Hey everyone!

So this chapter is on the shorter end, and it only has Jace's point of view, but I wanted to get it posted for you all. Sorry to those of you who prefer Clary's view: on the plus side, the next chapter will be all Clary!

Enjoy!

I do not own TMI

Jace

Glancing behind me every few moments to make sure I'm not followed, I run soundlessly down the hallway. It's dark and hard to navigate, but I can't let that deter me. I don't have much time. Robert and Officer Niles didn't want to come in until they knew what they were walking into, but I couldn't just stand outside and wait while they sent for backup. If Valentine and Jonathan are actually in here, torturing Clary, I need to help her now. But once Niles and Robert realize I'm gone, they'll come looking for me, and then my cover will be blown. I need to find Clary.

The door appears so unexpectedly that I barely have time to stop myself from running into it. This is it.

Exhaling sharply, I reach for the doorknob.

She's right in front of me, chained to the opposite wall by her left ankle. I gasp: in all honesty, I doubted I would make it this far. But there she is, sleeping on the damp floor, shivers running through her small form as she moans slightly with each exhale. Even from so far away, in such low lighting, I can see her injuries clearly. The marks lining her side and back, undoubtedly from her father's belt, the purple welt on her temple. Without hesitation, I move towards her, but as I step past the open doorway, strong arms lock onto mine and hold me immobile. Jonathan.

"Let go of me, you asshole!" I yell, kicking my legs back in an attempt to free myself. He just locks on tighter.

"Sorry, but I can't do that," his chilling voice responds. "Look, though. You've woken your little friend."

I cast my eyes towards Clary to see her pushing herself up, groaning from the pain of doing so. She looks up slowly to face Jonathan, and the moment her eyes fall on me, her mouth drops open. "Jace," she whispers. "You… you shouldn't be here."

"I couldn't just leave you here at their mercy," I respond, fighting to break free from Jonathan's grip. "I won't let them keep you locked up here like this."

"But you can't help me," she whispers dejectedly, looking down at the chain holding her in place. "This is what they wanted."

"What do you mean?"

"Exactly what she just said, of course," another voice responds gleefully from the shadows. Valentine. "You see, you little brat, I've grown quite tired of watching you try to be the hero and rescue your precious little Clarissa from my 'evil' clutches. So I decided to end your 'valiant' attempts once and for all."

I stare into the shadows around me, trying to find the man behind the despicable voice. "How? By killing me? Go ahead. You won't get away with it."

Valentine laughs. "Oh, no. You see, I want you to suffer. If I kill you, it will all just be over; no suffering at all."

I raise an eyebrow, scanning the shadows to find any hint of his form. "So what are you going to do to me? Whatever you do, the police will find you eventually. And when that happens they'll stop you once and for all."

"So naïve, Jonathan." Valentine steps forward, revealing himself from the shadows. He shakes his head. "It's not you I'm going to kill; it's her."

With a serpentine smile and quick wink in my direction, Valentine raises his arm, revealing the metallic glint of a pistol, and aims it at his daughter. Without hesitation, he cocks the gun.

"No!" I scream, as Valentine only laughs. His finger twitches on the trigger.

"Clary! Clary!"

Bang!

"Jace? Jace. Jace!"

My eyes shoot open with a start. "What? What's wrong? Where's Clary?" I look around me frantically, searching for Clary's body, praying the bullet missed, hoping…

I'm not in some dark, damp room with Valentine, Jonathan, and Clary. I'm at the police station, in a chair next to Officer Niles' desk. All around me, men and women in uniform scurry around one another, each one ordering another to do something, or work on some case, or print out some report. There's a hand on my shoulder. I look up. Niles. He must have been the one calling my name.

"You okay, man? You passed out again?"

I groan and throw a hand into my hair. I was never in that room with Clary. We don't even know where she is. "Yeah," I nod, rubbing my eyes to stop their stinging. "I'm okay."

"I just got in. Robert said you only fell asleep about an hour ago. Why don't you go back to your grandparent's house, get some rest?"

"What time is it?"

"Almost seven. I brought you a bagel if you want one."

I push myself to my feet. "I can't go home now, it's morning. We have work to do." I reach for the first paper I see on his desk. It has a picture of Clary and a basic description of her: height, weight, eye color, hair color, the outfit she was last seen in. I've read it over a thousand times. For the past week, these reports have been all I've had of her. And they haven't been pretty: hospital reports from visits about broken bones, reports from teachers about bruises they'd seen on her but had never acted upon. I can't believe nobody intervened until now.

"Jace, you say that every morning. And every night, you say that you can feel that we're just on the verge of uncovering something vital. You haven't slept in days. Go rest."

"I was just asleep. I'll be fine."

He sighs but doesn't argue. This happens every day. Either Niles or Robert tells me I should go to sleep, I say I'll be fine, and they drop the subject. They probably assume that I'll have to sleep at some point. They highly underestimate the power of caffeine.

It's not just that I don't want to sleep until Clary is found, although that is a huge part of it: in an entire week, nobody has made any progress on her whereabouts, which is horribly frustrating. The bigger reason I don't want to sleep, however, is because each time I do, I'm faced with horrid, vivid nightmares like the one I just had, and they worsen every day. Even if I do fall asleep, I only last about an hour before I scare myself awake or somebody wakes me up because I've been screaming.

I tell myself it's a good thing I've been staying up: since I'm here all the time, I can make sure somebody is always working on the case, that it doesn't get forgotten in the sea of other cases plaguing this station. When Niles goes home for the night, I enlist the help of another officer, and if nobody is available, I comb through the files myself, trying to find new leads.

There is that downside that I've turned into a zombie without a temper from lack of sleep, but I don't have time to worry about that. I have my whole life ahead of me to sleep. Clary won't have that luxury if we don't find her soon.

