Hello again!
Look! It's another chapter. That's two chapters in two days. Are you proud?
Anyways, I hope you like it. It's quite a long one. Took up almost five pages on word.
Thank you to all my new subscribers. I love you forever.
So I hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: No, I am not, nor will I ever be, the beautiful Cassandra Clare, although I aspire to be like her one day.
Clary was worried. Jace had been acting quite strange since they had left the train station. He honestly looked like he had seen a ghost. She decided to put it down to nerves. It was quite a big deal after all.
Turning into Simon's driveway, Clary felt a familiar warm spread through her body. She loved Simon's house. She loved the colour of the bricks (a soft, faded red) and the huge old maple tree out the front of the house that was, strangely, always shedding leaves and growing them back, no matter what time of the year it was.
More than that, she loved the way she felt whenever she was around this house. Safe. She always felt safe. Like as long as she was within these walls, nothing could touch her. She knew it was ridiculous. She was safer at the institute than she was at Simon's place. But still. It had always been like a second home for her.
The mob of teenagers walked up the cement driveway and climbed the old wooden porch steps. Jace rang the doorbell impatiently and repeatedly until Clary gave him a warning look.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" I female voice called from inside the house. Soft, thudding footsteps got louder as someone approached the door. The door opened with a click to reveal Simon's mother.
Jemimah was a small woman, but curvy, with a warm energy. She was incredibly hospitable, always quick to pull a chair up to the table if any of them decided to drop by for dinner.
The Lightwood's relationship with Simon had changed dramatically over the past two years. He and Alec had actually become close. This surprised Clary, because she had always thought that they didn't really like each other. But no, it turns out that they both have a shared an interest in organic fruit. That's right. Organic fruit. You'd think there wasn't that much to know about organic fruit. Apparently there's a lot to know. She had to endure hours of listening to Alec and Simon discuss the nutritional benefits of blueberries. One word: antioxidants.
"Come in, come in." Jemimah said now, ushering them into hallway. Goosebumps raised on Clary's arms as she stepped inside the cool, air conditioned house.
"Simon's just up in his room." Simon's mother gestured up the stairs.
"Thanks Ms Lewis." Isabelle said, smiling.
As the mob thudded up the stairs, the sound of someone idly strumming guitar chords floated down. Clary opened the door to Simon's bedroom to find him sitting crossed leg on his bed, guitar resting on his legs. He looked up when they came in and smiled.
"Hey honey." Isabelle said sliding onto the bed next to him.
"Hey." He said kissing her on the cheek. Isabelle and Simon started officially dating about a year ago and since then they had been almost inseparable.
"Hey." he said to Clary and Alec, still standing by the door. "Hey assehole." He said to Jace, who had made himself comfortable on Simon's red, fabric office chair in front of his desk.
"Good afternoon bloodsucker." Jace nodded at Simon. Clary sighed inwardly. The two boys were no longer repulsed by each other, they where friends even, but they still had this infinite battle of the wits going on.
"Look," Jace leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees "We need your help."
"Would this 'help' involve a certain long lost brother?" Simon asked, eyebrows raised.
"How'd you know about that?" Everyone immediately looked at Isabelle.
"Oops." She said, smiling sheepishly.
Jace sighed. "So are you going to help us or not?"
"What's the magic word?" Jace glared at him.
"Simon..." Clary warned.
"Okay, okay. I'll help you." Simon placed his guitar down next to the bed, got up off the bed and walked to where Jace was sitting."Off." He said to the blonde haired boy, who managed to peel himself out of the chair.
Jace leaned against the desk as they all crowded around, Clary and Isabelle kneeling on the floor next to Simon, Alec leaning on the chair.
"Well assuming he doesn't live under a rock, he probably has Facebook." Simon said, signing into his Facebook account. "We'll just start searching for all the Dexter's in America." Simon typed the name into the search bar.
3,000 results.
Alec frowned. "I think we need a new tactic." He said to Simon who nodded. "We need to find out what baby boys where put up for adoption in...1994."
"Ooh! And they would have to be around the age of two!" Clary put in.
"And found on a church doorstep." Alec contributed.
"Well that narrows it down." Jace frowned. "But how are we gonna find all this anyway? I mean, I'm no expert at this whole detective thing, but this isn't the type of information you can just Google."
"Jace is right. Were gonna need to get into some classified records to find all that information." Isabelle paused, thinking, until her face lit up. "And who do we know that could get these records with, literally, a click of the fingers?"
"Magnus" They all said in unison.
Jace straightened and turned towards Alec. "Alec, we need you to call Magnus and see if he ca-"
The door burst open and through the doorway flounced a tall lean man in tight leather pants and a glittery bright green oxford shirt.
Magnus.
There was a long silence following Magnus's flamboyant entrance until Simon finally asked what they were all thinking;
"Is he like, psychic or something?"
Alec rolled his eyes. "No, I asked him to come here when we were on the train. I figured he could help us."
Magnus flopped down on the bed and raised his eyebrows. "Oh Alec, how quickly you underestimate my abilities."
"So he is psychic!" Simon exclaimed.
"I never said that" Magnus said, tone defensive.
"So you're not psychic?"
"Didn't say that either. You really are quick to judge aren't you?"
Simon just blinked at him, his face blank. Clary sighed again, something she found herself doing an awful lot lately.
