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.
It was stupid to think they could just guess where those men had taken Laura and Jordan and follow traces of a carriage wasn't the best option, but it was all that they had – with some luck, it was the right option. Kaz was optimistic about his luck more than he probably should, but he hoped Laura's prayers to her saints would lead him to her.
"They took them East," he announced.
"How do you know they took them together?" Matthias asked.
"Laura wouldn't just follow them, leaving her weapons behind," Inej said. "She's not stupid. She would've gone down fighting until she couldn't anymore."
"They used Jordan to make sure she was cooperative," Nina said, nodding. "It makes sense. But how did they know where Jordan was? There was no way anyone could know, we made sure of that."
Kaz's head was hurting almost as much as his leg, but he couldn't stop thinking.
Who was the only person that had been left behind beside the Crows after Jordan was sent away? He couldn't think of a face... until he could.
"The maid," he said.
"Fucking bitch!" Jesper said. "I'm killing her. She's mine!"
"Jesper, not now," Wylan said, scolding his boyfriend with a glare.
"She told those men where to find Jordan, those men are side-of-road. Side-of-Roads this good, they need to be from the East, the West one's suck," Inej guessed. "Do you know anything to the East side of the Katterdam?"
Most people shook their head, but Wylan and Kaz nodded – Kerch by birth and raising, they knew fairly well their country and island.
"It's mostly farms," Wylan said.
Farms. Farms. Farms.
Pekka's farm and orchard.
Nineteen miles East, two or three hours away from Katterdam's docks, under Alby's name and they planted mostly peaches in the orchard. What else did he know? He had found not blue-print of the house, which meant it was old. What do old houses have that the others don't? Basements. New houses in Kerch had insisted in attics, not basements.
"I know where they are," Kaz said. "Matthias, get us a carriage."
"Not all of us are going to fit," Inej said.
"We'll make it fit!" he said, walking towards the stables near the docks to get the fastest horses.
Matthias and Jesper, the biggest ones, were controlling the carriage. Nina and Inej were sitting with their backs to the road, Kaz was sitting towards it with a Wylan that seemed to be becoming smaller and smaller by the second.
The horses were fast, the terrain was shit. Two hours tops, an hour and a half if they were lucky and Kerch decided to keep the rain away from them for a moment more.
"Kaz," Inej called. "You need to calm down and be rational."
"Fuck rational!" Nina said. "Let him be emotional for once, Inej."
"Emotional gets you killed," Inej said. "That's what you taught me, Kaz, when I first got into the Dregs. Remember your own advice now. Don't make yourself open and vulnerable in battle. Think of Jordan, you need to survive for her, no matter what happened before we get there."
What if Jordan didn't survive? What would he do? What if Laura didn't survive? How could he raise a good girl like Laura wanted Jordan to be alone? He wasn't a good person and he couldn't be a good father without Laura to be a good mother beside him. He needed them both. Both, alive and well. Both. Both. Both.
"Kaz," Inej said again.
"Shut up, I'm trying to think!" he said loudly.
Inej flinched away from him, clearly not expecting him to scream so suddenly and Kaz almost felt bad because he knew there was a good part of him that understood where Inej was coming from and agreed with her, but how did she expect him to be calm and collected when his little girl was there? Perhaps he could've dealt with it better if it was just Laura, then she would've survived without question or hesitation, she would do whatever it took to come back to him and Jordan, but to protect that girl... she would do whatever it took to make sure she would leave that place alive, even if that meant Laura wouldn't.
Still, he focused on the plan.
If most of Pekka's men were on the docks, then he didn't have many men with him at the farm. Most likely, the only guards he would have been the remaining parts of the gang that took Laura from the building. Five, he would guess, or less; those gangs were small, that was why they were so quick and so efficient.
Five guards. They could take it.
Three knocks on the roof of the carriage made his sweaty, gloved hands hold the cane tighter. They were almost there. They had less than five minutes since they were at the edge of the property.
"I'd say five guards," he said. "Move straight to the basement."
Inej nodded once, ready to move as soon as the carriage stopped while Nina put her whole upper body of the window to throw that information to the boys outside, who grumbled something that Kaz couldn't understand, but Nina came back inside and nodded to herself as she wrapped her cloak tighter around her.
