Chapter Eight: Never Stay in Hotels


~Clary~

The hotel was fenced in a lot like the colony that they had just come from. Clary could tell that it was one of those expensive hotels that the uppity people stayed in while the world was still running. Someone was standing at the gate when they rolled up and opened it immediately to let them in. She recognized the short woman as Charlotte Fairchild. She was excited to see someone that she actually knew.

She smiled at them as she shut the gate behind them hurriedly. There had been no stragglers on the outside, but Clary was fairly certain that the zombies had been there and had been exterminated first thing. She saw a couple of body parts on the ground of the hotel when they stopped. The zombies must have been on the inside as well.

They parked the truck next to the other vehicles. Jace was up first as the others got out of the cab. He jumped off the side and went to the very back of the bed to open up the door. He gestured for them to go to him. Part of Clary wanted to just jump off the side of the road out of spite, but she didn't. Jace was probably just as troubled as she was and didn't need anyone egging him on. She stood up and walked toward him, taking his proffered hand and jumping down.

"I'm glad to see you all got out okay," Luke's voice startled her. Clary turned around and saw him walking toward them from the hotel entrance. "How many in your group?"

"Eight," Will replied as he jumped off the truck bed.

Tessa slid down next to him and walked toward Luke briskly. "Have you seen Jon?"

"Not yet," Luke said with a grim smile. "We have no conclusive evidence that they've been harmed though. If we don't see them by tomorrow, I'll send someone out to look for them, okay?"

Clary felt her stomach lurch at the thought of losing him again and she had to take a deep breath to stop herself from crying.

"The hotel has a back-up generator," Luke said. "It's up and running and we've cleared out the first three floors since we've got here."

"Have you found anything inside?" Jace asked.

"A couple of stragglers," Luke replied. "Nothing too serious though. I figure that if we keep up a steady pace, we can have the hotel completely cleared out by sunrise."

Clary looked up at the sky. The stars were out and the moon had risen past the horizon line. "That's a long time from now," she said. "How many people are back?" she asked.

Luke nodded toward the row of vehicles. There were five of them. "That's how many so far," he said. "That doesn't mean that there won't be more soon. At the moment I think we have almost twenty."

Clary felt her stomach drop at that count. Only twenty people out of almost one hundred so far? That wasn't enough. That wasn't nearly enough. She didn't know most of them, but that didn't matter. The thought of so many people perishing made her heart freeze and the hope that had begun to fill her chest at the thought of civilization coming back shriveled and died on the spot. She felt cold and helpless.

"Cecily?" Will asked Luke quietly.

"She was in the car with me," Luke promised. "I made her go to sleep a little while ago, so don't disturb her right now."

Will nodded slowly, and Clary saw his shoulders sag slightly, as though the relief that he felt caused them to be too heavy to hoist anymore. He clapped his hands together a moment later and then rubbed them back and forth. "Okay!" he said. "Let's clear this thing out!"

He began walking toward the front door of the hotel and Clary looked over at Luke, who had turned around and started following Will inside. "You can wait out here," Jace told her. "I'm sure that Charlotte needs some help, and you'll be able to see Jonathan as soon as he gets back."

"I don't need to be protected, Herondale," Clary grumbled as she pushed past him. She felt a certain amount of spitefulness by his words. Did she look incapable? "I've been dealing with zombies for three years straight. I can take care of myself."

Tessa had already hurried ahead and was walking with Luke and Will inside. She didn't miss the hurt look on Jace's face as she walked by him. She also didn't miss the hand that latched around her wrist and spun her around. "Is there a problem, Fray?" he asked, his voice sounding more like a growl than anything else.

"Yeah," she snapped. "You won't let me go."

"I meant other than that," he said. "Why are you so angry? I was trying to be nice back there! I can tell that you're worried about Jonathan and if there's anything that I know, it's that if you're distracted around stragglers, you die."

"I don't want you looking out for me," Clary informed him, trying to snatch her wrist from his grasp. "You barely know me! I met you like a week ago!"

"So?" Jace demanded. "What's so bad about me having your back?"

"The only person that you depend on is yourself," Clary said. "You need to realize that, Herondale. Everyone else will die; As long as you only depend on you, then you won't need them after they're gone."

