Prologue
The mug shattered, causing an explosion of glass and hot liquid on the kitchen floor.
I cursed my clumsiness, jumping out of the way what was once my cup of tea. That probably woke the whole house up. And by whole house I mean one person and a dog. Though I suppose it serves me right for getting up in the middle of the night, once again. Soon enough, as I had expected, I heard the light footsteps of Aurora on the stairs.
"Rosalie?" she called in a groggy voice. "What are you doing up?"
I heard her approaching the kitchen. Aurora was quite a young woman: almost twenty- nine. Her birthday was in May and we were both really excited. Every time we had a celebration our elderly neighbour would bring us the most amazing red velvet cupcakes. Aurora loved to eat, although you couldn't tell that by looking at her.
Aurora was thin, kind of like me but less curvy. She had waist long, strawberry blonde hair and green eyes which looked like swirling orbs to me. I loved the girl to bits.
She walked into the kitchen, but stopped as she saw the shattered mess on the ground. Her eyes widened the slightest bit but I still noticed. I tended to see the details in people; it was one of my gifts.
"I'm sorry I woke you," I said softly before she could get a word in, "I'll clean this up, you can go back to sleep." I bent down and started cleaning the mess up by picking up the bigger bits of glass.
"Rosalie, you haven't been sleeping for weeks," she knelt down cautiously next to where I sat and put a hand on my shoulder. "Let me clean up, you need all the rest you can get,"
"Thanks, Aurora, but I'm just not tired," I smiled slightly, but unconvincingly. We sat there together for a while, picking up the glass and making quick work of the sticky puddle. Only the clinking of the broken mug broke the silence between us.
"I'm going to talk a walk," I said all of a sudden and rose from the ground, shoving the glass into the bin.
She stood up with me, a look of concern lining her face, "Rosalie, it's almost midnight; you know how sketchy this neighbourhood can get when you're alone at night." She followed me as I hurried around the kitchen, cleaning up the paper towels, which were covered in tea "Are you sure you'll be safe?"
"I'll be fine," I muttered, walking past her to get my jacket, "I always am,"
Feeling slightly guilty for leaving her without an explanation, though I knew she'd understand, I left her staring after me as the door closed in her face.
Aurora Storm was like the elder sister I never had, she was my only family and not even by blood. My mother left me when I was born. Her name was Celine; that's pretty much all I know about her or my family. No last name, no father, no life. That's all Aurora would tell me. Whenever the topic was brought up I got the same response: "You're mother was the kind of person who acted without thinking of the consequences. I don't think you're ready to hear all about her".
All I knew about my father was that he was a mundane. Celine was ashamed to have had a relationship with such an inferior person, so she gave me away to the only person she could trust.
Aurora had left the Shadow world to be able to have a normal life. She didn't care about being an outcast in her homeland. This made her the perfect candidate according to my mother, since she had no contact with any shadowhunters. Therefore, she had no way of spilling the beans about my mothers 'scandalous' actions.
Celine left me on her doorstep with a note, and then fled. I had been living with Aurora ever since.
And I'm not complaining. Although Aurora left the Shadow world, she still had her amazing demon fighting skills, so she passed them onto me so that I could protect myself.
"It's a dark world out there." She would tell me at one of our training sessions when I was a child, "And yours will be darker than any other child's. Their monsters will be under their beds. Yours will be on the end of that blade,"
Aurora was good. So good, that soon I became an expert in everything: bows, crossbows, seraph blades, the katana, daggers, guns and many other weapons of all colours, shapes and sizes.
My signature weapons, however, are the throwing knives. Not to brag, but I have a killer aim. I created my own knife design when I was thirteen. It was pretty ordinary, except it had a small sapphire gem at the hilt: the same colour as my eyes.
Despite my family issues, I had a pretty good life with Aurora. I was content.
Everything just got better when I met my best friend, Sienna Grey. We met in fifth grade; one of the popular girls had just poured chocolate milk down Sienna's new AC/DC top.
I don't exactly know why I did what I did: it was either because of her top, which I thought was pretty cool, or because I hated the stupid bitch that did it. Nevertheless I threw a right hook straight into the popular girls nose, breaking it.
