**Chapter 20...can you believe it? Thanks for sticking it out for so long. It's gunna be worth it I promise. And to all those who love it when Jace gets in trouble...well you'll see...and you won't be disappointed. As always, comments make my heart happy =)**
"Nasty little spell isn't it?" Valentine said as Jace struggled to catch his breath. "It shows you all the things that you couldn't bear to see in life… with vivid and dispassionate detail."
Jace clenched his teeth, trying to force the image of Alec dying out of his mind.
Jace groaned lightly in his throat, his arms wrapping around his stomach against the nausea; he swore he could still hear the sound of Alec choking on his blood, as well as the crunching, ripping sound the demon's fist had made as it broke through his skin and bones.
Jace gasped and squeezed his eyes shut, swallowing against the bitter taste in his mouth. Valentine laughed.
"Effective isn't it?" Jace glared at him, wishing he had the power to make things combust just by looking at them. "I'm curious…what did you see?" Jace lowered his eyes.
"Go to hell." he whispered. Valentine laughed again.
"Ah, Jace, you make it sound like that was my fault." Jace looked up at him again, his expression angry and incredulous. "Oh yes; that was your fault. If you had just listened to me, that never would have happened. And I suggest you listen to me this time because Jace…" Valentine reached down and raised his chin up again.
"If you refuse the same demand a second time…it gets so much worse. So just give me the message, and you won't have to see your little friend again…" Jace pulled his face away from his father's touch.
"Fine." he said tiredly.
Then Jace slowly pulled himself up to his feet, his hand slipping into his front pocket as he did.
"You want it? Take it. She's not worth the trouble anyways."
With his heart racing, Jace crumpled the note in his fist, his right hand sliding down to his belt for his stele. Then he went to hold out his fist to drop the note into his father's waiting hand, but at the last second, Jace spun away.
He brought the stele up to the back of his hand and quickly scribbled the rune, feeling the paper in his hand heat up.
Valentine yanked him back around by his shoulder and Jace turned his hand palm up, showing him the paper that was now burning, a grin tugging up his mouth.
Jace shrugged at the furious look on his father's face.
"Oops." Jace said, his eyes sparkling wickedly.
Valentine stared down at his open palm and his eyes narrowed as the hand clenching Jace's shoulder tightened painfully.
Valentine slowly raised his eyes back up to Jace's, the note in his son's hand now gone completely, but not before he had seen the name of the recipient.
"Alec Lightwood?" he said in a whisper that made goose bumps erupt on Jace's arms.
Jace couldn't breathe. His father shook him.
"Alec Lightwood? That's who you went to see?" Valentine whipped his head over in Jonathan's direction.
"Jonathan! Do you want to explain to me how it is that Alec Lightwood is still alive?" Jonathan shook his head slowly, his eyes wide.
"That's impossible…he must have a warlock…"
Valentine's fingers released Jace's shoulder and darted down for his forearm.
A small groan sounded in Jace's throat at the tight, pinching grip that his father had on him.
Valentine slowly looked down at the black burns that cuffed Jace's wrist and horror rushed through Jace so strongly he felt it more than he felt the bruising hold his father had on his arm; Valentine had put two and two together.
Jace struggled to pull away from him, realizing that he had never wanted anything more in his life than to be away from his father at that moment.
Valentine only tightened his grip and yanked Jace back towards him, a look of controlled fury on his face.
"So there's that curiosity, kickin' up again…" Valentine smiled a smile that lacked any trace of humor and Jace felt his fingers go numb. "How is Magnus Bane?"
Panic shot through Jace as he grabbed his father's hand, wrenching his thumb back as he yanked his arm down and out of his grasp.
Then he spun around and bolted from Valentine, thinking only of escaping the house.
"Jonathan, grab him." Valentine ordered sharply.
Jace spun towards the doorway and skidded to a stop.
Jonathan was already there, trapping him inside the room, an arrogant smirk pulling up his mouth.
"Come on, Jace. You didn't really think you were faster than me did you?"
Jace spun away from him, leapt over the desk and grabbed the handle of the door that hid the portal. Jonathan's weight was suddenly against it.
"Wrong. Try again." Jonathan taunted.
Jace shoved him sideways away from the doorway as Jonathan grabbed his forearm and swung him back into the desk.
"You're just so desperate to prove yourself to him aren't you, big brother?" Jace said as he viciously kicked out at Jonathan. His kick connected with his stomach and sent him crashing back into the expensive glass cabinet.
Valentine stood at the other end of the room, his large arms folded, silently watching the exchange with glittering black eyes.
Jace sprinted towards the window, leaping over Jonathan as he did.
He shoved the window up and barely braced his hands against the frame, peering down at the fall he was about to take, when a hand grabbed a fistful of his hair and yanked him back into the room.
Jace gasped when the hand tightened and pulled his head back roughly, expecting it to be his father.
"I don't need to keep proving myself to him, Angel Boy, believe me, I've done enough." Jonathan hissed in his ear.
Then he turned and threw Jace at the cabinet, effectively destroying it.
Jace fell to the ground along with the sparkling glass, and as he saw Jonathan approach him, he swore he could feel his father's smugness radiating from across the room like an exploded star.
Jace pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, cutting his palms on the broken glass as he did. Jonathan crouched down in front of him.
"Maybe you should start trying to though. Because honestly…" he lowered his voice like he was sharing a secret with Jace. "You're not doing too well in that department."
Jonathan's eyes lit up with amusement as Jace's lit up with hate. Then Jonathan smirked and stood up.
Jace felt a sharp pain in his palm and looked down at it. He then carefully pulled out the large piece of glass that had sliced into his skin when he fell and dropped it onto the floor next to him.
