A Coin Has Two Sides (Season One) || Kaz Brekker x OC

5. Poppy

For over a year Winnie Marth had known Kaz Brekker.

In that year she had experienced emotions like no other.

She had felt pain, anger, sadness, hopelessness, turmoil, and rejection before. Her father had made sure of that. But when it came to Kaz, she had felt all those things too. But it was different.

Every emotion she had felt as a result of the Bastard of the Barrel had been because of the one she had felt most strongly. Love.

She had come to understand the hard way that love was just as dangerous as all the others, if not more so.

It twisted the way you saw things, the way you acted, the way you spoke, the way you lived.

Winnie knew she couldn't afford to have something control her like that. Especially in Ketterdam. It was a weakness. It could place her into situations she wouldn't survive. It almost already had.

That's why the moment she just shared with Kaz in his office scared her.

She was never sure of his feelings towards her, but one day months ago he had made it clear that he saw her as replaceable, a stone in his shoe that he didn't have time to remove and so learnt to deal with.

So why did he lean in too?

Such questions were dangerous to ponder over. The things she had shoved deep down into the depths of her heart could come rushing back out. And this was the absolute worst time for that to happen.

She needed to stay sharp and focused on the job at hand. On not getting herself captured by her father again. On keeping her darkness at bay despite the constant temptations that she would experience in Ravka to unleash it.

As her and Kaz walked over to Jesper, they remained in silence. Both clearly wanting to leave whatever had just happened in the past.

"Jesper! New job", Kaz shouted out as they approached him.

Winnie noticed Jesper appeared to have been in a conversation but seeing as no one was standing in front of him made her wonder who. Could it have been Inej? Why was she talking to Jesper? Knowing Jesper though, it was most likely he was simply talking to himself, so she refrained from asking him what he was doing.

The minutes that went by walking closer and closer to the Emerald Palace allowed Winnie to collect herself.

She pushed away any thoughts or feelings she was having surrounding Kaz Brekker and tuned into whatever nonsense Jesper was spurting out.

"I mean it. We need a demo man", Jesper was requesting.

"Not this again", Winnie sighed as she walked alongside the sharpshooter, Kaz just a few steps ahead of them.

"You ask for an explosives expert on every job", Kaz muttered.

"Because I don't want to be the one you point to and say explode something for us. That is not a Jesper talent", Jesper complained.

"And what exactly is a Jesper talent?" Winnie questioned.

"If I'm remembering correctly, you would know exactly what my talents are", Jesper said to Winnie with a small wink.

Of course, he was referring to a drunken night shared by the two friends. It had led to them sleeping together and it was something neither one regretted but had both agreed would never happen again.

Since Kaz had his back turned to the two, neither one saw him clench his jaw and tighten his grip on his cane at the mention of their shared night.

Kaz hadn't exactly had the best reaction to hearing about it at the time and refrained himself from commenting on it ever again.