The Apple of My Eye -Kaz Brekker (Complete)

Chapter Sixteen

THE CROW'S SIDE OF THE STORY

Special Chapter

Kaz Brekker should've known something was wrong when someone attacked Nina from behind and no arrows hit the back of the man's head in the second that she screamed, but he only actually noticed it when the battle was finally done, Pekka Rollins was nowhere to be seen... but so were the arrows.

That was when Pim came, pale and sweaty as Inej moved the bodies out of the ship that was to set with Alby Rollins and his mother. He stopped in front of Kaz and said the worst sentence Kaz had once heard in his life: "Anika is dead, Jordan is missing."

Kaz thought he knew despair before.

He didn't. He knew the small version of it as he thought he was going to die, but there was a new one that he hated even more as he though that his daughter was going to die and it was much worse than the first one. He couldn't breathe and he couldn't think and he couldn't speak.

Useless. Kaz was useless. He couldn't protect his brother. Now, he couldn't protect his daughter.

Inej took over quickly as soon as Pim retold her the sentence that made Kaz freeze, staring at nothing as he struggled to breathe.

Nina came back less than five minutes.

"Laura's missing as well. Her bow, arrows and knives are on the roof. There's a man's body up there," Nina told. "Matthias is bringing it down," she told that directly to Kaz, who had started to ignore his pain on the knee and headed to the building to get to the stairs. "Matthias was right behind me."

Time was slipping away from Kaz, he didn't know how much it took for Matthias to drop the dead man in front of him on the docks, but it felt like hours. Every breath he took felt like hours and his heart was beating away the minutes.

"Do you know him?" Matthias asked.

Kaz shook his head, a lump of his throat making him impossible to speak out loud.

"I do," said Wylan.

All eyes turned to him in surprise.

"How the fuck do you know him?" Nina asked.

"He used to work for my dad three or four years ago, but got sacked. Last I heard, he had skipped away from the Black Tips to the Dime Lions, but then jumped out again," Wylan explained.

The explanation was painfully simple as the alternatives got to Kaz's mind.

If that guy had worked for Pekka Rollins before and had jumped out, he could've very well decided he was better off with a smaller gang, one that accepted hoppers and non-loyal people. Side of the road gangs were not all that common in Katterdam anymore, but they were on the East. If his thought process was right and he saw Pekka Rollins taking the canal he though he saw, then there was only one direction that Pekka could've taken his girls.

Jesper was sprinting towards them and ran into Matthias back, who stumbled, but held the Zemini boy in place so he could breathe and the momentum could be lost.

"I found –" panting, "I found carriage traces on the back door of the building Laura was in."

"East?" was all Kaz asked.

Jesper turned to him, eyes wide.

"Yes, how did you know that?" he asked, clearly confused.

Kaz didn't answer, he just went back to thinking.