Thank you so much for reading an reviewing!! I love hearing from you! I would write more, but honestly I'm just too tired! I have to get up in roughly 5 hours and I am sooooo tired- but I thought I would write this and post it just in case I get home late tomorrow!! See- I do lvoe you guys!! lol, hope you enjoy and let me know what you think! Good Night!!

Jace had been driving for thirty-two minutes. He had counted every individual second in an attempt to distract his overactive brain activity. Although what he was doing wasn't really driving- cruising, soaring, coasting, flying- those were better adjectives. He knew that if he stuck to the roads, the other vehicles and drivers would irritate him so much that he would probably end up ploughing into the side of their cars or running somebody over. The sky held less danger. It let him feel like he was escaping- there were no limits up here, not until he ran out of fuel anyway.

It was calm up here, Jace thought. All he could hear was the loud sound of his motorbike's engine- but in the last thirty-four minutes he had become desensitised to the noise. The tumultuous nature of his raging thoughts helped to block out the rumbling revs as he gradually became angrily lost in them. Until thirty-seven minutes of furious silence shattered with a ringing from his pocket. A buzzing mobile phone. His vibrating mobile phone. Jace winced. As though the ringing phone caused him pain. He couldn't deal with other people, he couldn't stand any company. Not when his head was like this.

He wondered if it was Alec. How had the confrontation played out? No doubt similar to his. Maybe this was the apology call, the 'you were right, we were oh so very wrong' call. Clary had probably ditched them just as coldly as she had him. Luke would be upset, Simon would be heartbroken, Alec and Isabelle would be worried about him. Isabelle would smother him with her fussing, Alec would make him feel guilty as he desperately tried to cheer him up. And Jace knew, deep down, that he wasn't going to cheer up. Not for a while anyway. Betrayal cut deep. Betrayal executed by Clary stabbed and slashed, leaving lingering dashes of salt in the wounds.

The phone abruptly stopped ringing. Jace found that he felt strangely relieved, and realised that if he couldn't even speak to others, there was no way that he could face them. Hell, he couldn't even look at his phone in case seeing their names flashing on the screen would make him feel worse. The horrible, gaping hole in his chest was eating him from the inside out. An ugly inner demon that he couldn't seem to kill. A demon in the form of her. Her words, her face. Her bright eyes and her flaming hair. Her splash of freckles and her warm smile. Her anger and her tears. Her look of shocked disgust at him. His sister. His… something. Clary. But not his Clary.

The same thoughts were whirling around and around in his head. A spiralling stream of thoughts that circled continuously, never ending- no matter how hard he tried. Jace felt as if his head was too busy, too many trains of thought going on in there at once. So much so that Jace was worried there would be a pile-up on the tracks any time soon. A horrible train wreck of smashed metal and twisted debris. Anger and pain were still bubbling and boiling in his veins, flooding him and filling him bitterly to the brim. The Shadowhunter felt the urge to punch his way through a cement, brick wall; or to repeatedly hit his head off his the bike handlebars in front of him.

Groaning loudly, Jace swerved the bike into a nosedive. Now he knew what he was going to do. The familiar sight of the Institute quickly loomed into view. It approached at a frighteningly rapid pace. The motorcycle plummeted to the ground head-on and Jace only pulled up on the handlebars at the very last minute- narrowly avoiding a deathly collision with the black tarmac. He barely felt the adrenaline. He just felt numb, quivering with anger and drowning in hurt.

Jace climbed into the rickety elevator. He wearily trudged into his room, revelling in the empty silence. The first thing he did was crouch down on the floor in his bedroom. Beneath his bed was ridiculously dusty- so much so that the navy rucksack he pulled out was grey. A drab, dirty, dusty bag coated in pinkie-grey grime. A nice sized bag that was reasonably large- it would hold a lot, that was all Jace was interested in. He shook it out a few times, coughing as the dust surrounded his air and choked his lungs as he inhaled. It made his eyes tear up- he tried to tell himself that the dust was the only thing tearing him up. His own attempts weren't very convincing.

Every few minutes, the pesky phone in his pocket would kick into life again- driving the Nephilim crazy. He spent clipped moments in his room, sifting through personal items, ransacking wardrobes and imprinting the layout of the room in his mind. Making sure every single detail was permanently filed away in there. Just in case.

Once the door to his bedroom was quietly shut, he went directly to the weapons room. The last stop. A necessary one. Church yowled at his feet in the corridor, a gruff and complaining sound. Jace crouched down and scratched him thoroughly behind the ears- crabby, tetchy old cat. As he stood up gingerly, Jace's rucksack knocked against the hall table. He cringed, even though he knew the building was empty.

"Alec?" Came a voice from the other end of the Institute. "Isabelle? Come on, let me out! This is so unfair- I'm going to tell Mum and Dad when they get back and they are going to be so mad!"

Jace froze. Damn. Not so empty after all.

"Come on, I know you're there. Please let me out, I've been in here for ages!" Max's voice whined. "I'm hungry, Izzy! I'll even eat your cooking if you let me out, I promise!"

The old lock-the-unwanted-kid-up -and-run technique. Not very original- but highly effective. Another plea reverberated down the corridor once more, and Jace sighed loudly. His feet led him towards the imprisoned young boy against his own will. How could he not- it must be pretty bad when the poor kid would willingly eat anything Isabelle prepared. It was like signing a death warrant.

"Jace!" Max cried joyously, spilling through the door. "Thank the Angel, they locked me up. Again."

The tall and troubled Shadowhunter clutched an envelope in his right hand. His pale face was contorted as he looked down at the youngest of the Lightwoods.

"I need you to do something for me Max," he muttered hoarsely.

"Sure, Jace," he nodded enthusiastically. "What do you need? Are you okay? You look kind of sick- not really bad… well, pretty bad. Do you want some water? Or a-"

"Max," he interrupted. "I need you to promise that you will stay here until Iz or Alec come home."

"Aww, Jace! Not you too- how come everyone gets to go off fighting demons except me? You guys aren't old enough either- not really! Can't I please, please come? Just this once?"

"Promise me, Max." Jace continued as if he had never heard the boy's begging. "Promise me or I'll lock you up in your room again."

The youngest Lightwood pouted, jutting out his bottom lip. "Fine. I promise. No leaving until the evil captors return."

Jace ruffled Max's hair, a small shadow of a weak smile on his lips. "Good boy. Now, one other thing. You make sure either Izzy or Alec get this, okay?" He pressed the white envelope into Max's small hand just before it gave him a deep paper cut from being held too tightly.

"Sure…" It was then that Max took a good look at his idol. The dark shadows under his haunted eyes, the gaunt and pale pallor of his face and the bulky backpack hung on his strong shoulders. Jace never needed bags- Max didn't even think Jace Wayland owned a bag. "Jace… Why do you have a bag on your back? Are you going somewhere?"

The Nephilim merely pursued his lips into a grim line. It was enough to tell Max that, yes, Jace was going somewhere. Somewhere that maybe he didn't really want to go. Although that was stupid, because Jace didn't do anything that he didn't want to do. Or maybe it wasn't that he didn't want to go, maybe it was that he didn't want to leave.

"Will you be back tonight? I won't save any of Izzy's dinner for you."

Breaking the boy's earnest gaze, Jace started to walk away. "Don't forget about the letter, Max. Make sure they get it."

Max Lightwood simply stood and stared as the door closed. He took it that Jace would definitely not be back for dinner.