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It was almost a harsh truth, something that would neg at the back of Kaz’s mind in the late hours long after he’d gone to sleep. He’d been in a war for years. At this point, he existed to fight, to step on Rollins’ neck every time he got too brave or too daring, or to squash any newcomers. Keeping Ketterdam under lock and key was what he’d devoted his entire life to, but only a very limited number of people would notice or care if Kaz went missing. Most of those people would rejoice in it, even.
But the Wraith hadn’t been spotted for two weeks, and Ketterdam was in a full-fledged panic.
The reminders were there every time Kaz turned a street corner. There were people wandering aimlessly, wearing t-shirts with the signature purple and black suited vigilante front and center. There were signs up, graffiti that no one had bothered to clean up. The local news had been covering it as well, most of them painfully sincere in their worry. Kaz noted down the ones that weren’t sincere or that didn’t pretend to miss her. Ketterdam fretted, they preemptively mourned. He almost wouldn’t blame them, if he didn’t know that their missing darling was tucked up in a safe house that she’d begrudgingly let him buy for her. For the past eight years, Inej had been hiding in the shadows, protecting the people of Ketterdam even when Kaz thought they hadn’t deserved her kindness or mercy. It hadn’t taken long for people to name her the Wraith, a name she wore with pride. She always argued that she didn’t want to be worshipped, wasn’t worthy of the awed expressions people got on their face when they saw her swinging through the city, but Kaz couldn’t help but notice the way her shoulders relaxed and she stood up straighter when someone called her the Wraith. It fit her. Kaz wasn’t sure who had originally come up with the name, but it must have been a lucky guess, to capture her essence and her mission in one single word, in one name.
Walking along the street, Kaz wondered what it must feel like to have so many people love a version of you while not even knowing the other version. The Wraith may have belonged to Ketterdam, but Inej was someone that Kaz liked to keep close to his chest, even if admitting it sent a course of nausea running through his veins.
He eyed a paper girl that was slowly making her way over to Kaz, grip tightening on his cane. Once she got close enough, she held a copy out to him, which contained the same story that everyone was already talking about. Theories that the Wraith was dead, that she’d been kidnapped, that she’d lost her powers, that she’d decided to live the rest of her life out somewhere else. Kaz shoved a few coins at the girl and grabbed the paper, tucking it under his arm as he continued his journey.
In total, Kaz had three safe houses. Two in Ketterdam, one slightly outside of the city’s borders. That was the one he kept for Inej, hopelessly wishing that removing Inej from the city would quell some of her self-sacrificing urges. It was the only time where he could trust that she wasn’t throwing herself into danger, that she wasn’t currently bleeding out in some alleyway wondering why Kaz hadn’t been there to save her. Well, she probably wouldn’t be thinking that. Inej didn’t like the idea of needing to be rescued, her face pinching up whenever Kaz or the Dregs helped bail her out of a situation. The other two houses were for him and his Crows- Jesper, Nina, Wylan, and Matthias, not that he ever expected Matthias to trust him enough to stay on his property. Still, they’d been the ones to risk the most for Kaz, and so he’d make his best effort to keep them alive and well. Most people were expendable, with some limited but notable exceptions.
“Please tell me you brought lunch, I’m starving,” Inej said when Kaz finally stepped into her safe house, opting out of an actual greeting. She was seated on the couch, knives on either side of her and her broken leg elevated on the table. It was wrapped, but Kaz could tell that she’d unwrapped it at some point, probably to assess the damage and to try and calculate when she’d be well enough to reliably put weight on it again. He suspected that the bandages over her ribs looked similar, but at least all of the bruising on her face had settled into an ugly green color.
Kaz shook the bag he had at his side, gently tossing it into her hands and laying the newspaper on the table. “Your people miss you.”
With a snort, Inej dug into the bag, pulling out a salad, some fries, and a burger. “They’re not my people, they’re their own people. And thank you.”
“How are you feeling?”
She shrugged, which meant she was about to lie to him. “Fine, I guess.”
He didn’t bother to reply to that verbally, simply raising an eyebrow.
“I feel like someone hit me with a truck a couple weeks ago.”
“Someone did hit you with a truck a couple weeks ago.”
