In the midst of the battle, I hear my voice being shrieked into the air in a high-pitched voice laced all throughout with agony. Somehow I recognize it immediately, thought I hardly know her. The mundie. Clary.
A rush of adrenaline comes with the fierce desire to protect the small girl, and I manage to slaughter all the forsaken surrounding me in two quick movements. As I look in the direction that the scream came from, I see through the thinning crowd of forsaken (most of them have been killed already and there aren't too many left) a group of them, all gathered around something, seemingly beating it mercilessly. I also see Alec and Izzy, who are closer, trying to force their way through to save the girl. I sprint towards them and kill the forsaken that stand in my way of Clary, who is still surrounded on three sides, still being beaten. With Alec and Izzy's help, I manage to kill off the rest of the forsaken while the small redhead stands in shock. I've never seen someone look so bloody and destroyed, and yet still alive. She looks like she should be dead.
Once we're sure the forsaken are taken care of, we all turn to the girl, who is standing a few feet from me and a little to my right. I don't even see the forsaken that comes running past me towards her. I do, however, see that she doesn't react in time as the thing pulls a knife, and drives it into her stomach. I don't see Izzy kill the forsaken, but I hear the slice as her whip tightens around its throat and pops its head off. My eyes are focused on Clary. Time seems to slow down. Her wide green eyes travel down to her stomach, and my gold ones follow. I see a dark stain spreading on her white shirt from the small knife that sticks out of her. I see shaking hands somehow manage to remove it and drop it onto the ground. I look back up at her face just as she looks up, and we make eye contact. Her open mouth seems to pour blood as she takes a shuddering breath—and falls forward.
I am there before she hits the ground, catching her and holding her against me. I vaguely hear Alec and Izzy calling my name as I run to the stairs and lay her down on the second step up. I kneel down and quickly take out my stele. I didn't hear my adoptive siblings come up behind me but I feel Izzy's hand on my shoulder. I am conscious of how much my hand shakes as I reach out to iratze Clary. She looks so small and defeated as she lays there, blood pooling underneath her, leaking from her mouth, staining everything red.
"Jace," Alec says. He puts his hand over mine on the stele and takes it from me. He peels her shirt up. It seems to cling to her skin, glued down by her blood. I watch as Alec sets the stele to Clary's stomach, tracing the lines of the rune I know so well just above her wound. The injury is slightly above her belly button, but off to the side a little bit. It looks like a dark, reddish-black hole. A stark contrast to the milky white skin of her stomach.
Alec slips the stele back into my pocket, but I don't pay much attention. I keep my eyes on the fiery-haired girl lying in front of me. I watch her intently, ignoring Isabelle and Alec's attempts to bring me back to them. I barely hear them anyway. It seems like ages that I've been watching the girl before I see her eyelids flicker. A wave of relief washes over me. Soon enough, I see her wide green eyes staring back into mine. I resist the urge to put my arms around her as I remember seeing the light leaving those eyes just moments ago.
"Clary," I breathe out, in a breath I wasn't aware I was holding.
She opens her mouth as if to say something, and winces, clutching her stomach. "Shh," I whisper, surprising myself with the gentleness in my voice. I'm almost positive I've never spoken to anyone like this before. But I can't seem to help it at the moment, so I just pretend like I am speaking like this on purpose. Maybe I am.
She relaxes back on the step, looking up at me with huge, watery eyes. I can tell she is ready to cling to every word I say. I have a high pain threshold, so I truly can't imagine how much pain she must be in right now. She looks exhausted. Though she is a shadowhunter and replaces blood at a faster rate than normal humans, she still lost quite a bit. More than I've ever seen anyone lose at one time. Because it wasn't just the stab wound from the one forsaken. It was the beating she took from a whole crowd of them. In my mind's eye I see again the cluster of once-human things. There was a whole group of them, gathered around her, beating her senseless.
I feel something I've never felt before in the pit of my stomach. It spreads to my throat and remains there in the form of a large lump. It's behind my eyes too, causing them to burn.
I avert my eyes from hers, looking down to her stomach to check its progress. It's still quite bloody, but it looks better than before. Blood is pouring from the wound no more. And it doesn't look like a black hole. I use my sleeve to wipe away the blood that hasn't yet dried, taking care not to make her hurt any more than she currently is. When I'm finished and I look back at her, she has her eyes closed. I would say she looked almost content, if it weren't for the knife slashes and blood that flaw her pretty little face. Battle scars.