Jace let go of her arm slowly and backed away from her, shaking his head. "That's a lonely way to live."

"It's the only way to live," she said angrily. "So stop trying to be my friend because it's not going to work."

Jace just nodded curtly and walked past her into the hotel. Clary stayed out in the parking lot a moment later, trying to compose herself. Her chest felt as though a void was opening in it. Jace had only meant well, but the thought of it made her stomach flutter slightly. She couldn't have that. Jace was too crazy and too wild anyway. He was going to get himself killed one day and if Clary formed an attachment to him, it would tear her to pieces.


The inside of the hotel was actually in surprisingly good shape. A bit of blood stained the marble flooring and there were a few holes in the plaster walls, but Clary had expected a lot worse. Everything was dusty, which wasn't a surprise, and the air in the room was a bit stale. She saw a small pile of dead bodies by the counter top across the lobby. On the far side of the room, a few mats were set up and Clary saw that people were sleeping soundly on them. All the running and screaming from earlier must have exhausted them.

Jace was walking down the hallway, not so much as looking back to see if she was following, or if she even knew where she was going. Isabelle was waiting at the end of the hallway. Her long black hair was pulled up into a ponytail and, the tank top that she had on revealed a lot of scars on her pale skin. Jace stalked past her without so much as a glance and started stomping up the stairs.

Isabelle rolled her eyes and turned to Clary. "He's a drama queen," she informed her with a small grin. "What happened? Did you two have a lovers' spat?"

"Lovers' spat?" Clary repeated incredulously. "I don't think so."

"So what is it then?" Isabelle asked. "I don't think that Jace was walking so funnily because he has something shoved up his ass."

Clary snorted at this and said, "He's just mad because I can take care of myself. Are you going to help kill zombies?"

"I think the better term is re-kill, and yeah, I was just waiting for you, actually."

"Me?" Clary asked. "No offence, but you don't really know me."

"I know," Isabelle said, gesturing for her to walk up the stairs. "But you're Jace's newest friend, and from the looks of it, he wants to make you into his new toy-thing. I want to get to know you."

"Toy-thing?" Clary asked, as she climbed the first step. "What do you mean by that?"

"I've seen Will with a couple of them," Isabelle said. "Not Jace, though. He's hot, but doesn't really take advantage of it. He just knows he is."

"That doesn't really answer my question," Clary said. "What does it mean?"

"It means that Jace seems to have taken an interest in you," she said as they passed the second floor and continued up. "He doesn't take an interest in many people. You've really made an impression in him, and considering the fact that you're now refusing him, in whatever way that you are, is probably driving him even crazier."

"The fact that you talk about this so emotionlessly worries me," Clary informed her as they passed the door for the third floor. "Is what you're telling me a good thing or not?"

"Well," Isabelle said. "I find it hilarious. Rejection looks good on him."

"Did he reject you?" Clary asked, wondering if that was why Isabelle sounded so scornful.

"No," she said. "He wishes. I've just seen him flash his smile or show his abs and he gets whatever he wants. It's about time he realized that girls have god given feminine superiority."

"I don't think he likes me," Clary said. "He's just a bit grateful that I saved his life and he's trying to return the favor. I'm not nearly pretty enough for someone like him."

"You're plenty pretty," Isabelle assured her as she grabbed the handle to the fourth floor. "You're just not the stereotypical kind that every guy fantasizes about."

"Enough talk about him," Clary said as they walked down the long hallway of the hotel. "We've got some zombies to fight."

She and Isabelle split up, going past the doors that were already open and walking inside the closed ones further down the hallway.

She walked inside of a room with two large beds crammed inside along with a desk, a closet, and a nightstand. There were three corpses milling around: it looked to be a father, a mother, and a daughter. Clary unsheathed her knife and walked forward. The daughter came at Clary first, her arms stretched in front of her, as if asking for a hug.

Clary didn't think that hugging was a safe idea, so she dodged the girl's arms and drove her knife into her forehead before the corpse could turn. The father was on her next, a strange snarling moan came out of his mouth. Clary backed up and ducked past his flailing arms. She kicked the corpse as hard as she could in the stomach and he stumbled back a couple of steps. She ran forward and past the father, turning around and bringing her knife down on his skull. The dad fell before Clary could snatch her knife out, so she was weaponless as the mother came toward her.

