Disclaimer: I do not own the Mortal Instruments series. Everything recognisable belongs to Cassandra Clare.
Yet another delay, and yet another apology from me. You guys have been wonderful, all the reviews you´ve given me have been so amazing. I can´t tell you have grateful I am.
Warning: Mild bad language and mild violence.
Also, I wanted to tell you that I don´t have my usual computer, which is why there might be a few spelling mistakes, due to different keyboard. I´ll correct everything I find when my computer is fixed.
His head felt heavy as he leaned forward. He tried moving his hand to rub the swollen side of his head, but something kept his hand forced behind his back.
Jace noticed only one of his hands were cuffed behind him. The other was free. He looked around, eyeing his surroundings. First he noticed Isabelle sitting with her back leaned against the stone wall. Her shoulder pressed against his right shoulder. She looked at him with frustrated eyes. "Thank god you're awake. Are you okay?" She whispered to him.
He placed his free hand carefully on his forehead and tried to massage the pain away. "Yeah, I'm fine." he replied.
"What happened?"
Isabelle sighed irritated, "We were overpowered. When you passed out, and Clary was already unconscious, it was only me and Simon, but they took Simon down pretty fast, and I couldn't stop ten vampires alone. I'm so sorry." she explained.
Jace laughed, "Only you Iz, could apologize for something like that."
She sent him a questioning look, "What do you mean?" she asked confused.
"It's definitely not your fault." He told her with a small, lopsided smile.
Isabelle didn't answer. Because when he finished his sentence, Simon began showing signs of waking up.
He opened his eyes tiredly. Looking around like Jace had.
"Hey." Isabelle smiled carefully. "You okay?"
Simon nodded stiffly. He looked okay; he hadn't been hurt too bad.
Isabelle cast a probing glance towards the red haired girl cuffed tightly next to Simon; they were tied the same way Isabelle and Jace had been, forced into a cramped position. One hand cuffed into a pair of rigid metal cuffs.
Clary hadn´t shown any signs of responsiveness, and her already pallid face had turned a few shades whiter. Her lips were no longer the deep pink tone they usually held, slowly turning purple.
"She´s breathing, right?" Jace asked unassertively.
"Yeah." Simon replied. He could hear her irregular heartbeat like droplets of water falling into a puddle.
"She is."
Isabelle saw Simon move a bit away from the unconscious form of Clary, his dark brown hair fell into his eyes as he gauchely made contact with the wall.
They sat in the dark room, silence gushing around them. The only sound they could here was the small prickle of a ventilation system on the other side of the room.
xxxx
She knew she was dreaming. It had become a habit; she´d learned when she was trapped in a nightmare she couldn´t escape and when she was awake.
And she´d also learned that they always ended the same way. Fire. Flames. Ashes.
This dream was different. She was not the protagonist of her own dream. Or that was not the right way to describe it. It was she, but she was staring at a ten years younger Clarissa Morgenstern. Her red hair was shorter and her green eyes shone brighter than Clary had even seen.
"Father." the girl whispered.
There was no answer.
"Father!" her voice rose in the chilling air.
Still no answer.
Clary looked around. The six years old girl looked terrified as she walked deeper into the darkness with an opalescent seraph blade clutched in her firm grip.
The blade enlightened the path in front of her and the sixteen years old Clary followed her younger counterpart.
"Father. I don´t-" Clary´s insecure voice died as the bright red flaming man entered the path in front of her.
Clary looked carefully at her younger self. Then she remembered. This was not only a nightmare. This was a memory. One of Clary´s only horrible childhood memories.
"What do we have here?" the flaming man asked in a sly voice.
"Clary Morgenstern." her younger self answered scared.
"A Shadowhunter. And a Morgenstern no less."
"You- you´ve heard about me?" the childish voice asked the man.
"Well of course I have, young Morgenstern." He replied, "Who´s not heard about the infamous Morgensterns?"
"What do you mean?" she asked him, pushing her fear aside, letting her curious side take control.
"You don´t know?" he asked, a hint of taunter in his heated voice. "Know what?" the young girl´s voice suddenly changed, leaving a vexed tone in the air.
"Valentine Morgenstern. The war. Your mother." the man came closer. He squatted down in front of her, a smirk plastered on his red lips.
"What about my mother?" she asked heatedly, anger showing in her green orbs.
He locked his red eyes with the young Clary´s and lifted his hand. "You´ll know when the timing is right." he smirked at her before one of his flaming fingers touched her temple, burning into her skin. He traced a pink mark glowing against her peaked skin.