“Yes, I remember. Squished me against the wall and everything,” Inej huffed, looking down at the food in time to miss Kaz’s wince. He’d been hurt his fair share of times, sure. He had a cane and a limp to prove it, something he wore as a badge of honor. Surviving had required him to fight tooth and nail, but he’d done it, coming out meaner and sharper after all that was said and done. But his injuries were slim compared to what Inej dealt with every day. She had advanced healing, sure. That didn’t make it any easier to see her in her current state, and he knew she hated to be confined during the healing period. A few days in, she’d already become restless. Last week, Kaz had come in and found her trying to walk before she was ready, face contorted with pain. He didn’t believe in miracles, even if he’d breathed a sigh of relief to not find her trying to crawl around on the ceiling or something else brave and absurd. “You know I hate this.”
Kaz nodded, sitting down in a nearby chair. “And you already know what I’m going to say.”
“I can’t help other people if I’m not well, and you don’t want to have to shell out money for my funeral.”
“Exactly. See, I always knew you were smart.”
Inej’s lips tightened, her free hand twitching like she was trying to resist the urge to flip him off. “Did you listen to me for once, or have you been trying to hunt down the person who did this to me?”
“It would be a lot easier if you’d just tell me. I know you know.”
She leveled him with a look. “You and I have very different methods and preferred outcomes. I’m willing to budge on a lot, but-”
“But not on your morals.”
She inclined her head. “But not on my morals. Can you promise not to kill who did this to me?”
“No,” he said simply.
“Thank you for being honest, at least.” With that, Inej turned away, seemingly ending the conversation. He wandered into the bathroom while she ate, giving her a few moments of privacy.
Kaz was a demon. He'd been this way for a long time now, and would likely remain this way until someone was finally successful in killing him. It served him well, except for when that disappointed look flashed across Inej's face. She wanted him to be more. He just didn't think there was anything beneath his surface anymore, nothing that she hadn't already discovered and bit back a shiver at. He wasn't a good person. He was, however, a loyal one. And there were and always would be consequences from the Dregs when someone tried to murder the Wraith. Not always the consequences he would prefer to hand out, but consequences nonetheless. He was a firm believer in an eye for an eye. Perhaps that was why the city liked Inej so much better.
Sometimes, if he was feeling particularly delusional, he liked to kid himself on why this was so. Objectively, it was a good look for his gang to be tied to the city's darling. It gave more weight behind his name, and people would wander closer to his territory just to see if they could catch a glimpse of her. But even if all she brought was bad luck and misfortune, Kaz knew he still wouldn't be able to turn her away. It was frustrating, it was exhilarating, and he briefly considered bashing his head against the bathroom mirror before heading back out into the main room.
Inej was reading the paper he'd given her, lips twisted down into a frown. Even though she didn't acknowledge him for a few long moments, she knew he was there. Eventually, she huffed and put the paper down. "I need to go back out."
"No."
"Yes."
"Inej, we just talked about this."
Her eyes narrowed. "It's not good for people to think I'm dead."
"It's leagues better than you actually being dead. Especially considering you won't tell me who did this to you."
"I'm not-"
He sat down, a bit more forcefully than he'd really intended, cane clacking against the floor. "I know, Inej. I'm respecting your wishes on that matter, as annoying as I feel your wishes are."
It wasn't nice phrasing, and most people probably wouldn't have smiled in response like Inej did. Her fingers twitched like she wanted to reach out, though her hands remained at her side. She knew his boundaries. And unbelievably, he trusted her to not cross them. Inej was a woman of her word.
"Rest," he told her, voice going soft. "Ketterdam will rejoice when you return, whenever you return. And in the meantime, let everyone else worry about all the slimy bastards."
"You're not one of them."
Kaz smirked. "Depends on who you ask."
"They can all fight me about it if they want."
"You're enhanced. That'd hardly be a fair fight."
"Exactly."
Kaz simply rolled his eyes at that. Soon, it started to get to the point where Kaz knew he had to take off. There wasn’t a real reason for him to be hanging around Inej. He had to bring her food, sure, because he was one of few that knew her real identity. Staying around and chatting with her, though? He couldn’t come up with an excuse for that. He was a busy man. There was a long, long list of things he needed to get done, ever growing no matter how much sleep he missed while he was working. He fiddled with his cane, watching Inej’s eyes move down to his cane.
“You have to go?” She asked, ever observant.
