Chapter One

Clary tugged on the strings of her green sweatshirt as she waited for her best friend, Simon, to get to school. He was practically always late, but this time would set a record. He had only thirty seconds to get into the classroom. She silently prayed that he would show up because otherwise, no one would sit next to her. She wasn't exactly the most popular girl in school, but neither was Simon so they fit together perfectly.

The bell rang and Simon burst into the class along with it. The teacher gave him a pointed look. Simon opened his eyes widely and ran over to where Clary was sitting, hitting his knee on a desk and making a couple of the kids in the room laugh. Simon was anything but graceful. Clary rolled my eyes and whispered to him.

"What's your excuse this time?"

"Rebecca's car," he responded whilst facing forward. "It's a piece of shit. She got it from our uncle on Friday and it's already broken down on us like five times." Clary chuckled and pulled out one of her many notebooks. Mrs. Kiako was a very fast-paced teacher and Clary intended to not be left behind. She would help Simon with his work later.

The day went by pretty smoothly. Chemistry, English, Pre-Calc, A.P US History, Cooking, Art, Health. It was boring, but she reminded herself that every day was a day closer to graduation. As a junior, that left her with about a year and a half of high school left.

She sat with Simon in the library after school so they could do their homework together. It was a system that had been successful in getting them straight A's since freshman year. Plus, if Clary didn't get her work done right after school, she wouldn't do it at all.

"Simon, you're doing that completely wrong," Clary told her best friend. Simon ran his hands through his curly brown hair and clasped them together at the back of his head.

"I don't get any of this," he groaned.

"That's what you've got me for," Clary smiled. "Come on. Adding up chemical equations is so easy if you do it the way I learned how to. Here, I'll show you."

"What would I do without you?"

"Fail chemistry?" She offered.


"Clary," her mother called, "could you come set the table please?"

"I guess," she shouted back. Her parents had invited some random people over, friends from her father's college years, for dinner. On the bright side, it forced her mother to actually cook something nice for everyone. Usually she got so busy and into her art that either Clary had to make dinner for herself or order pizza.

"Why are these people coming over again?" Clary asked for the third time.

Jocelyn sighed. "Robert and your father go way back. Valentine wanted to welcome him back into town. Please, Clarissa, be on your best behavior." Her mother looked immensely bored and uninterested, but Clary shrugged it off and assumed that she'd just much rather be working on a painting or something.

Clary nodded, trying to keep all the names her mother told her earlier, in order. Jace, Izzy, Max and Alex. Scratch that, it was Alec. She groaned and threw herself on the couch in the living room. She was wearing a white summer dress and she wanted to rip it off right then and there, but she felt it best not to surprise their guests by acting like a stripper. She doubted that her father would approve of that.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door and Clary pushed herself off of the sofa with only a slight amount of struggling.

"Hello Mr. and Mrs. Lightwood," she greeted as she opened the door. Standing behind it were a family of beautiful people. That sounds odd, but it's pretty accurate. Her dad's college bud, Robert, had a wide and tall frame, a strong jaw with little stubble on it, and short brown hair. Mayrse had curly black hair that looked way better than Clary's (she never knew how to tame it very well) and she was tall and thin. Their daughter, Isabelle, looked like a younger version of Mrs. Lightwood with a kinder, more mischievous glint to her almost black eyes. They had three boys. A black haired boy who seemed to be very well put together and the oldest, a blonde boy with wavy hair who looked to be the middle child, and a small kid with curly brown hair and big glasses. He looked very much like Simon and she automatically liked him.

"Mr. Lightwood," her father boomed as he came up behind Clary, putting a hand on her shoulder. "It's great to see you. Mayrse, you look marvelous. Jace, Izzy, Alec, Max, it's always a pleasure." Wow, he was really putting on a show. She'd never seen her father smile so widely. It looked very alien to her and honestly kind of scary. He wasn't mean, but he definitely was not a warm person. Not how he was acting like now anyway.

Mr. Lightwood nodded and his wife put on a plastered smile. Clary had a pretty strong ability of being able to tell when someone's smile wasn't genuine and Mrs. Lightwood's smile was about as genuine as the crab in California Rolls. "You have a lovely home," she said.

