REAPER ─ kaz brekker

fifteen; dead girl walking

015;         DEAD GIRL WALKING

THE FARTHER AND FARTHER THEY TRAVELLED  FROM WEST STAVE, THE MORE AND MORE IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE DESCENDING INTO A CITY LAID WITHIN A CITY. 

Shortly after ducking away from the chaos that had taken the Stave in a chokehold, they'd tossed away their capes and masks behind the Velvet Room, where Kaz had another set of clothes waiting for them. They changed quickly, tossing the rough spun trousers and bulky coats over their existing clothing, collars flipped up to hide their faces. Onyx bundled her quiver and bow in the fabric of her cloak and carried it like a parcel in an effort to avoid suspicion. The use of a bow and arrow made her about as conspicuous as Kaz looked with his crows head cane. 

The eastern edge of the warehouse district was reminiscent of a ghost town at this hour. It was populated heavily by immigrants that worked for the city's factories and docks, leaving their shantytowns of plywood and dented, bent tin silent and without wandering eyes. She hadn't been this far on the eastern side of the district in years. Not since her parents died. Not since their home went up in flames and she fled the house, blood weeping from her neck, her lungs burning from the soot and smoke she'd inhaled as she'd blindly ran down the stairs. Now, it felt like that entire night was isolated from the rest of time, as if she was watching it happen through a foggy window. 

Onyx adjusted the collar on her thick coat and turned her eyes down, down to the cobblestones beneath her feet. Even now, she could feel the cold cobble beneath her feet that night. It was winter, just the beginning of winter, but it was surprisingly cold. Days before, her mother had even said as much. Her father had just bought her a new coat for what was supposed to be a rather unforgiving winter. It would become far colder than he would ever know, for he would never know that his only daughter would spend that winter beneath different bridges, growing and nursing a determination and vengeance that would've frightened him to his core. She kindled those feelings like a precious flame, until it grew into great bonfire that would one day be enough to consume all those who dared cross her path. 

It wasn't until she found the target of her anger that the bonfire would roar into a raging forest fire. 

Hendrik Reinsing would never know that his daughter would grow into the same neutrality he took as a weapons maker. He would never know that his Onyx Reinsing would become Onyx Vissier, the embodiment of every foul and amoral thing he wanted to keep her away from. He would never know that a deal gone sour with Pekka Rollins and the Dime Lions would send the Reaper of Ketterdam on a downward spiral of bloodsport and mayhem and revenge. He would never know that the very first bow she strung up in their home would later grow into a Fabrikator-made weapon that mimic the very same one that once hung as a calling card in his shop. 

And her mother. Her mother was so, so good. Anika Reinsing would be so disappointed in the woman her daughter had become. She'd always frowned upon the under the table work Onyx's father did for the Barrel gangs, but never forced him to put a stop to it. After all, the sale of weapons to Barrel thugs did come with a rather handsome paycheck and it kept their Homelife away from the slums and poverty-stricken streets. It would seem that in the end though, Anika Reinsing would pay the price for these same dealings with her life. She would bleed out on her bed, throat slit, eyes glassy. 

Onyx suspected even now that she was the first to go. Then, they'd taken care of her father. She doubted they knew Hendrik had a daughter, looking back, until his very last moments or directly thereafter. The house was already ablaze when she awoke anyway. She never heard any screams.