Chapter two- Anger issues
Before I stood up and hugged him. Yes, I hugged him. Na I'm just kidding, I really punched him in the jaw…For knocking me over. Funny as it may sound, I really don't like it when I get pushed around, even though I wasn't technically pushed around. I let this be a special case since instead of being pushed around, I was pushed down. Anyway, Jace staggered backwards and held a hand up to his jaw where my knuckles connected with skin.
"Are you serious?" Jace yelled at me, I shrugged, "You come here when the suns hardly up, dump freezing water on my face, record the whole thing, and punch me in the face!"
I shrugged again, "Hey, what can I say, I'm a hopeless romantic." I giggled at how bad that sounded, since nothing was romantic about any of those things. But, hey, I don't really care.
All the sudden two other people's laughter filled the room. I looked over to see Izzy and her older brother Alec laughing. Alec looked a lot like Isabelle, only a male version, with shorter hair, and about two inches taller. Unlike Isabelle, Alec looked like the type of person who would rather hide in the shadows, and not be seen.
"I don't even know who you are and I already like you." Alec said looking at me in awe, "First of all, no one's ever dumped water on Jace at this time of day. Second of all, no one's ever got it recorded. By the way can I have a copy of that? And third of all, I don't think I've ever seen someone punch Jace in the face while not training, especially a girl." I grinned at Alec, who was still trying not to laugh.
I turned back around to Jace, who looked like he was either trying very hard not to kill all three of us right now, or was very constipated at the moment. I choose to believe the latter.
"You could at least apologize for dumping water on my face and punching me." He said.
"I will when you apologize for making me fall." I replied, cocking my hip and placing my hands on either side of them.
Jace took a shaking breath and mutter something about. "evil redheads" before saying, "Ok, I'm sorry for making you fall even though you're a shadowhunter and you should have enough grace to not fall over."
My eyes instantly narrowed, "And I'm sorry, my fist just magically connected with your face and I had absolutely no reason on the planet of earth to do that, so now I will worship the ground to walk on. All bow to the mighty Jace." I said my voice dripping with sarcasm. Isabelle started giggling, Alec shook his head back and forth grinning, and Jace, well Jace stared at me like he was deciding on whether he should kill me right there or burst out laughing hysterically. Personally I hope it's the latter cause it'd save Alec an Izzy from cleaning up the unnecessary mess.
Finally, he looked me in the eye and said, "Fine, even though that was the worst fake apology ever, I forgive you. Now, can you dress up in a short nurse's outfit and heal my wound? Then I'll take you to the training room and see what you've got."
I smacked him upside the head and said, "No, but I will put an itraze on your jaw." I took out my stele and put my left hand on his face to hold him still and felt a spark of electricity run up my arm. Ignoring the spark I drew the itraze on his face. "Now take me to the training room. Izzy? Alec? You guys coming?"
"Sure, Alec and I would love to see you whip Jace physically, since you do it so well verbally." Izzy said excitement in her voice.
Jace rolled his eyes and said, "Whatever." before heading out the door, not even checking to see if we were following him. Asswipe. I started down the hallway and caught up with him before I realized we were walking back to his room. "Let me change and wash my hair real quick. Wait out here." With that, he turned around and walked into his room, closing the door behind him.
I leaned against the wall across from his door and sank to the ground. I sat there for a moment before I realized something, he didn't need to shower, and he was just going to get sweaty anyway, so why shower. Why not wait until after like I was? Two thoughts occurred to me, either he didn't think he would be sweating much against me or he needed a cold shower. Honestly, I hoped it was the first cause the latter scared the hell out of me.
About five minutes later Jace walked out and Izzy and Alec came walking down the hall. I stood up and without a word, we all walked to the training room.
The training room was huge, and I mean it literally. It was wide and about five stories tall. Targets lined the wall on the right to use for bow and arrows and knife throwing. A rock wall stood towering over everything else, going all the way up to the ceiling. Beams of all different heights stood on the left wall, and in the center were mats for combat. Off to the side, a door stood open, next to all the mats used to protect you from getting hurt on the wall, with what looked like a room full of weapons.
It took everything I had to not let my jaw drop. It was impressive. I didn't even wait for the others to ask what I wanted, I just ran straight for the weapons room looking at all the different kinds of daggers. Ever since I was little and I first started training, daggers had always been my favorite. Almost as if they were a part of me, it just felt right to hold on to them. Oh, man, I thought, I could live here and never leave now, this is heaven. To bad mom would come and yell at me.
