Chapter 1: Run Forest Run!

Clary's POV

Like the flick of a switch, my life was changed completely. I left everything I've ever known and ran as far away as my legs could carry me. There aren't any words to describe what I'm feeling at this moment other than numb. I've been running since three in the morning with no break, and as dawn approaches I fear I might be hitting my limit. I take a deep breath as I try to push back the pain pulsating in my feet. This isn't how I'd planned on escaping, but anything is better than nothing.

I can't really remember a time when my life was actually happy. That's the goal of course but getting there has been harder than I would have expected. Playing the blame game usually wouldn't be my thing, but it's a plain fact that there is someone to blame for the happiness being sucked so violently out of my life.

My lunatic father.

As a kid, my mother would make Jon and I breakfast in the mornings, but most days my dad would come in and start fighting with mom. The fights were never about anything, they were just something my dad would always cause. It was almost as if yelling was his water or his heroine, something he physically needed. I remember the day when the light began to drain out of my mother's eyes. When she finally had enough of his bullshit and started letting go of her grip on life, on us. Jon, my older brother, was around the age of 10 and I was around 8 or 9. She went from being our loving mother and protector to a stranger overnight. I don't blame her though. Going silent was her way of coping with the constant trauma.

Father quickly turned to blaming Jon and I for the change in our mom. It started out with fights similar to the ones he would start with ma, but soon they turned into a real life hell. I had never seen love from my father, only disgust and anger, and when mom checked out I began to see hate from him constantly. Normal became a word so far from ordinary for my brother and I. To sum it up, our father knows how to throw a punch.

He was really hard on Jonathan and I over the years. I'm not sure what drugs he was on, but he had to be on something. Father would often ramble on and on about a hidden shadow world. He would try to scare me by telling stories of demons roaming the earth. Of werewolves and vampires. But Jon and I knew that he was nothing more than a doped up lunatic and pushed those lies out of our minds. Despite us pushing the stories away, father continued to obsess over them. He would make Jonathan and I train in the basement with him until our legs were too weak to hold our weight as a precaution for 'demon attacks'. We are both highly skilled in combat, for no absolute reason, and know how to use a large variety of weapons. It's safe to say that neither of us would lose a fight if ever caught off guard on the streets. But even though we are trained and skilled in fighting, neither of us could ever find the courage to fight our father.

Even though neither of us believed any of his nonsense, the stories he would tell effected both of us outside of our time with him. It's very odd, but we had both seen things outside of our home, like a fairy or something of that sort. Before Jonathan had told me about the things he had seen, I was convinced I was going crazy. I'd even considered that my psycho father was actually telling the truth for a small point in time. I guess that just goes to show how deep someone's crazy fantasies can get engrained into your head.

My morning had been unexpected to say the least. I was woken up around 2 this morning to my father yelling in the living room. Nothing new. He was highly intoxicated and was screaming about a ravenor demon being in the house. My brother and I ran out to put him back to bed when he took a good swing at nothing and ended up knocking me right in the face.

I don't really know what got into Jon, but he attacked father and told me to run. He was always somewhat over protective of me. I was reluctant to run at first because I didn't want to leave him. Jon and I had been planning an escape for a solid year before tonight, and this was not what we'd had in mind. We had fake IDs already made, and enough money stashed away to last a good month without either of us needing a job.

I shook out of my thoughts as I turned the corner into a small alley and plopped down on the ground. With my back leaned up against the brick wall behind me I tried to slow my breathing and think of a plan. Jon and I had designated a certain bar as our meet up place in case we were ever separated, so I guess I'll head over there and wait for him. Hopefully he can get out of the house before father sobers up too much to be able to stop him.

After my breathing returned to normal, I made my way over to the bar. This specific bar that we chose functions as a coffee shop/brunch place during the day and a bar after 7pm. I'd only ever been here once before with Jonathan to scope it out, but I'd never actually bought anything. I made my way over to a table, trying to look normal. I was lucky that I'd picked out pajamas last night that look normal enough to wear out in public. I had on a large t-shirt with a monkey on it sitting on a throne of bananas, and my shorts were just black Nike shorts.

"Hi there, what can I getcha this mornin?" I looked up, startled by the waitress. She looked young, probably still in high school. Her blonde hair, obviously dyed, was tied back in an effortless bun and she was looking at me with a small smile on her face.

"Um..hi. Sorry, I just woke up and I'm still a little out of it," just a little white lie, "could I get an order of your 'Famous Biscuits & Gravy' and a coffee please?"

The woman scribbled my order down, "Alrighty! Is there anyone else coming to join you? Just in case you want to order them something to come out with yours?"

Jon. He better show up because if he doesn't then I have no way of paying for any of this. "Oh, yes could I get a second coffee and an omelet?"

"Yes ma'am. That'll be right out."

I tapped my fingers on the table, a nervous habit I haven't been able to get rid of yet and looked around the shop. There were two other tables in here with me. One was an old couple eating what looked to be oatmeal next to one of the windows and the other table was a single man drinking several glasses of water. Just from the looks of him sitting there, I'd assume he's been here all night at the bar.

A half hour flew by as I sat there and worried about my brother. In that time our food had come out and I'd already refilled my coffee twice. I shoved a large piece of biscuit into my mouth just as the shop's door slid open. My nerves lit up, hoping the new customer would be Jonathan, but it definitely wasn't him. This guy had golden hair and walked in with a confidence I'd never seen. He seemed to exude it. As his eyes landed on mine, I suddenly realized that I'd been full on checking him out. He smirked and winked at me before grabbing his own table across the bar.

As I took a moment to mentally smack myself in the face for looking so awkward in front of the golden god, my brother entered the shop and joined me.