The carriage stopped. The door was open and Inej was gone before Kaz could even step on the ground outside.
He marched without waiting for anyone inside of the small farm house, opening the door at once.
Two men inside jumped up from the small table on the kitchen where they were playing cards. They raised their hands in alarm when Kaz glared at them as he walked in, Jesper right behind him with his two pistols up and Matthias with his axe in hand.
Inej was in front of Kaz in an instant, running down the stairs before him.
Screaming could be heard and so could struggling, but one scream took over Kaz's head: Laura's clear scream of fear.
The two men sitting on the other table, the one near the basement, however did not just get up and allow Kaz and company to do whatever. Pekka Rollins got up from the table and looked at Kaz once before his eyes filled with tears while the other man got up, ready to fight against Inej, the smallest one, but was on his knees, holding his hand with wide eyes as a knife went through it.
"Who are you all?" the unknown man asked, looking alarmed, but his shock too strong for him to feel the actual excruciating pain from his hand.
Kaz ignored him.
"Where is key?" Kaz asked.
A gunshot.
Pekka looked alarmed at the basement's door.
"I didn't know she was with you," Pekka said. "I thought she had just joined you to end me. I didn't know she was important, Brekker." It wasn't important at the moment.
"WHERE IS THE FUCKING KEY?!" Kaz yelled.
Another gunshot.
Silence.
Pekka's hands were shaking as he struggled to get the keys from his back pocket and give it to Kaz, who struggled to find the right key of the whole chain.
"MAMA!" screamed Jordan. Kaz's hands could barely move fast enough as he started shaking as well. Pekka's eyes widened even more as he understood there was no way he could leave that place alive. "NO! PLEASE!"
The door unlocked and Kaz stumbled in, almost stumbling back out in absolute panic.
There was a dead man lying face up with a gunshot wound at his stomach, his eyes were open and unfocused, but even from far Kaz could see some resemblance between him and Laura; they had the very same nose.
There was a woman lying face up on the other side of the room and the trace of blood showed that she had crawled to that place. She was covered in blood and there was more pooling around her and the child that was wailing in fear shaking her body to one side to the other. Even underneath all the blood, vomit and sweat, Kaz recognized Laura's profile when the little girl fell to her left side, tired of sitting on her ankles.
Jordan stopped shaking her mother, but she couldn't stop crying very loudly.
"Jordan," Kaz whispered, his voice not leaving his throat, but the girl heard. "Jordan!" he called louder.
The girl turned around; face distorted still crying. She was also bleeding, but she seemed alright through the few scratched she seemed to have on the face and a worst one on her left arm.
"Dada, help me!" she said.
Kaz wanted to, he really did, but he could barely walk and he really doubted her could touch Jordan at the moment – she was covered in blood and it wasn't hers, it was Laura's.
He felt his heart closing in as all the air inside his lungs disappeared. He felt dizzy when he leaned against the wall, trying not to throw up.
"Inej!" Kaz called.
Inej was into the room, eyes wide in a second, she also hesitated for a moment before getting Jordan and running out of the room as the girl screamed and kicked, wanting to go to her father, not to her aunt.
Kaz's cane fell as he limped to Laura and sat beside her.
He accessed her as best as he could. A knife on her torso and several wounds caused by a physical altercation without a weapon. He couldn't take the knife out without being sure of what it had hit and he wasn't a healer. He needed to take off his gloves and check for a heartbeat, but he was drowning without touch; he was being pulled down by Jordie.
Welcome back to hell, brother, said that voice in the back of his head.
Kaz did what a little brother does best; he called for his brother.
"JESPER!" he yelled as loud as he could.
Jesper almost fell down the stairs, but he managed to get to the basement in one piece, guns out, ready to shoot only to find Kaz sitting beside the pale Laura on the ground. He had seen Inej carrying a crying and bloody Jordan, but he didn't think it was that bad.
"Kaz!" he exclaimed, running to him.
Kaz hands were shaking and he looked almost as pale as Laura.
"I can't," Kaz yelped.
He couldn't touch her, Jesper understood in a second.