I was so enveloped in my own little dagger world, that I didn't notice someone else entering the weapons room, "You know, you look like a kid at Christmas that just got a puppy. It's kinda cute minus the deadly weapons and everything."
I whirled around to see Jace leaning against the door frame, a smirk on his face. "You know it's rude to interrupt someone, especially when they have their favorite weapon in their hand." I replied, picking up a long dagger and twirling it between my fingers.
Jace raised his hands shaking them with a look of mock fear on his face, "Oooh, I'm so scare-" the dagger in my hand flew across the room and landed an inch from his crotch. He was still looking down in shock when I walked over to him and put my mouth near his ear and said, "You better be scared." Then I backed up and took the dagger from where it was and said, "Come one. Pick your weapon and lets have a go." With that, I walked out the room, dramatically swaying my hips, knowing he was watching me.
When I turned around I found Jace staring at the spot where my butt should have been and laughed. He looked up when he heard me laughing and narrowed his eyes. "It isn't nice to toy with teenage hormones you know."
"Yes well, you make it so tempting, I simply can't resist." I replied. His eyes widened and I heard Isabelle and Alec try to hide their laughs by coughing. Oh this will be fun, was the last thought that crossed my mind before Jace lunged at me. Hastily, I jumped to the side, but not before he caught hold of me and took me down with him. He landed on top of me, and pulled his angel blade out and held it up against my throat.
"My, my, my, that was to easy." Jace said with a smirk on his face.
"Yes it was." I said, Jace looked confused, and when he realized what was about to happen, it was a little too late. I hooked my leg around him and mustered all the strength I could before I flipped us over and stood up, jumping away from him. "Come on, Jace. You didn't think it'd be that easy, did you?"
Jace just huffed and lunged at me again, but I was expecting that and managed to side step it and kick him in the shin. It was like a game, of cat and mouse, only this time the mouse would win. Jace acted like I didn't fracture his leg, or almost dislocate his shoulder, and gave him lots of cuts and bruises, though I will admit I will have m fair share of bruises, and tried to punch me, which he did. I felt the sting and the pain on the right side of my face and my hand flew up the cover it. When I looked up Jace was looking at my guiltily, and I decided to use that to my advantage. I made my eyes start to water and then I felt the tears stream down my face. Jace looked like he wanted nothing more than to apologize and took a step forward. It was in that moment that I took my free hand and connected to his face, right in the same that I had punched him in earlier. I noticed that he didn't even put a healing rune on it, so now it was probably broken.
While Jace looked shocked, I took the opportunity to shove him as hard as I could and made him fall the ground. Right as he was falling, he shot his arm out and pulled me with him, somehow managing to land over me, making me on the bottom. "I win." Was all he said, before he started to put his knife away. I put my hand up to his bruised cheek and rubbed circles around it. His breath hitched and I smiled, flipping us over so that I was straddling him in a way that made it impossible for escape. My dagger gleamed up against his throat and I leaned down and said, "I don't think so."
I stood up and walked over to Alec and Isabelle. They looked at me in awe and I smirked and said, "So, what did you think?"
"I think you a goddess sent from heaven in order to torture Jace to hell. I mean, you were freaking awesome, nobody's ever beat Jace before and definitely not like that." Was what Alec said.
Isabelle said, "Clary, if you were a guy, I'd kiss you, you've gotta teach me how to do that, I can't even think about moving as fast as Jace, and you made it look so simple."
"Practice my friend. Practice and a lot of chocolate." I said, remembering when I first started training.
"Chocolate?" Isabelle, Alec, and Jace said, who was still across the room.
"Chocolates a girls best friend." I replied shrugging my shoulders. "I'm going to shower now, I'm all sweaty. Iz, can you show me a room, I think I'm going to stay the night here."
Izzy nodded and grabbed my elbow pulling me out of the room and started walking down the many hallways towards a random room. "My room is down the hall to left, and Jace and Alec's are down the right. You won't be able to miss any of our rooms, I mean, you've already seen Alec and Jace's doors and well, let's just say mine's impossible to miss." I nodded and walked into the room shutting the door behind me.
The room wasn't fantastic or anything. The walls were white and bare. There was a dresser with a t.v. on it, a bed, and a fireplace that looked like it hadn't been used in several years. On the right side of the room, there was a door that looked like it led to the bathroom. I walked over to the door and sure enough it was a bathroom. It was nice too. The walls were also white, but the curtain for the shower was blue as was some minor things like the stack of fresh towels on one of the shelves, so the room looked simple yet classy.
