Hello lovelies! If you've been wondering where I've been (because I was doing really well on updating), no I did not fall off the earth again, I was doing the NaNoWriMo thing, and dedicated all my time into that. Unfortunately I was also busy and didn't get anywhere near done, I got about 11,500 words (which is almost four chapters so please don't kill me). Anyways, I'm back now, yay! Keep being wonderful readers who put up with my long updates, I love y'all so much! And don't forget to comment because those give me life!

Clary didn't manage to get anything out of her mother after that, not her brother's name, not what he looked like or anything. And Luke wouldn't tell her anything either, as not to upset Jocelyn. Clary told Izzy a little bit of it and both she and Alec questioned their parents to no avail. Izzy said that they seemed upset and her mother slightly frustrated that Jocelyn had chosen to tell Clary anything at all.

Clary cursed herself inwardly when she found out, she should have known than to reveal what she knew. It caused some brief tension between the adults and Clary was worried she had almost ruined their friendship until Luke convinced Robert and Maryse it was probably best for Izzy and Alec to hear what their parents had to say before they found out some other way. She also knew that they all agreed what they would keep form their children and she had no further hope of finding out anything else.

Izzy loved to speculate what else their parents could be hiding, what Valentine had been doing to Clary's brother and where they were right now. "What do you think they look like? Your mom just up and left, he could still be doing whatever he's doing."

"No offense, Izzy, but I've decided that I really don't want to think of that. It's rather horrifying." Clary said. She turned to Alec. "You can't find any pictures of them?"

Alec shook his head. "No, they're all locked away or destroyed or something. Anywhere I suspect them to keep anything is under strict guard and lock and key in my dad's office. I couldn't get to it if I tried."

Clary sighed. "Same here, and I know better than to push my parents. We're not going to find anything from them."

"What if you looked them up, like on the internet?" Magnus suggested. "Your mom said they were recognized and stuff? There's no way it didn't end up in some sort of newspaper or something. And there's probably a picture of the group too."

"Magnus, you're a genius!" Clary exclaimed. "We'll have to do it on a library computer though, if any of our parents see it on the search history…"

Everyone nodded in agreement. "This weekend?" suggested Alec. "We'll say we need to go to the library for homework."

"Sounds like a plan." Clary said.

Unfortunately, there was one foil to their plan. None of them knew what name had been and none of them were going to be told what the name was. All of them were aware that if they prodded too much, the parents' suspicion would be drawn. So Clary sat staring at the blank library computer screen with a scowl on her face, arms crossed over her chest in unadmitted defeat.

"We've still got this," Alec said. "Here, move over. We don't need to know the name. They're NYU Alumni, we'll just start searching and hope that something comes up."

The first search 'NYU science groups' pulled up way too many hits to filter through. Alec added the year they started and then the year they graduated, neither of them helped.

"I don't know why it's not bringing up more correct hits," Alec muttered.

"Try searching their names. Maybe that'll pull up something." Clary advised.

Alec thought for a second before frowning. "I think that'll pull up too much recent stuff. You don't know his name do you?" he asked, referring to her father. Clary shook her head. That was something she hadn't managed to pull possibly for this exact reason. "We can try our parents' names."

'Maryse Lightwood'

'Robert Lightwood'

'Luke Garroway'

'Jocelyn Fray'

Each name was tried and no good results came up, like Alec had thought the only information that was pulled up was recent, all within the last five years or so and mostly pertaining to their current jobs. "I don't get why this is so hard," Clary grumbled. "It's like the internet chose to burry this secret too."

"You'd think some kind of scandal would catapult them onto record for the rest of history." Magnus commented. "Not erase them from it."

"Unless the college decided to do that before the media could." Izzy hypothesized. "Their research probably had to go through the school first, right? So what if the board or whoever was in change, shut the whole thing down, and erased them from record to try to save face?"

"Izzy you're a genius!" Clary exclaimed softly, as they were in a library.

Alec seemed a little more unconvinced. "But they were recognized, that means at least something, a little bit, had to go on record somewhere." He sighed. "But those type of records are more in science journals and searching those without knowing what to look for would practically be impossible."

"You know what they were researching in," Simon piped up, Clary had forgotten he was with them. "Try maybe looking that up?"

"That might work." Alec whispered and quickly began typing. The hope, however, fell short as they searched through the first five pages. "Nothing," Alec finally said. "The words aren't pulling up the right things, you'd think research in psychology and fetal development would pull up some pretty specific stuff, but it's pulling up separate articles."

"That's disappointing," Izzy complained. "I was really thinking we would hit the jackpot. Clear the search history, Alec."

"What would we ever do with the information we found anyways?" Clary asked. "Present it to our parents? Something they've hidden from us our whole lives, something they're terrible ashamed to be associated with?"

"To be fair, you're only twelve, Clary." Alec pointed out.

"And it would depend on what we found out." Izzy added. "It's not like they were committing murder."

