Hey reader! Ok so in the last chapter Sebastian was playing Russian Roulette, which is basically a game when one single bullet is put into one of the slots of a revolver, just one. The person holding the revolver (Sebastian) then tries to shoot the victim (Clary) with the single bullet. The gun will continuously keep on shooting blanks until the bullet is ultimately fired killing the victim. Clary's luck picked up while they were doing this because the revolver kept on shooting blanks because it hadn't gotten to the bullet yet. That's why Clary didn't die when Sebastian pointed the gun at vital parts of her body. That was just a clarification. I also please ask you in this chapter to SUSPEND DISBELIEF when reading because some parts are a bit….implausible but so Jace. Now onto Jace's POV!

Chapter 21

BANG! The sound of death echoed and bounced off of the cracked, moldy walls of the alley. There was a violent tug on my arm and I stumbled to the ground as the bullet flew past my arm, grazing my skin. There was a grunt as I landed on someone and I quickly rolled over and picked myself up.

I almost couldn't see her form, still twitching as her dark hair turned even darker as it was wet with blood-her blood. Shock paralyzed me, which was odd. I had seen many die before and shouldn't I be glad that she was dead? But as her groans grew quieter and her body started to still, the heavy feeling of lost life weighed over us all. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Clary, this was for Clary. We had to move.

I turned to Kaelie who still had her gun drawn. I grabbed it from her and she didn't put up much of a fight as her hands went to cover her face in horror.

"Take her body back to HQ," my voice was cold, emotionless. If it was what I needed to be to find Clary, I would be cold and calculating, everything the Circle required to rise in their ranks. "Make sure her body is taken care of."

"Her mother's dead and her father doesn't know anything about the Circle." Kaelie's voice was shaking as uncertainty entered it. I drew a breath this was what I had to do, this was what was needed to be done, this was right and moral in my world, in the world I had been forced into.

"Then Aline Penhallow never existed."

I was running, the destination clear in my mind.

"Jace wait!" Alec's voice called after me. My stomach squeezed as I thought about talking to him again. He had saved my life, saved me from Kaelie's bullet flying towards my chest. After everything that I had done…he had saved me. "Where are you going?" I slowed. The sky was dark which meant the New York nightlife was wakening. Clubbers roamed the streets in their tight and short get ups and others in colorful robes. Neon signs illuminated bars and clubs, pathways to a "good time." All of these people, going on with their lives without a single clue of the secret skeletons that prevent their normalcy from falling apart. I sighed and turned back. Isabelle and Alec catching up to me breathing hard.

"I know where she is," I said simply. They stared at me, waiting for me to go on. "Remember our last case together?"

"Jace you're going to bring that u-"

"Yes, yes because the Circle is in charge of this but who's in charge of sending out the operatives? Who sent us out on our mission?" Understanding shone in their eyes.

"But we can't just bust into the warehouse! We need back up."

` "Which is why I'm sending you for that."

` "You can't be serious Jace!" Isabelle shrieked. "You can't expect us to just let you go and have us run for help!"

"Well what do you want to do? You heard Aline, they're torturing Clary in there, she might not even be alive now! We have to hurry and besides, I'm trained for this kind of thing, I know Sebastian. He's not going to shoot me right away; he wants to pick a fight….impress Valentine." Isabelle moved forward but Alec put a restraining hand on her shoulder. He studied me intently and then nodded.

"Keep her safe…she's our responsibility too." With that they ran off. Responsibility…not subject or client…responsibility…

I couldn't run to Brooklyn so I needed something fast…that rules the subway out and besides I needed something private…but undetectable. My eyes wandered to a black Lambo that was standing idly on at the very front of an alleyway….that'll do.

The wonders of my hand. CRASH! I unwrapped my sweater from my hand, leaned in and unlocked the door. The things you can get within an alleyway in New York…I jumped in and ducked down. The multicolored wires hung in front of me. Education from a super spy agency has its perks as I hotwired the car. I smirked as the engine started to purr.

The sun was already sinking low on the Brooklyn Bridge as I sped over it, twisting and turning through the maze of New York rush hour traffic. I barely noticed it except to note that it was around the same time I finally took Clary up here. Why I did it? It was a fair trade I guess, her revealing her private place and me revealing mine. Besides, the guy should initiate a date now and then.

A cold chill ran up my spine. I hadn't driven on the route for years and I remember it as clearly as what happened that night. The apartment building bled into large, damp warehouses. The fishy smell of the river was repugnant in these parts. The car bumped over the broken and cracked streets as I finally pulled up to the corner. Then I was out of the car and running, running towards the place where I never wanted to be again, running towards Clary.

I glanced at my watch. It was about an hour later, where were Isabelle and Alec with back up? I could see the dirty and busted windows of the warehouse coming closer. I guess I was on my ow- What the hell was that? The loud swishing sound of the helicopter's blades cutting the air interrupted the eerie silence. I ran closer as I saw black figures fly gracefully down the wires and land on the ground. Wow…I just found a new goal in life…well if I survive this. I sprinted up the steps and pushed the doors open.

0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0 – 0

How did it come to this? How did it come to the girl that I had come to care for go from being lively and blushing to being swarmed by medics and put on a stroller with a growing red stain soaking the white sheets. The gun fight had ended with many casualties on our side but with a lot more on theirs. Sebastian had been found drowning in his own blood, dying before anyone could help him. Alec had gotten shot in the arm and was getting pretty cozy with the Director of Operatives for the Clave who was Magnus Bane. Isabelle was tending to her boyfriend, who was a mousy, nerdy looking guy named Simon. All of this, I found out later, after I had ridden the emergency ambulance to the nearest hospital gripping Clary's hand. After they had rushed her into the surgical wing and I had stood at the doors, frozen, unable to process what was happening. That was the ironic thing. In fact, there were many ironic twists in this story. The fact that I had cared for the person whom I was supposed to have the most distance between like a cheesy nauseating movie or the fact that I wasn't able to deal, which is the one thing I was trained for, to deal with the horrors of the job.