My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out hurriedly: maybe it's Jocelyn. She said she'd call immediately if she found or remembered any clues to her husband or daughter's whereabouts.

It isn't Jocelyn; it's Alec. He, Maryse, and Izzy have alternated calling me every day since Robert came out. They say they just want to check up on me and see what progress has been made, but our conversations always end with them inadvertently guilting me about Max. I stopped answering after the third day.

Declining the call, I step behind the desk to look over Niles' shoulder. He has a new file up on his screen: calls made to and from Jonathan's phone in the past month. Each line has the number of the other phone and duration of the call, no names or locations. Niles has to look up each one separately.

My phone vibrates again, but it's just Alec trying a second time. I toss it onto the desk next to the pile of papers and see Niles' eyes flick briefly to the screen. He presses his lips together at the sight of the name but holds his tongue.

"Do any of these calls help us?" I ask, directing his attention back where it should be. He shakes his head.

"I don't know yet. I'm still in the process of looking up each number, finding out who he's called, where they are, what they're reputation is. Then we'll contact the ones we think will be willing and able to help us, and we'll take extra care to keep the ones who may be trouble from finding out we're onto them. Hopefully a few of these calls will give us something to go off of."

The incessant buzzing starts up again, and I throw my hands into my hair in frustration. "Great. You work on that. I'm gonna grab us some coffee." I'm halfway to the kitchen before the next buzz sounds.

"Jace…" he attempts, but I ignore him. Niles is an investigator, not a therapist. He has no right to be lecturing me about my communication or lack thereof with my family. Besides, there will be plenty of time for lecturing when this is all over.

There's finally silence when I return to his desk with my first of many cups of coffee for the day. "Find anything?"

"Maybe," he says, clicking on a photo to pull up a young man with a pinched face and an angry scar across his cheek. "Jeremy Pontmercy. He and Jonathan talked several times in the past month, which wouldn't be all that important except that Jonathan called him twice the day before they took Clary and once the day of, right around the time they would have knocked you out. He also showed up once on Valentine's phone record, two days beforehand, for about five minutes."

"Do you think he could be helping them?"

"Most likely. I'm looking up where he lives and works now."

That obnoxious ringing starts up again. I reach for my phone, but Niles grabs my arm.

"Answer it."

"Niles, I don't have time-"

"What I don't have time for is constantly hearing it go off. Whether you want to talk to them or not, you have a family, Jace. They want to know you're okay. And I know I'm in no place to say this, but your brother is going through chemo: he, at least, deserves a little recognition. You haven't answered in days. Just say hi, tell them we may have found a lead, and ask how Max is."

I stare at him. How dare he tell me I have to talk to them. He stares back at me.

"Fine."

I grab the phone and press answer. "What do you want?"

"Jace, thank God, I thought you'd never answer!" I'm shocked to hear Izzy's voice, rather than Alec's, reverberate through the phone. "Where the fuck have you been? Why haven't you answered any of us in the past few days?"

I roll my eyes and head to the police station's exit to give myself a little privacy. "Sorry," I reply with a scoff. "I've been just a little bit busy this week."

"Yeah, well you know who else has been a little bit fucking busy, Jace? I've been busy trying to keep everyone at school from finding out what happened to you and Clary. Mom's been busy looking all over New York for any type of clue that could help your case. Max has been busy getting his first chemo treatment and trying to pretend that he doesn't mind that you aren't here to help him through it, and Alec has been busy trying to keep Max's mind off the pain. So sure, maybe we aren't all as busy as you, but we're all fucking busy."

"Look, it's not my fault that-"

"That Clary's dad decided to go all wacko on us, yeah, yeah, I know. But it is your fault that you've been pushing us away. We're your family, Jace. We're here to support you. But you have to let us. And it would be nice if you could swallow your worries every once in a while so you could talk to Max and tell him that everything is going to be okay, because he is terrified that he has to go through all this shit without you here, and he won't admit it but he thinks you won't talk to him because you're angry at him, and his cancer is somehow his fault. I can't convince him you're not mad at him forever. At some point, you have to check in and tell him yourself."

"So let the kid think it's his fault. I don't care. I don't have time for this."

"And let that self-hatred that has plagued you your whole life rub off on him? That isn't fair Jace. He's ten. He's the exact same age as you were when you came to stay with us. Do you remember how fucked up you were then? How much self-hatred you kept hidden behind that chilling smirk that never reached your eyes? It took seven years for you to even start getting over whatever it is that lies in your past. Do you want that for him? Do you want him to beat this cancer only for him to look back on it and remember it as the time his big brother started seeing him as weak and pathetic? As not strong enough to make it go away on his own? It's getting worse, you know. The cancer."

"Look, Izzy, I've got to go."

"You know what? I was wrong. It didn't take seven years to get over your past. You're still in the very same spot you were back then. You see only the worst in everything, you push away your family in fear that we'll only hurt you more. If you don't get over this, you may be able to find Clary, but you'll never be able to have her. You'll just push her away, like you push all of us away. We could fucking help you, but you-"

I let out a mad roar and throw my phone away from me. I can't listen to her anymore; it's driving me insane. The phone crashes into the side of the police station, and I sink down to my knees, pulling the shimmering strands of grass out of the ground around me. She's right, I know, but how can I worry about my mental health when Clary's out there, alone against Valentine and Jonathan?

I can't keep going on like this. My head drops to my chest, and I bring my hands up to cover it. This effort is going to be the death of me. I just want it all to be over.

So what did you think of this chapter? How do you think Clary's doing a week into her time with Jonathan and Valentine? Leave what you think in reviews! And make sure to keep checking back to see when the next chapter is up :D