Ever since then, Sienna and I had been inseparable. I didn't even care that she got me sent to the headmaster's office that one time. We did everything together; she dragged me onto her very frequent shopping trips, I played my guitar and sang while she did her homework, to help her relax. She was the only person who ever called me 'Rose'.
However, last month we were on our way back from our trip to the VMA music awards. We had always talked about seeing them, so I had brought her tickets as a birthday present. We were just driving back from the airport.
It all happened so fast, but I still remember every single second. I looked away from the road for a few seconds to change the CD; the next thing I knew a car had hit us head on and we were spinning across the road straight into a tree.
I managed to survive the crash with a few broken bones and a severe gash across my side, which left a scar. But Sienna… she didn't make it.
It took five seconds to change the CD.
It took five minutes for the light to leave her eyes.
It took five hours to realise what I'd just done.
That's how I found myself standing in front of Sienna's grave, for the millionth time since her funeral last month. I had tried to banish all memory of the crash from my mind; I covered up the scar on my side with a tattoo of a rose with swirls coming out of it, in honour of Sienna's nickname for me.
I tried my best to focus on the happy memories of Sienna, but to no avail. Every time I closed my eyes I saw her covered in blood, pale faced and limp in the passengers seat.
I found the most peace in talking to her grave, as if by some miracle she could actually hear me. As if by some miracle she might actually talk back.
The eerie grey fog hung low over the graveyard, cocooning around the stones like a serpent. The moon illuminated the night, shining profoundly against the sombre blackness of the sky.
I stood staring at the writing on the grave. Sienna's name, year of birth and death, and the quote I had personally picked out for her, at her mother's request.
"And in the night of death hope sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing"
I walked forward, closer to her gravestone. I closed my eyes and pictured her face. Strawberry blonde hair, green eyes, 5 foot 3", and the most amazing rosy cheekbones I had ever seen.
I took a deep breath and opened my eyes.
"Hey Sienna," I said softly. "I know, it's like the hundredth time I've been here, you're probably getting sick of me," I sunk to the ground, leaning against the stone behind me.
"I've missed you," I continued, "I've been kinda sitting around all week, you know? It's like I'm waiting for you to march into my room, turn off Netflix and drag me to a Macy's," I chuckled slightly at the memory. Aside from the crash, that was the first memory that popped into my head whenever conversation turned to Sienna.
"I got accepted into Princeton University, just like we wanted," I told her, " but I'm not going to go. It's just not the same when we've been making plans to go together for years,"
That was true. We had both been really excited for university. I told Sienna that whatever happens after we graduate from high school won't matter, as long as we're together. Well, see how that turned out.
"I'm probably just going to stick with demon hunting," I admitted. I told Sienna everything, so naturally I couldn't keep my biggest secret a secret.
"I need to get my mind off of everything that's happened and give myself a real purpose. I'd be able to find a place where everyone's loved and lost,"
I hoped that was true. All I wanted was for shadowhunters to be different than mundanes. All I wanted was to be able to stop saying, "I'm fine" or "yes, I'm much better now". All I wanted was for people to stop asking, "how are you?" when they don't really want an answer.
Maybe the Shadow world was the right place to be after all. I could definitely survive it; thanks to Aurora I was one of the best shadowhunters of my generation, though no one knew it.
Just as I was warming up to the idea, I came across one minor obstacle: my brother.
Yes, on top of all the other crap you just heard about, I have a brother. When I turned nine Aurora decided it was time to tell me about him. His name is Jace Wayland and he lives in the New York Institute. I've been to see him a few times, but only on Aurora's request.
I despised my brother. To be fair to him, he didn't do anything wrong. I just found it completely despicable that Celine would give me away to a disgraced shadowhunter but still manage to keep her 'golden boy'.
Her 'golden boy' who, might I add, is the product of a one night stand with a married shadowhunter. She managed hide away with him so that no one would find out about her disgrace. However, she did give him a Wayland ring so he was taken in with the Lightwoods when she died.
So, suffice to say, my brother is only a reminder of my manipulative, slut mother who went as far as to rub the fact that she didn't love me in my face.
I wanted absolutely nothing to do with my brother.
That definitely ruled out the whole shadowhunter idea. Guess I was back to square one.