She maneuvered out of the mom's reach, but had to move further away from her weapon. She was by the bathroom, in front of the sinks outside of it. She grabbed the first thing that her hand came in contact with on the counter: a hairdryer. She swung it around just in time to smack the mother in the head. Her face snapped to the side and she staggered sideways. Clary hit her again with the hairdryer, aiming for the temple. The woman's head snapped to the side again, but this time Clary heard a snapping noise. The zombie collapsed to the ground limply.

She sighed in relief and dropped the disgusting hairdryer. She backed away from the corpse with a weary laugh. What she didn't hear was the growl of the corpse behind her. She spun around, just in time to be tackled by the rotting remains of what looked to be the couple's son. A strangled yelp came from her mouth as she hit the ground.


~Jace~

The baseball bat that had been in the first hotel room that he'd visited had been a blessing. Using it to bludgeon the zombies seemed like an excellent way to relieve his pent up anger. Too bad it wasn't working as well as he thought it would. He'd already bashed in the heads of five stragglers, but he was still angry. Every time he so much as thought of the color red, he started shaking.

Who did she think she was? He had just wanted to help her! She had no reason to be such a bitch about it. He understood that he might have been a bit rude earlier, before all of this happened, but he figured that she would have been able to get over that given the circumstances.

He heard a yelp as he stalked into the hallway. He frowned and looked around, trying to figure out where the noise came from. Then there was a loud crashing noise. Jace could definitely tell where that had come from. He ran toward the fourth open door on the left and dashed inside the room. There was a large corpse lying on top of someone. He didn't get a good look at whom as he rushed forward. His bat landed on the zombie's head solidly. The creature lurched to the side. Jace saw red hair and inhaled sharply as he brought the bat down again, knocking the corpse completely off Clary before he slammed the bat against the zombie's head as hard as he could.

Brain matter spattered around the corpse, and Jace knew that it wouldn't be getting back up. Clary's breaths were coming out short and quick. One look at her and he could tell that she was in shock. She was scrambling backward with wide eyes.

"Clary," Jace said calmly. She didn't respond, still moving backward on her hands and feet. He moved forward and kneeled in front of her, grabbing her by her shoulders so that she couldn't move. "Clary, listen to me, you're safe, alright?"

She was trembling as she threw herself at him, locking her arms around his neck as she hugged him so tightly that his airways were closed. She was still shaking as she hugged him. He held her close, wrapping his arms around her waist as he leaned back and rested against one of the grimy beds. "It's okay," he whispered to her quietly. "The zombie's dead. You're okay."

He rubbed his arms along her back. Hopefully she took it as a soothing gesture, but what he was really doing was checking for a bite or another scratch. When he didn't feel any, he sighed in relief, but knew that it was possible that they were elsewhere. "Clary," he said quietly. "Did you get hurt? Did he bite you?"

"No," she mumbled. She hugged him even tighter and Jace exhaled in relief. Everything really was going to be okay.

"Why were you searching by yourself?" he asked. "You just got scratched a week ago. If you were going to search, you should have stayed with someone."

She pulled away from him abruptly, and Jace noted the way that they were situated. She was straddling him while he was leaned against a bed…not a bad situation at all. She seemed to notice the same thing, because she went to move away from him. Before she could, however, he looped his arms around her waist and held her in place. "Don't get angry with me," he said forcefully.

"I'm not helpless," she snapped.

"Just because you're not helpless doesn't mean that you're not hurt," he informed her. "Why are you so stubborn?"

"Why does it matter to you?" Clary demanded. "If it's because I saved your life, then just stop! You just returned the favor, no need to keep it up."

"That's not why I care," Jace said, hurt coursing through his body. "A week may not sound like long, but in a place like this a week is like six months in our old world and you know it. I want to be your friend."

"I don't need friends," Clary said.

"Yes, you do," Jace said. He leaned closer to her, so that they were nose-to-nose, "What's the point of living if you don't have something to live for?"

He halfway expected her to try and squirm away from him, or to slap him in the face. He didn't get any of that. All he got was a tired and haggard Clary that looked as though she was about to cry…or at least that was what he thought that she looked like.

"I have Tessa," she said. "My sister's all I need."

"You need more than your sister," Jace said, exasperated.