Valentine ushered them inside, greeting them all personally, Max being the last one in the house. Eventually, everyone was sitting comfortably around the long dining room table. Clary was seated in between the two she assumed were twins, Isabelle and Alec. Her mother brought in the big pot of soup and filled everyone's bowls with it. It looked kind of disgusting to Clary, but as she tasted it, she realized that it wasn't too bad. Judging by the others' facial expressions, they liked it too.

"So, Robert, what have you been up to recently," my father asked.

He swallowed and set down his spoon. "Just climbing up the business ladder at work. How about you? How have you been?"

Valentine smiled and told him about the corporation that he worked at, something Clary cared nothing about. Honestly, the whole dinner thing was pretty much an incredibly boring conversation between Robert and her father. The three oldest Lightwood children kept staring at her funny so Clary kept her head down towards her bowl. She was glad when the whole ordeal was over.

"Well, you have a great night," Valentine said. "We must keep in touch."

"Of course," Robert agreed. "Thank you for the meal, Jocelyn, it was delicious. Next time, dinner's on me." My mother and father smiled, waved one last time and shut the door.

"So," her father said as they were cleaning up the kitchen afterwards, "how did you like them?"

"They were wonderful," her mother smiled.

"I'm pretty sure the kids didn't talk once," Clary muttered.

"That's because they're well-behaved," Valentine gave her a pointed look. Clary rolled her eyes. She was pretty sure that the only things she said were nice things. How is that not better than not talking at all?

"Also," she continued, "how come you've never talked about these people before? You acted as if you two were super great friends, but I've never heard about any Lightwoods."

"Don't be silly. Your father has talked about them loads of times. Right honey?"

"Of course! He was my closest friend in college. My roommate in fact." Clary sighed, pretty positive that there had been no talk of that family in her house. She rolled down her sleeves and excused herself from kitchen duty so she could go to sleep. She was feeling fairly exhausted and she had school to go to the next day.


Clary woke up in the middle of the night to a noise coming from the corner of her room. She was pretty sure that she could see the outline of a body, but of course, it was just a jacket or something, so she closed her eyes and tried to sleep again. Suddenly, there was a hand on her mouth. She tried to scream, but the hand stifled it.

"Jace, you can let go now. Her parents are taken care of," a female voice said. Taken care of? What did that mean? Did they kill her parents, she thought in alarm. And how many people are in my room? And why?

"Good," the voice next to her said, releasing his hand from her mouth. "I think she bit me." Clary smirked to herself, hoping they couldn't see her pride in the darkness. She had, in fact, bitten him.

"Who are you people?"

"You don't remember us?" The boy, Jace asked. "That's odd. I'm pretty memorable. Anyway, I'm Jace and that's Izzy. Alec is… Elsewhere at the moment." The memories from earlier that night flooded her brain and she suddenly remembered who they were. The Lightwoods. Was that even their name? Or were they pretending to be someone else entirely?

"Alec's waiting in the car, Jace. Quit the small talk and let's go."

"But small talk is my forte," he complained.

"I'm not going with you," Clary said confidently.

"I'll drag you kicking and screaming if I have to," Jace warned.

"Just pick her up already and let's go."

Jace put his hands under her arms and pulled her up, but she wasn't going without a fight. Clary slipped out of his grasp and grabbed the night lamp of her end table. "I will hit you with this. Very hard."

"You don't scare me, little girl." But apparently she did because he resorted to using a tranquilizer. He put the shot in her arm, but not before getting hit in the chest with the deadly weapon of Clary's. The night lamp. The one that Simon had gotten her for Christmas with Tardis all over it from Dr. Who. She smiled to herself, quickly thinking to thank him for it later, if she got the chance. Unfortunately, she wasn't sure she'd be able to because she was slipping out of consciousness fast. She hit the ground hard, slamming her head on her bed frame.

"Izzy," Jace said, "you carry her. My chest is bleeding like a bitch." Pieces of glass from the lightbulb had punctured Jace's skin and blood was heavily seeping through his white t-shirt.

"And just how does a bitch bleed more than an ordinary person," Izzy asked with a sweet smile.

"Because they're ugly, I don't know, just carry her." Izzy rolled her eyes but made her way over to the small red-headed girl anyway, gingerly picking her up off of the floor and slinging her over her shoulder.


Clary woke up in a bed wearing some ugly gray pajamas. She shuddered, wondering who changed her into them, but she had a bigger problem on her hands. She had just been kidnapped by her dad's college bud's kids. If she ever made it home, she was so going to throw the "that's because they're well-behaved" thing back in his face. She was no expert, but she was pretty sure that stealing someone was not a very well-behaved thing to do.