"Can we please just get on with the search?" She was starting to get impatient. Jace, she noticed, seemed to be getting anxious as well. He kept on twitching and sifting his feet uncomfortably
"Yes please." Jace turned to Magnus, who by now had caught hold of Alec's forearm and was pulling him onto the bed next to him. "So are you going to help us or not?"
"You won't get anything with that attitude, young man." Magnus waggled his finger in a very 'hey-you-kids-get-off-my-lawn' kind of way.
Jace scowled. "What are you, my father?"
"Excuse me, but I'm old enough to be your grandfather, and I'm also the best chance you've got at finding this guy, so I think I deserve a bit more respect."
Clary gave H=Jace a pointed look that she hoped said something like 'don't-blow-this-we-need-his-help". Apparently she got the message across, because Jace took a deep breath, let it out, and said, in a tight manner, "My apologies, Magnus. What I meant to say was; would you be oh so kind as to help us in our investigation?"
Magnus smirked at a very constipated looking Jace. Clary smiled inwardly. She could only guess how much pride he had to swallow just to get those words out of his mouth.
"Why of course, my cocky, blonde friend." Amusement was obvious in Magnus' voice, and Clary was very proud of Jace for not attempting to strangle him with his own rainbow leather belt. "I would be just honoured to help you."
"Well!" Alec seemed eager to get back on topic, and Clary couldn't say she didn't feel the same way. "Let's get on with shall we? Magnus if you would be so kind?
Magnus smiled "Of course my sweetie cheeks." He clicked his fingers once before leaning towards Alec and planting a kiss on his temple. Suddenly the room was filled with at least twenty cardboard boxes filled with enough papers and files to sink a ship.
"And so we begin," Jace said, putting on the voice Clary knew he only used when he was in his 'Inner monologue mode'. "The ultimate quest to find the mysterious stranger. Codename; Dexter. Will this send the Mortal Instruments Gang on the path to a better life? Or will it send them into turbulence, yet again?"
Everyone but Jace exchanged worried glances. "Okay... Psycho." Simon made a gesture towards Jace, suggesting that he was mentally unstable.
Clary looked with disdain at the large amount of paperwork they were going to have to look through. "Uh, I don't wanna be a buzz kill or anything, but these files aren't going to sort themselves."
"She's right." Said Isabelle, walking towards one of the many boxes. "Everybody, grab one. This could take a while."
*Five hours later*
"Okay. So we have it narrowed down to three possible candidates." Jace sounded as tired as he looked.
They were all tired. The past five hours had involved a lot of bickering, eye rolling, yelling, sorting, paper cuts, and an 'almost accident' involving, Jace, Simon, a cardboard box and a roll of duct tape, that resulted in Simon being taped to a chair and Jace being sentenced to fifteen minutes in what they named the "Time Out Corner".
Now, they where all sitting on the floor next to Simon's bed, surrounded by papers, files, empty coke cans and pizza boxes. Outside the bedroom window, the sun was setting, sending brilliant rays of gold, red and pink across the sky, and filling the room with a divine glow. In front of them was the three files to the three people they had, after hours of narrowing eliminating possible candidates, decided where the only people in America that could possibly be who they were looking for.
There was a problem though. The three guys where all around nineteen years old and all given up for adoption when they where around the age of two. What the files didn't tell them was how they were given up. It didn't state whether they had been dropped on the steps of a church or put up for adoption officially, in a completely legal environment.
"You know what I don't get?" Alec's tone was thoughtful. "Why didn't Valentine mention any of this to Clary's mom while she was unconscious? I mean, he told her all that other stuff right? Why not this?"
"That's actually something I can explain." Jace said, sounding pleased to have some answers. "Valentine was a psycho. Hated failure. Jonathan, Dexter and I, we were his experiments. And while Jonathan and I didn't exactly turn out the way he wanted, we were still some kind of success. Whereas Dexter was a complete failure, not only did the Angel blood not have an obvious effect on him, he wasn't even like a normal shadow hunter kid. He was as bad as a mundie. Valentine couldn't deal with such a massive failure, so he tried to undo it. Make as though Dexter had never existed. Valentine forgot about him, blocked him from his memory. He couldn't admit to his ex that he had made such a huge mistake."
"Makes sense." Clary, who was seated in Jace's lap, rested her head against his shoulder and closed her eyes. She felt like she hadn't slept in days. It's surprising how exhausting sitting on your ass can be.
"Are you sure you don't remember him?" Isabelle asked Jace, not for the first time.
"Yeah. I've tried to remember something, anything about another boy living in the manor, but I can't. It was a really long time ago." Jace sighed, exasperated.
"And you where really young." She put in.
"Mmmm" Alec sat with his back against the wall next to Magnus, the warlocks arm, draped over his shoulders.
"So," Simon spoke up for the first time in about half an hour "Dexter Jones, Dexter Fletcher and Dexter Montgomery. Which one is our mystery man?"
"Ah yes." Jace had switched to 'monologue mode' again. "That is the question."
TA DAAAA!
I know, a bit of a cliffie there. Sorry.
I hope you liked it. It was written at 2am so again, forgive whatever mistakes you come across, I'll take a proper, more thorough look at it in a bit.
Please Review or subscribe if you like it. Remember, that's what keeps me writing, what gives me motivation.
I Promise, we will meet Dexter soon, but these are the motions we have to got through before we do so, in order to have the story making sense.
Constructive criticism is welcome. Please R make love, not war.
Love Beth xoxo