Part Two
(15)
Even though that raid was a disaster, Kaz is able to overcome it in the next few weeks. He and the spiders do not discuss it, and if Espen treats everyone with a bit more vitriol than usual, no one mentions it.
Kaz is still tired, though. He's having an increasingly hard time focusing on his responsibilities. He knows that he is general of the Dregs and his work is important, but it's starting to seem so pointless. What does it matter if someone makes that con artist pay up or tells that gang to back off? In the long run Ketterdam will go on just as it always has. Kaz is just too tired to deal with any of it. It's getting harder and harder to get out of bed in the morning.
Things come to a head the day that he falls asleep at the desk in his—formerly Per Haskell's—office. He's been feeling hopeless with the situation with the Black Tips and worrying about Inej. She's been gone a long time, and while he knows from her letters that she's alright she hasn't said anything about when she'll next be back. After so long, he can't quite choke the fear that she isn't going to come back. That she's finally realized that she doesn't need him in her life.
He doesn't remember falling asleep and is woken by a hand on his shoulder, shaking him. Panic surges, and lashes out at the person who dares to touch him.
Anika leaps back, her hands raised, fear on her face. "Sorry, Boss," she says. "I just…That mercher is here to see you. The one we're working for that grain scam."
"Oh," Kaz says, his panic fading. He kicks himself for the faint, half-aware tone of his voice. He glances at the clock on the wall next to the door and wonders how long he's been asleep. He rubs a gloved hand over his face, trying to pull himself into some semblance of wakefulness. "Give me five minutes, then send him in."
"Okay, Boss," Anika says, but she doesn't leave.
"What?" he asks, giving her a look.
"Nothing…" she says, then rubs the back of her neck. "It's just that…I've never seen you sleep before."
Kaz growls and ignores the unspoken question. Anika does not have the right to wonder if he's alright. No one has that right, he is Dirtyhands. He doesn't need people's sympathy. "Go do your job, Anika."
(16)
When Inej next comes back it's all he can do to keep from dropping everything and running to the docks to meet her. He wants to see her so badly; he's so sure that everything will be alright now that she's back.
Still, he forces himself to tie everything up neatly and walks to the docks. Inej is helping unload the boat. Her hair is tied back in a long braid and she looks well. He stands on the edge of the berth, watching. He can barely wrap his mind around how lucky he is that this perfect being came back here to him.
But what if she wasn't here for him? The uncertainty takes him off-guard. Kaz has never worried about whether or not someone wants to see him. In fact, he normally operates under the assumption that everyone he knows and interacts with would be happier if he just vanished from the universe. Inej is the only person he's always thought genuinely liked him being around.
Now he thinks of that letter in his drawer and wonders if he completely misjudged her. What if she is just like everyone else? What if she just puts up with him because it's easier than telling him how she really feels? What if she sees him waiting for her and wishes she'd stayed at sea so she wouldn't have to deal with him?
He feels shaky, and he's having a hard time breathing. That doesn't make any sense because he's wearing his gloves. He stretches his fingers so he can feel the leather pulling. That normally helps, but right now it doesn't. He promised Inej that he'd remove his armor for her and he's failing. He used to be able to take his gloves off and do his office work, maybe deal a card game if he took a couple shots of whiskey to fortify himself first. Now the thought of taking the gloves off to wash his face has started giving him cold sweats. He's not getting better, he's getting worse by the day. How is he supposed to convince Inej to keep coming back if he has nothing to offer her?
He's so wrapped up in this anxiety, that he doesn't approach Inej. He stands in the shadows at the end of the berth and watches while the crew filters away to enjoy being on land. At last, Inej locks up and wanders down the berth. Kaz wonders were she's planning to go. The Slat maybe? To see him?
Presumptuous. He scolds himself. Why would she want to go see him right after landing? There are a million other people in this city who are far, far better company than he'll ever be.
Inej almost walks right by the place where he's standing before she stops and turns to him. Her eyes narrowing in an expression that he knows is probably confusion but a loud part of his mind suggests is really disgust or disappointment. "Kaz?" she asks. "How long have you been standing there?"
