sorry this has taken sooo darn long, schools gotten in the way. :P

The cup of joe is warm in my suddenly freezing hands, and I don't even bother to look up into the friendly werewolf eyes. There's too many memories in those eyes, too many things that will shatter this already broken boy. Those memories were at the institute as well, lurking in corners hiding in the once safe haven of dreams. It wouldn't be like this if I hadn't….

"It's not your fault."

I glance up finally, raising one blonde eyebrow. My face drops from the sardonic look of the good old days, and I move one hand from my cup to dig a fingernail into the smooth wood of his table.

"She wouldn't have gone if I didn't ask," I muttered.

Luke raised an eyebrow of his own, and the lines of my mouth stay in their permanent scowl. "Jace, Clary wanted to catch him just as much as you did."

I wince at her name, but not before everything I've been thinking for the past couple of months lets loose."NO. I used her as bait Luke! She died because of me! And he got away, and took her life."

Luke pauses, taking a sip of his own steaming cup of coffee, while my eyes travel back to my cup.

"Simon thinks she's still alive," He says smoothly.

My head shoots up again, and I blink a couple times."That's not possible."

"We never found her body." Luke countered."Or her stele."

"I assumed they burned in the fire," I snap, taking a sip of the scorching hot drink in front of me.

Luke doesn't say anything, and I refuse to believe it. No. I am not getting up my hopes for something that can't be possible. I saw her, I saw her body begin to burn. That beautiful body was empty of a pluse when I picked up her smooth wrist. I should have burned in that building with her. Only I was selfish enough to leave.

"He says he heard her voice, saw her shape," His voice has stayed the same frustrating tone of calm during this whole conversation, while my own has begun to rise.

"The bloodsucker's hallucinating then."

But I've heard things too, seen things. The glimmer of her hair, the whisper of a name called on the wind, my name. I refuse to believe that it's her ghost, I refuse to believe it's anything but the depression taking its hold on me.

"We could look into it," He starts.

"No," I interrupted."You and Simon as we, sure, go ahead. Not me. I refuse."

I stand up and head out the door, not a second thought, not an inkling of where I'm going.