Standing in front of Victoria was an imposing and authoritarian figure. Just like Victoria herself, Alice never gives away here emotions. There was a wall blocking anyone that tried to see further into her, get to know what hides those eyes that carry the burden of eternal bitterness.

"Am I supposed to be impressed or freighted?" Alice tilted her head to the side, a grin curled in her lips, softening her harsh and somehow amusing look. "I'm not afraid of a freak's magic."

For years, Victoria believed that the eyes that carefully studied each one of her flaws on the other side of the mirror, cat eyed shaped - probably a gift from the warlock that could had been her parent - were a curse that she would have to hide under piles of practice and knowledge of the Children of Raziel's culture.

"Magic is mine just as much as the power of the runes is." Victoria said.

The words were out before she could think about it or even hold it, curl them in the tip of her tongue. Her stele seemed to burn her skin through the tight fabric of her jeans where it was trapped by her boot next to the dagger Peter had gave her in her tenth birthday and that has been with her ever since. It was different from the hot pulsing fire of which her energy was made of, desperately searching for release.

"You shouldn't be allowed to have such power! The runes are a gift of Raziel to its children, which you aren't. You're an abomination that nature never meant to create." Alice didn't shout or snap. She was as calm as she was when explaining some kind of complicated rune to Victoria. That soft voice only makes it more frightening.

"But I'm here, am I not? I guess nature could have already killed me if it really meant to. It had so many chances and it never took one. I guess that means something, doesn't it." Victoria said. She could control her voice better than her emotions as they competed with her beating heart.

Never before, Victoria dared to stay before Alice with such posture. Although it was refreshing to finally impose her own ideals, the mere thought of what Alice could do to her was terrifying. The only thing keeping Victoria's head from bowing in submission and her eyes drop to the floor under her feet was the reminder of Peter's eyes, betrayed and disappointed.

Alice's lips curled in a smirk that Victoria knew way too well. That grin always comes hand in hand with pain and nightmares. It was one of the few things that had the power to make Victoria flinch. "Nature does want you dead. You're alive because of the Clave. Because despise the freak you are, when your train's complete, you'll actually be handy in battle. That's why you're here, remember?"

"I'm not a weapon!" Victoria snapped easily. She refused to be objectified like that. To accept that her life depended on her skills on filed rather than her rightful entitlement to life. "I'm a Shadowhunter, just like you are. I just happen to…"

Victoria never finished her thought, being thrown across the room by Alice's strong arms and landing with a painful slam into the edge of the well-crafted fireplace. Victoria was still sore from Alice's whip, her back certainly covered in thin red lines that were invisible to the casual eye. The impact made her groan in pain, giving Alice a temporary satisfaction.

"You happen to be a stubborn girl who doesn't understand how grateful she should be for being alive. For being given a second chance to live and do the right thing." Alice said almost in between teeth as she approached Victoria's screaming body on the floor. She gripped Victoria's jaw in her rough hand and made her look up to her poisoned grey eyes. "Do you know why you weren't killed as soon as you were found in my doorstep?" Alice asked a bit more softly now. "Because, though the Clave could immediately tell that you were created by magic, though you're probably the impossible product of a Shadowhunter a Warlock's drunken night, you're still powerful. You're an abomination with a couple perks, that's all."

Tears are shame and shame is something that Victoria couldn't afford to feel. However, one can't control it when pain and fear gather in the form of salty water that wets burning cheeks and washes bravery away. Because if there was something that Alice taught her, was that bravery is the contrary of tears. However, her vision was blurred with Alice's version of cowardness, though Victoria never felt more bravely strong.

With rage and determination guiding her movements, Victoria rose from her own heels and stood tall before Alice. She too was a tall and a threatening figure, but she wasn't able to scare Victoria in that moment. Victoria dared to believe that nothing could.

"You know what?" Victoria asked with as much calm as she managed to reunite. However, her body wasn't as well behaved as her mind as she grabbed Alice by the neck and shoved her against one of the windows displaying the typical London, rainy day. "I don't care if I'm a nature's abomination, if my parents went through Hell to create me only to abandon me when they realized what I was, or even if you hate my guts! I'm still a person and I'm still much more powerful than you are!"