Kaz nodded and stood. “Rest. I’ll be in touch soon.”
“Stay safe, Kaz.”
Two days later, the Wraith was spotted on top of a building.
The news reached Kaz moments after he stepped out into the night. There weren’t many people out, but the ones that were spoke loudly enough that Kaz begun looking up at the rooftops. Trying to find her was a longshot, not until she wanted to be found. He had a general idea of what to listen for and could usually spot her before she managed to fully sneak up on him, but he was hardly close to being an expert at it. Besides, he had business to attend to. Pushing bak his shoulders, Kaz continued on his journey.
An hour passed, then another one, then a third one. The night was starting to wear on him. His cane clacked a little louder on the ground, his posture became more slouched, and the dull pain in his leg was radiating as strong as ever. Luckily, the streets seemed cleared out. The only sounds around were the ones Kaz was making. However, the sounds weren’t what were interesting to him. It was the lack of other sounds, the still silence spreading through the air, that what was what caught his attention.
Sure enough, turning around revealed the Wraith.
Her face was covered by her mask, but the familiar bunching of the fabric was enough for Kaz to tell that she was smiling. She stepped toward him. All signs of her injury are gone, despite the fact that it would have killed a man twice her size. The way she blended into the night would have been uncanny had Kaz not been so used to the sight. “Hey.”
“Hey,” Kaz echoed back. “Stop any crimes?”
“A few. You commit any crimes?”
His smile felt crooked. “A few.”
Inej inclined her head. There was an exhaustion in her posture, one that made Kaz take a deep breath. Inej wasn’t his to worry about and never would be. The fact that the knowledge wasn’t enough to stop his heart from stuttering every time he noticed something wrong with her was infuriating. “I’m feeling a bit rusty,” she admitted.
“You barely took any time off.”
“It was enough. More than I wanted to, but someone was a bit insistent on making me rest.”
“He sounds smart.”
He could just imagine her rolling her eyes. “Never said it was a man.”
“Process of elimination. Only a limited amount of people that could tell you to rest that you wouldn’t automatically punch in the teeth.”
That got a snort out of Inej, which then caused one corner of Kaz’s mouth to twitch up into something reminiscent of a smirk.
“It’s good to see you back out, Wraith. I’m sure the city is going to be thrilled.”
Inej blew air out of her nose, which was one of the more telltale ways to sense nervousness in her. Like him, she tended to be more stoic than not, but her heart was big enough that it couldn’t help but leak out of her sometimes. Kaz’s heart had hardened enough that even in his weakest moments, no one got to see it. He wasn’t sure which one of them was stronger: the one that fought to keep her heart, or the one that’d torn his own to shreds. She wasn't idiotic by any means, although her nervousness was pretty idiotic. Ketterdam adored her, loudly. She knew that they missed her, although she was always careful to never assume she had their admiration forever. It was a fickle city, although if anyone would win its permanent favor, it'd be Inej.
Inej took yet another step closer. They were hovering only a couple feet apart. Kaz’s grip on his cane tightened for a brief moment before he made himself loosen it again. “I should get going. Stop some more crime, get the word around that I’m back.”
“The word already seems to be out, but there’s no harm in startling a few more people while you get the chance.”
“Yeah,” she said, voice going soft. “See you around, okay? Don't get into any trouble without me."
Kaz blinked, and then she was gone. He smiled to himself, shaking his head as he continued on his way, certain that if anyone tried to pull something against him tonight, Inej would be there before Kaz could even raise his cane.
By the morning, Kaz was holding another newspaper. This one was a lot happier tonally, the words “Our Hero Saves the Day Again: The Wraith is Back!” plastered on the front. It was crumpled under Kaz’s fingers, but he didn’t throw it away. He was right to brush past her nervousness. They were overjoyed. Maybe it was a coincidence, although Kaz didn't believe in those, but it seemed like more people were wearing purple. A sign of joy, support. Kaz himself had a purple tie on, dark enough to almost be mistaken for black. If anyone asked him if he'd gotten it for the Wraith, he'd probably wack them over the head with his cane. But it was hard not to think of Inej every time he put it on. That much was true.
When he made it back into his office, he shoved the newspaper in a desk drawer and opened his window up wide, sitting down and waiting for the inevitable moment that the Wraith would come back to him.