"Oh good, you're up," a female voice said to her right. Clary shrunk back in her bed, afraid of whomever was speaking. As much as she loved to put up that brave façade, she was genuinely scared right now.

"Don't worry, I'm not going to hurt you," the girl said. Clary gave her a once-over. She had shoulder-length brown hair that was thick and wavy and she looked to be tall, but Clary couldn't tell because she was sitting down. Her eyes were a brown color and she was pretty. Not beautiful, but pretty.

"I'm just as much of a prisoner as you," she sighed.

"What exactly are we here for," Clary asked, hoping the girl would have some answers.

"I'm not quite sure," the girl responded, her British accent very strong. "I've only been here for a week and I haven't found out very much. The curious thing is that every night I'm taken from my room, yet I wake up back in bed without any memories. Sometimes I have…"

"Have what?"

"Sometimes I have nightmares that my skin is melting off and every bone in my body is being pressed together and molded into something else. The pain is so excruciatingly real, yet it can't be. Right?"

"I don't know," Clary said, warily. "It sounds like they're doing some sort of experimenting in here. I doubt they're wiping your memories for no reason. Some of your dreams must be real." The girl nodded, and something at her neck shimmered. "That's a pretty necklace."

The girl clasped her hand over it automatically. "I almost forgot I was wearing it," she gasped. "They told me to take it off, but I don't want to. My brother gave it to me about a month before he passed away, claiming that it would protect me. I don't believe in that mumbo-jumbo, but it's the last thing I ever received from him."

Clary frowned. She didn't have any siblings, but she felt her heart ache for this girl. If Simon was the closest thing she had to a brother. If he passed away and had given her a keep-sake like that necklace, she wouldn't have taken it off lightly. Simon. She had no idea how long she'd been out for, but she missed Simon dearly. She rarely ever went without seeing or talking to him. It had been torture when he went to Outdoor's School a few summers ago and had no way to comminuate with him. Now she was stuck in this prison for God knows how long. Clary was pretty positive that they wouldn't let her use her cell phone to text her best friend.

"Keep it in your pocket," Clary suggested. The ugly pajamas had their perks with two little pockets on each side of the pant legs. The girl pursed her lips and took the necklace off, clenching it tightly in her fist before sticking it gently in her right pocket.

"What's your name?"

"It's Clary. Clary Morgenstern."

"My name is-"

"Morgenstern," a male voice exclaimed from the other side of the wall. Suddenly, the door to their cell swung open and a boy with messy black hair and blue eyes walked in. The girl- dang, she still didn't know her name- opened her eyes in fear. Clary was automatically wary of this person.

"You're Clary Morgenstern?" He asked, the surprise evident in his eyes.

"Yeah," she said. "Who wants to know?"

The boy smirked and shook his head. "You don't get to know my name." He paused for a minute to study her and she squirmed in her seat. She didn't like being stared at. "You're a lot smaller than I expected," he said, finally.

"Why were you expecting me at all?" Clary asked, hoping to get some answers.

The boy waggled his finger. "Sorry, can't tell you that. You'll find out soon enough, though." He then rested his gaze on the other girl in the room. "Hello, Tess. Are you enjoying the book I lent you?"

"I'm not going to read that garbage," she spat.

The boy shrugged. "Suit yourself." He then exited the room.

"Well that was weird," Clary decided. "So your name is Tess?"

"It's Theresa, but I go by Tessa. Please don't call me Tess." Clary nodded in understanding. She absolutely hated it when people called her Clarissa. They only used her full name if they were making fun of her or if they were her parents.

Tessa held up a small hard-cover book. "This is what he gave me to read. I don't understand why though? It's a Tale of Two Cities. Have you read it?"

Clary made a face. "Yeah, in English class last year. It really is garbage, huh?"

"No, no, no," Tessa exclaimed. She continued in a quieter tone. "On the contrary! This is my favorite book. I just didn't want William to know that we have a similar taste in books." Clary smiled. At least she knew two names now.

She only wondered why that William boy was making such a big deal about her being here. She pulled the covers tight around her body and sighed. Oddly enough, she was still very tired. Clary decided that she would try to figure out as much as she could tomorrow. Right now was a time for sleep.