Adelaine stumbled as she tried to keep up with Kaz and Nina as the climbed the stairs. Why they were deviating from the original plan she had no idea but she was far to exhausted to question Kaz about it. Her foot got caught on the edge of the step again, toes brushing against the surface. She threw an angry glare at Kaz's back, hoping that he could feel it. Why had he insisted on being the one to make this climb? It couldn't be a question of time, so maybe it was what Kaz always intended. Maybe he'd meant to keep some bit of information from Matthias. Or he was just determined to keep them all guessing.
They paused at every landing, listening for patrols. The prison was full of sounds, and it was hard not to jump at every one of them – voices floating down the stairwell, the metallic clang of doors opening and closing. Adelain could feel every sound go through her body, causing her to flinch, holding her breath until she was certain that the voices did not belong to guards that would catch them.
On their way up the fourth flight, voices and bootsteps suddenly burst into the stairwell. Hurriedly, they backtracked to the third floor landing and slipped through the door leading to the cells.
The prisoner in the cell nearest to them started to shout. Nina quickly raised a hand and squeezed his airway shut. He stared at her, eyes bulging, clawing at his neck. She dropped his pulse, sending him into unconsciousness as she released the pressure on his larynx, allowing him to breathe. They needed him quiet, not dead.
The noises grew as the guards clambered down the stairs, loud Fjerdan reverberating off the walls.
Nina held her breath, watching the door, hands ready. Adelaine bit her lip until a metallic taste filled her mouth, ready to do what was needed to protect them. Kaz had no weapon, but he'd dropped into a fighting stance, waiting to see if the door would crash open. Instead, the guards continued on past the landing, down to the next floor.
When the sounds had faded, Adelaine felt like she could breathe again. Kaz signalled to her, and they slipped back out the door, closing it as silently as possible behind them, and continued their ascent.
Seven bells struck as they reached the top floor. One hour had passed since they'd knocked out the prisoners in the holding area. They had forty-five minutes to search the high-security cells, meet back at the landing, and get to the basement. Kaz gestured for Nina to take the corridor on the left while he took the right. He stopped before turning to Adelaine.
"I need you to go with Nina," he whispered, voice so low that Adelaine could barely hear him despite being just inches away.
For a few seconds Adelaine was frozen, eyes wide and eyebrows raised as she tried to process his words.
"I'm not leaving you." She didn't let him reply, continuing to talk the moment she heard the sigh pass his lips. "I did not go through all of this just for us to get separated. I did not climb all those stairs for you to tell me to go with Nina. I'm coming with you."
Kaz rubbed the nape of his neck, long fingers adjusting his collar. "Fine."
The two nodded at Nina before they disappeared into the right corridor.
═══════════ ⋆★⋆ ═══════════
The couple sped through the upper cells. Adelaine had figured out Kaz's plan, Yul-Bayur would not be here and Kaz was well aware of it. She could only hope that his need for vengeance would not be the cause of their deaths.
Kaz felt partly unhinged. He had no cane. His feet were bare. He was in strange clothes, his hands pale and ungloved. He didn't feel like himself at all. No, that wasn't quite true. He felt like the Kaz he'd been in the weeks after Jordie had died, like a wild animal, fighting to survive.
The other part of him was screaming, telling him to think logically. This wasn't the right path. This was dangerous and unplanned, a deadly combination. Besides, Adelaine was with him. This would put her in danger, more danger than what she had already faced on this heist. Not to mention that it risked putting her in an episode, and if it did he was certain that she would be lost forever.
Adelaine spotted a Shu prisoner lurking at the back of one of the cells, fingers taping against Kaz's arm to point him out.
"Sesh- uyeh," Kaz whispered. The man stared at him blankly. "Yul-Bayur?" Nothing. The man started shouting at him in Shu, and they hurried away, past the rest of the cells, then slipped out to the landing and charged down to the next level as fast as he could manage. He knew he was being reckless, selfish, but wasn't that why they called him Dirtyhands? No job too risky. No deed too low.
Dirtyhands would see the rough work done.
He wasn't sure what was driving him. It was possible Pekka Rollins wasn't here. It was possible he was dead. But Kaz didn't believe it. I'd know. Somehow I'd know. "Your death belongs to me," he whispered.