Both Clarys winced at the pain. The young girl from the real burn of his strong fingers forcing their way across her scar, and the sixteen years old Clary from the memory of the burn.
God she hated fire.
"That´s not good enough." A voice rang behind her. Her father walked in with a choleric expression on his face.
Both Clary´s jumped away as the white haired man walked past them knocking the blazing man -which the older Clary knew was an Eidolon demon- over with his own Seraph blade, with one swift movement the blade pressed into the demon and the next moment the demon disappeared.
"You hesitated." her father´s irate voice called at her.
"You don´t hesitate. No matter if you know what is attacking you or not, you don´t hesitate to kill. It was a real demon Clarissa, it could´ve killed you, and if I had not been watching it would´ve." His had calmed his voice, speaking softer, but nowhere near a sweet tone.
"He was just talking to me." Clary mastered to press out between her trembling lips.
Valentine looked at her, before he closed his palm around Clary´s burning hot cheek, "Is this just talking?" he asked her. Clary shook her head.
"No." she replied. "I´m sorry father. I-" he stopped her sentence with a small annoyed gaze, "What have I told you about apologizing?" he asked her calmly.
Clary looked up at the dark eyes of her father, his facial expression showed no emotions as he looked down at his six years old daughter. "A Morgenstern never apologize." Clary´s young voice replied.
This made the older Clary crack a small smile; she was so clueless when she was younger.
"That´s right. The only thing I want you to do, is not mess it up the next time."
Clary nodded again and straightened her back, trying to make herself appear taller.
"Yes sir." she answered proudly, trying to mask the horrible pain in her cheek and the fear of the realisation she had gotten face to face with her first real life demon.
xxxx
Clary gasped violently, her eyes shooting open in a rapid motion.
As soon as she had inhaled the cold air, her own sore throat and a sudden coughing attacked her.
She didn´t see the three pairs of eyes that landed on her. Not until she felt her shoulder crashed painfully into someone. She hissed angry.
She recognised the person´s features immediately, a vampire´s cold skin, a vampire´s pallid complexion, a vampire´s dead coloured eyes and at last the heart with a non-existent beating.
She tried to push away from him, her body working against her at all costs. "Get away from me!" she hissed angry before she realised she was cuffed to the same spot as him.
She noticed Isabelle and Jace cuffed to the wall ten metres away from them and let out a defeated sigh.
"There is no point in trying to get free." she heard Jace tell her.
"Why?" she answered hoarsely back.
"We´ve been trying for hours." he replied with an annoyed tone to his voice.
"I take it we´re not in the Institute." she leaned away from the vampires, subconsciously pressing her body as far away from him as she could.
"No, we´re in Hotel Dumort´s dungeons." Isabelle replied irritated.
"Dungeons?" Clary answered questioning.
"Yep." Jace mumbled with a hint of irony in his voice.
"So, what´s the bloodsucker doing here if we´re on his territory?" Clary directed her question to the two Shadowhunters, ignoring the vampire completely.
"Believe it or not, that bloodsucker helped us." Jace replied with an amused smirk on his lips.
"Gee, thanks for the non-discriminating Downworlder conversation we´re having." The vampire commented, making Clary manhandle herself even farther away from him, until her metal cuffs dug into her sore wrists, biting the skin irately.
"Well, you obviously couldn´t have done a more excellent job trying to help us." Clary pointed out, her sarcastic manners taking over.
She heard Jace chuckle slightly, Isabelle and the vampire glared at her with annoyance in their eyes.
"Stop. We have better things to argue about than who´s fault this is." Isabelle commanded.
Clary´s head snapped up as she heard her say this. "How long have we been here anyway?"
"Dunno, three or four hours, maybe more." Isabelle answered.
"What about Max and Iwan? Did they get out?" Clary asked, feeling unsure about her memories from before she passed out.
"Yes, they got through the portal." Jace reassured her.
Clary nodded, asking one more question; "Do any of you by any chance have a stele?"
Clary understood soon by the looks on the two Shadowhunters faces that they did not, but she let Isabelle explain why anyway, "No, I lost mine while battling the vampires forcing us down here, and you lost Jace´s stele when you fell unconscious."
"Great, just wonderful." Clary muttered irritated as she looked around. Her head felt like it was about to explode and she pressed her eyes closed tightly, trying to force the pain away.
"Any ideas of how we can get out?" she asked them as she opened her eyes again.
She was followed by complete silence.
