𝐈𝐅 𝐀𝐋𝐋 𝐄𝐋𝐒𝐄 𝐅𝐀𝐈𝐋𝐒- ᴋᴀᴢ ʙʀᴇᴋᴋᴇʀ

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐅𝐎𝐔𝐑

*TRIGGER WARNING: MENTIONS OF RAPE AND SUICIDAL THOUGHTS*

She didn't remember the last time things were perfect. There was just this clouded remnant of the purity that had lasted only a split second. It was of times when her mother had kissed her bloodied knees and her father looked at her with all the love in his eyes. And memories of her older brother tenderly tying little blue ribbons into her hair with gentleness and ease. Before a cold shoulder was turned upon her and she no longer had the urge to slide down railings and run down halls with glee. She had been happy once, unconcerned, and wholeheartedly in love with life itself. Unfortunately, such love had died in a hole beside her mother's grave. The once picture-perfect family became something no artist would want to frame. 

For every surge of pain that wracked her skull and the endless piercing of splinters into her knees, Shivani wanted nothing more than to tear to pieces whoever was manhandling her unnecessarily rough. Her vision had yet to clear and she was too unsteady to have a chance at fighting back and she found this short-lived suffering to be entirely pointless.

It wasn't until she managed to find the strength to lift her head did she notice Kaz, and suddenly gutting the guy behind her was the least of her concerns. His body strained away from the hold upon him and his muscles tensed themselves almost painfully. It made her sick to know that he was crawling in his skin.

It had become familiar to her, the way he reeled away from everyone else and those stupid black gloves that he always wore. For every reason a reaction she supposed. And Kaz's boundaries made him human. They were frustrating, yes, but to her, it meant that there would always be something real beneath his walls, something with a heart. 

"Ah, she's awake, good." Shivani didn't need to know him to recognize his voice. The way he spoke, his words seemed to float off of the tip of his forked tongue, like the snake he was.

Shivani didn't need to know the ins and outs of Kaz's life to see the way he wanted to peel the skin off of Pekka Rollin's body, layer by layer until his blood had long run dry. It was just that obvious. But she didn't want to know either, it simply wasn't her business. Besides, this feeling that she saw in him, used to run her life and that was enough for her to understand the torment he was in.

"Now, I know you saw Dreesen," Rollins began, his eyes flitting back and forth between the pair, "You got the jump on whatever job he has. I don't know the details, obviously, just that you have a little travel hazard ahead of you."

"So, here's the deal. You can do nothing, walk away from it. I'll tell Dreesen I'm taking over for you. We'll be even."

"Not even close," Kaz rasped out, his eyes fixated with utter hatred at the man before him. 

"Hang on." Rollins leaned forward, hooking the crow's head of Kaz's own cane around his neck and forcefully lurching him forward, the gold beak digging viciously into his skin.  "The other option is I'll cave your head in with your own cane and dump you in the harbor."

He shifted his attention to Shivani, watching as she now began to struggle relentlessly against the man that was attempting to restrain her, her fire and fortitude recently restored. He smiled mirthlessly when she froze as she got a grasp upon what else his threat possessed.

"Not to mention I'll transform your prized Blood Fox here into the Emerald Palace's main attraction. I'm sure she'd look ravishing in a pair of silks."

Kaz didn't dare move, but his jaw was clenched together with such intensity that the veins in his temples were easily distinguished.

"The first option seems better now, don't it?" It would have if Shivani had any bit of self-preservation left, but it was beyond that. Pekka Rollins would just be another force inclined to poison their plan and merely that. And if she was to give up now, he would win. She owed Kaz more than that.