SAINTS, kaz brekker

₁₀. saint and secret

"Time for a heist!" Jesper said excitingly, patting the Conductor on the arm.

"You'll have to say goodbye to Milo," Kira pointed out and Jesper pouted.

"I know..."

"Kaz?"

Kaz's eyes snapped to Kira's face and her hypnotic hazel eyes. His jaw clenched and he tilted his head, urging her to continue.

"Can I talk to you? Privately?" Kira asked, pursing her lips at him. She didn't wait for an answer as she hopped off the stool and went around him, her newest pale purple dress swaying behind her—where she even managed to get it he wouldn't know.

Burying his urge to break something, or preferably someone's skull, he followed after her. Kira walked into a hallway he was certain they weren't supposed to be in. She nodded at a man passing by them with a frown, and smiled, not bothering to explain herself as she opened a door to her left and gestured for Kaz to follow.

Kaz walked into the room, closing the door behind them and his eyebrows furrowed as he found himself in a wine cellar of sorts.

"We can't take too long," he said, "we need to start planning the heist."

He saw Kira nod, not even bothering to roll her eyes like she usually did. "Believe me I don't want to be here anymore than you. But we are here on a job and we have to get the bad blood out of the way for at least now."

Kaz didn't answer, merely leaned against the wall, and looked at Kira expectantly. She took a deep breath and ran a hand through her impossibly golden hair.

"I'm Grisha," she blurted out and Kaz couldn't hide his surprise as his eyebrows raised. He did not expect this to unfold this way. Kira clamped her lips together and nodded. "I hate using that word and calling myself that but it's the truth. And... I trust you with it. I can manipulate metals and such. That's how—"

"You stole the buttons right off my overcoat," Kaz finished emotionless and Kira nodded. "Why are you telling me this?"

It wasn't a big surprise that she was a Fabrikator, Kaz had had some sort of inkling about it since the day she appeared in his office and saw the metal welded into her boots. He was surprised though that she was telling him.

"Because I need you to trust me enough so we can finish this job. I need to prove that I do trust you, Kaz."

"Then why didn't you tell me?"

Kira looked down at the ground, fiddling with the ring on her finger, and then looked up at him again, "Because you were my secret."

"What?"

She took a step closer to him but still stood a couple of feet away from him, and Kaz didn't know why but he wanted her to step even closer, it was as if her presence could silence the ghosts in his ears.

"I got to Ketterdam in Queen's Lady Ship," she began, "I was young and lost and I didn't catch the plague but I guess my morals did. They died fairly early and I began nicking everything valuable enough from the corpses on the streets. When I saw you, looking half dead, I felt this urge inside me to help you, I needed to, for my own sake."

Kira paused for a moment and looked into his eyes as if searching for a sign to stop talking. And though Kaz was gripping his cane for his life as she decided to bring him down memory lane, he made no sign he wanted her to stop.

"You'd be able to survive even if I didn't do anything. I knew that then and I know that now. But I still wanted to help you. I honestly wanted to and I liked that feeling. The honesty you made me feel. That was the day I swore not to lie." She took a small step forward but was still out of reach from him. "You were my secret. I didn't want to share that day with anyone and I guess I thought you felt the same way. Knowing I was there could change everything for you so I kept quiet."