Kaz shrugs in an attempt to seem casual. His heart is pounding so loudly he can hear it, and his palms are slick with sweat inside his gloves. "Not long," he says in what he hopes is a level voice.
"You could have come down to the ship," Inej says. "You didn't have to stand here in the dark. Is everything okay?"
He's surprised by how much he wants to say that everything's not okay, but if he did Inej would ask him to explain what's wrong and he's not sure he can. Besides even if he could find the words he's deathly afraid that outright telling Inej that he thinks she doesn't really care about him would just drive her away even faster. "Everything's fine," he says instead and feels like he's trying to swallow sawdust.
"Okay," Inej says. Then her eyes drop significantly to his gloved hands. What he wants is obvious.
His lungs tighten until he can barely breathe. He knows that he needs to take the gloves off to show Inej that he cares about her and that he's trying for her, but he's nearly positive that if he tries to take the gloves off now, he'll simply collapse and lose his grip on himself completely. The gloves help, he knows they do and he needs them. They're the only thing that helps him keep a grip on his own humanity.
He looks away and pretends he didn't see Inej's look.
(17)
He and Inej spend a couple days going about things like old times. They creep on rich merchers and eat fried potatoes while walking through the streets. Kaz feels better, not quite right, per se, but he can push aside the little voice that says Inej doesn't really want anything to do with him and enjoy just being near her.
He should have known it was too good to last.
Inej has been back for about two days when things fall apart. They're sitting on the roof outside of one of Kaz's safehouses, going through the details of the information they've just learned about a group of slavers. Suddenly, Inej grows quiet. Kaz is just about to ask her what's wrong when she reaches out and lays a hand on top of one of his gloved ones. He can't help it, he tenses.
"You know, I haven't seen you take these off once since I've been back," she says slowly, carefully.
Kaz inwardly curses himself. A year ago, she probably wouldn't have said anything, but this new Inej is braver. She's no longer afraid to speak; the Ice Court only made her stronger while he's pretty sure it did the exact opposite for him.
He doesn't know what to say, so he just shrugs.
Inej heaves a sigh. "Listen, Kaz," she says. "We had a deal. 'I will have you without your armor, or I will not have you at all,' remember? You need to put in the effort, Kaz. I can't do everything in this relationship; you have to meet me halfway."
He should say something, but he doesn't.
"Kaz," Inej says sounding a little bit sharper than before. "If things are too close to the surface right now and you need time, that's okay. But you need to tell me. You can't just keep expecting me to let you get away with things. You need to communicate with me Kaz."
He looks at her out of the corner of his eyes. He imagines telling her what has been going on. He imagines saying, "Inej, I think something's wrong with me; I don't feel like myself anymore." He can feel the shape of the words on his tongue and opens his mouth in the hope that they'll just come out, but they don't. The silence drags on and on.
"Kaz," Inej says sharply. "I'm not going to put up with this anymore. You can't just treat me like your timid little Wraith. I'm not that girl anymore. You can't expect me to just put up with you without you doing anything in return. This isn't a business partnership, this is a relationship, and if you want this to go anywhere you need to step up and do your part."
Each of her words feels like a knife buried deep in his stomach. She's going to leave. He was right, he really is a horrible, wrong person who no one can stand to be around. Inej really does deserve better than him. He can't even take off a pair of gloves for her.
All he has to do is take the gloves off. If he took the gloves off he could possibly appease her and she could be convinced to stay, but he can't. His chest is a vice and he can feel the water around his legs. He needs to take the gloves off, but he can't. He can't. He can't. He can't, and he'll never be able to. He has failed.
He says nothing and does nothing. He simply keeps staring out at the roofs of Ketterdam. Inej makes a soft, disgusted sound and gets up. She takes a couple steps away then stops and he hears her turn back to him. "When you finally learn to swallow your pride, Kaz, we'll talk," she says and starts to walk away again.
He wants to call her back, to say something—anything—to make her stay, but the words catch in her throat. She's right about every. He is not worthy of anything even remotely concerned with her. So, he says nothing and she leaves him sitting on the rooftop all alone.
