"I'm not going!" Kaz screamed, ripping his arm away from Inej's grip.
"Yes. You. Are!" Inej scrambled to grab another handful of sweater, all the while thanking the Saints that Kaz didn't have any weapons on his person.
"No!" He shrunk away from her touch, the images of his brother's corpse still fresh from his nightmare. "Get away!"
"Kaz Brekker, you're impossible!" She threw up her hands in exasperation, marching from his room.
Just as he was starting to relax, Nina burst through the door a coil of rope in her hands. "Okay Brekker, let's dance."
Jesper could hear Kaz's screams of protest all the way in the kitchen, causing him to worry for the girls' safety. So, he decided he might as well attempt to help. "What the hell is going on in here?" He asked, seconds before noticing that Kaz was almost on the ceiling and Nina was attempting to lasso him with the rope.
"Get me out of here!" Kaz shouted, jumping from the top of the dresser toward Jesper. "She's a witch!"
Jesper had never heard that level of panic in his voice, never seen that fear in his eyes. He couldn't help himself, he had to mess with his friend just a little more. He quickly wrapped his long arms around Kaz, immobilizing everything but his legs. That, was his big mistake.
Kaz swiftly brought his knee up between Jesper's legs, causing the taller boy to double over in pain. "Get off me Jordie!" Kaz's mind was clouded with panic, he didn't see his friends trying to help him, but instead he saw the corpses from his childhood. Just as Kaz was about to bolt out the door, he felt another corpse grab him, but this time he fell to the ground. He struggled for a moment, until his legs and wrists were bound in rough rope, then he lost consciousness and his world shut down.
When Kaz woke, he was in the backseat of Matthias's car, going to who knew where. "Where the hell are you taking me?" Kaz's voice was barely a whisper, his throat ripped raw from his struggle against the others.
"Doctor Anya's office." Nina snapped from the passenger seat.
Kaz attempted to push himself up, only to find that his whole body was wrapped in a heavy blanket that was tightly secured with a long piece of rope. "Nina, I swear if I ever get out of this, you're going to pay."
"Uh huh." She turned to Matthias. "Turn here."
Matthias nodded, placing a large hand on her knee. "I know, Love."
Kaz made a show of gaging. "Disgusting."
"Shut up, Demjin," Matthias growled, "or i'll throw you in the Amstel."
"I'll break your legs before you lay a hand on me, Helvar."
"We hid your cane for that specific reason." Nina smiled sweetly, showing off her perfect teeth, and dark red lipstick.
"Where're the others?" Kaz took to glaring at the back of Matthias's big blond head.
"Inej is already at Anya's office, and Jesper and Wylan will be there shortly." Nina entwined her slim fingers with her fiancè's, and he pressed a kiss to her fingers.
"Knock it off you too." Kaz gagged again. "It's disgusting."
Nina raised an eyebrow. "As I recall, you've walked in on Wylan and Jesper at least three times in the past month, and you've also walked in on about half of the Dregs in the Slat as well."
"That's different." Kaz stated.
"How?" Nina pushed, curious.
"They're not..." Kaz drifted off, trying to think of an answer.
"Not what, Demjin?" Matthias rumbled.
"Engaged."
"And that somehow makes it worse?" Nina laughed.
"Ha!" Matthias remembered how he'd grown up, in his raising it was a sin to even kiss a girl before marriage, let alone do anything that happened in the Slat. "You know what would happen to your god offal carcass in my family? You'd be kicked out before you turned three."
"You're truly a saint, Helvar." Kaz fumbled with the ropes around his wrists, pulling at the ends until they loosened enough that he could slip out of them.
"Compared to you? I would say so." Nina unbuckled her seatbelt, popping open her car door after Matthias put the vehicle in park. "Okay, Dirtyhands, if you try to kill us, Matthias won't hesitate to knock you out."
"He'll get a scalpel in the eye before I let that happen." Kaz wriggled in the blanket, attempting to escape the trap Nina had obviously ensnared him in. He meant for it to sound more threatening, but he was already fighting off the exhaustion this illness had plagued him with for the last week.
"Come on, Demjin. Let's get you fixed up." Matthias dragged Kaz in his burrito blanket out of the car, settling his struggling body into a firm grasp.
"No! Put me down you giant!" Kaz screamed, nearly kicking Nina in the head.
"Brekker! I swear, I will kill you!" Nina shouted.
Kaz knew they must be a sight to behold, three young adults, one wrapped in a blanket and being carried like a baby by a giant German and yelled at by a curvy little Russian girl in a red coat, but to be honest he didn't care. He just knew that he wasn't going in that office and getting poked at by some doctor in a lab coat.
He'd just barely gotten to the point where he could hold hands with Inej without his gloves, so he sure as hell wasn't going to let some stranger ruin his progress. "I can't go in there!" He attempted to push away from Matthias, already feeling himself starting to slip into a flashback. "Please!" His breath was starting to come in short bursts, his vision beginning to go black at the edges.
"Kaz?" Inej's voice swam through his mind. "Kaz?" her fingers rested on his forehead, rubbing little circles on his thick hairline.
He focused on her voice, on the feeling of her fingers running through his hair, this was inej, she wasn't a corpse, she was safe. "Keep talking." He rasped, squeezing his eyes shut, forcing his demons away.
"You'll be okay." She whispered. She didn't know what had happened to him, but she did know he'd been traumatized by it ever since, and she would be there to help him fight against his fear. "We're going to make you feel better." She soothed.
He almost didn't notice when Matthias set him on a chair in the waiting room, and Inej carefully untied him.
"How did you do that?" Matthias gaped, rubbing at the bruise on his bicep.
"She's the Demjin whisperer." Nina smirked, using Matthias' nickname for him, and popping a toffy into her mouth.