"Simon!" Rebecca screamed as Jace helped Clary Simon inside. They set him down on a coach, Jace tying his arms together when Sebastian handed him a rope. Jocelyn nearly had a heart attack, clutching her chest at the very sight of his battered body. Magnus covered his mouth in either silencing a scream or holding back vomit. The children started to wail in fear of lacerated skin and weeping wounds.

"Daddy!" Olivia joined in with sobs. Isabelle was still unconscious

"He's gonna die!" Alec gasped, his eyes rolling back as he almost fainted along with his sister. The room was in absolute panic as they tried to assess Simon's condition. Jace needed to tell them why he came, why he escaped his captors.

After Magnus had taken both Isabelle and Simon to the infirmary, he decided to speak up.

"Uhm, if I could say something." Jace spoke quietly, gathering no attention from the group's chaos. He cleared his throat, ready to speak louder. "Hey!" Jace shouted, gathering everyones attention, the group gasping at the very sight of the man they thought as dead. It was the very look they had when Sebastian returned. They all looked at him with expectancy as the silence between them grew.

"Valentine," He started. Jocelyn hissed with a combination of fear and rage at the name of her ex-husband. Her abuser. "He's sending a group to take this place down. We need to run!" Panic was intoxicating his clarity as he spoke. All the people he still cared deeply about would be slaughtered or imprisoned at the least by the cruel man.

"You're a spy! Sent here by him!" Sebastian shouted, pressing his daughter closer to him in fear for her life. Jace wasn't surprised, as Sebastian had personally experienced Valentine's wrath.

"No!" Jace yelled back, clenching his fists, trying not to lunge at the man that had taken his family. "I escaped when he was travelling out here! He probably knows I left anyway, but whatever, I was a lab rat to him." Jace finished.

"Lab rat?" Clary asked. Jace nodded.

"He's making some new race of people," Jace grimaced. "Stronger, faster, smarter." He added.

"And don't forget harder, right Herondale?" Sebastian snapped. Jace ignored him.

"Impossible." Jordan breathed, walking in with Maia. Jace was surprised he could remember his and her name. Probably the experiments, he thought to himself.

Instead of telling them what he meant, he showed them by walking over to the couch, and lifting it up with each, one hand, finger, doing all the work. He didn't have to turn around to know that their eyes were wide with fear and curiosity. To top it all off, he lifted his sleeves that revealed his runes, as Valentine called them. They were his personal marking to show the skill of a soldier. When a certain drug stopped pumping in him, they would fade into a light shade, glimmering like a white silk ribbon wrapped around his body.

"You don't know what you're up against." Jace concluded. Clary gave him a panicked look, hugging Theo with her smaller children standing near her; along with Sebastian protectively wrapping his arm around her shoulder, another pressing his daughter to him while Liam hugged Clary's leg. They were the definition of the word family, Jace thought with a saddened tone.

"How long do we have before he attacks?" Jocelyn said in an almost whisper.

"Two days, maybe three. He knows you guys have a lot of people, and that's the only thing stopping him from marching over here and putting a bullet in all of your heads." He swallowed thickly, hating the words that left his mouth. Jonathan held his still son in his arms, the child wearing a blank face that made Jace uncomfortable.

They were all startled when a small girl nearly tore the door off its frame as she sprinted into the middle of the living room.

"Dad… they… took him." She panted. Jocelyn rushed over to her, assessing to see if her daughter was hurt.

"Breath Ambra." Jocelyn soothed her by rubbing her back. When her breathing regulated, Ambra started to whimper.

"He told me to run, to get back here before Valentine could hurt you Mom." She sobbed into Jocelyn's shoulder. Jace felt sorry for the little girl as she had to see Luke get taken by the only man Jace would admit he feared.

"Luke…" Jocelyn panicked, flashing Jace a raised eyebrows and wide eyes before hugging her daughter tightly.

