chapter ten,   i give my heart to you

THE GROUND SHOOK under them and Matthias and Nina flew to the sides from mere wind, alerting everyone that it was a Grisha attack and they probably were on jurda parem.

     Pieces of crooked monoliths of earth and ice splattered upwards as if there was an earthquake— the wind was only rising and they all shared the puzzled faces once again before the ice shards started to fall on them.

Squallers.

Kaz immediately pushed Lavender down to the nearest slab with his cane, making her hover and hold her head as he hovered too, looking around, seeing how the ice shards were surrounding them all. It was hard to see, he could only hear Jesper's yell from the distance and Nina's voice from another side.

"I need a distraction!" Jesper roared through the snowstorm.

"GET DOWN!" Wylan screamed from the top of his lungs as he took out a flash bomb and threw it towards the Squaller that was making the earth move. They weren't supposed to do that— they could only control currents, nothing else.

"Close your eyes," Kaz muttered to Lavender as he was so close to her, their coated arms touching and she did as he told, her body shaking in fear and her lungs were hyperventilating. A few seconds after, they heard a loud thud and a flash made the ice splatter into sides as the Squaller fell down, trying to get himself back up.

"There is another one!" Wylan yelled as he heard shots that came from Jesper and quickly stopped, meaning that he was attacked.

Lavender's eyes shot in panic as she reached for her revolver and she turned around, aiming for the place where the Squaller was, but Kaz placed his gloved hand on the revolver and pointed down as Inej came from the shadows and nodded her head, disappearing into the storm.

"Let's go!" Jesper's voice appeared as he ran to them with Wylan, making Lavender and Kaz stand up as Nina and Matthias stood further. "Get us out of here!" Jesper said to Wylan and he nodded, taking out a coloured lump from his pack and he nudged his head low and everyone crouched, covering their ears.

The kid threw the bomb and... nothing happened!

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Jesper exclaimed and within these words, the slab exploded making the Zemeni guy wince in pain as his ears were uncovered.

"Perimeter," Kaz simply gestured to Jesper and they both were about to go in different directions to check if there were nothing else, but Lavender stopped Kaz with her gesture and shook her head.

"I will go," she muttered, her throat on fire as she swallowed the ice particles. She gave Jesper and nod and they both ran the other ways, revolvers in their hands.

"How are they so alike even if they are not related?" Wylan mumbled, wiping the dust off his coat, his grin happy that his bomb worked out.

Others quickly found Inej standing next to a trembling body— the Squaller's body. His eyes were teary as he was clutching his right tight where the bullet hit him.

"I need a little more," the Grisha moaned, sobbing between words.

"Nestor?" Nina's voice raised in confusion. "Nestor! It's me, Nina!" Her voice raised as the man didn't seem to recognize her.

"Please— I just need more!" The man wailed.

"Parem?" Nina whispered.

"Yes— Yes!" He cried out as he was hyperventilating. It was clear now how powerful jurda parem was and how addicting it was. It had to be destroyed or it will become the most horrifying weapon of all.

"I will help you— stay still," Nina extended her hands, but the man soon raised on his feet, clutching the bad leg as he looked at everyone with bloodthirsty eyes.

"Where are they? WHERE DID THEY GO? The Shu..." He started wandering around, the blood spilling on the spotless snow and soon he fell on his side, snow getting into his eyes and mouth, blood everywhere around him.

Nina sobbed as her eyes welled with tears— this wasn't right. She placed her hands on his chest, but something was wrong— his body was weak, skin pressed to his bones. He was going to die.

Lavender and Jesper came back, their breathing all over the place. "It's clear, just party people heading south," Jesper exhaled as Lavender kneeled on the snow beside the man and placed her hand on his neck, trying to find his pulse— there was none.

Lavender closed her eyes and pulled her hand away from the body. "It was because of jurda parem, wasn't it?"

"It's a drug— it's meant to kill Grisha," Nina whispered, her voice gloomy. "He was calling out the Shu."

"This was in Squaller's pocket," Kaz started as he showed them a coin, tossing it to Jesper, "It's a Shu wen ye. The Coin of Passage. This is a government mission."

"If they have jurda parem, why are they after Bo Yul-Bayur?" Nina asked, raising on her feet.

"They are not after him— they want him back," Lavender explained.

"Maybe they can't replicate the process of jurda parem creation," Kaz agreed.

"Do you think they will use drugged Grisha to try and break into Ice Court?" Inej asked.

"That's what I would do," Kaz replied. "We can't waste any more time— let's move."

"We need to bury them," Nina disagreed.

"The ground is ice, and we don't have time," Kaz stood to his grounds.

"We can't just leave them for the wolves," Nina's voice raised in anger— this wasn't right.

"Do you want to build them a pyre?" Kaz asked, venom laced in his words.

"Go to hell, Brekker," the Grisha spat out the words.

     "I will help you," Matthias intervened, "I will help you bury them. You all can go, I know my way."

     "Don't forget where your paper is, Helvar," Kaz muttered before he turned around and started going. The rest gave Nina and Matthias apologetic looks and walked behind Kaz.