"Where did you loose your stele?" Clary asked, ignoring the pain as she spoke.
"It should be somewhere in this room, if none of the vampires took it with them as they left." Isabelle explained.
"Okay, so all we have to do is get out of these stupid handcuffs and somehow break open the cell and get the stele." Clary analysed the possibility of that happening out loud. "Great. We´re so fucked." she muttered.
"Always the optimistic one aren´t we Ariel." Jace replied.
Clary didn´t answer straight away, she just sent him a confused look and bit her lips. "It´s Clary."
He smirked at her as he leaned against the wall. "I know."
xxxx
Clary had fallen back into unconsciousness after that. Leaving the three others to their own thoughts.
"Simon." Isabelle called out, her voice held a sudden fear as she realised something.
"Yeah." he replied tired.
His body had begun fighting against him as he tried to keep the strong smell of blood out of his nostrils. He held his breath, but somehow the smell still forced its way into his system, making his lust even stronger.
"Mhm." Simon mumbled tiredly.
Isabelle could see the dark rings forming under his eyes and his skin shone ivory white. The veins under the skin on his neck and wrists were visible.
"Are you okay?" Isabelle asked carefully, not wanting to upset him.
Simon nodded back at the raven-haired girl. "Yeah, I´m fine." he replied bitterly, like he was trying to hold back something.
"Seriously man, you look like crap." Came from the other side of Isabelle and if Simon hadn´t been so tired he would´ve snapped a snarky comment back at the blond Shadowhunter.
"It´s probably just the great personality of the demon girl I´m forced to sit next to that´s rubbing off on me." Simon joked, trying to direct the two Shadowhunters away from the topic of his condition.
Simon noticed a soft movement in Clary´s body before he saw her open her mouth to speak, "You know, the demon girl can hear you."
"Sorry." Simon whispered unapologetically back at her.
Simon´s short escape from the blood lust was triggered back by Clary speaking, the dried blood on both her neck and her cracked lips danced mockingly around him.
He licked his lips, biting down on the lower part of it to force the hunger away.
"Simon." Isabelle said again, after studying him closely for a few minutes.
"How long have we been here?" Simon tried to distract them again.
"Probably around eight hours." Jace replied, "The Conclave should be coming soon if we don´t get out on our own. And it looks like your vamp buddies left us for dead." He finished.
Simon cracked a smile, "Yeah, I don´t think they consider me a buddy anymore."
"No, allying with the enemy might not have been the greatest move in history." Jace answered.
Isabelle bit her lip anxiously as she looked at the pale vampire. "Simon, how long has it been since you fed?"
Simon suddenly looked extremely uncomfortable where he sat, one hand behind his back, the other hand awkwardly pressed as far away from the red haired girl next to him.
"I don´t know." Simon answered back in a lame voice.
"That long huh?" Isabelle replied.
"No, that´s not what I meant. Just, it´s not important. I am really good at controlling the hunger." Simon defended himself. "Don´t worry."
"How long can you go without blood?" Jace asked suspiciously.
"I don´t know, three or four days." Simon replied. "Probably longer if I had to."
"How long have you been going already." surprisingly it was Clary who asked him the next question.
Simon didn´t answer, he looked down at his own feet, avoiding the three Nephilim glares.
When no one said anything, all eyes still on him, Simon answered quietly, "Four days."
"What?" Jace exclaimed. "Why the hell would you go that long in the first place?"
"Well it´s not like I forecasted I would be stuck in a cell along with you guys for who knows how long" Simon almost shouted in defence.
"Great, just brilliant." he heard Clary whisper as she tried to wipe the blood away from her neck.
"Don´t worry, I don´t want your blood anyway." Simon snapped at her and she looked up at him.
Clary snorted mockingly, "It´s not like I would give it to you either."
"Ah, no looks like you already gave it to someone else.." Simon replied irritated.
"Yeah, before I killed him." Clary snapped back angry.
"Shut up!" Isabelle yelled. "You´re acting like children." she told them and pressed away from the wall. She sat too far away from Simon and Clary to do anything, but she really hoped none of them snapped. Knowing both of them had it in them to do exactly that.
Everybody silenced again.
Clary could feel Jace´s golden eyes linger on her, but she felt too tired to ask him what he wanted.
After what felt like another hour of silence Jace finally spoke, "Do you think they´ve called our deaths or something."
"What do you mean?" asked a sleepy Isabelle.
"I mean, do you think they think we´re dead. That´s why they aren´t coming."
