Give me love like her, 'cause lately I've been waking up alone,
Paint splattered teardrops on my shirt,
Told you I'd let them go, And that I'll fight my corner,
Maybe tonight I'll call ya, After my blood turns into alcohol,
Give me love like never before, 'cause lately I've been craving more,
And it's been a while but I still feel the same
Maybe I should let you go,
You know I'll fight my corner, And that tonight I'll call ya,
After my blood is drowning in alcohol
Give a little time to me or burn this out,
We'll play hide and seek to turn this around,
All I want is the taste that your lips allow
The weird thing about silence is how cutting it can actually be. Slicing through the atmosphere like a scream in the dead of night, silence pierces the mind until your ears ring and the world becomes topsy-turvy. Time is non-existent as you observe your surroundings, and suddenly everything rings with a certain sense of clarity.
In the aftermath of our pouring confessions, I sat on Jace's lap, curled into his chest, and watched the pulse jump under the smooth skin of his throat in that same sort of utter silence. His deft hands were buried in the waves of my hair, head resting against my own. As I concentrated on the pulsing vein of his-the soft brush of his breath against the nape of my neck—I felt as though some missing piece of the puzzle was clicking in place. His arms were ropes around me, tying me to this world when all I wanted was to float away.
A bell ran off in the distance, but neither of us moved. In fact, the only time we showed signs of actually being aware of our surroundings was when someone tugged against the lock latching the bathroom door shut. Reluctantly, I pulled back from Jace then to meet steady gazes with him. I released a dry laugh and wiped my make-up smeared face with the back of trembling hands.
"I'm sorry," I apologized, averting my eyes. "I know I look horrible."
Frowning, Jace snatched up my hands, using his own gentle touch to wipe away the remnants of tears streaking my face. "You look beautiful."
My head drooped, heart faltering painfully as I remembered the reason why I ran in here in the first place. With a cringe, I said: "Don't—don't say that. It's not right when you and Danielle…."
He rippled with tension beneath me. "What?"
"It's no secret with the way you two act around each other," I replied almost bitterly. "Not to mention all the bragging Dani does."
Jace released my hands to run through his golden strands, eyes shutting against my accusing gaze. Standing from his lap, I fixed my rumpled clothes while muttering, "Whatever. It doesn't matter anyhow. Thanks for comforting me."
My fingers reached for the lock, but strong, firm hands grappled around my waist and turned me back around. Sighing deeply, Jace tugged me over so that I was straddling his lap. My fingers twitched to wind around his neck and feel the burn of his skin beneath my touch, but I resisted. As my hands curled into stiff fists, Jace pressed me closer to him yet. His eyes were smoky with desire as they grazed the outline of my collarbone up to my neck. Almost trembling hands traced an ascent from my hips to rest gingerly in the curve of my waist, holding me as if I was ancient glass.
"Danielle is an illusion of what I cannot have," he whispered, eyes glancing up to meet mine beneath his thick lashes. "What we have is purely physical."
"What's keeping you from what you want?" I asked, even though I already knew the answer.
Tangling his hands in my hair, he said, "It's not mine to take."
Images of his blogpost mingled with the memories of last night's kiss. Despite what he wrote, I knew that he was trying to make me remember what had happened beneath the heavy hand of liquor's spirits. There, resting in the honey of his eyes, was the secret, banished plea for the remnants of the kiss to dawn on me.
But a whisper of doubt was lingering in my forethought. Even after everything the two of us had shared the past two days, the way I felt about Jace was still a mystery. I was never programmed to think of men as anything more than a toy to play with during my free time. And Jace…Jace was supposed to be safe; both of us cold towards love and just looking for a new way to break up the usual lag of our dating lives.
He just had to mess it up.
Sitting there, encircled in the security of his arms, I felt the sincerity of my feelings toward him. They were burning just beneath my heart, making my skin tingle and my breath fluttery. Staring into his eyes sent rose petals splaying across my cheeks as I tried hard to resist the urge to duck my head.
I had to ask myself if I really wanted it, though. My life was screwed up enough as it was without adding relationship drama with Jace into the mix. Plus I highly doubted Jace would accept my world of neglect and abuse when he already had his sister to be concerned with. As mangled and broken as we were, there could be no happy ending for us—especially if he found out what I did with my father's business partners during the dead of night. Even I was disgusted with the whole situation; how would Jace take it?