"You seem like a great guy and all, Jace," Clary said coldly, "but I don't think you have a clue what I need."

"Really?" Jace asked. "Because a couple of minutes ago, I was fairly certain that you needed me to get that monster off you. I can see obvious things, even if you can't, Clary."

"What is so obvious?" Clary demanded.

"That you're afraid of getting close because you don't want to lose the people that you care about," Jace said. "You said that your sister is all you need to live. Well, guess what, Clare. She's made friends. Her, Will, and Jem seem to be like this," Jace crossed his index and middle fingers together and held his hand up to show her. "She realizes that there's more to life than just surviving."

"Screw you, Jace," she said coldly. "You still have a freaking family! I lost everything. I watched it get snatched away in front of my eyes two years ago!"

"My parents were killed by the zombies," Jace said quietly. "During the very first wave of the virus, my father was bitten. No one knew what would happen, so he thought that it would be safe to go to bed with my mother. I found him the next morning, eating her. Trust me, I know how it feels to have your entire world slip out from under your feet and spiral out of control. I had to kill them both."

Clary's eyes widened and Jace saw remorse in them. "I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't—"

"You didn't know," Jace replied, almost spitting the words out. "You didn't know because you don't want to know me." He let go of her waist and looked at her expectantly.

Clary sighed, biting her lower lip as she looked at him. "You, of all people, should understand why I don't want to have any friends." She stood up and walked out of the room. Jace just sat where he was for a few more moments before he pushed himself up.

"I don't have to be your friend to look out for you," he said firmly as he walked up behind her. She was opening the next door slowly. "Just because you don't like me doesn't mean that you're not hurt."

She pushed the door all the way open. A corpse lumbered out at her immediately. Clary ducked out from the arms, but before she could do anything else, Jace pulled out one of his blades and stabbed the creature in the temple and wrenched it out before it could fall. "I could have had handled that," Clary informed him as she walked into the room. "Also, I don't dislike you."

"You don't?" Jace asked incredulously as he followed her inside.

"Jace," Clary said calmly as she pushed the bathroom door open carefully, "tell me, how many girls you know that don't like you."

"Aline," he said immediately. "She doesn't."

"Really?" Clary mused. "I met Aline. I think that the reason that she doesn't like you is that you both play for the same team. I'm sure that she likes you as a person, though."

Jace smirked at that and walked over to the closet and opened it. Empty. "This room's clear," he announced.

Clary didn't say anything as she walked out. Apparently her saying that she didn't dislike him wasn't the same thing as saying that she liked him. He sighed, he couldn't win with her; that much was very obvious.


~Tessa~

She, Will and Jem volunteered to check out the fifth floor while the others were on the fourth. She liked the idea of looking at it before Clary came bumbling through and got herself hurt. Her sister was a very capable person, but sometimes she didn't pay enough attention to her surroundings. Tessa figured that she was a bit biased, however, because she was Clary's sister.

"So," Will said with a cheeky grin as they walked into the entrance of the fifth floor, "who want to go and check out the monsters?"

"I'm already look at one," Jem quipped. "It's rather ugly and I'm sure that it would be happy if we were to put it out of its misery. Do you think a five story drop would do the trick, Tessa?"

"I'm sure it would, Jem," Tessa agreed with a smile. The two boys made her laugh more than she had in years. Even now when she was worried about just about everything, they still made it impossible not to smile.

She saw Will look at them with a glare that eventually wore into a smile. It was obvious that he was trying hard not to laugh himself. "You guys are so awful to me," he complained. "Didn't you ever learn that bullying is wrong?"

"I distinctly remember the way that you used to treat Jace when we were younger," Jem informed Will as they opened the door to the fifth floor. A few stragglers were shuffling along the hallway aimlessly. As soon as the door creaked, however, they turned and began trying to rush toward them…well as fast as a zombie can rush. So in all actuality, it was really just a little more than a shuffle.

Will jumped forward, sliding his sword out of its sheath as he said, "I don't bully him anymore!"

"No," Tessa agreed. "You have other things to beat up now."

"You mean that you'd rather me allow the corpses to kill me?" Will questioned as he swung the sword in a fast and large arc, taking out three at once. Tessa rushed forward and took down the one that was about to attack him from the side, stabbing it in the temple with her knife. "Admit it Tess," Will said cockily, "You'd miss me if I did that."

