Hey, it's Lola! So, it's been a couple of months but life has been a little insane. I've been working on some different stuff outside of ff. I did get a wild hair and wrote another chapter for this fic, but I've been having a bad case of writer's block on this fic and on my HP one. I have so many chapters started but I just lose steam. This chapter is pretty lengthy for this fic, so hopefully that makes up for the wait! I don't know when I'll write again as real life is very busy and I also have other things I am pursuing, but there might be updates. They will just be very unpredictable. Thanks for being so understanding! Thanks for loving this fic! -Lola
Kaz really wasn't sure what he was expecting, but it was definitely not this. Sitting in front of the front door to his home was a huge box. It was maybe up to his waist and as wide as Matthias would be spread out eagle. In short, that was one big ass box for such a tiny item.
Nina had called Kaz a couple of nights ago, because she had been working on getting the magnet that Wylan and Jepser would need to crack open the safe. Through several conversations and a call to one of Haskell's clients in Japan, a magnet was put on rush order. He knew Haskell's passwords to shipping websites and he got email notifications when packages were at the house. Mostly because Haskell wanted Kaz to be there to bring in his precious bullshit because he thought people were going to steal his bobble heads or something. Kaz stopped asking for Haskell's reasoning a long time ago.
The point was that the only thing that had been enroute to Kaz's lair had been the magnet. So, in the box, there could only be a magnet. Kaz leaned on his crow cane as he stared down at the box with a sigh, he might as well lug it in. He drug his bad leg forward as his gloved hands wrapped around the box and tugged it inside. He winced in pain as his leg throbbed, he glanced up at the sky as he got the front of the box inside. It was dark and cloudy which meant rain, it was too early in the year for snow or otherwise his leg would hurt a lot more than it did right now.
Tears ran down Kaz's face as he ran from his foster parents as they screamed his name. How could they do this to him? They let them kill his brother! Yes, Jordie was in a coma but that didn't mean he wasn't going to wake up. His foster parents let the doctor shut off the machines. Kaz fought against the nurses, his foster parents, and security guards in the hospital to get to his dying brother, but they kept him just outside of the door. He screamed and sobbed, but no one heard him. They simply held him.
Right when they let him loose, he ran to Jordie's body and shook it. There was no breath in Jordie's lungs and his skin was as cold as ice. His eyes were closed and a small smile was on his lips. Kaz had wrenched away from him in howling sobs, and when his foster parents reached for him he screamed. He would not let them touch him. No one would touch him. Those who were supposed to make him feel safe, those who were supposed to help his brother had done anything but. They let him die, and with Jordie died Kaz.
Kaz used to be a very affectionate child. He was mostly affectionate with his older brother, but he usually would not deny a hug from his foster parents. That day, when Jordie died, the part of Kaz that craved to be cuddled and loved disappeared. Left was this changingly child who would not let anyone touch him. Skin to skin contact would never be something Kaz would feel again. There was nothing anyone could offer him to equate to what he felt when Jordie would hold him. So, he vowed to never let anyone touch him again.
With that realization, and a heavy mind. He ran towards the city hall building. Pekka Rollins had written back to him and promised to help Jordie. He promised to bring in doctors that would heal his brother's rare form of cancer. Yet, where were those doctors when Jordie needed them most? Because of Rollins, Kaz had to break his promise to heal Jordie. For that, he would pay dearly.
Kaz carried his feet across the street without looking, and then BAM! A sickening sort of pain overtook Kaz as he crashed to the ground in the middle of the crosswalk. He blinked around blearily as the sight of his foster mother came into view. She had her hand over her mouth and was screaming out words he couldn't hear. All he could hear was ringing. It was as if someone had taken a bell and rang it right in both of his ears.
He glanced down at his body and noticed a lot of blood. He also noticed something white and protruding sticking out of his leg. He reached for it and was consumed by a cascade of pain, it was so painful that it knocked him out cold.
Kaz didn't remember much the next day, he was told in the hospital that his foster parents ran him over with their car and they were no longer allowed to be his foster parents. His leg was wrapped in a cast and was propped up on the bed. One of his arms was in a sling and he had lots of bandages on him. He felt sore everywhere, but he guessed getting hit by a car would do that to you. He sighed, he missed Jordie. Jordie would have brought him some chocolate to make him feel better.
Before Kaz had the opportunity to cry, the door to his hospital room swung open. One of the doctors brought in a man who had a sort of crow cane in his hand. The doctor left the room as Kaz silently stared down the man who was going to be his new caretaker. The doctors wouldn't have left him alone with him otherwise.
The man was older and with eyes that were protruding from his head from what Kaz would learn later was from too much alcohol consumption. He was wearing a suit and tie, but it did not help the slime ball image that was being displayed. He sat down in the chair closest to Kaz's bed without any grace. In short: Kaz was not impressed.
"So, you're the little shit I've heard so much about." The man said as he stuck his hand out. "Perr Haskell's the name, and it looks like we're stuck with each other."