They don't speak again before she leaves Ketterdam.
(18)
A year ago, the argument (if it can even be called that since he didn't say a word) wouldn't have caused Kaz any substantial pause. A year ago, Kaz was secure in the knowledge that Inej would come back eventually because she had nowhere else to go. Now he no longer has that luxury. Inej has the whole world laid out before with nothing to tie her to Ketterdam but a bunch of bad memories and a boy who can't be the person she deserves.
So, Kaz knows that his relationship with Inej is over. She will not return to Ketterdam again. He will never see her again. He has ruined the one relationship he still had left.
He tries to take this reality in stride and go on with his life, but he can't. He feels empty and so completely alone, even more so than he did after Jordie. When Jordie died, Kaz had his thirst for revenge to keep him company. Now he is on the top with his revenge and nothing but the seemingly bottomless hole of sadness opening up inside him.
He realizes that most people will see this as exactly what he deserves. He spent almost half his life chasing money and revenge and now that he has them he discovers how empty and broken his life really is. In fact, even he'll admit that's probably exactly what he deserves.
That doesn't make getting on with things any easier. It's become near impossible to get out of bed in the morning. Waking up at ten bells is now early for him and it takes him even longer to work up the energy to drag himself out of bed. Once he's actually up, he has a hard time focusing. All he wants to do is go back to bed and sleep for the rest of his life.
(19)
Time passes in an incomprehensible blur. Inej still sends him information about her movements so he figures their business arrangement isn't over yet and keeps sending her information on slavers.
One afternoon, he's attempting to focus on the Crow Club's profits when Anika comes in with an envelope. He doesn't look up, he just keeps on scribbling another calculation on a spare bit of paper (he used to be able to do all these calculations in his head but he's just too tired to try these days). He expects Anika to just set the envelope on his desk and leave, but she doesn't. She sets it right on top of his hand then steps back and crosses her arms.
Kaz looks from the envelope to her and raises his eyebrows.
"I'm going to watch you read it," she says.
"You know I am capable of reading my own correspondence without someone looking over my shoulder," he snaps.
"Sure," Anika shoots back. "Just not in any semblance of timeliness."
They both look to the stack of unopened mail on the edge of Kaz's desk. He used to open every piece of mail he got, even the useless stuff. Now he the mere thought of opening the important stuff exhausts him.
He also doesn't have anywhere near enough energy to continue arguing with Anika, so he just opens the envelope and pulls out a small invitation. It's from Wylan. Inej is returning to Ketterdam soon, and Wylan and Jesper are planning a party to celebrate all the success she's had so far.
"You'll go, won't you?" Anika asks, sounding more like an anxious schoolgirl than a lieutenant of the most powerful gang in Ketterdam.
"Why does it matter if I go or not?" he asks, turning the invitation over and over in his gloved fingers. He knows that he won't go. He doesn't want to force people to interact with him because they're scared of what he'll do (that's what drives everyone's interactions with him, he can see that now), and he doesn't think he could handle seeing Inej.
There's a long pause, then Anika says, "What's wrong, Brekker?" she sounds a little fed-up but mostly surprisingly worried.
Kaz finds it in himself to raise an eyebrow at her. "What do you mean?"
"You haven't been acting right for months," she says, "and it's getting worse. We're worried about you."
Her words form a block of ice in Kaz's stomach. "Define 'we,'" he says slowly.
"Everyone," Anika says. "Me, Keeg, Pim, Roeder, Dirix, Rotty, Mina. Even Teapot's worried, and that's saying something."
Kaz's fists clench. He thought he'd been doing a decent enough job at pretending to be okay. If he's failing that means that those close to him know how shamefully weak he's become. That means that someone in the Dregs is probably plotting his downfall right now. He's going to lose the Dregs if he doesn't get his act together fast.
"Thank you for your concern," he tells Anika flatly. "But that's really not any of your business."
