Max had gone to put his comic book away after they had all made fun of him. They always do that, probably because he's the youngest. He hates being the youngest. The door closes behind him with a soft click. Sebastian, who is supposed to be nailing wood to all of the windows, is standing at the door with a hammer in his hand. Max really doesn't like Sebastian. Even before Jace had told him not to trust him, there had been something about him that didn't make sense. Of course, Jace is like that. Jace is Jace.
"Are all the windows protected?" Max asks as he doesn't know what else to say. Sebastian just stands there with a creepy smile smeared across his face and a glint in his pitch-black eyes. He slowly starts to walk closer, still not saying anything. Max has always wished he were more like Jace, who would say something witty and sarcastic. Or Izzy who can cut off a man's hand with a flick of her wrist. Even Alec, who will do anything to protect the people he loves. But he's not, so he simply stands there, cowering in the corner, holding his comic book across his chest like a shield.
"You were always the most annoying," Sebastian says. He's now about a yard away from Max. "Always asking questions and seeing things the others didn't. Innocence of a child, I guess. You must not have known any better. And now, you never will." He raises the hammer above his head and time seems to slow before everything goes black. Black; the same color as Sebastian's eyes; the last thing he sees.
Max wakes up, covered in sweat and gasping for breath, his head throbbing as if the hammer had really just hit him. He despises that dream. In fact, he despises everything about that night. He had lost everything. He doesn't have anyone left. Nine years of wondering what would have happened if Sebastian hadn't just knocked him out. He has no idea what has happened to his parents and siblings. At least the others did, because they hadn't been in the same house as that monster, Sebastian, and they had been protected. When he had woken up from being knocked out, Max had been in the Accords Hall along with hundreds of other Shadowhunters. Valentine had been talking about a new race of Shadowhunters with powers as great as the Angels themselves. Then Valentine's supporters had lined up all of the survivors and put a special rune on them. It had been Max's first. However, he still doesn't know what it had been for.
"Max, you okay?" his roommate, Justin, asks when he comes out of their bathroom. All of the training Shadowhunters live in the Barracks; boys on one side and girls on the other. Each room consists of two people and each room looks the same: two beds with white sheets and a chest at the end of each bed. There is one bathroom with no shelves but, because no one had anything unnecessary, we don't need shelves. All of the walls and carpets are the same color: white. Basically, it looks like the inside of an igloo.
"Yeah, I'm fine," he lies easily. "I just had a bad dream. No big deal." He shrugs it off, but Justin doesn't fall for it.
"You were dreaming about your family again, weren't you?" he asks. Of course he can't lie to Justin, they have lived together for nine years.
"I just wish I knew what happened to them. You know how your parents died, but I still don't. And I probably never will." Even though Justin and his younger sister, Anna, had seen their parents die, Max thought they still had it better off than him. They knew which demon had killed their parents and had made sure that that demon died. But Max didn't know anything. His family's ashes weren't even in the Silent City.
As soon as Justin leaves to get breakfast, Max takes the necklace with his key off from around his neck and opens his trunk. You aren't allowed to lock your trunk because all Shadowhunters are brothers and can trust each other, but really, it's just so that soldiers can go through your trunk whenever they want to. He digs under all of his clothes to a little box hidden under a pile of books and unlocks it with the key. Inside are some old trinkets he was supposed to get rid of: his glasses - he had a seeing rune now but it didn't help as much; a picture of him with Isabelle, Alec and Jace; Alec's old stele that he had given Max on his fifth birthday; the toy soldier that Jace had given him. He takes the toy out and runs his fingers over its worn down, wooden body. He feels a cold shiver run down his spine as he remembers. The hammer. The screams. The blood. The blackness. It had been in his pocket when Sebastian had attacked him.
Max jumps when he hears an alarm go off. Demons. Always a perfect start to a full day of Shadowhunter training. He grabs his weapons belt and runs out the door, forgetting to relock his box containing his most prized possessions.