"No. I think they are the Clave and they always plan out their attacks." she paused, smiling a bit before she continued, "Alec is probably freaking out."
Jace laughed at the image of his parabatai running around yelling at people to do something, anything to fight. He always got really heated in situations like this, but at the same time, his brother had just entered the Institute half dead, which might be one of the reasons they hadn´t come yet.
"They´ll come." Jace smiled at Izzy before closing his eyes tiredly.
xxxx
Simon looked over at the two sleeping Shadowhunters. Both Isabelle and Jace had fallen asleep half an hour ago, their breaths steady, not showing any signs of weakness.
He knew Clary was awake again, and wished he could pretend he was not.
But the girl already knew he was awake. He was shaking slightly from the pain in his throat and the headache forming in his temples due to the hunger.
"How bad is it?" Clary asked quietly, surprising Simon.
"What?" he replied confused.
"The hunger. How bad is it?" she asked again.
"It´s bearable." Simon answered just as silently as she had spoken.
"For how long?" she asked short questions, leaving little information about what she wanted out of him, but he understood her questions just fine.
"Not long."
"Vampires get a serious kick right after feeding right?" Clary asked, but the tone in her voice indicated she already knew the answer.
"They get stronger, and for a few seconds a vampire could probably break through metal." Simon looked at her as she spoke, what she said was true.
"Maybe." he answered.
Suddenly the girl´s face turned stone cold, "Lets face it, nobody is coming." she paused, "If we want to get out alive we have to act on our own."
Simon nodded. Where was she going with this?
"Okay?" he asked her confused.
"Do you think you could break out of your cuffs?" she asked.
"No." he answered sharply, "At least not without..." he trailed off, but Clary understood where he was going with his sentence anyway.
"If you drink my blood, you could break free of your cuffs and try to get me out, and I could get Isabelle´s stele-" "What happened to ´You´re not drinking my blood you filthy bloodsucker!´" Simon asked with a hint of a smirk on his lips.
"I never said that." Clary answered. "And, I can see the stele. I just have to get out of these cuffs." She pushed her hand forward, stopping as the chain held her back.
"You really think it would work?" Simon questioned her.
"Don´t know, but it´s worth a try." she gave him a short nod with her head, her red hair falling over her shoulders.
"Okay" Simon whispered, he didn´t know how good this plan was, if he failed to stop, he would most likely kill the Shadowhunter who had already lost way too much blood.
Clary inhaled deeply, forcing her heavy arm out of the awkward position she had placed it in. She leaned over, exposing her wrist to Simon.
"Are you sure?" he asked quietly.
"Just do it before I change my mind." Clary answered. "Just remember to break free the same second you stop feeding."
Simon nodded, taking hold of Clary´s fragile looking wrist. His fangs brushed against the skin and he could hear the blood brushing in her veins.
Simon let his teeth sink into her and at once fresh, sweet blood filled his mouth. He had never tasted Shadowhunter blood before, and never in his life would he imagine it tasting like that. The only right description would to call it angelic.
He felt the strength in his body, he knew right away Clary´s theory would work. After giving himself just enough blood he pushed away.
He heard the girl moan quietly, Simon knew the bite eased pain, and he also knew that was probably the only feeling Clary had in her body right now.
Simon pushed his hand away from the wall, and with a loud thunder he fell forward, ungracefully hitting the floor in front of them.
Both Shadowhunters at the other end of the room jumped awake. "What the-" Jace asked shocked.
"It worked." Simon whispered, and he saw Clary lift an eyebrow his way, but she didn´t speak.
He hurried over to Clary´s chain and pulled at it. This was harder; he had to use all his powers to force the chain off the wall. After a few seconds it worked.
"What are you guys doing?" Isabelle asked.
"Getting out of here, what does it look like?" Simon replied with a smirk.
Clary didn´t get up right away, she drew a deep breath and collected herself before she managed to stand up.
"You okay?" the concerned voice of Jace rang towards her.
"Yeah, I´m fine."
He simply nodded carefully.
"So, what now? We can´t get to the stele." Simon informed her irked.
"I know." Clary smirked as she walked maladroit over to the cell.
She began pushing the cell door back and forth, making a gruesome sound as the metal bars scraped across the floor. "Clary?" Isabelle asked confused, bit Clary didn´t stop.
After almost five minutes listening to Clary making that awful sound the door opened at the other end of the room. They couldn´t see who it was walking inside, but the clicking sound indicated they locked the door behind them.
"HEY, WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?" the male voice shouted.
