How Villains Are Made - Kaz Brekker

Chapter Six

It was not hard to see how horrible Maud was at fighting.

She wasn't a big person, never was. Slightly taller than Inej, Maud wasn't even half as strong as her. She had never been trained for fighting, she was strong, but she was slow – even dance hadn't been a good enough help.

"It's footwork, Maddie, please. As a dancer, you should know this already, wake up!" Jesper said, clearly frustrated with her. "I don't actually want to punch you, so, please, jump away."

"Wait, wait. What side are you – OUCH!" she screamed, falling to the ground, holding the side of her face.

Jesper hadn't punched her with a lot of strength, but that meant very little to her, his size meant that very little of his strength was a lot more than her own body could handle. To worsen her situation, they were 'training' (that meant, she was getting her arse handed to her) in a warehouse near the docks, in the Fifth Harbour, Dregs' territory, away from prying eyes, but that didn't make her feel any less embarrassed or any less pathetic as she put her hand into fists and swung around, trying her best to hit Jesper, who was surprisingly quick to someone so big.

"You're small, you were supposed to be faster than me," he said, sighing as he leaned down, took her arms and pulled her up. She grumbled under her breath, pain on the cheekbone. "I wish Inej didn't have a job this afternoon, she would be a better teacher than me. I'm good with gun, I'm shit with fists."

There was a bitter part of her that thought that was the exact reason Kaz had sent Jesper to train her, just so she could get beaten, even if Jesper didn't meant to actually hurt her so much. Until she was reminded by her logical part that Per Haskell had been the one to partner them up, which meant Kaz had only found out in the very moment that the older man decided to tell him. She hoped that there was a part of him that internally cringed when he heard the news, even if just a little.

"I'm no good at this," she complained.

"Because you're not paying attention," Jesper said. "This is natural, Maddie. Something is coming your way, you jump out of the way, not towards it. This punch was only that bad because you literally jumped on my fist."

"I didn't mean to!"

"It certainly looked like it," he said.

"I've never been on a fight before," she quickly defended herself.

"Well, you won't have someone to fight for you all the time. You need to protect yourself," Jesper said. "You either run from trouble or you fight it. You're in The Dregs now, and running won't always be an option for you."

"I'm a doctor, Jesper, not a fighter," she said.

"That won't matter, Maddie, they'll shoot you either way," he said with a loud sigh. "You really need to take this more seriously, otherwise you'll have to patch yourself up in the kitchen table like many of us did because we weren't careful. This isn't the life you want, I know this, and I don't know how the hell you ended up here, but here you are – and they'll kill you without blinking."

She knew it wasn't fair. She had never meant to do harm to anyone, she had even prepared herself to take a vow to go the other way for the world, healing people that don't deserve to be healed for the sake of impartiality. But the people that The Dregs went against certainly didn't know and didn't care what was her part in that situation, she knew that.

It hurt her to say that, but there she went.

"Alright," she mumbled, swallowing any pride that she had. "You're right."

"I am?" he said, surprised. He blinked a few times. "Yeah. I'm right!" he said, more confident this time around.

"I'm sorry. Let's try again," she said.