In the middle of the night, Jace woke up with a jolt. He looked around in alarm but couldn't make out any danger. What had woken him? He must have fallen asleep on this wicked chair beside the big bed, where he had placed her. Then he heard her heavy breathing. She was sobbing softly in her sleep. He got up from his chair and sat slowly on the edge of the bed. She was still asleep – having a bad nightmare. This was probably some kind of side effect from being bitten by a Ravener demon.

Her forehead was covered with a thin layer of sweat and she had clenched her hands to fists as if she wanted to find someone – or something.

Before he could do anything, she woke with a scream and bolted upright. He just acted. He gripped her arms gently and tried to push her back into the sheets.

"Shhh... everything's alright. I brought you to Magnus and he healed you. But you need to rest. You are still weak."

For a moment she just looked at him as if she was seeing him for the first time, then she moved away from him. Put off, Jace let her go immediately. She wanted to say something, but in this moment, Magnus appeared out of nowhere and rushed to her side.

"Sue is everything alright? What happened?"

Magnus took her gently in his arms, which she let him do willingly. Jace stood and stiffly walked to the window. The next moment Alec got into the room and looked at Jace.

"She had a nightmare.", he explained.

Sue hadn't said a thing, but Magnus just caressed her hair and whispered into her ear. She sighed and looked up at the other two men.

"I am sorry, I dragged you into bringing me here, Jace.", she said, eyes fixed on the man at the window. He looked like a statue in the back light of the moon coming through the window. He looked back at her and she thought his features softened a bit by her apology.

Oh, she would make him so angry in the next minute.

She cleared her throat and set back the blanket of the bed. When she got up from bed, a wave of nausea hit her, but she busied herself with picking her things up.

"Susie, my love. You need to rest. The Raveners have quite a strong poison."

"I am okay, Magnus. Trust me. Thank you for everything. I will call you, when I get home. I need to get going now. In fact, I need to be at work in a couple of hours."

She was on her way to the door, when a broad chest appeared in front of her. Alec had stepped in front of the doorway, her only way out. She turned around and saw Jace glaring at her.

"You are not going anywhere before you told us who you are. We are shadowhunters. The law is with us."

They glared at each other for a second, before Sue began to smile.

"You really have memorized those little statements of yours, haven't you?", she laughed. Jace face went rigid. He was an arrogant pretty little boy.

"You think you can demand something from me?", she continued.

"After you guided those demons right to me?"

This hit him and she knew it. She had heard enough about him. His face fell for a moment, but he got himself under control almost an instant later.

"I am just doing my job here. If you are a shadowhunter, who left the clave, you bring us all in high danger! Don't you know what demons would do for shadowhunter blood? If they know there is a weak spot among our lines -"

"I am not weak and I can stand my ground.", Sue stopped him. He just put on a dismissive smile. Sue wanted to punch it right off his face.

"Didn't look like that last night."

This was when everything Sue had planned to do and say vanished from her mind. Suddenly she lunged forward. Magnus tried to get ahold of her, but he was too slow. Of course, Jace was not. He moved like the shadowhunter he was, but she knew those arrogant fighters. Often enough she had fought against one of them. She moved a little to the right and caught him in his stomach. Hard. She hoped it hurt – a lot.

To her anger, he didn't even flinch. He could either hide it very well, or he was stronger than she thought. The next moment she was on the ground and he was above her, his face just inches from her.

"Nice try, but no wonder a Ravener got you."

If he hadn't been an asshole right now, she would have thought how beautiful his eyes were. Slightly awkward in this situation. She should be angry with him – not falling for him. She struggled to get free, but it was of no use. She knew he was a lot stronger than her. Damn blood. When he didn't let go, panic flooded her. He had to let her go eventually, didn't he? He certainly wasn't going to kill her. Hopefully. His face seemed so determined. In the next moment he loosened his grip on her. But only a bit. His features softened with his grip. He must have seen the fear in her eyes. Another ability shadowhunters had. Normally she didn't let them see her fear.

"Tell us your story and we will let you go.", he suggested and raised his eyebrows in question.

