TATTOOED CHAPTER 2

"Being Brave means to know something is scary, difficult, and dangerous, and doing it anyways, because the possibility of winning the fight is worth the change of losing it."

-Emilie Autumn

Jace's POV

Tuesday

I park my bike, walking around the school to the back football field, putting my stuff on the damp sidelines. I glance around, enjoying seeing the emptiness of the field, and downing my amazingly strong coffee.

I take a few minutes to stretch, before taking off down the cross-country path, staring down at my stopwatch. I push myself faster, and faster, thinking about last night, how I was attacked. And how I never want to be in that position again, to never feel that week again. As my feet pound harder and harder against the ground and my breathing becomes labored, my arm begins to burn, as if I am getting attacked all over again. I slam to a stop, reaching the football field, and stopping my watch.

I drop to my knees, pulling my bandage off and staring at the chards marks that have already began the healing process. In blotches, the wound is black, like a tattoo. It's cool to the touch and its no longer bleeding, while in other areas its still red and bleeding. What the hell is going on? I check my stopwatch, seeing that I shaves three minutes off my time. That's borderline impossible.

I stand up, starting my stopwatch again, talking off running. I push myself; the harder I run, the more my arm burns, the reed area turns black and black areas shine gold. Even though it hurts, I feel like energy is coursing through my veins, telling me to go faster, and giving me the extra burst I need to do so. I shave another minute off. I do this multiple more times until my mark is completely black and looks like a tattoo, and shines gold when I push myself. I go from running the course in twenty minutes, to running it in ten. Holy shit. I check my phone, and it says eight o'clock, which means I have an hour until school starts.

I enter school, dropping my bagel off in coaches room, before entering the locker room. I shower quickly, drying off and changing into black jeans and a white t-shirt, putting on my converse. I grab my backpack and exit the locker room, entering the buzzing hallway.

"Jace?" I hear from behind me to my left, and my teammate Sebastian comes over to me, clapping me on the shoulder, right above my wound, and I clench my jaw to keep from flinching.

"What's up?" I ask him and he laughs, "what's up, are you serious? Are you stupid or did you just forget that we have a football game tonight." Sebastian says to me and I sigh, shrugging, "I remember, my mind has just been somewhere else." I say and he nods, "get your head in the game Herondale."

Clary's POV

I walk into first period, looking around nervously. It's only my second day here, and lets just say that my first day wasn't exactly the best.

"Hi, I'm Isabelle Lightwood." A tall girl steps in front of me, blocking my way as I head attempt to head to a desk. She has long black hair and dark piercing eyes, and she gives me a small smile.

"Uh, I'm Clary." I say, expecting the conversation to end there, but her smile grows, "hi Clary, come sit with my boyfriend, Simon, and I." She leads me over, pointing to a next to her and diagonally behind her nerdy-looking boyfriend, "I'm Simon." He seems like more of the person I would spend time with by choice.

"Hey." I say a little more cheerfully.

"Are you new here?" Isabelle asks and I nod, "well you must come with Simon and I to the football game tonight. Football is a huge thing here, and being a new girl, it'd be a great way for you to meet people and get used to the school." Isabelle is quite forward, but it's nice that she invited me. I sigh, pursing my lips.

"Erm," I say and she gives me puppy dog eyes, "please come! There are no other girls in our friend group and you seem really cool." That sounds like bullshit to me. She is drop dead gorgeous, I bet she has a lot of girls crawling to be her friend.

"Uh, sure." I say and she beams, "here is my phone, give me your number." I cautiously take her phone, entering my number and handing it back to her.

"Alright, whose ready to learn chemistry? I'm coach Hodge, but you can address me as Coach." Coach says, just as the classroom door swings open, two guys walk in, "Jace, Alec, nice of you to join us. Take a seat." Coach points in our general direction.

I recognize the blonde guy from this morning at the diner. I clench my fist as he comes walking by me, following by his friend. Blonde boy sits directly behind me, while the boy with black hair sits next to Isabelle. The hairs on the back of my neck stand up, and I chew on the inside of my lower lip. He's dangerous. I can sense it, "hey Iz." Blonde boy, or Jace I assume, says, and Isabelle waves quietly to him.

"Hey Jace, and hey Alec." She addresses the black hairs boy with blue eyes. They are definitely related.

"Hey diner girl." Jace says to me and I turn around to look at him. My eyes jet to his bicep. He has been marked.

"Hello?" He says again and I whirl back around in my chair, looking back at Coach, "did I do something to you?" He asks loudly, but I ignore him.

"Jace!" Coach yells pit and Jace's eyes get peeled away from me, and his head snaps up, "shut up!"

"Sorry Coach." I feel Jace staring at me, causing all of my senses to bounce off the walls.

As soon as class is over, I race out as soon as possible, ignoring as Isabelle calls to me. I don't know why I sense so much danger from him, but I am afraid of him. He has to have a mark. That's the only thing that would make sense. But, I have never met another person with a mark.