"I admit," she said. "I would miss everything but your mouth."

"I'm making progress, Jem!" Will shouted to his best friend, who was slicing through a couple of snarling old women.

Jem turned around when they were down and rolled his eyes at him, "You just think you're making progress, William. In all actuality, she still thinks that you're as repulsive as you find Gideon and Gabriel."

Tessa had no idea who Gabriel and Gideon were, but judging from the look on Will's face, they must have been rather awful people. "No one finds anyone more repulsive than that!" he exclaimed. "I don't understand how they're even related to Alec and Isabelle!"

"Cousins," Jem said, rolling his eyes as Tessa dispatched the final zombie, a short woman with a chunk of flesh missing from her cheek. "You know, the same way that you and Jace are related?"

"Please," Will pleaded. "Don't compare me or anyone in my bloodline to either of those…those…"

"I'm pretty sure the words you used last time were tenacious bastards," Jem said helpfully.

Tessa saw Will nod slowly in agreement. "That sounds about right."

"You guys shouldn't be so rude," Tessa admonished.

Will looked at her with a gaping mouth and wide eyes. His hand hovered over the first door, but he didn't go anywhere, though, too busy looking at her in apparent disbelief. "This is coming from the girl that hit me over the head with a…whatever, not even two minutes after we met!"

"First off," Tessa said, "it was a vase, and secondly, I didn't know you. You shouldn't be rude to people that you know that you are counting on protecting you."

"I wouldn't count on either of those Lightwoods to protect themselves, let alone anyone else," Will informed her. "You would do well to remember that if you ever get the displeasure of meeting one. Please, Tess, do me a favor and don't trust them."

Tessa looked past Will and over to Jem, who was standing in front of the door next to his. He looked uncomfortable, as though he felt bad about what Will was saying, but just because he felt bad about it didn't mean that he disagreed.

"Alright," she said with a small nod. "I won't."

"Good," Will said. He turned and opened his door. Tessa walked to the one directly across from him and opened it. The first two rooms that she went into were wonderfully empty. There were no zombies, nothing at all. She was worried and pretty happy at the same time. Each time she was see Will or Jem, they would have grime on their blades, letting her know that they'd fought off new creatures. She'd been the lucky one. She knew how well luck ended.

Then she heard it. There was a growl coming from the next room. She grabbed her knife, prepared for some action as she slowly turned the knob. It opened with a low creak and she blinked at what she saw in front of her. A golden retriever was sitting down. He was thinner than was probably healthy, but Tessa was more concerned with the fact that the dog was actually still alive. She was pretty sure that the virus that had consumed the human race hadn't traveled into animals, thank god, but she hadn't seen any animals around in a while, not that she had really thought about it.

"Tessa?" Jem's voice sounded across the hallway. She didn't even turn around. She felt a part of her reprimanding herself for being rude, but there was a larger part that was more concerned with the dog. There was footsteps and then Jem was next to her.

He muttered something quietly that didn't sound as though it was English, probably an explicative. She finally tore her eyes off the dog and turned to look at her companion. He was staring at the dog with widened eyes. "How is it still alive?"

"I'm out here risking my life, chopping off heads of countless zombies and you two are just dawdling around!" Will's voice rings next. He actually sounds aggravated.

Tessa turned around, and Jem does too. "Dawdling?" Jem questioned. "Strange word choice."

The dog growled again, obviously not liking Will's tone. Will paused and frowned at Tessa and Jem. "Tell me that was just one of your stomachs."

"Not at all," Jem said cheerfully. "It was Tessa's new friend! I don't think it appreciated the way that you were just speaking, either. You might want to apologize."

"What is it?" Will asked, but Tessa could tell by the look on his face that he already knew. Jem took a step to the side and Tessa mimicked him, stepping in the opposite direction, so that the thin golden retriever was visible. "You've got to be kidding me."

"Not at all," Tessa replied. She knelt down toward the dog, smiling slightly at it. "It's adorable, though," and it really was. With its shaggy golden hair that was admittedly dirty, and the way that it had its mouth open as it panted made it look as though it was smiling. "Nothing's ever adorable anymore."

