~Jamie POV~
The rush of cool air that washed over my face as we dragged the bodyguard out into the alley did nothing for my blazing cheeks and the sweat that had accumulated on my hairline from watching Hazel. My heart was racing a thousand miles a minute, a deep, burning fire starting in the pit of my stomach as envy boiled through me, the thought of all those creatures with their hands on her nearly naked body making me want to cringe. God, she was just...
"Jesus Christ she is sexy." Darren panted, tossing the bodyguard onto the ground near a pile of trash. He bent over, trying to catch his breath as he shook his head. "Didn't know she had it in her."
I shoved past him, clenching my jaw as I crouched down over the bodyguard and tore the tape from his mouth.
"I won't say a thing." he hissed quickly, before I could get a word in. I frowned at him, watching as he writhed on the ground like a fish out of water.
"Oh?" I pulled Michael out of the strap on my back, holding the tube vertically, only a centimeter away from his face. "Michael."
The blade exploded, cutting a line clean through the concrete as chunks of gravel flew up and hit the boy in the face, his eyes wides.
"I suggest you open your mouth," Heaven ordered, loading her crossbow behind me. "Or things could get very, very difficult..."
"For you." I finished, staring at the boys dark green eyes. They reminded me of Hazel's. I turned my face away from him, standing and walking towards Aaron, whose arms were crossed over his thick chest. Heaven, sensing my agitation, took my place at the boy's side, her crossbow pointed at his face.
"What's your boss doing here?"
"I don't know." the boy spat. Heaven sighed, shaking her head before asking again, only to get the same reply.
"Shoot him." I ordered, the boy's eyes going wide. Heaven stood, knitting her eyebrows at me before aiming the crossbow at one of the boy's tied arms.
"Don't!" He cried, trying to wiggle away.
"Talk, then." Heaven said evenly.
"I can't!"
"Shoot him." I ordered again, more firmly. Heaven chewed on the inside of her cheek and I sighed, moving past the rest of our group. I pulled the crossbow gently from Heaven's hand, patting her on the back a few times before aiming and shooting an arrow directly into the crook of the boy's elbow. He screamed, blood pooling along his brown skin as he tried to kick at me. His efforts were futile.
"Jamie!" Lucy hissed, horrified. I ignored her.
"Now, would you like to tell us what your boss is doing here?"
"I DON'T KNOW!" The boy screamed, his eyes wet. "I swear I don't know! He comes twice a week, just twice and sometimes he's happy, sometimes he isn't. Sometimes he takes out packages, I opened one once and he nearly killed me for it!"
"What was in it?" I ordered.
"I can't-"
Another arrow, this time to his thigh. The boy screamed again and Lucy turned away, facing the wall. I hated that she had to watch this, I hated that any of them had to see it knowing they didn't have the stomach's to handle it, but this was part of being a Shadowhunter. This was part of being fearless.
"Speak."
"It's a drug!" he screamed, his voice cracking. "I don't know, it's some kind of drug and it's supposed to , God I don't know what it's supposed to do-"
"Try to remember, my friend," I warned him. "I've got plenty of arrows with your name on them."
"I don't know, it's something with the fire girl they've all been talking about!"
"What fire girl?" I growled, my fists clenching.
"The one from the Carnival, they said they want the one from the Carnival but they're afraid!"
"Afraid of what!"
"They don't know if they can control her," the boy heaved, squeezing his eyes shut as I pulled the arrow from his elbow. "They're scared she'll kill them so they've been working on some sort of drug, it's supposed to change a rune or something, it's like what the son of Valentine did with the Mortal Cup. They're trying to reverse runes!"
"They're creating a new Binding rune." Heaven breathed, her eyes wide. The boy nodded, flickering his eyes back and forth between us.
"Why do they want her?" Darren asked. "Creto made it clear that he still despises Downworlders."