     Lavender would have helped gladly if not for her lung condition— she barely survived walking and digging ice was not it.

      Lavender's mind travelled to the time when they just got attacked and how Kaz pushed her to the slab— they weren't even touching and being so close to him were making her heart beat faster and she felt like an idiot. Why did her heart beat faster?

𓄿

    "YOU SHOULD GO BACK TO SLEEP," Kaz's voice reached her ears as he was sitting on a slab in front of a dying fire as it was late, others were sleeping in tents.

    "I could say the same to you," Lavender stuck her hands into her coat pockets as it wasn't as freezing as they first arrived.

     When she sat down in front of him, across the fire, she noticed the sketches sprawled on his lap and she just stuck half of her face under the scarf and closed her eyes for a few seconds.

     Lavender wasn't a fan of sleeping. She knew it was essential and she tried to sleep as much as she could before the nightmares arrived. It was always the same nightmare— her mother's death, the crying, the blood, the fire.

      The woman shivered from the thoughts as she just woke up from the nightmare and that's why she came outside. "Do you really think we can make it?" She asked silently.

      "I do," he simply replied, his head fixated on the sketches that he knew by heart already. "It's the last chance for you to back out."

"Since I am not a necessity, right?"

"Right," he simply replied, looking at her as she smiled sadly and looked down. She was hurt.

"Well, I am staying. I think I proved myself that I am useful," Lavender exclaimed, her eyes tired.

"Maybe," he replied.

"Why are you looking over the plan? I know you memorized it by heart already," Lavender pointed out.

"I don't want to miss anything out," he admitted.

"So you are that kind of guy who has the whole alphabet of plans?"

"I prefer numbers, alphabet limits me," Kaz replied and Lavender smiled widely, making the guy's heart weirdly flutter.

     "What will you do with four million kruge?" Lavender inquired.

     "There are tons of things to do in Ketterdam with that kind of money," Kaz replied.

     "Will you let me join the Dregs when we come back?" Lavender asked and Kaz froze— he didn't want her to stay.

     Did he?

     "Why would you want to join a gang?" Kaz raised his head and met her stare, noticing how pale she was and that her eyes were teary— she had a nightmare.

     "By doing this, I become a criminal," she shrugged, "I doubt Jes will want to leave Ketterdam either."

     "You would do it for Jesper?" He asked.

     And for you, and for the revenge, she thought. "I am already involved in this— so the answer is yes... So what's your story?"

"As in?"

"Being in Ketterdam for only a few days I was quick to learn about the Bastard of the Barrel," Lavender pointed out.

"Then you know enough," he replied simply and Lavender almost scoffed at how talkative he was.

"No one seems to know your past, it makes you mysterious, doesn't it? Gives you the advantage," Lavender talked, her mind completely made up on the fact that he forgot her.

"Whatever past you had, it's not valid in Ketterdam, just a burden you carry. It's your choice to forget it or not," Kaz replied.

Hurt flashed through Lavender's eyes and she chuckled to herself— Kaz forgot it. Maybe that was one of Lavender's traits that were unnecessary and it hurt her in the end— she was hopelessly hopeful.

"Don't you feel lonely?"

     A thought flashed through Kaz's head... Dirtyhands would reply that he didn't feel lonely as far as he had enough money to be reckless with, but the little Kaz inside of him, that buried Kaz Rietveld said otherwise.

"Kruge keeps a way better company than you might imagine," Kaz replied with a small grin and Lavender almost got surprised to see a change in his expression. "You told me you will need information," Kaz reminded her.

     "I want to find the man who killed my mother," Lavender admitted and Kaz had to contain to look as if he wasn't surprised. Lavender didn't know that it was Pekka Rollins.

     "And you think he is in Ketterdam?"

     "I know he is in Ketterdam," Lavender said it angrily, but her face was calm— the memory of her mother's death was haunting her. Kaz wanted to know how she died exactly. "He barged into my house— he had that murderous expression on his face. I didn't know what was going on— my ma told me to hide. I did... I did and I wish I hadn't. There was so much yelling— The next thing I know is how my mother's body dropped on the floor, blood oozing from her throat— And the man laughed— He laughed."

     When she finished talking, tears were streaming down her cheeks, freezing to her cheeks as Kaz didn't even notice how he crumpled the paper in his fists. He was furious. He needed to make Pekka Rollins pay. He wanted to smash his skull open and make him suffer for what he did. And he will.

     "Sorry for the burden," she abruptly said, realizing that she just put her heart on the table to a man who doesn't remember her. It was just easy talking with him sometimes. It was easy to let go to being beside him.

      Lavender stood up and walked towards her tent, hearing how deeply Kaz breathed out, unscrambling his paper and she heard his words:

     "I will help you find him."

     Lavender turned around, now facing Kaz, their eyes locking as he seemed sitting with his cold expression, but there was a glint of fury in his ocean eyes. The eyes that ignited fire in her heart.

    "Thank you," she whispered and that whisper was enough to break Kaz's heart into pieces.

     Why was he pretending? Why was he going to make her suffer even more? He needed to tell her. He needed to tell he remembers.

     Before it is too late.