Blood oozed out of the deep cut and streamed down his palm like ribbons of hot, scarlet smoke before staining his fingertips.
As he was staring down at the red smeared on his palm, he heard slow footsteps crunching over glass coming towards him.
With something that felt dangerously close to resignation, Jace looked up at his father.
"Get up."
Jace got to his feet, leaving bloody handprints on the expensive hardwood floor.
Valentine looked over Jace's shoulder at Jonathan, who then grabbed Jace's arms and held them tight behind his back. Jace's eyes narrowed.
"Aren't you gunna pat him on the head and tell him what an obedient little dog he is?" Jace said venomously. He felt Jonathan's nails dig into his forearms a second before his brother whispered,
"I'd shut up now if I were you." Jace smiled without humor.
"If you were me? You'd know exactly why that's impossible."
"ENOUGH." Valentine said loudly, cutting off Jonathan. He stared down at Jace, trying to keep his anger in check. Jace, feeling reckless, smiled charmingly.
"What's the matter, Father? Are you angry?"
He was playing with fire and he knew it, but he couldn't make himself care at the moment.
Valentine's face grew glacial. A smart ass seventeen year old child was trying to goad him. His own son. That only made it worse, made him angrier.
And Jace could sense it because he smiled a beautiful smile; ruined only by the utter loathing that flamed his golden eyes.
"Have you lost at your own, well thought out game, Father?" his son's voice had dropped down to a delicate and fluid tone.
"Are you worried that your last soldier is going to turn on you too? Everybody wants to know what it's like sooner or later, what the light tastes like, what it feels like. Are you worried that he's going to want to know too? I mean, light is such a seductive concept…addictive really. It just feels so good when all you've felt before is darkness…"
Valentine saw Jonathan frown out of the corner of his eye and refused to look at him. A slow smile spread across his youngest son's face.
"And what kind of angel would I be, if I didn't give him a taste of the light that you've tried so hard to keep him away from? Do you think he'd still be obedient after seeing what you really are? Do you really think he would still be your soldier if he could truly think for himself without your interference?"
Valentine felt rage simmer inside him as he saw Jonathan staring at him with a look of narrow mistrust. He focused back on Jace, who's grin had the sharp edge of a razor.
"Uh oh, Captain. I sense division in the ranks. You forgot soldier boys are dangerous didn't you? It must really get to you that I'm right. It must really make you angry that you pretty much handed me a loaded gun. You must have known I'd turn it on you…"
Valentine fought subtly against the desire to wrap his hands around Jace's throat and silence him for good.
He clenched his jaw tightly as Jace hooded his eyes and his smile became a malicious smirk. He tilted his head to the side slightly and stared up at him.
"Are you angry, Father?"
Looking down at Jace now, Valentine knew that he was no angel. No angel could ever smile like that.
Maybe Jace wasn't a demon…but thanks to him, he could never be an angel. Valentine had corrupted him far past the point of return.
Just what kind of monster had he created out of this boy with the angelic face and devil grin?
And then it hit him; he knew then exactly what he was dealing with. Valentine's face suddenly split into a smile that was identical to Jace's.
"No, Jace. I'm not angry. I'm vengeful." he said softly.
Jace's smile slowly disappeared and Valentine saw what he was hiding underneath his façade of bitter spite.
He reached out and took Jace's chin and turned his face up to the light, trying to soak up the oceans of despair he saw in Jace's golden eyes.
"And you…you're nothing but a broken angel. You'll never make it to heaven, Jace Morgenstern. Your wings can't carry you because of what you are, and there's no point in fighting it anymore because nothing you do will ever change it; you are and will always be my son."
He released his face, relishing in Jace's sick expression. Valentine straightened his jacket.
"And no son of mine is going to rebel and disrespect me like some mundane, angst ridden teenager. You forget you're a Morgenstern."
Jace raised his eyes back up to his father's, feeling them harden defiantly.
"Oh yeah? Well here's what I think of being a Morgenstern."
And then, with a feeling of throwing himself off a treacherous cliff with reckless abandonment, Jace spit at Valentine's feet.
Jace saw the look of blind rage that split his father's face and swore he had never seen a person look so furious in all his life.
He felt a brief second of glorious triumph for cracking his father's iron control before Valentine hit him in the mouth so hard even Jonathan stumbled backwards into the wall.
Jace spit blood onto the floor as Jonathan yanked him back by his arms so that he was facing their father.
"You dare disrespect me like that? Have you any idea what you've just done, boy?"
Jace had an idea. He knew that people spoke of crossing lines…
Metaphorically speaking, if he looked back, the line of this situation would be a dot on the horizon.
Feeling like he had nothing left to loose, the corner of Jace's mouth seemed to tug up on its own in a wicked smile, showing the blood that stained the white of his teeth.
Valentine drew out a blade and pressed the point into his jugular.
"You think you've had it bad? Just wait. Soon you'll be begging for things to go back to the way they were. And do you know what I'm going to tell you?"
Jace flipped hair out of his eyes, ignoring the scrape of the blade at his throat.
"No?" he said in his ever present sarcastic tone.
Valentine narrowed his eyes thoughtfully before slamming the heavy hilt of the blade into the side of Jace's head.
Jace groaned as his vision blurred and he fell back against Jonathan, no longer able to remain conscious.
Jonathan struggled with his brother's weight before letting him slide down to the floor.
Valentine slipped the blade back into his belt and stared down at his son's closed eyes and the blood that darkened his hair and trickled down the side of his pale, innocent-looking face.
"Hell no."