"Tell me what to do," Jesper said, putting his pistols down on the ground beside Laura. "Come on, Kaz, focus!"
"Her neck, feel her pulse," it sounded more than an order, it was a prayer. He wanted Jesper to feel her pulse, he wanted her to have a pulse.
It wasn't there at first, but then Jesper found it, it was weak and slow, but he had found it. It brought a grin on his face.
"Still here," he said.
Kaz almost sighed in relief. But then the next step made him feel the taste of bile in his mouth once more.
"We need to move her up the stairs," Kaz said. "I can't help you, but she needs more than one person and –"
"I'm here," Wylan said, running into the room. "We'll do this. Kaz, go deal with Pekka and the man... he's Laura's father."
Laura was fighting for her life, Kaz was fighting against her demons.
Egor was on the chair on Wylan's dining room, sitting in front of Kaz with his hand bandaged and his knee caps broken by Kaz's cane so he wouldn't run away. Pekka Rollins was beside him, ankles, knees and hands broken and all he could do was whimper and sob in low volume as he tried to keep himself away.
"I didn't know you two were married," Pekka said. "I wouldn't have done that if I knew, Brekker, you know I'm not that stupid. Please. I didn't even know about the child. Beautiful girl! Looks like yo—"
He stopped when Kaz raised his cane again, just to show the crow head. Pekka was silent again.
Egor glared, he didn't know Kerch very well, but he knew that Kaz Brekker was a criminal and, apparently, his daughter's husband.
He said something in Ravkan. Kaz looked at him, completely deaf to the language.
"He asked if you're really married to her," Pekka translated.
"I didn't ask," Kaz said. Pekka looked down. "But yes," he lied.
He had guessed she had said that after Pekka explained that her father wanted to find her to marry her off to someone she had been promise while still a baby. Marriage was his first thought as well, but Jordan was with her, which meant the marriage couldn't be called off if needed. He had thought that as soon as he knew Egor was her father.
Jesper walked into the dining room.
"They kicked me out," he explained as soon as Kaz looked at him walking in. "I threw up again, but I was just trying to help them move her around."
Perhaps it would've been funny how terrified of blood Jesper was, especially when it was his own, but it was Laura bleeding all over the sheets up the stairs, where he had been kicked out from as well.
"Jordan?" he asked.
"Finally fell asleep," Jesper answered. "Matthias is with her; they're taking a nap together or whatever Fjerdan uncles do."
Egor cleaned his throat.
"Laura survived?" he asked, heavy accent hurting Kaz's ears and he looked at the man with curled lips by the horrible sound he had made. "My daughter –"
"She's not your daughter," Kaz said. "Never was and never will be. She's alive, and not thanks to you."
Jesper walked towards the dining table and sat on the corner of the table, a small piece of bread and cheese on his hands as he watched Egor from a bit too close and chewed with his mouth open, making as much noise as he could. Egor glared at him and Jesper smiled, mouth full. Annoying as ever, Kaz had celebrated in his head.
That was never the way he had imagined meeting his future-in-laws when he was a kid and fantasized about marrying and romantic silly ideas. He didn't think the man would have broken bones or be painted in black of blue of bruises he had given him with just his fists. He thought that perhaps he would be the one being glared at and perhaps the one with a small bruise from a too rough pet on the back. Well, none fantasies from his childhood could warn him of the future, he was sure.
"The child," Egor said again. "Alive?"
"Laura is alive," Jesper said.
"The child. The baby," insisted Egor. "I don't know the baby."
Jesper turned to Kaz, "I think he's trying to say that he didn't know about the baby at all."
"Yes, Jes, I gathered that, thank you for your input," Kaz grumbled, not looking away from Egor's eyes. "Jordan's fine, traumatized and scarred for life for your stupidity, but alive. Know that you started a hatred of that little girl that I didn't think anyone could, even with my DNA in her."
That Pekka had to translate to Egor, who looked confused and scared at first before he turned to Kaz with clear curiosity.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"The devil," Kaz answered, getting up from the chair and going to the door. Jesper didn't move. "Jes, come on," he insisted.
Jesper followed him without hesitation, smiling ironic over his shoulder to Egor and Pekka as he chuckled at the glare from the blonde.