Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or the Mortal Instruments. Cassandra Clare does and that is why she is so awesome.
-Clary.
I wake up slowly still choking on water and not fully able to open my eyes. I turn my head to the side and water comes choking out of my throat. "Jace? Jace?!" I croak out. Where is Jace? Is he okay. All I know is I have to find him. I try harder and force my eyes open and see nothing but darkness. My head is spinning and my throat feels like it has had sandpaper shoved down it. I reach down to my pocket to look for my stele, but realize I must have dropped it after I made that open rune on the boat. That is when I realize that I am in a bed. How did I get on a bed? "Jace!" I yell as loud as I can manage. I sit up and put my feet on the floor.
"Hello there." says a deep voice that sounds familiar. It is coming from the corner of the room. "For a while there I didn't think you were going to wake up."
It's Valentine. I stand up to run to the door but fall after one step. I am too weak after almost drowning and he apparently wasn't being very generous with iratzes.
"It's no use Clarissa. You can't leave. You are too important for me to just let you go." His voice is hard and laced with some other emotion. Anger? "What you did to my boat was nothing short of impressive. How long have you been able to do that with runes?" he asked.
"Screw you!" I shout back at him. "Let me go!"
He gives a small laugh with no humor. "I thought we already went over that."
"Where is Jace? I want to see him." I say angrily.
He leans forward and turns on a witchlight lamp and the room fills with harsh light. The room I am in has no window and there are two doors. One looks substantially stronger than the other. 'That's the door that leads out of here' I think to myself. I quickly survey the room to try and find some sort of weapon, but it looks like it has been stripped of everything except the bed a night stand and the chair Valentine is occupying in the corner of the room.
"Well I assume Jace is back at the Institute." he replies.
"He's not here?" I try to keep the panic out of my voice and fail miserably. I can't believe I am here alone. My heart drops through the floor.
"Thanks to you and what you did to my boat, I only had time to save one of you. I really thought you would be more greatful, Clarissa." His voice is smug.
"I didn't know you thought kidnapping me was saving me." I say with acid in my voice.
His eyes narrow as he looks at me. I can see him thinking back, like he is trying to remember something. "You really do look just like Jocelyn. Although the scowl on your face reminds me of me."
"I look nothing like you!" I shout at him. I know what I said was childish, but I don't want to think that I have anything of my father's. The way he looks at me after I shouted my outburst makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I can see the anger and hatred in his eyes building up.
"You will NOT speak to me like that again, Clarissa!" he yells at me. I see his fists clenching at his sides. For a moment, I think he is going to hit me and I cower back. "Your mother may have allowed you to speak like that to her, but you will learn not to speak to me like that. Is that understood?!" He is leaning over me looking like he is on the brink of losing it. All I can manage to do is nod.
He takes a deep breath and takes a step back. "Good. I am glad we could come to an understanding." he says with barely concealed rage. He walks over to the bigger door and knocks twice. It swings open and I can see someone standing outside the door in a white hallway. As he reaches the door, he turns around and jerks his head toward the other door in the room. "Through that door, you will find a bathroom. Clean up and be ready in 20 minutes. I have a schedule to keep and I don't need you slowing me down again." With that he walks out and shuts the heavy door behind him. I hang my head in my hands but refuse to cry. I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't even know if everyone is alright. Simon. Isabelle. Luke. Magnus. Alec. Jace, Jace, Jace. I have to pull on my hair, hard, to keep from breaking down thinking about Jace. I have to stay strong for him. I can do this. I can find a way back to them.
I slowly stand back up, my legs wobbling hard and walk into the bathroom. I see some of my clothes from the apartment. He must have been the one to take everything after he took my mom. I walk over and grab them and bring them to my face. I take a deep breath in and am incredibly thankful that they still smell like home. That is when a tear escapes my eyes.
-Isabelle, New York Institute
Isabelle is watching Jace pace frantically back and forth in the middle of the library.