"We have to save him!" Maia realized. Jace shook his head at her apologetically.

"There's no way. Valentine has an army. A growing one. We go against him, we'll all be slaughtered. Jordan growled, hugging Maia to him protectively as if Jace was going to harm her.

Magnus walked back, his head hung low.

"Clary, Rebecca, we don't have much time." He said, his words heavy with grief.


"How long has it been?" Clary whispered to Magnus as he looked for Simon's pulse. He had tried to restart his heart, it giving out after less than an hour of fighting the bite.

"Five minutes." He responded, looking at his cracked watch. "He should have turned by now." Magnus added to his conclusion. Clary could hint the slight annoyance, and bit her tongue to keep from lashing out at the medic. Isabelle held on to her husbands hand, scared of becoming a widow.

"Come back to me. I can't lose you too." Isabelle croaked to an unresponsive Simon.

"Izzy, we should get back, before he does, in fact, turn." Jace said, tugging on her shoulder. She hadn't said much about his return, only crying into his shoulder when Alec was unavailable.

"He's right, this is dangerous." Magnus agreed, standing up. Clary double checked on the chains that bound him, worried he might break free if and when he did turn into one of those monsters.

"We should bury him." She spoke softly. Clary would have pitied her if it weren't for her own broken mind at the thought of burying her life long friend.

"I think it would be save to wait a while, to see if he turns." Magnus responded. Isabelle nodded emptily, shuffling along with the rest of them as they left the room.

"Did he… ?" Maia asked when they walked out. Clary noted the look of relief on her face that had been present ever since her brother's death. He died like an idiot, hiding under a car and then being eaten instead of trusting to go along with the group.

"No, he didn't turn, but he's not alive either." Isabelle snapped, then started to sob into her adoptive brother's arms immediately afterward.

"I'm sorry." Maia apologized before turning back to her boyfriend. Behind her was Marlene, and after hearing of his death, stumbled backwards.

"No!" She cried, pulling roughly on her hair before dashing down the hallway to her room, Clary guessed. There was something off about her, she thought as she saw her clear obsession with Simon.

"Watch my children." Isabelle muttered before leaving her group, head in her hands as slumped forward in her slow walk.

"We don't have long." Jace thought out loud. Clary nodded along, scared to agree with the fact that her they could all be captured by her infamous father.

"Did you hear that?" Jace asked her. She was confused because she hadn't heard anything she shouldn't have. Clary saw Jace's hand wander over to his belt where a dagger was placed. She gulped heavily, scared that it was time for Simon to meet an end. He charged back into the room, Clary hot on his heels as he approached Simon.

An unmistakable groan was heard from his lips, making her want to cry.

"Please!" Clary pleaded to Jace, weapon blazing, ready to eliminate the monster her friend had become.

"He's already gone Clary!" Jace argued. It could have been her imagination, but Clary thought she heard Simon say something. Zombies didn't talk, and as Jace was ready to swing his weapon at her, she threw herself in front of the knife, protecting Simon.

"Clary don't!" Jace yelled as he tried to pull her away from the awakening Simon. She hugged him like an idiot, scared that he wouldn't remember her. Cold fingers wrapped around her thin arm, making her scream out despite herself.

"Clary!" Jace said, finally ripping them apart. Simon groaned again, opening his eyes; their coffee brown tinted to look milky like all the zombies she had taken down. Simon's lips were an ashen color, his tongue rolling out to soak the skin back to it's petal pink default.

"Simon!" Clary cried out towards her awakening friend. His eyes rolled over to her, before he struggled against his restraints. He growled at them, and Clary's eyes watered at the transformation that overtook him.

"I'm sorry, Clary." Jace said before raising the dagger at Simon, again. Clary closed her tear filled eyes, not wanting to see the death of her undead friend. She heard air suck through Simon's sand coated throat.

"Get that knife out of my face… or I'll shove it up your ass Herondale." Simon growled.