Shutting my eyes for the barest of seconds, I vowed to act exactly as Jace had described me in his blogpost: clueless. I took his hands in mine and gently lowered them back down to his side. With a weak smile, I said: "Then maybe you should find what does belong to you."
Jace stared at me levelly, mouth flat-lined grimly. Several painful beats of my heart had to pass before he gave a slight, affirming nod to acknowledge my statement. There was nothing but silence left in its place.
Silence: a tool that will a cut like a knife through the darkest parts of ourselves. It has no warning or hesitation; it is just there, lurking in the times we hate it most.
I ducked my head down and, with my pulse thudding deafeningly in my ears, rose to leave the stall. This time as my fingers grazed against the lock, Jace didn't stop me, nor did I turn as I walked out with my bag being hiked up on my shoulder. There was a ringing in my ears, piercing through everything to make the world seem like something out of the twilight zone. Nothing was recognizable as I ambled down the vacant halls, not a sound or act registered in my brain. I wasn't even aware of where I was going—I was just walking…walking…a hollow ghost making her rounds in the school she once inhabited. But there was nothing left to sustain her.
Eventually, I forced myself to bundle up those feelings of emptiness and shove them down in the big wood box at the back corner of my mind to collect cobwebs. If I was going to commit to my decision to be indifferent towards Jace, I couldn't be moping around as though I had just been stabbed in the back ten times over—no, I had to act as though my life was just as good as it was before everyone had left me to fall in the dust.
Determination creeping up inside me, I jutted out my chin, fixed my posture, then strutted off towards the school exit. If my previous schedule retained, the gang would all be congregating at Pandemonium that night. Undoubtedly, if I was going to make it seem like I didn't have one flipping care in the world, I would have to rest up the dark circles indented beneath my eyes then put on my best game face for a night on the prowl in the club. It was my goal to look like my heart was made of stone, like no one would ever be able to hurt me.
Of course, only Jace knew the real truth.
Shaking my head clear of thoughts of Jace, I shoved my way out the doors and began the walk towards home. I took the main way, hoping that the commotion of traffic and business-drunk socialites would keep me distracted. Listening to the sound of my own thoughts had just become exhausting.
Soon the crowd was depositing me back out onto the rich, extravagant neighborhood my manor was set in. The majority of the only trees you'll find in Manhattan were there, looming over the streets as to block any view of the manors you could get. My house, of course, was secluded from the rest of them, segregated to the very end of the street with no trees protecting its view from the speculating eyes. We only had a wrought iron gate to block us out from, as my father referred to them, "people beneath us." Despite him wishing we would remain separate from the lower class, our gate was almost never closed, which is why I found it so peculiar for the black rods to be latched tightly shut over the driveway.
Eyebrows scrunching together, I rummaged in my bag for my spare set of keys and plucked a few out before I found the right one to unlock the gate. I shut it behind me as I padded warily up the driveway, wondering what on earth was going on. The closer I got to the house, the more oddities I noticed: my father's car in the driveway, the garage door completely agape, and the front door slightly ajar. The only time my father ever left the door unlocked was when he went out to a business meeting, and by the looks of it, he was still very much at home.
Ice crystals filtered through my veins, freezing over every inch of my skin. The staccato lashes of my heels made me cringed as I picked my way carefully over the threshold of the front door. Swimming through my vision was a house that looked completely unperturbed, but I knew something was wrong. A thick, foreboding smog hung in the air and filled up my lungs with smoky discharge.
Limbs turning to stone, it took a whole lot of coercing on my part to thrust my legs into moving one foot in front of the other in order to climb the stairs. I could literally hear my joints creaking as I ascended, and my muscles were coiled so tightly I thought I may combust. Breathing was becoming tricky, making my heart speed up to overdrive as I made it to my floor.
I checked my room first, swinging open the door with a careful swiftness. When I found nothing out of place there, I checked the bathroom; again, all clear. Then I was faced with the last door, set across from me at the very end of the hall. The room that Simon was supposed to be locked up in—hopefully still locked up in.
With a deep breath, I started towards it. As if in a nightmare, the walls around me began to warp and melt around me in candle wax that stuck to the soles of my heels and made it taxing to walk. The hallway elongated, stretching on as far as my dreadful eyes could see. My heart thumped, the only sound encased inside my constricting ribcage; a cold sweat made my hands clammy.
Shutting my eyes, I breathed in and out…in and out…then slowly took the last real steps towards the door and wrapped my shaking hands around the knob. Fingers slipped against the cool bronze finish; I wiped them off on my jeans once quickly before returning my grasp. My lips plucked out a prayer to whoever was watching over the scene that day.