"'Go', like in "I will let you go home without killing you?'", she asked back.

"Depends on what you will say.", Alec added from behind, before Jace made a promise he couldn't hold. Before she could answer, Magnus interrupted.

"Jace, leave her. Look at her. She is still drained from the poison. She is not going anywhere with you in this room."

"Sorry, Magnus, but that's not gonna happen. Jace needs to make sure she is not gonna kick his ass again. Because this didn't happen in a long time. Jace fell off his high horse. I really want to see the two of them in a training fight, as soon as she is up and about."

Shocked, Jace looked to his parabatai, who just grinned at him. Sue looked amused and Jace just scowled and let her go. She felt a little bit proud.

"It's true, isn't it?", added Alec, but Jace just gave him a sinister look and held out a hand to help her up. She tried to play it cool and got up by herself, but she barely made it to the bed again. She hoped, they hadn't noticed. Feeling Magnus' stare on her, taught her wrong. She looked over to him.

"You think I can trust them with this?", she asked carefully.

"I trust them.", he just answered.

"They are loyal to the clave.", she murmured more to herself than to someone else.

"We are loyal to our hearts.", Jace said back low. He looked over to where Alec was standing. He nodded slowly. As she was looking at Jace and his intense stare met hers, she decided it was worth a try. Maybe they could help her. At least this man had more angel blood in him than any other shadowhunter.

"Alright.", she started. "I believe you. It will take some time to tell my creepy little story, so you probably want to sit down. And one more thing -", she added, when Jace sat back in this uncomfortable looking chair. "Whatever you consider doing with me. Please don't bring me to the institute and the clave."

There was silence. She knew they couldn't make such a promise. So, she started right away.

"Ok, I start at the beginning. The first thing I can remember was being with my dad. I was about 6 years old. We lived somewhere around Alicante in Idris, but I never found the place, where he raised me. I distinctly remember a woman around, but I can't remember her face though. I assume that he paid a warlock to erase her from my memory. Well, whatever. My dad? He was not nice. He treated me badly. I don't want to go into detail. But he trained me. Well. In these days, I thought I was the best fighter, after my dad. But I wasn't. I wasn't even average among shadowhunters."

"So you are a shadowhunter.", Jace said, when Sue paused for a moment. She just shrugged.

"I am not sure.", she admitted. "When you hear the whole story, perhaps you can tell me, what exactly I am."

She sighed and moved on. Everyone was listening quietly.

"When I was nine, my father left and never came back. There was no one visiting us ever, so nobody would look after me. That's when I decided I was living on my own now. Imagine a nine-year-old girl alone in the wilderness. But I was trained and so I got on a whole year before I really needed someone. I don't know if I really needed someone, or if the fact, that I had seen a city behind the hill made me need someone. I had wandered afar one day, because I searched for food. Then I saw Alicante with its glorious towers in the distance. I packed my bag and just left. Just like my father. It was days later and a lucky coincidence that I reached the city. A rider found me dehydrated on the street and took me to the city. The clave got me a nice home, where I could recover."

After that she paused again. But this time because it seemed to be hard for her to move on. Magnus laid a hand on her shoulder. She smiled sadly at him.

"They thought I was a shadowhunter's kid just like any other kid running around in the city. But I wasn't. They wanted to see how much I had learned from my father and I was eager to show them – still believing I was good. When they saw that I wasn't strong and I wasn't fast, they tried harder. More training, other 'methods', I like to call it. Again, something I want to forget. But the worst thing was, that they wanted to put a rune on me. Even as they knew that it wasn't good for me."

"Why are runes not good for you? Why are you afraid of my stele?", Jace now asked. It seemed this question was haunting him the most. Sue looked at Magnus again, who nodded.

"Show them.", he encouraged her. She stood and then lifted her shirt. Jace's eyes went wide, when he saw a shadowhunter's rune on her stomach. But it wasn't the color of a normal rune. It was bright red and the skin was bulged where it ran along.

"My father did this.", she said and dropped her shirt again. Then she turned around and pulled down the shirt to show them her shoulder. There was another rune – speed – on her shoulder blade. Same red skin.