"Jace," I hear Alec behind me. I hear his phone snap shut. "Jace."
Managing to tear my eyes away from Clary, I reluctantly turn toward him. He looks almost sick. I wonder why. He hasn't been hurt at all. At least not visibly. And I don't imagine he's too worried about Clary. He doesn't seem to like her all that much. Actually, he seems to really not like her for some reason. I push down the rush of anger I feel and try to focus on what he's saying.
"We need to get her cleaned up. The conclave is coming to investigate the place. That was the largest group of forsaken to have ever been seen in one place in New York. Hodge asked if the mundane was OK. He said the Clave would be very angry with us if we got the mundane hurt, so I told him she was OK for the most part—"
I cut him off, "'OK for the most part'? She was just about dead! I don't care that Hodge would've been mad, have you seen her!? She's been practically torn to pieces, how's she supposed to pretend that she's sustained merely a few minor injuries when-?"
I am cut off by a noise behind me. Clary. I turn around. She speaks. "I'll do it," she says weakly. And it's obvious she has no idea how brave she is.
-0o-
Alec and Izzy leave us to get some wet washcloths and basically anything else that may be of use from Clary's neighbor, Madame Dorothea. I watch Clary like a hawk, as if I'm afraid that anything could come along at any moment and worsen her pain. She looks like a porcelain doll, with her small stature and pale skin. A porcelain doll that's been harshly mistreated I think as my eyes are drawn to the cuts that stand out all over her face.
After being gone merely three minutes at the most, Alec and Izzy return, followed by Madame Dorothea, who is carrying a briefcase-looking something that I'm guessing is full of medical supplies. She sits down next to me, so she is looking straight down at Clary's face. She opens the kit and sure enough, it harbors countless medications, ointments, bandages, and anything else you could think of to treat a sick or injured person. She takes out a cylindrical container and unscrews the lid. It smells pleasant, like the air outside just after it rains. She dips a stubby finger into the petroleum-looking substance and begins lightly applying it to Clary's face. She doesn't even flinch. I think she's asleep. She looks quite peaceful.
As Madame Dorothea rubs the fragrant medicine on Clary's face, the marks seem to instantly vanish, as if by magic. "Wow," I say, "What is that stuff?"
"Nothing of your concern," she says casually, still rubbing the stuff onto Clary's face.
"But-"
Before I can finish my sentence, there is a noise outside. The Conclave is here. Madame Dorothea jumps at the sound of them. She stops what she's doing and quickly begins packing up her supplies. There are still scratches all over Clary's face. She healed the absolute worst of them, but not all of them. Not even close to all of them.
"I'm not in good standing with the Clave and I'd prefer not to run into them," she mumbles before taking off and slamming the door of her apartment.
Clary opens her eyes.
"How's your face feel?" I ask.
"I've been better," she says with a small smile.
I smile too, enjoying the fact that she's not acting as if sustaining injuries such as this is the end of the world. Most girls, especially those who have grown up in the mundane world, who do not know pain, would think it really was.
Alec and Isabelle greet the Conclave as they burst through the door and pour in, weapons at the ready.
"Quick, they can't see that you're too hurt," I say, urgently.
"Ok, sorry for being in pain," she says, edgily, as she sits up and bites her bottom lip to keep from crying out. I feel a twinge of guilt, but I can't think about that now. If they see that we let Clary get hurt this bad, they will take her away from us and lock her up somewhere "safe" where we might never see her again. Not to mention we'll be in HUGE trouble. I don't think they would go so far as to exile us from the Clave, but bringing mundanes (or at least someone they believe to be mundane) out on missions is very much illegal. But that detail seems hardly important now.
I hold out a hand to help her stand up. She gives me the same look she gave me earlier when I offered the same help to her, but this time I figure out what the look means. The hesitance that is barely visible in the bright eyes. Pride. She reminds me a little of myself. This hurt and yet still almost too proud to accept so much as a hand up.
"Take it, it's not offered often enough to be refused," A flicker of annoyance flits across her face, and then she makes eye contact with me. I suddenly feel quite exposed. I feel like she can read me. She seems to see this, and reaches out her hand, slipping it into mine. It feels small and cold. Yet somehow, even given the current situation, it feels right.