(20)
A couple days before Jesper and Wylan's party he's going with the spiders to do some reconnaissance for a big job they're planning. Kaz finishes the last of his meetings with time to spare and makes his way up to his rooms to eat supper in peace.
It's only seven bells in the evening, but he's already flagging. He's tired, sad and inexplicably hopeless about the job as a whole. On top of it all, he has absolutely no appetite and hasn't in weeks. He stirs his stew listlessly while trying to talk himself into actually eating. He hasn't had anything today but coffee. He's going to need his strength for tonight, but he's just doesn't want to eat…
He doesn't remember falling asleep, but he knows he must have because the next thing he knows he's blinking awake to a significantly darker room and Espen in his face.
"You're just taking a nap?" Espen snarls leaning in close. "What is wrong with you? Roeder, Mina and I have been waiting for over an hour!"
Kaz blinks at him. He feels groggy and can't quite get his thoughts to line up. He wants to go back to sleep.
"Are you listening to me?" Espen literally lunges forward and shoves Kaz out of his chair and onto the floor. "This is ridiculous! You're supposed to be leading this gang not taking a nap whenever you feel like it!"
Espen's bare hands are twisted into Kaz's shirt and pressing against his neck sickeningly. Kaz has been caught half asleep and in a poor state of mind. In another time, he might have just been able to throw Espen off and go on with things, but tonight he can't. His chest seizes up and the water surges around him. He struggles fruitlessly against Espen.
"Get a' me!" he shrieks. His voice sounds strange. It takes him a moment to realize that not only does he sound as hysterical as he feels, his accent has changed. He's spent years training himself to speak like a Ketterdam native, and now his natural Southern Kerch farmer's accent sounds wrong.
The change is accent must surprise Espen too because the boy jerks back. Kaz shoves him off and scoots away until his back hits the wall near the fireplace. He knows it looks pathetic, but he's shaking so hard he knows Espen can see. The room feels to small and bright, and it swirls around him. His stomach churns, and his heart pounds like it's trying to escape his chest. He can't breathe, he can barely think.
Espen steps closer. "Boss?" he sounds scared, like he can't figure out why Kaz is so disgustingly weak. "What's wrong? Do you need a medik?"
Kaz swallows back nausea and manages to get in a decent breath that enables him to speak. "Get away from me," he says.
Espen jerks back in surprise. "What?"
"Get out of here," Kaz tries for his Dirtyhands snarl, but he still can't breathe and his voice comes out audibly shaky. A small part of him is thankful that at least his Ketterdam accent is back. "Go downstairs and tell Anika and Pim that you've been demoted. Have them put you cleaning chamber pots in one of the smaller gambling halls, or they can just kick you out, I don't care which. Just never, ever come near me again. If you do, I swear I'll find some very painful and humiliating way to kill you."
He's vaguely aware that he probably shouldn't be saying stuff like that to Espen. Kaz and Espen are just a little too much alike and there's a part of Kaz that is terrified of the kid finding reason to focus his anger on Kaz. Kaz does not want to become Espen's Pekka Rollins. Still his panic is all-consuming. He just wants Espen gone. He doesn't care what he has to deal with later as long as the kid is gone now.
Espen backs away. He looks terrified, like he's not sure what to do next. "Ummm...I…"
"Get out," Kaz orders around a breath that sounds just a little too much like a sob.
Espen turns and flees.
(21)
The instant the door swings closed behind Espen, Kaz drags himself to his feet and stumbles across the room. He's still having trouble breathing and he's shaking so badly that he can barely stand. He nearly falls against the door and fumbles at the dozen or so locks he's put on his door for security. The locks don't make his room unbreachable, but it definitely makes it difficult. When all the locks are in place he does the same for the windows, pulling dark curtains over them. He even locks the window he habitually leaves unlocked for Inej, after all, it's not like she'll be coming back to visit anytime soon.
When his rooms are locked up as tightly as he can make it. He staggers over to his safe and opens it with shaking fingers. Inside amongst the ledgers and kruge and jewelry and other valuables is a bottle of extremely expensive whiskey that was lifted from a mercher a couple months before the Ice Court job. It's opened because he and Inej each had a glass the night they took it, but they saved the rest because it's not the kind of thing you drink wastefully.