Clary lifted herself higher, looking healthier. "Yeah, excuse me" the voice escaping from Clary´s lips were so unlike her normal angry tone, "but aren´t you going to give us any food or something?" Clary continued in the bitchy tone.
"No. How did you even get out of your handcuffs?" he asked, and another vampire appeared beside him, "Is there a problem Cliff?" The roughly built vampire asked.
"The Shadowhunter broke out of her cuffs." The man named Cliff told the other one.
"That´s impossible." the other replied.
"Apparently not." He muttered back, not noticing Simon was free as well.
"So, what about that food we were talking about? Or maybe some water, you know, my throat is burning up." Clary whined.
Jace and Isabelle shared equally bemused glances, "What is she doing?" Isabelle whispered into Jace´s ear. Jace just shook his head.
"You´re not getting anything, now step back and I will tie you to the cuffs again." he cut angry through the air.
"Fine." Clary snapped and backed away slightly.
The vampire named Cliff walked inside after opening the cell with a key and he took hold of Clary´s bruised wrist.
"Hey Jamie." He called for the other vampire, "don´t you think it´s time to have a little fun." He called out to the vampire on the other side of the cell.
Jamie´s eyes lit up eagerly, "Definitely." He replied, stepping inside as well.
Cliff pinned Clary´s hand behind her back and pushed her red hair away from her face. "I would love to taste your blood, but I have a feeling you won´t live through it, and it´s so much more fun torturing you Nephilim to death."
Clary smiled back at him, a disturbing smirk, "I am sure that would be fun."
Clary heard Isabelle say something about leaving her alone, and when Clary looked over at them she saw Jamie standing over Isabelle with a lusting smile.
"Cliff. Where´s Arty?" he asked amused.
"Dunno, why?" Cliff pushed Clary to the ground and walked over to his friend.
"He´s always been the smart one, and I was wondering how many bones there are in the human body."
Cliff smirked, "I guess there´s only one way to find out, we´ll just count."
Isabelle winced, readying herself for a pain that didn´t come. Instead the vampire named Cliff screamed agonisingly.
"That´s at least one." They heard Clary smirk as she stepped away from the vampire´s fallen body. He clutched his broken arm and hissed angry.
"Bitch!" he broke out and Jamie sprung forward, ready to attack her, but Simon jumped at him slamming the vampire´s body against the wall. Clary ran past them out of the cell, as Simon tried to fight both of them, now with new strength.
Clary searched the floor for the silver twig of a stele. "Dammit, it´s here somewhere." She whispered more to herself than anyone else.
After a few seconds she found it and ran back to the cell, applying a badly drawn iratze on her own skin. She saw Simon had knocked out the one vampire called Cliff; the one Clary had broken the shoulder of.
Clary ran towards Isabelle and Jace, drawing two opening runes as fast as she could. She noticed how light her head felt and saw the edges of her vision began blackening.
"Fuck. Okay, get ready, I´m opening a portal." Clary yelled as she saw Simon push Jamie out of the way.
Her trembling hands painted the fine lines of the iridescent portal and after only a few seconds, it appeared like a rainbow in front of them.
Jace steadied Clary as he saw her struggling to keep on two feet. He felt her body grow limp in his hands, and knew the blackness had taken control of her again. She must´ve lost half the blood in her body by now, and if it wasn´t for the extra strength of Shadowhunter blood in her veins, she would probably be dead.
Jace saw Isabelle and Simon jump through the portal, before he lifted Clary under her knees and shoulders and carried her carefully through the closing portal.
Landing right outside the wards of the glamoured Institute they met five other Shadowhunters dressed in black fighting gear. Among them where both Robert Lightwood and Stephen Herondale.
Jace saw Simon and Isabelle in the dim sunlight being guided through the gates, and he hurried Clary and himself after them. They needed medical help to get Clary out of her life-threatening state, and well, to be honest they could all need a little bit rest. And he himself was in desperate need to see his brother and make sure Iwan was okay.
As he carried Clary past the Izzy and Simon he noticed the bemused and bewildered expression on Simon face, confusing the look with dismay, Jace shot him a out-of-Jace-character-smile, but what he didn´t realise in that moment, was the vampire´s shock came not from fear, but from standing in the dim morning sun.
That´s it. No major cliffhanger this time.
If you feel like some of the characters were a bit more OOC than you wanted them to be in this chapter, I´m sorry, but they had to be.
Thanks again for all your reviews, and remember I´ll be just as thankful if you leave a review for this chapter.
See you soon.