It was quiet. The steady beeping of the monitor, as annoying as it was, was the only thing that told me that she was alive, here with me. She looked so thin and pale with gauze taped all over her skin. I knew the protocol for torture and the method he had used. Knives, curved, straight, blunt and sharp, thick and thin. The only thing in common was that they were all dipped in salt water and held to the open wound for as long as possible. They were supposed to be small and around vital organs and arteries but obviously not. Clary was going to have long scars across her chest and limbs for the rest of her life. I kissed each of her knuckles as I prayed to God for the first time in my life to please get her well…to let her live. Let her live because she had saved me and I didn't deserve to be saved.

"I was there you know," I whispered to Clary, "Before I met you…when I was still friends with the Lightwoods. My dad," I chuckled," he just came waltzing into the Institute- that's the Clave's head quarters; I used to work for them you know? My mom put me in the business when I was seven. Until that time my father had always been a guy named Michael Wayland," I swallowed, "but he died on a mission and that was when my dad-my biological one anyway stepped in." I laughed bitterly, "until that time didn't even know that I had a biological dad and when I found out the Clave…and everyone including the Lightwoods knew about it…I was so angry." I whispered. I remembered that day, the waves of fury washing over me. I wanted to hurt someone and make someone feel as bad as I did when I found out everyone that I knew had lied to me. "That was the same day my dad introduced me to the Circle. My mom begged him not to…but he did anyway. Hodge was the Director of Operatives; he was the one who sent all of us out. I met him…thought he was a total tool but he sent the Lightwoods and I on our last mission before we got transferred.

It was this guy named Edge who was suspected of stealing some pretty important science equipment. Like destructive equipment, plutonium, uranium even rare snake venom. He worked for this big company named Solva who was interested in blowing the Earth halfway to the sun. We tracked him to his lair; he was like an evil scientist with all of the potions and bubbling concoctions. Isabelle, Alec and I, we split up. I saw him. I ran after him. I was so close, so close to catching him." My voice broke as I trembled, holding her hand tighter. This wasn't right, I couldn't cry. I took a deep breath; I needed to finish this story. "He led me to the room of the warehouse…the one you were in and in it-"I broke off and took a deep breath, "in it were children, all the missing children going back to a few years earlier. They were all dead, and looked malnourished and their bodies-their bodies were completely mutilated. God, I found out later that he was using children as test subjects for his sick experiments, to see if he could create the perfect operative or suicide bomber.

But in the middle…in the middle were Alec and Isabelle's bodies, they were out cold but seeing them in that pile," I shuddered, "it just chilled me. Later I had to fill out the report. I said-I said that I didn't know what happened to them but when I went in, they were already down. But when the Clave read my report, they saw that I had supposedly written that it was their faults, that they had let the criminal escape through the room. They were put on probation and they blamed me. I leaned my forehead on her arm, relishing in the contact. "I lost the only friends that I had. Now I see that it was probably Kaelie who changed my report…just like she had changed everything. My dad packed up my things and moved me to the Circle the next day. After that…I couldn't take another guardian job. I just couldn't…not after seeing those kids," I sighed, "those kids that I could have saved, he got away you know? They never found him. Think of the kids I could have saved if I had caught him that night…

But then you got assigned to me." I chuckled. "You with your crazy obsession with art and drinking apple-tinis I had to protect you, risk my life for yours. To be honest, I hated you at first, hated that you got to live completely oblivious to the sacrifice I was making. Then…you got your drink on me and my mission went downhill from there." I took a breath, "What I'm trying to say is that I love you Clary. I am in love with you and while it is so clichéd that I am saying this by your hospital bed, I'm saying it so that you can wake up, so that you can accept me or reject me but most of all, I'm saying it so that you can live. I love you Clary Fray and I'm so sorry for lying to you." Beep…Beep…Beep…Beep…

I sighed as I released her hand. Her eyes were still shut and without a backwards glance I walked out and straight into Maryse. I hadn't seen her in so long, I had almost forgotten her stern eyes or the likeness she had to Isabelle.

"It was Hodge," she said. "Edge was Hodge. He set you up for that mission." I kept on walking to the elevator. Maryse jogged by me and stood next to me, talking."The Circle had been funding Solva for years. They had kidnapped those kids. That scientist you shot? She found out and was going to report it to the cops. Jocelyn Fray found the files for the bomb…one so powerful that it could blow New York right out of the water…literally. We were supposed to keep her safe! But in the shooting she-"

"Where are they?" I interrupted.

"W-what?" She looked surprised that I had spoken.

"The files, where are they?" Maryse's eyes went wide with realization. That was when we heard the scream.

I sprinted to her room, beating the nurses and the doctor there. She was sitting in bed. Her green eyes open with terror as she screamed in horror. I rushed over.

"Clary!" I gently held her arms, "Clary!" Her eyes flew to me and met with mine. Her hands gripped at me shirt.

"Jace," She said breathlessly, "Jace, Jace, Jace…"

"Clary…shhh...you're ok…you're safe…" She leaned on my chest, and breathed heavily as I rhythmically stroked her arms and back, ignoring the stares of the nurses and doctor. I could sense Maryse was watching too. She walked over and I shot her a warning glare. She hesitantly opened her mouth.

"Jocelyn Fray is dead." She mouthed. I tensed and Clary lifted her head from my chest looked at me, her wide eyes with terror.

"I have to save them Jace," Her fingernails dug into my arms, "I have to save them all."