I guess no one was paying attention to my miniscule life just then, though. Because the second I pushed open the door, my world crashed down to a boil in the puddles of wax walls pooling at my feet. My vision clicked to black in several rapid-fire shots, and for a moment I had the heavy notion that I would faint. However I forced myself to stay standing. If not for me, then for the mangled boy lying in his own blood on the floor of my once-beautiful, peaceful art room.
A scream ripped out of my throat, scraping the insides of my lungs on its way up. My father whirled around with a venomous vindication burning in his eyes. A cracked, rotting bat was gripped tightly in his knuckle-white hands, the oak finish stained scarlet with Simon's blood. Lips curled up in a malicious sneer, he took a step towards me with the bat poised for another hit.
"Dear, dear Clarissa. I am overjoyed that you decided to grace us with your presence—and just in time, too. You are just about to see the big finale where I get to crack open your friend's skull and watch his blood rain down upon all your pretty pictures." Alcohol ran heavily through his veins; his breath reeked of it, the foul stench pouring over me like a slap.
Rage bubbled inside me, my hands curling into fists. "Don't you dare touch him!"
"'Don't touch him,' she says." He turns further inside the room and before I could blink, the bat swung down on Simon's kneecap. A sickening sound crawled into the air as his bones cracked; my father looked down pitifully. "Oops."
As fast as a cobra flicking out with its poisonous strike, he pivots and connects the bat with my ribcage, instantly making me collapse. My breath caught in my throat, blundered about, then puffed out in spurting coughs. Another blow was delivered to my hip, making me scream in sheer pain. The entire right side of my body felt ready to collapse with only two blows; I couldn't even imagine, then, what Simon's condition was like. God only knows how long my father had been going at him before I arrived.
My fingernails dug into the carpet and scrambled me up onto all fours as I tried to block out the iron-hot pain I was feeling. No matter what, getting Simon out of here alive was my top priority. I needed to fight. Staggering to my feet, I stumbled off towards my room and hunted in my drawers for what I desired.
Living in the city had taught me two things: never go out at night alone, and always have a knife on you. With my father's ominous footsteps pounding down the hall after me, my trembling fingers fumbled with the mounds of clothes, trying to find it. But no matter where I looked, I always came up empty. Where the hell was my knife?
Then it dawned on me: Jace, furiously gorgeous, knocking my knife out of my hand to send it scuttling to the next stall over. On my way out, I never turned back. I never picked my knife back up.
Cursing everything from the heavens down to hell, I shot out of my room and raced down the stairs, barely even noticing it as my one of my heels snapped right off and sent me tumbling down the rest of the way. My bones blew train whistles of pain in my ears, muscles already giving up on me and refusing to work. Even so, when I heard my father begin to walk downstairs, I shoved another burst of energy into my body and forced myself back into a standing position. I nearly fell several times, but then I was limping off towards the kitchen, my mind envisioning tugging a knife from its position in the block and sending it sailing towards my father's vulnerable skin.
Only I never made it there. Mid-step, something collided with my spine and sent me crumpling to the floor. I gurgled out a muffled shout before the pain settled in, then his boots could be heard pacing behind me. Grunting, I struggled onto all fours and began crawled the rest of the way into the kitchen before I had to slump behind the island.
It was at that point that I believe I began to give up. Hope was at a new all-time low as my back absolutely resented the idea of moving even an inch and blood dripped down the side of my face. The knife block was right above me, though; all I had to do was stretch a little, get a good handle on one, and aim for a damaging spot on my dad.
Slowly, I crept a smidge out from my hiding spot and moved my body to give my torso a couple extra inches. Peering over the counter, my eyes searched frantically for my array of weapons—but they weren't where they usually where. The spot just next to the fruit bowl was vacant, and so was the rest of the counter. Where could a block of knives possibly disappear to?
For the first time in my life, I got my answer immediately. Gleaming in the afternoon sun that streamed through one of the kitchen windows, a blade twirled through the air with a grace unknown to man, and lodged itself into my shoulder. Gaping, all my breath left me as a scarlet rose bloomed through the sheer material of my shirt, bringing a whole other world of pain with it. I slid back down to the icy tile floor in shock, trying to wrap my head around seeing a knife sticking through my body.