I turned the water on and shrugged of my clothes. I looked at myself in the mirror and boy did I look ugly. One of my eyes was swollen from when Jace hit me, I had bruises running down my body from falling so hard on the mats, and Jace's weight and grip on me certainly didn't help. I stepped into the shower and let the hot water loosen my muscles and sting my bruises. It felt like five minutes but I know it was longer than that. After, god knows how long, I stepped out of the shower and pulled a towel over my body. I dried myself off and slipped into my sweaty clothes, because I really didn't care, and stepped out of the bathroom.
When I walked out of the bathroom the, I noticed that the room had been used before, and recently. The bed looked like it had been sat on and maybe someone feel asleep on it, and the dresser had fingerprint in the dust near the t.v. I walked over to the t.v and turned it on. The first thing I realized was that whoever was last in here was watching a movie because it was on DVD. The second thing I realized was that I needed to turn on the DVD player. It seemed like someone had kept the disc in there, and when the screen popped up, I realized it was a family video.
The video took place in the kitchen and Alec, Isabelle, and Jace were all sitting at the table, along with and older women who looked like Izzy, so I assumed it was their mother. They were all eating spaghetti and laughing with each other. Alec, Izzy, and Jace all looked around ten. Just then, Jace picked up his food and threw it at Alec, and it land on the side of his face. Alec looked furious but, Izzy, Jace and their mom were laughing like crazy. That was, until Alec threw some of his spaghetti at Izzy, and a spaghetti war started. I watched as the movie carried on for a while. They were all in the training room, Izzy and Alec sparing, when I felt the presence of someone else.
I whipped my head around only to find a blue, fat cat. The cat jumped up on the bed and started rubbing my side. I brought my hand up and started petting it. The cat purred like there was no tomorrow and I started laughing. All the sudden, I felt something shift by the doorway and turned around to see who. Jace stood, leaning against the door, his hair wet from another shower, and he changed from his training clothes to regular clothes. Jeans, and a white shirt. Wow, I thoughtsarcastically, he should be a fashion designer with that style.
"I see you found Church." He said.
"Yeah, he came running in here, jumped on the bed and started purring."
"Well, that's good."
"Why's that good?"
"Because, it means he likes you and the more he like you the better you are."
"Oh, well doesn't he like everyone?"
"HA! Fat chance of that. No, he only like me, and now well, you."
I snorted, "You? Why would he like you?"
"Because I'm simply glorious and it's impossible not to like me."
I literally fell to the ground laughing.
"What's so funny?" he asked sounding mock hurt.
"It's just… you are… impossible…and not…in a… good way."
"Oh, well I'll just have to change your opinion won't I?"
I narrowed my eyes. "No. Don't even think about it."
He shrugged his shoulders. "Too late, now come on, were all going out to lunch."
"Wait what time is it?"
He looked down at his invisible watch. "Time for you to get a watch."
"You don't even have a watch!" I half shouted at him.
"Yes, well, I don't ever ask for the time." With that he walked out the door, but stopped when I hadn't moved yet. "Are you coming or what?" Or what, I thought. "Yes, darling I'm coming just let me get my shoes on." He narrowed his eyes, but stood there and waited while I put my converse on. If I ever had to wear any shoes I'd wear sneakers, especially my black ones, because I wrote all over them, and drew on them.
I walked out of the door and followed him to the elevator. Alec and Izzy were already there so we all walked into the elevator and down the steps and to the front door. Then we started walking to a good restaurant that I have been to many times, Taki's. It's been my favorite restaurant since I discovered it after chasing a naked wolf down the street because he was drunk and asked if I would do him for five bucks. Ahhh, good memories. I thought to myself.
We walked into the restaurant and went to the back of the room and found a booth away from everyone else. I slid into the booth and I was shortly followed by Isabelle, while Jace was across from me next to Alec. Just then the waitress Kaelie, who I absolutely hate because she always dresses like a slut or even a prostitute.
"So, what can I get-" she stopped as soon as she saw Jace and I swear that women took her hand and pulled her already to low shirt even lower, making me snort. "JACE! It's been so long since I've seen you here."
"Erm, we saw you two days ago Kaelie." He replied.
"Two day to long. Now what can I get you all?"
We all ordered off the back of the menu since no one wanted to eat anything raw, drink blood, or do something stupid like wear a Viking's hat, while running up and down the street in only a loincloth shouting "I LOVE TO FRENCH KISS MY BEST FRIENDS DOG!" I realized something right then. What's with all these people who are running naked down the street or pretty damn close to naked?