Alec's face screwed up for a reason Clary didn't understand or cared about. "Yeah, but you're almost fifteen Alec, you deserve to know at least something. It's not like they could keep something like this from us for forever."

"You underestimate our parents," Alec deadpanned, Clary had to cover her mouth to muffle a snort.

"Well, today was a valiant effort," Magnus announced. "But I think maybe we should give it a rest, at least for a little while."

"Yeah," Clary reluctantly agreed. "And we can't ask about this because our parents will get suspicious, but anything you can pick up-"

"You'll be the first one we tell." Izzy reassured her.

"Have we decided if we're going to tell Jace?" Simon asked.

"What would be the point?" Alec countered. "It's not like he would know anything."

They had kept this ordeal from Jace, not wanting to burden their time spent together with dark and depressing matters as it was already hard to steer form such depression every time Jace showed up with another bruise or black eye from Sebastian. "We're not telling him," Clary responded firmly. She thought Alec might have wanted to tell him. Despite Jace being closest to her, partially because she had found him first, Jace and Alec had quickly become tight knit friends, Jace being in-between her and Alec's age. Alec's fear of hiding his attraction to boys (mainly Magnus) form Robert, who was very boisterous about his opinions of non-traditional relationships, and Jace's fear of revealing Sebastian true colors to Valentine, who was an excellent loving father if it weren't for the fact that he seemed stupidly aloof to his eldest son's 'shenanigans' that were dangerously abusive to his younger son, had bonded them deeply intimate with each other in a way Clary had Jace had not.

It was a beautiful friendship and not one that Clary envied at all. She was aware that Alec would sometimes sneak out to see Jace, just the two of them (Izzy always knew anything Alec tried to hide) and Clary thought Jace deserved to have his own separate, private, relationship to Alec, the two being close as brothers and Jace having his own devoid of such a bond with his own actual sibling. She was just happy that Jace had found another person he trusted enough to confide in, to be vulnerable in front of because he so desperately needed that.

Really all the friendships Jace had made were beautiful. Izzy had quickly been taken in as his sister and he tried to act like he didn't care for Magnus or Simon, but he 'secretly' did and Clary cherished that he was able to have such close relationships while simultaneously dealing with Sebastian at home.

"Like Alec said, it doesn't even involve him, what would be the pint of telling him?" she restated. "I think it's best to keep him out of it."

"Yeah, but we're all working on this together, I feel like it's excluding him from this is unfair." Simon pointed out. "If we're all upset because we discovered something bad he's going to know something's up. Jace is extremely good at reading people." He was right, despite having few people to read, Jace was very adept gaging other people's emotions, always knowing if one of them was upset when everyone else was not. He was even able to tell if Alec had encountered a crude run-in at school about his engagement with Magnus when even Izzy had been oblivious to it.

"Well now it seems we don't have a choice," Izzy said and Clary sent a rare glower at Simon.

"Fine, I guess we'll tell him." She gave in.

Jace's reaction to their discovery was close to what Clary had expected, shocked and a lack of words. "Wow…" he said eventually. "I-I really don't know what I would do if I found out my dad was hiding something like that from me. That's some… pretty serious and deep stuff."

"Well, we're at a bit of a bump in the road, a flat tire you might say." Magnus spoke up. "We can't really find any more information on the matter so we're unsure about how much more there is to the story."

"I wish I could help," Jace said earnestly. "I'm sorry I can't do anything."

"It's not your fault," Clary said dismissively, "and there's probably not much you could be able to help with anyways. We're already tried looking it up and there's no way mine or Izzy and Alec's parents will tell us anything else."

"I still want to be able to help somehow, I feel useless doing nothing."

"We're all useless at the moment," Alec cut in. "There's nothing more any of us can do at the moment. We can just keep trying to find the right words to search and we can hope that our parents will accidentally let something new slip. Until then we're all no more than sitting ducks."

Jace's P.O.V.

Jace knew Alec was trying to make him feel better for not being able to help, but the older boy's words did little to console him. He wanted to help Clary and Izzy and Alec with this mystery that their parents were hiding from them, partially because he needed a distraction from Sebastian.

Sebastian had calmed in the severity of his physical actions, but his aggression towards Jace seemed to double in intensity every day. Jace often found Sebastian glaring at him, clutching whatever was in his hand (usually a knife or something else dangerous) so tightly in his hands that his knuckles threatened to pierce his skin, his eyes showing his contemplation on whether hitting Jace with all of his might with the objet would be worth it. Thankfully he always decided it wasn't and would stalk angrily out of the room. Thus, Jace often did his best to avoid his older brother completely.