Another knife whipped through the air and stuck, trembling, in the wood of a cabinet. The thud of my father's boots was getting closer to me, and I knew I had to snap out of it quick if I was going to take the only chance I had at survival.
Yanking the knife out of my arm with a yelp, I clutched it in my quavering hand and waited for my father to show himself. My pants counted out the endless seconds that stretched on then. One, two, three, four. Another knife ripping through the air. Five, six, seven, eight. And the toes of his boots appear. Praying for luck to be on my side, I wound my arm back and snapped the knife forward with all the effort that was contained in my tiny frame. The blade spun, then pierced the skin just above his right hip.
Of course I couldn't catch a break.
Though the wound would bring up a hell of pain later, it didn't even affect him now as he tore the knife out and sent it sailing for my head. I ducked just in time, not even waiting to see where it landed. My eyes locked in on the garage door and before I knew what was going on, I was racing towards it with a newfound adrenaline rushing crashing through me in caustic waves.
Ripping open the door, I barreled out into the cement space and scoured the walls for something to help me. Huffing with relief, I tugged off the first thing my eyes landed on: a shovel. The door screeched open behind me to reveal my father's looming form, and then I was sprinting off to round the enormity of our house until I reached the furthest corner from the garage. There, I waited with my back pressed against the siding, chest heaving, and heart racing. The shovel was gripped so tightly in my hands, I thought it may snap in half.
Grass crunched nearby, making the hairs at the back of my neck stand at attention like little toy soldiers ready for battle. I gulped and braced myself, poising the shovel for the proper strike that would give me the results I wanted.
The next minute was all a blur to me, really. Even today I have trouble piecing together the memories I have. All I know is that somehow my father was suddenly in front of me, and any sense of self-control I had completely dissipated in the gust of wind that passed its silky hands across the earth then. My entire body moved in perfect harmony with the shovel until it connected with my father one…two…three times. In the end, the only thing that made me stop was his blood misting up to splatter my face in some sort of twisted, masochistic form of art.
Gagging, I dropped the shovel from my blood-stained fingertips and looked down in horror at the bloody, immobile body of my unconscious father.
******!PLEASE READ THIS A/N!******
Sorry for the obnoxious title. Anywho. Bear with me on this A/N, because it's important so read it all the way through.
First off, excuse my lateness of the chapter. I was applying for a writing program and it consumed about two weeks of my life, which severely delayed this chapter. That being said, when I sat down to continue writing this chapter, I figured it could go one of two ways: One, Clary and Jace kiss passionately and find themselves falling in love with each other despite themselves; or two, Clary hardens her heart even further and leaves Jace in the dust. As you can see, I chose the second option because it would have more fluidity within the plot.
HOWEVER. I decided this after I wrote the first option, which leads me to my next order of business.
You guys have been super awesome and supportive throughout this entire story, even when I don't update for months on end. Therefore, due to your support and endless demand for ClaryxJace fluff, I decided to post the alternative plot point here.
Enjoy the love3 It is Valentine's Day after all (;
Tangling his hands in my hair, he said: "It's not mine to take."
With a voice so forlorn and a face as desperate and crestfallen as the one he wore, I couldn't contain myself any longer. I launched myself forward and molded myself against the broad muscles of his chest. Hungry lips crashed together with a fierceness that made me moan; my nails clawed at his back, wishing the material would tear and allow me to be closer to the scorch of his skin.
Echoing pants, twisting tongues, gripping hands clambering for each others' touch. All thoughts to my brain disconnected as his tongue trailed down the weak spot of my neck. Placing a tender kiss there, I gasped and buried my fingers in his hair. My head tossed back to reveal more of my skin and he didn't waste a second taking advantage of it. Frantic lips roamed the vulnerable plane of my collarbone, tugging a pleasant shiver from my core.
With a firm hand at the nape of my neck, he brought my head back up to meet my mouth. I nipped at his plump bottom lips, grinning when it made him groan. Pulling back, he smoothed his fingers over the lines and features of my face. His heart was pounding wildly in time with mine beneath my delicate touch; a fire burned in the depths of his eyes.
Gazing earnestly at me, Jace cupped ginger hands around my face. "Every day of my existence, I have sinned. Yet God blesses me with the love of the most beautiful girl in the world. What I'm doing with you now is selfish; I don't deserve to have you."
I kissed away the burrows of his frown. "You have to stop damning yourself."
"But am I not deserving of damnation?" he asked softly, as if afraid of my answer.
Firmly capturing his eyes in mine, I replied: "No."