"So Clary how old are you?" Alex asked, just for the heck of it.
I shrugged, "I'll be seventeen in four days."
"Oh interesting, now tell me, why hasn't the Clave ever heard of you?"
"ALEC! Don't be rude, there's no need for it." Isabelle smacked him upside the head.
"First of all, OW Izzy that really hurt and second of all I was just curious." Alec said while rubbing the back of his head.
"Guys, it's fine, I'll explain everything when we go back, I just don't want to talk about it out in the open where anyone can hear us." I replied before those two broke out into a fight.
Right then, Kaelie came back with our food, but when she went to give Jace his food, she leaned over way more than necessary and gave us all a full view of what's inside her shirt.
"Serious, bitch, some of us want to eat our food, not puke it up over the ground because your too slutty to save that kind of stuff for the bedroom." I said, my anger building up. I mean seriously! We're at a restaurant and she's trying to seduce someone, making us loose our appetites.
She narrowed her eyes at me and said, "What's got your panties in to knot?"
"Ha, like you would know what "panties" are." I said, using air quotes around panties. "You probably only wear thongs, or no, let me guess…" I put my hand up as it to stop her from talking. "You don't even wear underwear, and I can also guess it's because your to much of a hoe, to realize, that, that's just gross and a major turn off for most guys."
She just huffed, "You suck!" and started to walk away.
"And you swallow." I did the "duh" look and raised my shoulders as if to say "why are we pointing out the obvious?" and started digging into my hamburger, while Izzy and Alec tried to stop laughing. Jace stared at me curiously. "Are you done staring at me? It's becoming embarrassing."
"Why'd you do that?" he asked, sounding genuinely curious.
"What?"
"That, what you just did." He gestured to where Kaelie was standing taking someone else's order while shooting glares at me.
"I don't like people like that. They always think that they can do whatever they want. Plus I don't like it when someone let's me have a look down there shirt, cause it seriously ruins my appetite." I said while shrugging, then I went back to eating.
"God! That was so funny! Did you see the look on her face when you said that? One word," Izzy said then paused giving us a chance to guess.
"Constipated?" I guessed. Everyone started laughing again, even Jace this time.
"No, priceless, though I like the way you are thinking." Isabelle said.
With that, we ate our lunch in piece, with the occasional comment inserted here and there. It wasn't until Kaelie came back that I noticed she had pulled her shirt down even more.
"Oh for the love of all that is holy," I said, getting out of the booth. "Get a real shirt. One that covers your damn boobs, no one but Jace, probably wants to see them, so why don't you two go do your quickie in the backroom, and lets go."
Alec, Isabelle, and even Jace started laughing while Kaelie looked at me like she wanted to slap me. Hey, maybe she did, but I'd didn't really care. Then she actually did slap me in the face, and I was seriously pissed. "Really, you're that lame, you slap me in the middle of a restaurant just because I pointed out the obvious. If you were to do anything at all, you should've thanked me." Then I started walking to the door, but before I left I said, "Oh, and you might want to pick your jaw up off the floor, it's not very attractive."
When we got back home, we all went to the library so we share stories. Yay, story time! My, not so favorite thing in the world. I let them talk first, and they told me about their lives. They had a younger brother named Max, and both parents, which I'll admit made me a little jealous. They all are at Idris for official business, and wouldn't be back for a while. They lived and ran the institute or well their parents do, and they always go to pandemonium to hunt demons. Alec and Jace talked about how, Isabelle can't cook for the life of her, and she brought out her whip, it took me almost ten minutes to calm her down. They all reminded me of the song "We are Family", poor Izzy though, she's the only girl. Jace moved here when he was ten and when he was twelve the lightwoods adopted him, he didn't talk about his real parents though, just that their names were Celine and Stephen Herondale and that his mother died giving birth to him, while his father was stabbed to death fighting a werewolf who had been naughty.
"So, that's our story, now, what's yours?"
"Oh, boy, this may take awhile. Don't freak out though, because some of it's bad and some of it's just outright disgusting, ok?" I said, nodding to them. They nodded back to me so I started my story.
"Ok, let's travel back in time, to a time when evil was right around the shadowhunter corner. Valentine." Izzy gasped and I nodded understanding her gesture. "It all started back when he was in school. My mom used to talk about him a lot, she said he was the most popular guy at school. Everyone liked him, and at the same time, they hated him. Luke, my mom's best friend and boyfriend, was his closest friend. She said something about how he helped deal with his "problems", not that I care, though I assume it's because when Luke was nine, he was bitten by a werewolf. Anyway, my mom fell in love with him and when she was eighteen and he was nineteen, they got married.