Right now, Kaz doesn't care how expensive it is. He grabs the bottle and slams the safe door behind him as he heads towards his bedroom. He pulls the horrible letter he wrote to Inej months ago out of his drawer and sinks onto his bed. He uncorks the bottle and pours a generous portion down his throat while he begins to read.
(22)
He reads the letter over and over and over as the bottle gets emptier and emptier. He doesn't feel any less empty, though. He sits on the bed with his knees drawn up. He rests his forehead against the letter and the bottle and just sits.
He can't deal with an angry eleven-year-old. Can't eat his supper and go do his job the way he's supposed to. He can't even take off a pair of gloves without freaking out. He is pathetic, no wonder Inej left him. He deserves it.
There's a knock on the locked door. "Boss?" Anika. "What's going on? Espen told Pim and I that you said—Well, I just want to hear it from you first. Is Espen overreacting?"
Kaz chokes back a snort. He wonders how he managed to convince Anika he couldn't possibly have given that order. He wonders if Espen had mentioned that the Dregs' fearsome general had been having a panic attack when he gave that order. Normally, Kaz would never use those words to describe what had happened, but he's feeling pathetic enough right now to stop lying to himself.
Anika knocks on the door again. "Brekker? Boss! Are you in there?"
Kaz says nothing. Even if he wanted Anika to know he's holed up in his rooms like a coward, he doesn't think he's sober enough to speak without slurring.
"Kaz, you better actually be in there," Anika says. "I'd feel really stupid if I was just standing out here talking to an empty room."
He doesn't say anything. Eventually Anika leaves and something snaps inside him.
He looks down at the letter then hurls it across the room. It falls on the floor in a flutter of pages. He's on his feet almost before they settle. He crosses to his dresser and sweeps the clutter on top it onto the floor with an arm. He does the same with the small table that his washbasin sits on. He throws the pitcher at a wall where is shatters and rains to the floor in a shower of glass and water.
He knows he's being ridiculous. He's always hated people who get drunk and do stuff like this, but he doesn't know how to stop. He knows that busting up his room isn't getting him anywhere, and it's not making him feel better, but he needs to do something.
He stumbles to his bed and collapses onto it. The mostly empty bottle of whiskey rolls out of his fingers and onto the floor. He buries his face in his pillow, wraps his arms around it, and tries to hang on.
(23)
He's thinking about the farm. He hasn't done that in years. Even when he bought the place as Johannus Rietveld he barely let himself think about it. The farm is like a distant dream so faded by time it's not worth giving mental energy to.
But he's thinking about it tonight. He thinks about the rolling hills and the dark earth of the fields. The apple trees where he learned to climb and the barn where he'd race Jordie up and down from the loft.
Slowly, floating on a haze of drunken sadness, Kaz allows his mind wander away from the farm itself and onto the people who lived there. He thinks about Jordie all the time, but he hasn't thought about Buck—the huge black-and-tan dog they'd had—in years, not since he learned that the dog died around the same time Jordie. Now, he thinks about how Buck was fierce to strangers, but would lay by the fire and let Kaz lean against him when it was just the family.
He hasn't thought about his mother in even longer than Buck. She died when he was about five so he probably shouldn't actually remember her, but Kaz has always had an impeccable memory. He remembers clinging her long skirts, and her humming while she worked. The memory of her feels like a punch to the gut.
Then there's his father. Thinking of him brings back recollections of a big, tired man with rough, gentle hands. He was the same kind of fool that Jordie had been, in crushing debt because he had horrible luck and was too trusting. Still, that hadn't stopped him from trying to give his sons the best of everything and promising that everything would work out right until the moment that he'd been run over by his own plow.
Thinking that brings back the memory of that horrible day. Kaz remembers standing ankle-deep in the tilled soil of the field staring at the carnage and screaming like the soft farm kid he'd been. That's all he remembers of his father's death: blood, gore and his own voice screaming and screaming and screaming.