"You made it here safe?" He asked as he examined the situation in the bar.

"I ran for hours, but I'd say I'm feeling pretty good after having my third cup of coffee."

He looked at me and laughed. "Let me see your face. He hit you pretty hard."

"I'm fine really. Just gonna have a nice new bruise to add to the collection." None of this is funny, but cracking jokes seem to help our situation feel a little less awful.

"I'm sorry…I should have taken the hit. I just hate it when he puts his hands on you." We both sat in silence for a few minutes, taking in all of the pain my father brings.

"Here take these," he extended his hand out to me with a handful of my clothes from home, "figured you'd want to change out of your jammies."

I thanked Jon and went to the bathroom to quickly change. As I headed back to my table I could feel eyes on me. It took a second to pin down whose eyes they were, but when I figured it out I had to refrain from letting my jaw drop. The golden man was watching me, and he wasn't making any effort to hide it.

"Are you alright?" Jon asked.

I took a deep breath in as I tried to hide my blushing, "I'm fine. Thank you again for the clothes. I was feeling weird being in my pajamas in here. So, what happened after I ran?"

Jonathan took another glance around the shop to make sure none of father's goons had followed us here. "He barely noticed you had left. He was too busy throwing punches into nothing. He kept going on and on about some demon coming at him."

"He called it a ravenor right?" I asked as the memory of last night flashed back through my mind.

Jon nodded. "Yeah that sounds about right. He said it was telling him things about a circle forming," he shook his head as if trying to rid himself of the weirdness of it all, "he started yelling about being the king of demons."

My eyes widened as I imagined those words coming out of father's mouth. "The king of demons? Why would he want to be the devil?"

"I-I don't know. I'm still trying to wrap my head around all of the things he was saying. I couldn't really handle much more after that, so I gathered our things we'd set aside for the escape." There was a bag sitting next to Jon's feet that I hadn't noticed until he stared rumbling through it. "Here are the ID's and all the cash we'd saved up plus some more I found lying in the kitchen on my way out."

I looked over at the golden boy to see that he had moved from a comfortable position to one where he was leaning forward on his table, tensed. He seemed to be focused on absolutely nothing, completely in a daze. Gosh, what I would give to be the thing he was focused on.

"I forgot to ask, but how did you get here Jon?"

His familiar smirk appeared on his face, "I may or may not have hijacked dad's Harley." My eyes widened in a mix of awe and fear. "I knew it was his baby, so it would piss him off to have it stolen. Plus, it was full of gas."

I smacked Jon lightly on the shoulder. "If he finds us he might actually kill you this time."

"What, you think I should have taken the bicycle with the flat tires? Or better, I could have stolen the totaled 2003 Nissan Altima."

I rolled my eyes, "You're right. A motorcycle will be more fun anyways."

"Now there's the sister I love."

Jon and I planned out our aliases for our new lives while he finished off his omelet and coffee. We needed to have a plan that matched up well with what the other person said if anyone ever ended up asking. After a while we decided that we would stay siblings and that our parents died in a car crash, so we'd been on our own for a couple years. We would have no other family and would have dropped out of school to work to pay the bills. We came up with a few other minor details that might come in handy later on and that was it.

Before we got up to leave, I took another glance at the blonde god to see that he was relaxed again, but still tensed. There was something about him that felt intriguing to me. I'm not really sure what it is, but I feel like I need to go talk to him. And it's not even a romantic desire, sure that is there, but this is just some pull to him.

I assume he could feel my eyes on him, because he looked over and met my eyes again. The corners of his lips raised as our eyes met and he ran his fingers through his hair. Even his eyes look gold. He was wearing full black, which I found slightly odd yet sexy all at the same time. The black gave him a bad boy vibe that his outward confidence totally fits in with.

"Clary are you ready to head out apartment searching?" Jon asked, effectively pulling my eyes from Hunky McHunkster.

"Um, yeah let's go." I followed Jonathan out the door and could feel the golden eyes watching me like a hawk. I was somewhat sad as we mounted the motorcycle and drove off to our new lives. I wonder if I'll ever see that golden god of a man again.

Hunky McHunkster's POV

I watched her leave with who I believe to be her brother. Her red curls were poking out of her bun, and I had to fight the urge to run over there and set them free. She was pretty short but seemed to have a personality in the way she was talking to her brother. They didn't really look like siblings to me. I mean they have the same green eyes, but his hair is almost a platinum blond color while the girls is red. He's above average in height and she's below average in height. From outer looks they seem to be polar opposites.

The brother, I believe she called him Jonathan, threw their small bag over his shoulders before putting a helmet on his sister and then another on himself. They got on a motorcycle and flew down 15th street. I knew that it would be easier to follow them if I was higher up, so I climbed the nearest six story building and began running and building hopping after them.

I just couldn't let them go. Not after what I'd over heard. Neither of them sounded like they knew what the shadow world truly was, or how serious the things they were talking about actually were. But they've definitely been told of the shadow world at some point. And if what they said had any sort of truth to it, then that means he's alive. That means that Valentine is still alive.

Author note:

Hi readers! So, if you haven't got it yet, this is an alternate version of the story where Valentine's memory of the circle and the shadow world have been partially removed from his mind at some point in his life. You don't know when yet, so that means you don't know if the circle ever happened or if it was planned and didn't happen. You also don't know whether Jonathan was born with demon blood or Clary born with extra angel blood. All of these things you will find out in chapter 2 which should be out within the next few days (probs tomorrow if we are being honest).

But yeah, THANK YOU SO FLIPPIN MUCH for reading this chapter. I hope EVERYONE loved it! It would mean the world to hear y'all's thoughts in the reviews. Lookin forward to having you guys back for chapter 2! Happy Saturday!