"You all know that Valentine was the leader of the circle. He caused the uprising, blah, blah, blah. Well what no one but him knew was that he captured a demon to inject in my mom when she was pregnant." They all gasped. Oh right, they don't know I have a brother. I thought. "Oh. No not me," they all let out the breath I didn't know they were holding. "It was my brother he was older than me. What my father didn't know was that it was a Greater demon that had shape shifted into a minor demon so he wouldn't do anything drastic. Well the bad thing about putting that demon blood in Jonathon, especially greater demon blood, was that when it mixes with angel blood, it starts to kill the person from the inside out. The process is so slow, apparently no one, not even John, knew he was slowing dying until the day he stopped breathing and his body was set on fire.
"Anyway, when John was two, my mom got pregnant again, with me, she was so depressed because she knew what Valentine did and wanted to run, but she couldn't. Not just yet. So she stayed and while she wasn't looking he would slip her angel blood, from god knows where and so I have some extra angel blood that comes in handy."
"When the uprising happened my mother couldn't stay, so, her and Luke fled to the first place they could think of. Tennessee. Then they moved to Virginia, and eventually made their way to New York, where they met Madame Dorthea. She owns the apartment complex me and my mom live in. She took us in and has been helping hide us, like she does for downworlders too, ever since. Magnus Bane, he puts spells on the apartment complex every couple of years to keep them strong. You guess have met Mag's right?" I didn't let them answer though.
"Well anyway, my mom thought it would be good to keep me out of the Clave, but still in the Shadow world. So, she trained me herself. With the exception of Luke, who would help train, and get me the weapons I wanted. She didn't want the Clave to know of my existence in case Valentine had some inside men. Valentine, he's been looking none stop for my mother and me and he won't stop until we're found. No matter what, we can't hide from him."
"Ok, now about me. My favorite color is blue, I'm in love with three songs, Stutter, Chasing Cars, and The Art of Falling. I like Rock music more, but my mom never lets me go to rock concerts so I don't have any shirts, and she also won't let me go to a record store. Can you believe that? Well I can't, my favorite movie is The Notebook." They all stared at me in shock. "Kidding, my favorite movie is actually The Hangover. My favorite book is No Safety in Numbers. I like Chinese, and Italian, I love to draw, and write stupid stories, and when I get mad, I find the nearest pillow and scream into it." I finished. "Oh, one more thing… Valentine, well as you can probably guess, is my father." They all stared at me, none of them knowing what to say. Jace was the first to regain his composer and when he did, he looked at me with kind, understanding eyes. Eventually so did Isabelle and Alec. "What? No yelling, no calling me a traitor, or telling me to get out?" I said in disbelief.
"No, we're not going to kick you out, or yell at you, or call you a traitor because we shouldn't. You just said yourself that you and your mom have been hiding from Valentine since before you were born, so why would we yell at you?" Jace said.
"I don't you could've thought I was lying and now I'm just trying to get closer to you all so I can kill you." I said shrugging, but even as I said those words, I knew they weren't true, I could never hurt these guys their the only ones I've ever told about who my father is.
"Na, you wouldn't do that, you like us too much." Alec said, I raised my eyebrows at him. "Anyway," he continued, "If you're his child doesn't that make you a Morgenstern?"
"Yes, technically, but we changed it to Fray so it'd be harder for us to find." I answered.
"Well I think that's enough for one day, don't you think?" Izzy said to no one in particular, "What time is it?"
Alec looked at his watch, ha he actually had a watch, I should really go to him for the time from now on. I thought. "It is one thirty."
"Alright, you," Izzy said, "Be at the door to my room in three hours."
"Why?"
"Because tonight, were going to Pandemonium." I didn't know whether to scream with joy or scream in fear of what Isabelle's gonna do to me, probably of fear. She walked off, and soon Alec did to, muttering something about glitter and sparkles, whatever that was. I looked over at Jace.
"Well, I'll be in my room, sleeping for the next three hours so wake me up when it's time for the torture."
Jace chuckled. "Will do, have fun sleeping beauty." He called as I walked out of the library.
I made my way down the hall and made it back to my room without getting lost too many times. When I walked in, I found some fresh clothes along with a bra, and underwear. Izzy. I put them on and climbed into bed. Not even five minutes later I was sound asleep letting darkness wash over me.