He wraps his arms tighter around the pillow and clenches his teeth. Stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop thinking about it.
It's too late. His head is full of memories of people he's been trying to forget about for years. Memories swirl around them, that old grief mixing with his new grief about Inej. He's sad. So very, very sad.
He misses them.
He misses everyone. Inej and Jordie and Buck and his mother and father. He misses the farm. He misses Kaz Rietveld: the stupid, naïve kid who believed that people were good and that he was good and that things would someday work out.
He wishes he could go back to that, but he knows he couldn't. He's done too much. Even if his parents and Jordie were still alive like Inej's were, he couldn't go back. He's not like Inej—bruised but still herself—he has become something else, something his parents and Jordie would hate and revile. There will be no salvation for the boy who had once been Kaz Rietveld, he'd burned and destroyed every path that might lead anywhere but his own damnation.
His shoulders hitch and a sob rips out of his mouth. His cheeks are wet, and the sensation is so strange it takes him a couple minutes to realize he's crying for the first time in going on a decade. He presses his face into the pillow to try to stop it, but he can't. He just sobs and sobs and sobs.
He wishes someone would come and comfort him the way his father used to back on the farm, but he knows it won't happen. He is Dirtyhands and no one comforts Dirtyhands. Besides, he's to broken to even allow anyone to touch him. Who would even want to bother trying to deal with all that?
So, he stays curled up on the bed, wrapped around his pillow and cries alone until the Slat begins to wake up around him and he finally passes out from exhaustion.
(24)
When he wakes up next, it must be late in the day, though he's not a hundred percent sure because the curtains block out most of the light. His head aches from a combination of crying and a hangover, and he feels washed-out and hopeless.
He shifts slightly and curls tighter around his pillow. He feels so alone, like he could vanish into the atmosphere right now and no one would ever notice. He wishes Anika would come back. He's not sure if he would let her in, but he would like to hear her voice. He thinks that would help.
She doesn't come. He clings to the pillow because it feels like it's the only thing holding him together. He doesn't want to let go.
He should get up and go deal with the mess he made of both his room and his relations with his spiders, but he can't find it in him to move. Does it really matter what he does? Maybe the world would really just keep spinning and he could just lie here until he feels like he's in control of his life again.
Somehow, he manages to get his boots, coat, vest and tie off without letting go of his pillow. He slides under the blankets and curls up again. He closes his eyes and simply lets go.
(25)
Time passes. Kaz floats in and out of dull, heavy sleep. Sometimes he's vaguely aware of people knocking on his door, but they don't come in (can't come in because of all the locks) and he doesn't respond. It doesn't matter. They're just trying to figure out why he isn't doing his job because as much as they're afraid of him, they're afraid of the Dregs seeming weak even more.
He is so alone and so sad and he wants someone to come comfort him, but he doesn't know how to ask for help anymore and doesn't trust anyone enough anyway. Well, he trusts Inej, but she deserves so much better than being wrapped up in his issues.
He hugs the pillow to his chest even more tightly. It's the closest thing to a hug he's likely to ever get and he tries to tell himself its good enough. It's not. It will never be, but he has to make do.
After all, who would ever want to do anything for the terrifying Dirtyhands?
Sorry that this part's a little shorter. I was going to keep going, but I realized this was a good place to end this section. There's maybe two parts left, which hopefully will be up promptly.
Hopefully this part worked out. Have you ever planned a certain part of a story hundreds of times only to actually get to writing it to find that you can't remember how you wanted to do it? That's what happened to me at the end of the this part. Not the first time, that's happened to me, actually. It happened with an original thing I was working on this summer too.
I've become fascinated with Kaz's relationship with Anika. I'm not sure what to define them as, because I wouldn't say they're friends, but they're definitely not strangers (causal acquaintances, maybe? Colleagues?). No matter which way you look at it, I feel like the Dregs (especially the younger members) probably care for Kaz way more than he thinks they do.
So, please fav, follow and review, and I'll try to get the next part to you as soon as possible. Look forward to some Inej POV!
