A Coin Has Two Sides (Season Two) || Kaz Brekker x OC

8. Her Heart's Truest Desire

Winnie was taking a gigantic risk as she walked through Ketterdam's streets back to Black Veil.

She was out in the open. Not in her shadows.

The shadow summoner was far too drained and still aching from the pain she had experienced from both Alina almost killing her indirectly and her attempt at removing the pieces of the Fold from inside of her.

On top of being totally exposed, Winnie wasn't paying much attention to her surroundings.

She was desperately trying to push back the words she had heard from Kaz, Jesper and Inej's voices.

Despite her fully acknowledging that it wasn't actually her three companions speaking, it had seemed so real to her in the moment.

But she had vowed to herself to leave everything she may be thinking or feeling surrounding their words back where they had been said.

And Winnie Marth stayed true to her word.

Always.

Except once.

She had vowed to herself something that unconsciously she had broken.

I will no longer love Kaz Brekker.

If she did allow one thing to follow with her from that room, it was the fact that Winnie could no longer deny the truth.

The words that had stung the most had been the ones Kaz had spoken.

The ones that told her that her love would remain unrequited.

That he would never love her, and if he ever showed her that he cared it was only because of her abilities. How useful she was to him.

And the reason they stung the most was because she couldn't argue with them.

When it came to Jesper and Inej, they had always shown that they cared for her. They had told her to stay, hugged her, let her know they would look out for her.

But Kaz Brekker had only ever told her to leave. He had only ever told her that her abilities were all he valued in her and that without them, he had no reason to keep her around.

He had never shown her that he cared for her. Despite her heart wanting him to more than anything.

But Winnie also knew that his words wouldn't be enough.

The desperation she had to touch him. To feel his lips and body on hers. To let him have his way with her.

It had consumed her.

But Kaz Brekker would never tell her what she wanted to hear, let alone show her physically.

And so something that made it easier for Winnie to move on was to know that even if he did feel the same way about her, even if he told her so, she would break knowing that she would never be able to touch him.

It would be too painful.

And she had experienced enough pain.

But the pain that came from believing he didn't care at all was easier to live with than the pain she would feel knowing he did but that he wouldn't ever be able to show her.

Winnie walked with her thoughts for a few minutes until she was suddenly pulled from them upon seeing a familiar face standing on the street opposite her.

It was a man she recognised from when she was working from the Dime Lions.

Winnie stopped in her tracks and begun walking back until she stumbled into a person standing behind her.