He runs his fingers angrily through his hair. "Tell them to check again!" he yells at Maryse. "Clary has to be there somewhere! I saw her come back up to the surface of the river before a piece of the boat fell in between us! And it's not like you have found her body. She has to be there. Maybe she swam down river. Did anyone think to check?"
"Jace." Maryse pleads with him in her most motherly voice. "We have looked everywhere for her and any other survivors. Everyone is accounted for, even the dead. She isn't anywhere to be found."
"Well then WHERE IS SHE!" he screams.
Alec walks over to Jace and places and hand on his shoulder. "Jace, don't yell at mom. She is doing everything in her power to find her. We all are. You know that." Alec pleads with him. Jace walks over to a couch and collapses onto it and places his head in his hands. When he speaks, his voice is low and defeated. "I know." is all he says.
I walk over to him and sit down next to him. He looks so lost. I know what we all are thinking, but no one will say it. That Valentine has Clary. I know Jace is thinking it, but he probably doesn't want to admit it to himself.
"Look, Jace." her mother says. "I, along with other members of the Conclave, believe that Valentine may have taken Clary with him. And as you know, all attempts to track him have been unsuccessful. But that doesn't mean we will give up the search for her."
I look back at Jace in time to see him lift his head and his eyes harden in suspicion. "Yeah, sure they will keep searching for her." he spits back at her. "After all, she is just an untrained shadowhunter who just so happens to be Valentine's daughter. We all know how the Clave feels about Valentine's children. The Inquisitor made that very clear."
"He does make a valid point, mom." I put in. "We can't exactly trust the Clave to believe what they say when it comes to Valentine's children. You saw how the Inquisitor was willing to kill Jace in order to prove a point to Valentine."
Maryse places a hand on the back of her neck and walks over to sit in Hodge's old desk. She knows we are right about the Clave but just doesn't want to say it out loud. If they won't look for her, then we will. I mean, I kind of owe her. She took a pack of wolves to Renwick's and fought off Forsaken to save Jace. The least I can do is repay the favor.
Just as I am about to say so, Jace stands up and crosses the room to the desk. "What if I told you a reason why the Clave would want to find her." he says fervently. "Gave them a reason not to give up." His gaze is locked on Maryse and is intense.
"What are you talking about, Jace?" I say as I glance to Alec for an explanation. He looks back at me looking just as confused and shrugs his shoulders. Jace looks as if he doesn't really want to say whatever he is about to say.
Maryse is now leaning forward with both of her hands on the desk waiting for whatever grand idea Jace has now.
"I know why that boat fell apart the way it did." Jace says without breaking his intense eye contact with mom. "Clary is special."
"Yes. We all know what Clary means to you, Jace." Maryse says.
"No. You're not listening." he snaps back at her. "When we went to the Seelie court, the Seelie Queen told me and Clary that we were Valentine's little experiments. I didn't think anything of it then because I thought that she was just being a crazy bitch like she always is, but now, I think she might be right."
This snaps Alec to attention. He bolts upright and walks over to the desk to stand next to his parabatai. "He did jump 20 feet straight in the air to get out of that Malachai Configuration." Alec says with conviction. "And the Seelie Queen did say that."
"She also made that Fearless rune at Luke's." I add in. I glance over at Alec to see him turn three shades of red as he remembers just how we figured out the rune worked.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute." Maryse says as she holds up her hands in an attempt to figure out what is going on. "What on earth is everyone talking about? What Fearless rune? There is no Fearless rune."
Jace looks back at Maryse. "Now that Clary created one, there is." he replies watching as she furrows her brow in confusion. "Clary drew and Open rune onto the hull of the ship. Except it wasn't an ordinary Open rune. It was amplified to do what you saw it do with the boat. It tore it to pieces."
I watch as my mom's face unfreezes out of the shocked mask she was wearing and she grabs the phone off of the desk and dials a number. As the phone is ringing, she looks back at Jace and says,
"Are you sure of what you saw, Jace?" He nods in reply. "Then you, Alec and Isabelle need to tell this to the Clave."