The swim back from the Reaper 's Barge had been Kaz's rebirth. The child he'd been had died of firepox. The fever had burned away every gentle thing inside him. Seeing what Adelaine was put through made the fire explode. Surrounding her, protecting her and only her.
Adelaine was stumbling through the empty streets, heading back to the Sweet Shop, one of Pekka's men walking next to her, making sure that she didn't try to run away. The drugs in her system kept her from feeling how cold it truly was, numbing her half-clad body. They did, however, also make her stumble and a grunt, more out of shock than pain, escaped her lips as her bare knees met the wet ground.
"Get up," the man grunted. Impatiently he leaned down, hand encasing her arm in a bruising grip as he roughly pulled her from the ground. "I said get up, whore."
"Adelaine."
The girl tiredly lifted her head, bloodshot eyes meeting the coffee-coloured eyes that were staring at her. Her eyebrows furrowed, she recognised this boy, but her mind was too foggy to recollect from where.
"Move along Brekker," the guard grunted, not releasing the grip he held on her arm. Kaz's eyes were quick to take notice of how tight it was.
"Let go of the girl." His tone was hard, making it clear that he wasn't asking.
A laugh echoed through the air, a vicious smile appearing on the man's lips as he stared at the much younger boy.
Kaz didn't hesitate, in a matter of seconds, his cane made contact with the man's legs, the sound of bone breaking following the action. The man let out a scream but Kaz was quick, knife digging into his neck before unwanted attention could make their way to them. Blood spurted as the knife was pulled out of the artery and Adelaine fell backwards with a horrified gasp.
The coffee-coloured eyes turned to the girl who was now hyperventilating on the ground, her wide eyes not leaving the body at her feet.
"Adelaine, Adelaine, look at me." When their eyes met a small smile appeared on the boy's face, the first smile since he found out that the world was harsh and unjust. "I'm going to help you, I'm going to get you out of here."
Had all of those steps brought them here tonight? To these dark corridors? It was hardly the vengeance Kaz had dreamed of.
The rows of cells stretched on and on, infinite, impossible. There was no way he would find Rollins in time. But it was only impossible until it wasn't, until he sighted that big frame, that florid face through the grate in an iron door. It was only impossible until he was standing in front of Pekka Rollins' cell.
He was on his side, sleeping. Someone had given him a bad beating. Kaz watched the rise and fall of his chest.
How many times had Kaz seen Pekka since that first glimpse in the gin shop? Never once had there been a flicker of recognition. Kaz wasn't a boy any longer; there was no reason Pekka should be able to see the child he'd swindled in his features. But it made him furious every time their paths had crossed. It wasn't right. Pekka's face – Hertzoon's face – was indelible in Kaz's mind, carved there by a jagged blade. Adelaine was still haunted by it, sometimes going days without talking or moving because of it. She wore the physical scars, scars that would never go away. The mere mention of Pekka's name still had the power to render her powerless, in so many different ways.
Kaz hung back now, feeling the delicate weight of his lockpicks like an insect cradled in his palm.
Wasn't this what he wanted? To see Pekka brought low, humiliated, miserable and hopeless, the best of his crew dead on pikes. Maybe this could be enough. Maybe all he needed now was for Pekka to know exactly who he was, exactly what he'd done. Maybe it would be enough to know that Adelaine was safe from his grips. He could stage a little trial of his own, pass sentence, and mete it out, too.
The Elderclock began to chime the three-quarter-hour. He should go. There wasn't much time left to get to the basement. Nina would be waiting for them. They all would.
But he needed this. He'd fought for this. It wasn't the way he'd imagined, but maybe it made no difference. If Pekka Rollins was put to death by some nameless Fjerdan executioner, then none of this would matter. Kaz would have four million kruge, but Jordie would never have his revenge. Adelaine would never be able to escape her nightmares.
The lock on the door gave up easily to Kaz's picks.
Pekka's eyes opened, and he smiled. He hadn't been sleeping at all.
"Hello, Brekker, and my missing whore," Rollins said. "Come to gloat?"
"Not exactly," Kaz replied.
He let the door slam shut behind him.