Kaz stared down at Haskell's hand. The ten-year-old had made a vow not to touch anyone with skin-to-skin contact again. It also helped at the time that one of his hands were in a sling. He glanced back at the man's face which had a sort of scheming smirk on it that Kaz would come to loathe.
Haskell snorted when Kaz wouldn't take his hand. He placed it back at his side. "Look, you have two options. You either do as I say and work for me, or I send you to the nut house for the stunt you pulled in the street. You don't want to be shipped off there, do you?"
Kaz, though only ten, knew exactly what he was talking about. There was a facility a few miles outside of Ketterdam that took in orphans who had behavioral problems. Kaz running away from his foster family and being hit by a car would constitute a visit there. And, a visit was never just a visit, you went to that place to stay. Kaz wasn't going there, not if he could help it at least.
"What do I have to do?" Kaz asked him as he looked at the man through his narrowed eyes.
Haskell grinned as he cleared his throat. "Do as I say, you're a smart lad. You'll help me with my business, it won't be anything too hard. Not with you being so young and everything, I don't want to get sued. It would be bad for business." Haskell said with a roll of his eyes as he set the crow cane down between his legs.
Kaz couldn't help but be intrigued by the crow cane. Why did Haskell have it? What was he going to do with it? Was he going to beat Kaz into compliance if he said he would rather go to the nut house? The doctors wouldn't let Haskell do that, right? There had to be laws about that type of thing. Haskell didn't seem like a man who would follow the law though.
Also, Haskell couldn't exactly make him work, could he? Kaz didn't know many laws, but one that pertained to him was child labor laws. He was told by his social worker at the time to tell him if any of his foster parents tried to make him do anything outside of normal chores. He wasn't supposed to be the one working for the family. He was in foster care for a reason.
"What if I told them that you're making me work? You can't do that, there's laws against that." Kaz blurted out without thinking.
Haskell smirked as he watched Kaz through his poisoned eyes. "You could tell them, but it's not like they would believe you. You have to think these things through, Kaz. I like your style though. You will make a fine Dreg."
Kaz wrinkled his nose at the name. At least Haskell wasn't upset about what he had said. It seemed as if Haskell was more amused than anything else. "What's a Dreg?"
"That's the organization that I'm a part of, I'm actually in charge." Haskell explained as he held out the crow cane to Kaz. "Here, since you'll be joining us, you'll need this. The doctor says you'll have a limp for the rest of your life, but it's nothing that a cane can't fix. I had it made special for you."
Kaz took the cane in his hands carefully, he wasn't going to touch Haskell. He didn't know what to think. Yesterday he had lost everything and today this man had just volunteered him for his organization and had given him a crow cane. Kaz turned the cane over in his hand. It was smooth, and it was a cane that would be able to support him when he was older and taller too. It was a little big for him now, but it would come of use one of these days. Kaz didn't know where else he would get a cane, especially one this nice.
"Thanks," Kaz decided on saying as he laid the cane down beside him on the bed gingerly.
Haskell snorted in response. "You're welcome, you're the one who paid for it anyway."
Kaz shook his head at the memory, why was it that the rain always brought him back to the day that he lost everything? He didn't remember it being a particularly rainy day, but the pain in his leg of course reminded him of that day. He sighed, that must be it, he was sure Nina would have some long winded, inaccurate explanation for why he felt pain in his bad leg when it rained. But, he really didn't give a shit what Nina thought.
"What the hell is that?" A feminine voice asked from behind him.
Kaz turned to see Inej dressed in her usual black garb with her dark hair swept behind her back. She looked tired, but Kaz didn't care. At least, that's what he kept telling himself. He didn't really like Inej's company, she was just someone who worked for him.
It was odd, really, the way he felt around Inej. She was different from the others that he worked with, and it bugged Kaz. He didn't know why Inej could get under his skin so much easier than the others. He hadn't known her for long, just a few weeks, but they clicked so much better than the others did. It was easy with Inej. He didn't feel pressure and he didn't have to constantly be on her ass about stuff.
He shook his head, she was just a good worker. It wasn't just that she was pretty and she was funny. She had her little moments where she would aim some well thought-of sarcasm at him and surprise him with her wit. How the hell she ended up in a situation with Tante Heleen in a dump like this place he would never know. But, it wasn't his to wonder because he didn't really care. They had a job to do.
"The mysterious magnet that Wylan and Jesper wanted. They need to work on their descriptions, but that was something we already knew." Kaz said as he shut the door that was still open. He leaned on his crow cane for support, his leg was annoying him. "I didn't spend an hour trying to translate broken English and Japanese for this not to be what we actually need."
Kaz was going to be more than a little pissed off if Jesper and Wylan showed up here later with their mouth agape as if they didn't know what happened. Kaz would literally ring their necks and if they didn't have his emails and texts and everything else he wanted done as well then there would be no bodies for the police to find. Kaz would obliterate them from the earth.