The pain was constant. No amount of time could take away this pain. She was alone in the dark, the endless dark. No, there was the light. It came with the burn of a stele healing her. The pain was gone. Her mother was there.

So was Lucian.

Mother smiled and asked Clary to demonstrate her newest collection of moves. Clarissa watched Lucian's eyes avert when she nearly made a mistake. Her mother beamed at her progress. She left to keep from being found by the Clave.

A knife pierced her thigh in the dark. How did she still have the breath to scream? How did her nerves still work enough to feel the pain?

The burn of the stele kept her from bleeding out in the dark.

She curled up as tight as she could, hissing through her teeth at the pain.

To anything that could possibly be listening, she whispered, "please save me."

The angels, the heavens, the universe, the devil, the demons, and the monster upstairs were all silent in response.

No one was coming to save her.

Clary sat cross-legged in the back yard on a throw blanket. The thin metal staff she'd been training with earlier was beside her, looking more like a forgotten broom stick than a fighting staff. She'd been using to the vault herself across the yard. Now, she was meditating-which wasn't something she normally did. Well, she called it meditating, but she wasn't really sure what she was doing. Sitting in the middle of the yard with her eyes closed, trying to calm herself down with the sounds around her. The traffic from the streets, the gentle breeze through the leafless trees, birds in the branches and on the power lines.

Everyone was gone. Valentine was back in Alicante with Maryse. Jonathan and Simon were...somewhere. They'd left before Clary had woken up, having left only a note that they would be back before dinner.

With everyone out, Clary had decided to try vaulting. She was meant to be sparring, but that required a second person.

She'd woken before sunrise from a nightmare and hadn't been able to fall back asleep. Drawing hadn't helped, and neither had showering. Breakfast had barely been a blip in the remaining chills, and training had been somewhere between a clenched-eye panic and a wall of water separating her from the images behind her lids. The 'meditation' was helping a little bit, if only for moments at a time. When her concentration on the sounds lapsed, she heard his voice and felt his stele on her back.

Out of nowhere, Clary jumped to her feet and grabbed the dagger in her boot. Not thinking, she ran over to the tree and sunk the blade into the thick of the trunk, up to the hilt. Her fingers released for half a second before curling back around the handle. She pulled it out, only to stab it right back in. After doing this three more times, his face appeared behind her lids. She stabbed harder. Five more times and her arm was getting sore. He was smirking at her every time she blinked. Tears began to fall. Seven more. She was crying. Her sobs sounded like screams. Ten. There was a huge chunk missing from the tree. She directed the stabbing further up. How could he still be smirking like that? Twenty. He was laughing at her! The tip of the stele burned her spine. Fifty. Her knuckles were bleeding and covered in splinters. She pulled the dagger back and stabbed another three times before she realized that the blade was no longer attached, buried in the trunk. Screaming and boiling with rage, she ran back to the blanket and grabbed the staff tightly in both hands. It hit the tree with a satisfying tang. His face began to twist with anger as he faded from her vision. Tang, tang, thwang, tong, tang, tog, thwap, tang, SNAP! The staff broke, but she didn't stop. Blood was twisting in long lines from her fingers to her elbows, but she kept going. She barely adjusted her hold on the broken metal before continuing to beat the tree. SNAP! It broke in half again. Four more swings and there was another snap. Clary gripped the metal tighter, ignoring the burn of open wounds, and used the jagged end to stab the trunk. Again and again. When it snapped again, the weakest point wasn't the end, but the middle. It splinted in her hand, and the force of the motion sent a long sliver in and across the flesh of her palm. Her hand opened, but the staff end didn't fall.

She did, right to her knees, and she screamed in pain. Shards of broken metal and long wood splinters pierced her knees and shins. Her knees felt wet and she realized numbly that she'd hit a puddle of blood from her hand. Biting her lip so hard that it split, she ripped the end of the staff away, pulling it from her hand. Pushing herself back, she sat in a squat and began pinching and pulling and ripping bits from her legs. Not bothering to be careful, she did the same to her knuckles, barely noting that with each piece she removed from her flesh, the more she bled.

As she stared down at the little pile of bloody mess, Clary realized that when she blinked, she no longer saw Lucian behind her lids.

Jonathan grinned excitedly as Simon huffed and dropped himself into the passenger seat of the car. They were both sweating, but Jonathan wasn't even breathing hard-Simon looked like he might have an asthma attack. They'd worked hard, and for most of the day, sparing with each other until one of them gave in. In the end, Jonathan had called it a match, saying it was time to go home. Simon had immediately slumped against a tree, and hadn't even huffed when Jonathan complimented him on not dropping his weapon.

The woods were much more fun to fight in than the backyard.

"Good job out there today," he said as he grabbed two bottled waters from the back seat of the car. He handed one to Simon. "You were awesome."

"Thank," Simon puffed. "You. Too."

Jonathan smirked. He'd really worn the guy out. "Thanks. We'll take a break tomorrow-you'll probably be really sore when you wake up."

"I. Burn."

"I know. That happens. I'd offer an iratze, but it'd probably kill you."

"Risk. It."

"But then Clary would kill me, and I'd have to keep training you in the afterlife."

"Ass."

He laughed and started the car. Despite the chill outside, he turned the AC on, hoping to cool Simon down. Before putting the car in drive, he grabbed his stele from his boot and etched a quick iratze into his shoulder. To him, it looked upside down, but he knew it wasn't. Over the years, he'd gotten pretty good at doing runes upright while looking down at them. He wasn't sure if it made a difference, but it made him feel like they were more effective.

Once they were out of the park, it was only a forty minute drive home. Simon was breathing normally again, so he called in a pick-up order to be ready by the time they were back in the neighborhood. Valentine wouldn't be home, so it would only be the three of them.

They hadn't eaten since breakfast. Jonathan would have killed for a coffee, but knew he'd feel better after food, a shower, and a long night of sleep.

And seeing his sister.

A/N: sorry for the absence. No promises on speed, but I'll try. I missed you guys!

TC