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Kaz’s entire plan of funneling the kruge into everyone’s accounts had been a means to an end. Deep down, he knew that the little group he’d grown so accustomed to wouldn’t last forever. Everyone had their own plans, their own path in life. The barrel would forever be his.
Kaz knew better than to rely on other people. People came and went endlessly through his life. Some simply parted ways, others he’d lost in a fight. The only people he’d ever kept close to him were Jesper and Inej. His wraith.
And still, he was left alone. Inej was always meant for more than the Barrel. She was good at what she did. She was the person he’d turn to for everything, the person that could talk him down from whatever crazy plans he’d thought up when no one else could.
He’d grown used to her leaving for extended periods of time. The first time she’d left, he remembered the slight pang of fear thinking about her somehow coming face to face with death out there. But it was Inej -- if anyone could handle themselves, it was her. She’d left Ketterdam with a taste for conquering her dreams, wanting to bring people to justice. Kaz hadn’t wanted her to leave, but getting that ship, allowing her to do what she’d always wanted to, it was worth watching her sail away.
There had been nights before she’d left where he’d imagined what it would be like. He imagined sitting in his room at his desk, watching the sunrise and the sunset and never seeing her coming through his window. He imagined how cold, how lonely, that it would all feel.
And everything he’d imagined had been right.
The first few times, he’d been anxiously waiting for her to come back. Ketterdam was a mess, as always, and even if he somehow found his way at the top of the barrel, he’d had to fight every day to keep himself there. Iit wasn’t easy, and it never had been. But at the end of the day, Kaz Brekker was still a name people feared.
Every time he watched her sail away was harder and harder. Inej wasn’t his to keep. he couldn’t hold her down. Even if he wanted to, what could he give her? More of the broken man that he’d started sharing with her? A touch of his gloved hand? A hand on her shoulder? He wasn’t sure that it would be enough.
It had never been enough, Kaz. She deserves more, and you know that. She deserves more than some scum born in the bottom of the barrel.
And yet those subtle moments of closeness they’d shared every time she came home were enough to make him hope that maybe there was enough of the broken man he was to keep her coming back.
But this time? He didn’t think it was. Inej and him had fought before, words of anger thrown back at the other when they didn’t agree with something. But this felt different. It felt final in a way that haunted him.
He didn’t know what he’d expected, really. Hearing her compare him to Pekka, hearing that man’s name leave her lips felt more painful than any dagger he’d ever take. He knew he’d been colder now, that he’d been more ruthless. But nothing prepared him to be compared to the man he’d hated all of his life.
The coldness had rushed in, those walls that she’d been carefully breaking down had gone back up, brick by brick. He’d felt the walls go up the second he’d looked into her eyes that night, his clothes soaking through from the rain as he’d stood with her in the streets of Ketterdam. He knew closing himself off was a mistake. He knew that telling her to go was a mistake. And yet... he’d done it.
Kaz Brekker didn’t make mistakes. But when it came to Inej? He was fumbling through unfamiliar territory. He was a kid lost in the dark, searching for the light. Except now, Inej and whatever light she’d brought to him was gone -- and he was Dirtyhands once more.
Weeks had passed and he was a shell of the man he was sure Inej thought he was. She’d always seen some part of him that was more than the myth that he’d conjured up in Ketterdam. He wasn’t invincible. To her, he was Kaz Brekker. A man who smiled. A man who showed mercy. To others? He was the last thing they saw before disaster. That cane in his hands was a weapon, his words cutting like fire as he made his way through life. He’d brought down more people than he thought he’d ever manage. He’d already brought his revenge upon people that had done him wrong, people that had hurt him. He’d shown mercy to Pekka. No one else would be so lucky.
He could have gone back to the Dregs tonight. But his pounding head and his aching leg had him scrambling for one of his safehouses instead. He didn’t want to answer questions. He didn’t want to hear the people asking him about the new injuries he sported. He wanted to worry about patching up his own wounds and have a bit of silence for once.
When he was behind closed doors, Kaz tore off his jacket, his gloves, throwing his hat on a nearby table before slumping in a nearby chair. A heavy sigh escaped his lips as he sat there, eyes closing. His head was pounding, crimson red blood dried on his forehead and down to his cheek from a cut he’d gotten above his eye. His leg ached, but it was a feeling he’d grown used to. Whenever he pushed himself, it seemed as if his leg was another reminder of the fact that he’d gone too far.
What happens when you go too far, Kaz? What then?
Letting his eyes open, he stared by the window, silently hoping that Inej had followed him here. But he knew it was a dream he’d conjured up in his mind. Inej was gone, and if she was smart, she’d never come back.
Kaz had always been good at knowing where she was at all times. He’d felt a connection to her, almost as if there was something more linking them together. He’d been able to feel her following him through Ketterdam, even if she was as silent as a mouse. He’d feel it, somewhere deep inside. But the space that she’d once occupied in his mind, in his heart, now felt empty. It felt silent. He ached to see that smile he’d grown to love. That laugh that he was lucky enough to be able to hear leave her lips. It had been so long he felt like he could barely even pull the memory from his mind as to what it sounded like.
With a sigh, his gaze moved to the ceiling, willing his eyes to shut once more. Tonight, he’d heal. Tomorrow, he’d deal with whatever wounds that littered his body.
Kaz wasn’t a broken man. Any part of him that was broken had made him stronger, it made him who he was. The cracks that Inej had left in him would be filled with gold, and Dirtyhands would reign as the king of the Barrel.