Alice didn't have fear in her eyes. That would be better than the anger that stare back at Victoria, so close that it was the only thing she could see; wide dark pupils that swallowed the grey involving them. Victoria preferred fear over anger. She was looking for to feed herself with it, starting to understand why Alice liked to punish her so much. Powerful can be such a deliciously dangerous feeling.

"You want to kill me? Go ahead" Alice said, choking in her own words. With the aid of magic that Victoria couldn't control, her grip on Alice's throat tighten to the point where Alice was red rather than fair white. "But if I'm going by your hands, at least give me dignified death"

Muffled by the sound of the rain, Victoria could hear it as Alice slid under her grip and to the floor. Her hand caught Victoria's dagger, sliding it through Victoria's worn out jeans and to her opened hand. Alice closed Victoria's grip around it and Victoria found herself not caring if she used it to ease her pain.

However, instead of guiding it to her own chest as Victoria had naively predicted, Alice's hand guided Victoria's towards her own body with a squished shout and aiming to her own heart. Alice's strength was slowly draining from her body, not making it good for her aim. The dagger only kissed Victoria's arm, still splitting some blood. It was red and pulsing, just like Alice's, or any other Shadowhunter's must be.

"Do you really want to kill me? Disobey the Clave and be a shame to them?" Victoria asked in a whisper as she easily took the dagger away from Alice's hand a dropped it to the ground to rest. Her grip was tighter at each second, threating in to make Alice's strong but narrow body explode. Victoria wanted to stop; she didn't want to be a killer. But deep down she knew that was her only chance to make things right, to prove that she wasn't just a weapon, or a soldier in a war yet to come.

It wasn't until Alice's body dropped to the floor that Victoria knew she was dead. Victoria's hands still glowed with blue energy though it was slowly fading to nothing as it returned to the deepest parts of Victoria's mind. She stared down at her hands - the hands of a murderer, with wide eyes. That hasn't what Victoria wanted, not really!

Victoria never had a panic attack in her life, so she couldn't know if she was having one as she simply stared down at her bloodless hands. Death and blood might be allies in wars fought with soldiers, shields and swords, but the ones that demand to be fought in life itself are clean and free of war cries. Sometime they're silent and no one from the outside notices them. People don't go to their windows and shout for their favourites, simply because they're oblivious to the other's daily battles.

"Victoria?" Peter's voice sounded in a little corner in Victoria's mind. She could hear that voice in an alarmed shout, echoing in the walls of a dark tunnel as it approached her, getting louder and louder by the second. Hands too seemed to hug her and she could swear to hear some sort of drum, played by someone in a hurry, or very angry. The beats were irregular and fast.

Next thing she knows, Victoria's screaming against Peter's chest. Tears, angry and scared ones, jumped out of her eyes and wet Peter's shirt. She could hear the fast drumming of her best friend's heart through it as he stroked her hair and hushed words of comfort. "It's okay. It's going to be okay" Peter said, though Victoria was sure he didn't believe in his own words. She could feel his accelerated breath and, even if she couldn't see it, Victoria was sure that Peter was staring at Alice's lifeless body with wide and scared eyes. If that fear came from what she had done or the consequences of it, Victoria couldn't tell.

"I got to get out of here." Victoria said, her voice muffled by the fabric of Peter's dark green t-shirt.

"Look at me! Look at me, Victoria!" Peter asked as he took each side of her face into his hands and made her stare his deep green eyes. "You're right; you have to get out of here. The Clave can't know what happened, you have to hide."

Victoria couldn't do much but nod. Involuntary, her eyes would follow the invisible track left by her magic and to Alice's body on the ground. Seeing it in there, completely still and never to move again assaulted Victoria's eyes with hysterical tears. That death was on her and her own magic.

"Hey!" Peter called in a shout, gripping Victoria's jaw and turning her face to him, earning a sob from her. "Don't look at her! There's nothing in there, okay? There's nothing there, just the carpet. Do you hear me, are we clear?" Victoria nodded. "You stay here and make a portal to the first place you can think of. One where we can hide until we figure this whole thing out, decide what our next move will be. I'll be packing upstairs, I won't take more than five minutes, okay? Can you do this?"