"I'm admittedly jealous of the dog," she heard Will mutter to Jem, who snorted quietly. "He's gotten father with her in five minutes than I have in a week."

"Cheer up," Jem said, "you're at a disadvantage. Clearly, this dog's cuter than you."

"I'll have you know that plenty of females have informed me that I am very cute," Will said humorously. "C'mon, Tess, admit it. You know I'm just as adorable as the dog."

She looked over at Jem incredulously, who just shrugged. He remained unhelpfully silent. She saw a small smile threatening to break through on his face and knew that he was silently enjoying the discomfort. "Yes, William," she said, "you're just as cute as a dirty dog." She pushed herself to her feet and smiled down at it, "come on. Let's get you downstairs. There's probably some food down there that you can eat."

The dog seemed to be smart enough to not bark. It just stood up and wagged its tail. Tessa walked back toward the doorway that they had come through and the dog followed her. Will looked over at Jem who sighed and gestured for him to do the same. Neither one of them was prepared to allow her to go by herself. "Let's go, William," Jem said, "so you can start you competition with a dammed dog."


~Will~

It took a while for the hotel to be marked off as safe and even then he was still uneasy, though that might have had something to do with the fact that hordes were starting to line up at the gates, looking for food. People had been out, ramming knives and rods through to kill the stragglers, but it would take a while before all of them were dead…well actually dead.

He was sitting in one of the suits that probably hadn't been used for years before the apocalypse had broken out it looked expensive. There had been no stragglers inside and the beds look dustier than the rest that he had seen. He was in the living room with Jem, Tessa, Magnus and Isabelle. Clary and Jace had both retired to be as soon as the doors had opened. Their silence had been stiff and angry. Isabelle seemed to know why, but wasn't sharing, just glancing at the separate doors that they had entered with twitching lips.

The dog was curled up by Tessa's feet sound asleep. The girls had been ecstatic over the new find and Magnus had mentioned something about a blink-collar. He was probably referring to something that would match Magnus' own wardrobe. "So," Isabelle said, with a small yawn, "what are you going to call him?"

"I don't know," Tessa said with a small shrug. "I haven't even really decided if I'm going to keep him of not. I mean, can we even really keep up with dogs in this kind of world? We'll have enough problems feeding us and he's just another mouth."

"He's the first animal to come around, though," Magnus said, "Do you really want to give that up?"

"I want to make sure that the rest of us are alive," Tessa said. "He can't be taken care of before us."

"He can take care of you," Will said, frowning at her. "You should keep him. You never know, Tess. He seems very protective. He might save your life one of these days."

Tessa looked over at him questioningly and he smiled at her and nodded down at the dog, "You should name him."

"What do you think?"

"He reminds me of my cousin," Will mused, "maybe you should call him Jace."

"I am no naming a dog after your cousin," Tessa said sternly. She looked over at the doorway that he'd disappeared behind worriedly before saying, "he seems troubled enough as it is."

Will nodded slowly in agreement and said, "We can worry about him and his dramatics later. Worry about you and your dog right now. If you don't want to name him Jace, then what do you want to name him?"

"What about Church?" Jem asked, looking down at the dog curiously.

Tessa smiled at the name before she turned to look at Jem. The three of them were sitting on a couch, with Tessa in the middle. "I like that name, Jem." She looked down at the dog, "What about you, do you like Church?"

The dog looked up at her and cocked its head to the side for a moment before its tail began wagging and it let out a low bark that must have been a sound of approval.

"There you are, Tess," Will said, slinging his arm around her shoulder, "you have the only pet in the zombie apocalypse." He thought that she would just wrench away from him, but she didn't. She just smiled faintly and leaned into his embrace in a strange sort of hug. He didn't care, though. It was enough for him. He looked over her heat at Jem, who was looked at him with a raised eyebrow, and grinned.

This girl was full of surprises, though he'd known that since day one.


Firstly, yes, I am aware that Church is a cat. I just figured that cats would be useless in this kind of world and…well, I don't like cats all that much, so this is what I got. He is a golden retriever!

What do you think about Jace and Clary's confrontation? Who do you think is right about their differences? Do you think that Jon and Alec are dead? Did you like the chapter? Well…I hope you liked the chapter. Anyway, I hope this holds you over until I can update again!