I make my way to my next class, and than to lunch, I enter the café, planning to sit by myself, but I feel somebody latch onto my arm, causing panic to rise in my chest. I jump, ripping my arm from the persons grasp, I whirl around to see a stumbling Isabelle.

"Damn girl, you're strong." She says and I let out a nervous chuckle, "you have no idea." I say under my breath, "we are sitting outside, come on." She says, leading me out the back double door, which brings us to the courtyard. I spot Jace, Alec, Simon and two boys I don't know sitting on a table underneath a tree. Jace and I lock eyes, causing my hairs to stand up again, and I crunch my nose in disgust.

"Do you guys know each other?" Alec asks Jace as Isabelle and I walk over; I continue to watch Jace with a watchful eye.

"No. She serves me this morning at Taki's." Jace says, and Isabelle elbows me, bringing my attention away from glaring at Jace.

"Oh, what's your name?" Alec asks me as Isabelle sits me down next to her on a bench. I sit across from a guy with jet-black hair and black eyes.

"Clary." I say and the guy in front of me extends his hand to me, "I'm Sebastian." I shake it, feeling his pulse. Is he nervous? He shouldn't be. Does he know what I am? I may need to keep him from squealing.

"Ok, well I'm Alec." He says, pointing at himself, "and obviously you know Jace, Izzy, and Simon," he points at Sebastian, "now you know Seb," and he points to a sparkly boy with green eyes with silver eyeliner, "this is Magnus. My boyfriend."

"Hi." I say quietly, pulling out an apple.

"Are you new here?" Sebastian asks me and I nod, "yeah. I went to a private school in New York, but before I moved here, I loved in Virginia." I tell Sebastian, but everyone seems to be listening. I've practiced this cover story many times. I knew that eventually they would ask questions about where I came from.

The part about moving from Virginia was true, but the private school portion was utter bullshit. I was at a Psych Ward because my mom was, "going to get me the best help." She finally thought my screws were tight enough to send me back to school.

"Do you like it here?" Simon asks me and I shrug.

"I've been here for two days. There is still a lot to learn, and a lot to hate." I shoot Jace a covert side eye.

"You're friends with Kaelie, right?" Jace says and I narrow my eyes at him.

"Not really." I respond, not looking at him, and he shrugs.

"I was talking to her about you this morning and it just seemed like you two were friends." He says and I tense slightly at the sound of his voice.

"Why were you talking about me?" My defenses flair, my veins running hot.

"Easy killer. I just asked if you were new, and told her that you didn't seem to like me." He says, and before I can tell him that he's right, Sebastian cuts in, "thank God she didn't kiss the ground you walk on. It's not impossible for somebody not to like you." Everyone snickers but Jace and I, the two of us stare cautiously at each other.

Jace's POV

There is something about Clary that keeps pulling me towards her, even though we can all tell that Clary definitely doesn't feel the same way about me.

"Whatever Sebastian." I roll my eyes, snapping out of whatever trance Clary put me in, but she is still staring. I feel my arm start to burn and I hiss. Why now? What is going on? I place my hand over the mark, trying to calm it down, but it burns my hand, making me jump to my feel. I shake both my hand and my arm, trying to calm the burning sensation.

I see Clary's eyes flicker and clench her fist. I let out a groan when I notice everyone's eyes on me. I rock back and forth on my toes, "I'll be right back." I declare, running off towards the locker room. The pain is getting to be too much, worse then it was when I was running this morning. Something is seriously wrong with me. I let out a large yell, turning around and punching a wall, watching the hole form around my fist. Holy hell.

"Jace?" I here Alec call out and I clench my fist as he walks into the locker room, coming towards me, "are you ok?"

"No!" I yell out, dripping to my knees, gripping at my arm, scratching and tugging at my shirt.

"What's wrong?" He asks, pulling my sleeve of my shirt, showing himself my glowing mark.

"What the hell?" He drops down next to me, putting a hand on my arm, burning both him and I.

I stand back up, breathing heavy and pressing my head to the cool metal of the locker, making the burn slowly fade away.

"Talk to me." He says, putting a hand on my shoulder, attempting to bring my attention back to the real world.

"You can't tell anybody." I tell him and he nods, "swear Alec. It's going to sound crazy but you need to trust me." I say.

"I swear." He tells me.

"Someone attacked me last night. When you asked me if everything was ok, I lied. This masked freaked broke in and burned me, giving me this fucking mark that burns me. I have been stronger and fast just since yesterday. I ran the cross-country course in ten minutes, which should be impossible. When I push myself, I burn, and when I'm around Clary, I burn stronger other times. I don't know what's happening, but I'm scared." I explain to him and I watch his face carefully.

"I believe you, and I know that you're scared. I promise we will get to the bottom of this. We need to talk to Clary." Alec says and I nod.

"We need to get to the bottom of this girl."

End of Chapter