It was like Victoria was listening Peter through a filter that only allowed her to listen to a few words from time to time, but she heard enough to nod in comprehension. She took a deep breath to calm herself a bit, but it resulted in a series of other small breaths. It was working though. Victoria could feel her muscles slowly relaxing.

"That's my girl. I'll be right back." Peter said and left a kiss on top of Victoria's forehead. He then ran upstairs, leaving Victoria alone with the woman she killed.

Victoria looked around as she cleaned her tears. There weren't many places where she could build a portal. The room had a big sofa in the middle, red and black, facing a fire place that never met the warmth of flames. On the right side of the room there were curtains blocking the little light that rainy day provided. However, there was a bare wall on Victoria's left side. It was painted in dark brown, resembling wood.

With steady steps, Victoria made her way to that wall, leaving Alice behind. With a deep breath, she raised her hand and placed them against the wall, feeling the flawless texture of paint under her palms. Peter had told her to think about a place that would be safe for them, but Victoria didn't know any. She had never been more than a couple miles away from the Institute, camping with Peter or shopping for groceries with Mrs. Daly. It pained her to leave her behind, but she couldn't think about her now. Soon the Clave would be there to kill her, but she trusted Mrs. Daly to be smart enough to get out of there as soon as she finds Alice's body on the ground with no one else around. Victoria could only hope for the best.

Instead of thinking about a place, Victoria focused on safety itself. She went to the deepest parts of her and brought back what the word meant for her. Vicotria had no idea if that would work, but it was the best idea she got. Besides, Victoria must had been doing something right since the portal started to from before her own, wide eyes. There was so much energy coming from it, not like the previous ones she had created for practice.

"I'm back, let's get out of here!" Peter called as he ran to her with two bags on his shoulder. Victoria recognized the blue backpack she kept in the back of her closet.

"The portal is ready" She announced, hoping that would do the trick.

"Let's go then."

Still not sure if Peter should trust her magic so much, especially after what happened, Victoria took his hand in hers so they wouldn't get lost in the depths of their own minds and jumped inside.

Without noticing it, both Victoria and Peter were landing in front of a gate in a matter of seconds. The portal had worked, but Victoria didn't know where she was. The street behind them was loud as cars passed by without seeming to notice the giant building panted in that very spot. It was enormous and dark, a castle lost in the XXI century. The surroundings had a well-treated garden full of flowers and fresh grass, the kind of place where fairies would like to live, Victoria guessed.

"Where are we?" Victoria asked as she stared the building in front of her with wide, curious eyes. That had to belong to the Shadowhunters, she could see through the glamour.

"This is the New York Institute." Peter said without having to think too much. "I read about it. Too many things happened in here for the last twenty years or so. The people that live here were too involved in the mortal war with Valentine." Peter turned to Victoria "I don't think this is the safest place for us."

Victoria wasn't listening though. Her brain had frozen when Peter mentioned New York. If that were true, then she had managed to cross the ocean through a portal created with her own hands.

"I don't think an Institute is the safest place for us either, but we have no other choice. If we're careful, we can stay here for a couple days without looking suspicious." Victoria said as she put a glamour on her eyes so they would appear dark brown instead of bright blue and cat like shaped. However, because she would be dealing with Shadowhunters, she strengthened it with a bit of magic so anyone could get pass it.

"We can't risk it." Peter said with a bit of an alarmed tone. "We have to get into the safest place we can, otherwise why do we even try to…"

Peter's speech was cut by the heavy sound of an opening door. At the end of the stoned walk to the front door was man. "Too late" Victoria thought to herself; the man with dark hair, bright blue eyes and a harsh look on his face was too close now and could certainly hear each word they say.

"Who are you?" The man asked as he studied Peter and Victoria. She didn't like the way he looked at them, like they were some kind of criminals instead of Shadowhunters in possible distress.

Surprisingly, it was Peter who replied first. "I'm Peter and this is my friend…"

"Tori - Torianna" Victoria interrupted. The Clave would be looking for both of them, but she was their main target. After all, she was the dangerous freak that needed to be slaughtered before she could kill someone else. "And you are…"

The man stood tall before them, his hands resting behind hid back. "Alec Lightwood" He said. "Head of the Institute"