Ahoy earthlings! I hope you're ready because these are the two chapters before the last one ! (okay not entirely true, there will be an epilogue!)

As usual Read and review!

Love, Lilly

Oh and thank you to Itz- Mikki Mtz18 and Jacelightwood17 for their ideas! They were great!

Enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-four: Suicide mission

"Jace?" Clary's voice was soft and calm but he could hear the worry in it. It seemed far away though. As if a wall had spurted between him and the rest of the room. His hand was clenched around the phone. Valentine had Reyna. The man had patience, Jace had to recognize that. He had waited twenty-five years for his revenge. She could be dead already. Jace sighed and closed his eyes; he knew what he had to do.

"Jace?" This time it was Alec's voice and its strength snapped him back to reality. Before he saw his friend move, his hand was already on his shoulder.

"He has Reyna," Jace said matter-of-factly, keeping the turmoil of it all inside.

He saw Jules take a sharp breath. "What does it want with her?" She asked, to no one in particular. "He knows she doesn't have Victoria anymore."

"It was never about Victoria," Aline said. She rose to her feet and showed her tablet to everyone. The screen was black and covered in code lining up in white digital letters and digits. The red word 'error' was blinking at the center of it. "It doesn't work."

"He wanted to draw her out," Alec began. "It was about Reyna from the beginning."

"And what we're just the bonus package?" Jace asked. He was half-sitting on Hodge's small desk, staring at the ground, his fists clenched at his sides.

"We need to get her back," Jules decided.

"I agree," Hodge said. "She risked her life by coming out of hiding for us. The least we can do is try."

"The least you can do is succeed," Maia interjected. Jace's head snapped up and he looked at her with amusement.

"Maia's right," Jordan agreed, resting a hand on her shoulder.

"I'll go," Jace said. It wasn't a question, a request nor was there any hesitation in his voice.

"No!" Clary exclaimed. She had remained silent, feeling out of place but the prospect of seeing Jace beaten up again had stirred the little confidence she had. "Are you out of your mind?! The last time you decided to go by yourself I found you beaten half to dead on a chair!"

"I agree with her," Alec said. "If you're going, I'm coming with you. And this time we end this."

xXx

"So according to the DR678," Aline began and pointed to the screen to her right. "There are only five people in the warehouse."

"Are we sure it's the right one?" Alec asked.

"It's the only one with any heat residue," she answered. "The others haven't been used for a long while."

"Wait: did you say DR678 as in a military drone?" Jordan repeated in dismay. "Did you hack into Homeland Security and had one of their drones fly over New York?"

Aline smiled and shrugged. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Oh God, we're all going to prison," he whispered and caught a glimpse of Jace smiling.

"Relax," Maia said, kissing his and Killian's cheek. "This is exciting."

"What's the plan?" Clary asked, looking straight ahead and not at Jace who was now standing next to Alec. He stretched out an arm in her direction but she dodged him and sat in a chair as far away as possible without feeling excluded from the group.

"Jace will enter by the front, I by the back," Alec began. "If I can gain access to the roof I could cover him better from there."

"Then what?"

"Then as soon as I know Reyna is alive I shot Valentine and his son in the head," Jace said through gritted teeth. "I won't miss."

"And if Reyna's already dead?" Clary argued.

"The outcome doesn't change, but I'll make him suffer before I kill him," Jace answered, turning his head to his wife. He tried to decipher her emotions but her face didn't betray any.

"Are you seriously going alone?" Maia insisted. "You have a whole department behind you, isn't it just reckless to go alone?"

"Reckless is his middle name," Clary sighed.

"It would be if it weren't William," Jace smiled in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere. It didn't work.

Alec rolled his eyes and dug his elbow in his ribcage, causing him to wince as pain from his fresh injuries shot up. Clary sighed, shooting him a murderous glare before standing up and leaving the room without her word, her heels echoing in the hallway as she walked away. Jace took off after her.

"Clary!"

She continued to walk. She wasn't sure she remembered how she had gotten there but she couldn't stand it anymore; she needed to be as far from this place as possible. She was going to lose the most important thing in her life. It was a certainty. And no matter what she said, she knew nothing would change Jace's mind.

"Clary!" he yelled again, grabbing the sleeve of her dress.

She inhaled deeply before turning around. Her emerald eyes were gleaming with tears. "What?" she whispered. She didn't know why she was crying: anger, fear, desperation. She was lost in a hurricane of unwanted emotions that had each grabbed onto a part of her and wouldn't let go.

He stroked her cheek with his thumb and she fell into his arms, tears flooding her face.

"It's going to be okay," he promised.

"Please don't go." She tilted her chin up and looked at him. "I can't lose you."

"You won't," he said.

"Please, usually your overconfidence is sexy, now is just annoying," she muttered, trying not to laugh as he flashed her one of the crooked grin she loved so much. "It's suicide."

"I'm going to have the whole CIA backing me up," Jace began, "how could it be suicide?"

"I don't think you realize how much they hate you," Clary argued. "Valentine and Jonathan. Don't underestimate them."

"I'm not," Jace assured her. "And with Alec, it's practically a done deal. Do you know he's the best sniper of the country?" He added, hoping he would comfort her.

"I just want to go home," she said as he wiped a tear from her eyes. "I want Izzy and Si and Mags to come home. I want to know that my family is going to be okay. I want things to be back to the way they were."

"I know honey," Jace kissed the top of her head. "It'll all be over soon."

R&R people! =)