each other the bear bellowed as he charged.

Cara jumped on the bears back and dug her teeth deep into the bears neck but his coat was to thick and she barely reached his skin. The bear threw her off and tried to swipe her with its massive paws but she was faster and put its leg. It didn't seem to do anything but only making the bear angrier.

the bear stood on his hind legs ready to smash its front paws into her but Cara charged into it making it stumble backwards and loose its balance. It fell down and Cara took this opportunity to glance behind her at nina and Matthias who were leading the last people out of the room.

"Watch out!" she heard nina yell right as she felt the pain to her side. She was thrown against a cage hitting it so hard the metal bend. "CARA!" she heard somebody yell in the distance. All she wanted to do was to close her eyes, only for a little while ... "I am not leaving her!" she heard in the distance.

She knew that voice, it was kaz. She got back on her feet as the bear walked past her ready for its next victim. She knew there was only 1 way she would win this fight and willingly changed into the one thing she was told to never shift into.

the adrenaline was encouraging her to fight but she was still in control. She let out a challenging growl as the bear turned back to her. She was quick to swipe his face with as much force as she could muster, making the big animal stumble back for a moment.

It quickly regained itself and with a lot more speed than you would expect from a bear it lunged itself at her, biting deep down on her side. She threw him off of her and jumped on the bears back again going for its neck again.

She had a lot more force now and was able to pierce its skin a lot deeper this time. Making the bear bellow out in pain. He threw her of his back and lifted himself on his back legs again letting out a blood curling roar. Cara planted herself on the ground and held the bear up by putting her front claws against his making it a contest of strength.

she was losing ground, she needed to do something she looked around franticly looking for a weak spot. His belly! That was it! She let go of one of his paws and swiped the bears belly creating deep slash wounds. While the bear won the battle of strength coming down on the 1 arm that was still holding him back. She heard a crack and fell to the ground.

The bear knowing he had won lifted himself up again to crush her. And as he did she found the strength for 1 last effort and sprung to her feet taking the bears throat between her jaws and bit down hard using every bit of strength she had left she snapped it to the side until she heard a crack.
time seemed to slow as the bear lost the life in its eyes and came tumbling down, falling next to Cara.

she slowly got to her feet, knowing she had to get out of there. "Cara!!" she heard voices call. She snapped her head towards the voice. Kaz nina and Matthias stood there. Nina and Matthias both taking a step back as they saw her but not kaz, he stepped towards her instead.

She took a step towards him standing 2 meters from him, towering over him. "its okay Cara, its over." She took another step towards his voice but her legs could no longer support her weight and she toppled forward shifting back to human on the process as everything went black.

Cara fell unconscious in Kaz's arms who had dropped his cane seeing he has to catch her fall. He quickly placed his arm under Cara's legs and back to carry her making sure not to touch her skin.

"kaz do you want me to carry her?" before Matthias had good and well said that kaz had already responded with a cold 'no' but then he saw her arm. "can you move her arm?" He asked Matthias. Matthias came forward and carefully placed Cara's broken arm so it was resting on her belly.

"and somebody please bring my cane." Kaz said as he started making his way towards the exit of the pits.