Alec had been a nice confidant of his fears, becoming more like an older brother to him than Sebastian was supposed to be. Alec struggled with his own problems of being attracted to boys instead of girls (though it was completely obvious by his rather adorable and also overly annoying infatuation with Magnus, but Jace never dared to point it out) and his father's strong and clear disapproval of such feelings. This predicament lead Alec to allow his parents to entertain the idea that he was interested in girls like a 'normal' fifteen year old boy should be (hilariously enough Izzy had presented the idea that Clary had a crush on Alec giving both parents enough satisfaction to dub Simon and Magnus 'the gay ones'. Magnus of course knew about this while Simon and Clary very obviously did not. Jace was also sworn into secrecy).

Jace of course shared his harrowing experience living with Sebastian and trying to keep it from Valentine. Alec had no hope of understanding why Jace felt like he needed to protect his adoptive father form the horrible truth that was his oldest son was a deranged psychopath who tried to kill his younger brother, but Alec also never tried to understand and instead served as a safe space for Jace to talk.

One would have thought Clary to be just as viable as an option, but since she had witnessed Sebastian's psychosis in real life there was no way Jace would be able to tell her anything specific about Sebastian's attacks without risking her going into complete panic mode and telling her parents, especially after he had disappeared for a whole month after Sebastian almost managed to lethally stab him with a knife (not that anyone knew about that, but he had been gone for a month and he knew that everyone had been considering telling someone, afraid Sebastian had actually succeeded in killing him).

"Why don't you ever just stay gone?" a voice sneered at him.

"Sometimes I consider it," Jace sighed, avoiding looking at Sebastian who had decided to meet him at the edge of the woods.

"I'm sure you're much happier with them, your stupid little friends, why don't you just go live with them?" Jace's blood ran cold. "Oh yes, Jonathan, I know about the little club you've started in the clearing beyond our property. I should have half a mind and tell father about it."

"If you already know then why haven't you told him?" Jace knew he might be pushing it, but he felt irritable about not being able to help Clary. He desperately prayed Sebastian never got close enough to listen in on any of their conversation.

"I have a proposition," Sebastian said, surprising Jace enough to look up at his older brother to see if he was serious. "You actually go off and live with them, or just run off and I won't tell Father."

Jace raised an eyebrow. "Just run off? He'd go out looking for me, you know that."

"Not if he thought you were dead."

"He'd need a body. What did you plan to do, show him a bloody shirt of mine and tell him I got eaten by a bear?"

"Watch yourself, Jonathan," the older brother hissed, causing Jace to flinch. As much as he didn't want to deal with Sebastian, he didn't want to deal with a broken rib more. "We'd fake your death, obviously. Make it look like you got drowned in the tub or did something stupid and bleed out."

"First, he'd never fall for it. Second, I don't trust you to make me look dead without actually trying to kill me. And third, how sick of a person would you have to be to fake your death in front of someone you know?" Jace pointed off making Sebastian scowl. "And one more thing, if we somehow managed to make my heart stop long enough to convince Father I was actually dead without killing me in the process, what happens when he buries me? Or what if he tries to have me cremated?"

"I wouldn't let him burn you and I'd come dig you out, of course." The older boy said it like it was obvious. Normally Jace wouldn't believe under any circumstance would Sebastian willing dig him up from being buried alive all within the time limit of the younger not suffocating, but he said it with such earnestness that Jace was almost convince he would keep his word.

"I only want you dead because I want you gone, Jonathan." Sebastian spoke after most likely reading his adoptive brother's face. "If you were to go away without dying then I would gladly help you. Not only would it be less hassle, but it would keep a murder off my hands." Jace knew Sebastian had huge mental problems, but to talk about murder (or lack thereof) so casually like doing an everyday chore made Jace's blood run cold. Sebastian wasn't just sick, he was psychopathic.

"I'm sorry, Sebastian, but I'm not going to willingly allow you to bring me close to death, fake or not." Jace answered. The older boy's face contorted into a nasty expression Jace never wanted to see again. It was obvious Sebastian was attempting to control his rage.

"I'm giving you a chance, Jonathan. One chance, just this once. Take it, or leave it." He really meant what he said, every word of it, Jace realized and he wasn't quite sure what to think or what to make of it. On one hand there was a part of him with warnings flashing across his mind, telling him it was a trap. It was always a trap. But the other part, the most certainly stronger part was telling him to take the offer. He could be free. But where would he go? Despite what Sebastian thought he couldn't just stay with the Lightwoods or Clary. And what about Father? The grieving of thinking his younger son dead would be awful to endure, especially since it would be for nothing as the death was untrue.

"I can't," Jace said simply. "Whatever you think, Sebastian, it wouldn't work out. At least not for me so what do you care? But I couldn't move in with my friends, not really. Your plan isn't well thought out in any form or fashion. And above everything else, I couldn't live with myself knowing I would be causing Father so much sorrow and heartache."

A dead look passed over Sebastian's face. It was scarier than the one of rage. "Fine!" he snapped. "So be it, if this is what you want then it's what you'll be getting. But remember, I offered you a way out and you refused it." The sense of dread Jace had trudging back to the house after Sebastian was indescribable and terrifying.