"He does, he hates them. All of our training is revolved around it, he's raised all of us to hate them-"
"Raised you?" Lucy turned.
"Oh my God, he's been doing this shit for years?" Darren grimaced, shaking his head in disgust. The boy simply frowned, laying his head back and staring at the dark sky above us.
"We get separated from our parents if they don' agree with Creto's Law. We get put into Institutions, trained, and then we go out and we kill Shadowhunters. It's what we do."
"They're exactly like us." Aaron murmured, staring at the boy sympathetically.
"Yeah, except we're not bat-shit fucking crazy." Darren spat.
"Why do they want Hazel?" I repeated, losing my patience. The thought of her half-naked body flashed through my mind again and I squeezed my eyes shut, trying to ignore it.
"There's some prophecy, something about one of the Shadowhunters being better than the rest."
"What about him?"
"Creto's plan can't succeed if the Shadowhunter is still around to stop him. Creto can't kill him."
"So why would Hazel even be involved?"
"Because she's the only one that can."
I clenched my jaw, shaking my head.
"She would never turn on her friends, not like that."
"She would if she knew the truth about the Clave."
I knit my eyebrows together, turning to the rest of the group for some sort of sign that they understood what the bodyguard was talking about. They all looked just as confused as I was.
"The Purified Ones have been recruiting help for months now," The boy wheezed. "If you knew what that girl could do, what she will do to this world, you wouldn't want to be on her side either."
"But Cre-"
"Creto plans to kill her after he's done with her, that's been his promise to most of the Downworlders who-"
"Downworlders?!"
"For someone who was begging me to talk, you sure won't let me finish." the boy grumbled. I bit my lip. Downworlders were working with Creto. We didn't know who, we didn't know why, and we didn't know many. All we knew was that...
"Hazel's being hunted by Downworlders, too..." Lucy breathed. Heaven looked towards the club as Aaron and Darren rushed inside.
"And right now, she's in a building full of them."
I darted down the alley, following Heaven and Lucy through the door before the boy called out, stopping me. I turned to him, halfway inside of the door.
"Don't be fooled, Nephilim." The boy called. "Creto's been working with the Shadowhunters, too."
My heart dropped into the pit of my chest and I slammed the door shut behind me, shoving through the body of people with my friends. Heaven and Lucy were surging through the crowd, screaming out Hazel's name as Darren was throwing open curtain after curtain, exposing several naked couples and one drunk-off-her-ass old woman. They all yelled in protest, Darren not even stopping to apologize as he threw open the curtain to the General's booth.
It was empty.
I was searching the stage, flipping over table after table and finding nothing. Security was growing restless, several large men making their way towards us as our group collected itself behind the curtain of the stage.
"Nobody's in the bathroom," Lucy wheezed, a hand on her chest. "I can't find Anastasia anywhere."
"Not in the men's, either. They're not in the crowd, Jamie. They're not here."
"What are you talking about?"
"I ran all the way upstairs and even checked a few of the security cams," Heaven said quickly, worry filling her tone. "They said Stasi and Hazel disappeared twenty minutes ago."
"The General's gone too." Darren shot.
"And so is the woman he came here with."
Dread was filling my body as I gripped the stomach of my shirt tightly into my fist, unsure of why the room was spinning. We had lost our lead on the General. We still didn't know who he was with, or why he was with her. Both of my parents were dead, Shadwohunters were working with Creto, and worst of all, we had just lost two of our team idea of the girls being gone turned my insides to water, making me feel weaker than I had before. I thought of the curly hair, the bright eyes, the way I felt like I was invincible around her. I thought of her as my shield, my motivation for fighting so hard, a reason for living aside from being a Shadowhunter. But she, along with my cousin, had disappeared, and now I was left naked, vulnerable, and unarmored.
Anastasia was gone.
And Hazel was gone with her.
That concludes The Second Generation: Armored! How did you guys like it? Would you like a sequel? Read and review, leave comments (: