Here we go! Chapter three. I had a hard time structuring this, and I think that the layout might be a bit confusing. But it's supposed to take you a bit to figure out what is going on, so I hope that it's a nice (but understandable!) surprise when you do figure it out. I hope you like it! And let me know if it's too unclear!
Jace sat by Clary's bed, watching her sleep. Well, it was his bed, really. She had been moved there while Magnus healed her. And made sure that she wasn't pregnant.
Jace's stomach twisted and his hands clenched at the thought. He ignored the pain that shot up his arm from the movement; he had managed to fracture his knucklebones when he had punched the wall in Clary's room. But he had refused to allow Magnus to heal it. He hadn't even let Alec or Izzy draw an iratze on him. No, he deserved pain far worse than this. After what he had allowed to happen to Clary, he deserved to die in agony. How could he have failed the girl he loved? He was so arrogant, so confident in his abilities. And yet what good had they done him? What good had they done her? He had slept not three rooms away from her while she had been beaten and…
He forced himself to think the word: raped. Clary had been raped. And he had done nothing. Nothing!
He buried his face in his hands.
The only thing he could do now was exact revenge upon whoever had done this to her. Then he could punish himself for his failure. Then he could die; he didn't care.
But only after the one who had hurt her had suffered so badly that he begged for death. It was the only way Jace had forced himself to sit here in inaction, waiting for Clary to awaken: he envisioned the most agonizing tortures for Clary's attacker, refining his plans for when he caught the bastard.
There was nothing else to do until Clary woke up, until she told him who had attacked her.
His lips pressed into a hard line. She would tell him who it was.
His black thoughts dissipated like smoke as relief washed through him when Clary opened her eyes. He longed to reach out and touch her, to hold her hand. But given the way that she had reacted to his touch before, how she had cringed away from him, he did not want to frighten her. So he kept his hands fisted in his lap as he watched her, waiting for her to make the first move.
She blinked up at the ceiling a few times and then, as though recognizing his presence, turned her gaze on him.
He made an attempt to smile at her weakly.
Her eyes widened in recognition. But rather than the usual light that he saw behind them, there was only horror.
He jerked back in surprise when she let out a bloodcurdling scream and jumped up wildly. He sat frozen for a moment as she bolted for the door.
But no. He couldn't let her out of his sight. Acting instinctively, he leapt up and caught her around the waist. With surprising precision for someone so panicked, Clary landed a solid punch on his jaw. Jace momentarily slackened his grip on her, and she wriggled free of him.
He knew that he couldn't let her leave the room. No one else was at the Institute. If Izzy were here, she might know how to calm Clary, but she had gone with Alec and Magnus to try to track Clary's attacker magically. And Jace wasn't about to let her out of his sight if he was the only one here to protect her.
But he couldn't bring himself to harm her either, and it seemed that she was going to put up quite a fight. He was simply going to have to restrain her until the others got back.
He had reached this decision within moments of Clary escaping him. Hating himself for frightening her further, he launched himself at her again, cutting her off in her mad dash for the door.
She howled in frustration as he pushed her up against the wall, trapping her body with his. But he was careful not to grip her wrists; he did not want to bring back memories of how she had been brutally restrained to her bed. So he resolutely stood and took the punches she dealt him, absorbing the shock of each one while holding his body against hers, his hands braced on the wall on either side of her.
"Clary," he tried to keep his voice as level as possible. "Clary, calm down. Stop fighting me."
"Never!" She hissed, the terror in her expression giving way to fury. "Do you honestly think-" she punctuated her words with another punch- "that I would allow you to touch me again?" Another punch. "After what you did? I will die before I let you violate me again!" Another punch.
Jace nearly stepped back from her in shock, but he stood his ground.
"Clary, who do you think you're talking to?"
She shrieked in fury.
x CLARY POV x
"Clary, who do you think you're talking to?" Jonathan asked her levelly, coldly. His black eyes bored into hers.
She shrieked in fury and dealt him another vicious blow, to his stomach this time. But she might as well be punching a brick wall for all the effect it had on him. He continued to stare at her, his expression reproving.
"Fuck you," she spat out. "I know very well who you are, you bastard, and I will talk to you however I want! You think that you own me now, after what you did to me? You disgust me!"
She could feel her own knuckles bruising as they made contact with every part of him she could reach, but to no avail. But she would not stop fighting. She would rather die.
"Clary, you're confused. I didn't hurt you. I could never hurt you." He smirked at her, his eyes dancing with amused malevolence.
"You didn't hurt me?" She shrieked. "You strangled me and left me for dead. You defiled me. I'm your sister, you sick fuck!"
He suddenly stepped back half a step, giving her room to maneuver. She knew that she could never make it to the door in time to escape him, would never make it out of the Institute. But she had meant what she had said before: she would rather die than be claimed by him again.
She lunged to her right and seized a long, sharp letter opener that was lying on Jace's desk. Jonathan's expression twisted into a wicked leer as she drove the makeshift blade towards his heart. She knew that he was fast enough to avoid the blow, but she was not going down without a fight.
Oddly, he hesitated. It was only at the last moment that he tried to dodge the blow. But by then it was too late. A mad grin broke out on Clary's face as the blade struck, tearing into his heavily muscled chest.
And then he was falling away from her, sinking to his knees. But something was wrong. His black eyes were confused, stricken. No. Not black eyes. Amber. His appearance was shifting like a reflection in rippling water. His pale skin turned tan, his white-blonde hair turned golden.
Clary looked down at the blade protruding from Jace's chest in horror. She heard Jonathan's soft, cold laughter echoing in her head.
Did that make sense? I hope so! Basically, Jonathan is fucking with Clary's mind. Let me know if you liked it, please! Review!