"The clave did the second one. They wanted to see by themselves how much pain it brings to me. Well apparently, so much pain that they didn't try again. If it wasn't for Magnus, I would still be in constant pain. Nothing you can't handle, but so much pain, that you cannot sleep at night."

"They would never do that to a child.", Alec said shocked. He looked from Sue to Magnus.

"It's true Alec. I am sorry.", Magnus responded. Alec fell silent again, while Jace was watching Sue closely. Sue knew that he believed her. He had learned the hard way how the clave worked, years ago.

"They wanted to see if the runes will work on me. After all I had the second face and I could get past the wards. I had to have some angel blood in me. When they realized I could never be a good shadowhunter, at least not someone who could defend herself, they sent me away. They told me, it was safest for me there, but I think, that it was the only family, who wanted to take me in. Their name was 'Mittnacht', which is an old german word for 'midnight'. I was living with them in Austria in the middle of nowhere. They were good people. They continued to train me along with their other three children. In contrary to everything I had ever experienced, they were patient and never pushed me. For once in my life I was really happy. It could've stayed like that, but something changed. Me. It wasn't enough for me to spend my whole life in this house. My siblings made plans on moving out and killing demons and living a real life with a purpose, when all I could do, was planning my next hiking trip. I asked my parents by adoption about it and even if they felt with me, they told me I could never move out into the world. I was too vulnerable. I understood. I even do now, but you cannot suppress the need for freedom in someone. It got even worse, when my siblings finally moved out. I was 20 years old at this time."

"You ran away.", Jace stated. He looked at her with sad eyes. Understanding eyes. Sue nodded.

"One night, I just packed my things and hiked down the hill we were living on. I never looked back. First it was very hard to live along mortals. I didn't know how things worked in the city. I got mad over not knowing how to drive a car. But eventually it got easier. Too easy. I felt that I belonged more to the mundane community than I had ever belonged to the shadowhunters. With one exception: All the filthy demons I saw at night. And of course, the less filthy creatures I saw in daylight. Magnus for example."

She gave him a small grin and he chuckled.

"I met her in Berlin. She was a waitress in a nice little bar directly at the river 'Spree'."

For a moment, he was lost in memories, but then he flipped back.

"I saw that she wasn't mundane. That's why she was interesting. And of course, she was such a kind person, which is rare these days. She came to New York just for me. After she had told me everything and I had helped her with her scars, I wanted to keep her nearby. Wanted to have an eye on her. It was all fine until that night at the club."

To Sue he said: "You are a clumsy little creature, my dear. How big is the chance that you bump into the most talented shadowhunter in history?"

She nervously played with her hair and then shared a look with Jace. He grinned.

"It's now almost 10 years ago that I ran away. I don't know what the clave will do, when they get ahold on me again. Making more tests on my skin? Probably imprison me again? I just want to go on like before. Magnus is taking care of me. I am good. You just need to leave me alone. Are you doing that? Can you please just forget about me?", she asked sober.

Jace and Alec looked at each other. They didn't need to talk. Alec trusted Jace with whatever solution he chose. Times were long gone in which both men trusted blindly what the clave was doing.

"No.", Jace answered after a while and Sue's heart sank. He couldn't do that. She would rather die fighting than going back to the clave. To prison. She stood and glanced over to the door, but then felt Jace's warm touch on her arm. Fiercely she looked up to him, but he just smiled.

"Our duty lies in protecting all innocent beings. I don't care what you are or what you aren't. You are in danger, when you are on your own. Magnus cannot look after you every second of your life and you probably don't want that. Next time you won't bump into me, but into a second Valentine, who needs you for some cruel incantation. We'll help you. We will look after you until we find a permanent solution for your problem."

She really was surprised. They wanted to help her? Shadowhunters sure had changed during the past years. Or they hadn't and these two were just an exception.

"Thank you", she managed to say and put her hand on his for a brief moment.

"But you don't have to babysit me. My problem can't be solved. I am not damaged. It's just who I am."

"Are you sure about that? Maybe there is a way to make you a full shadowhunter.", Alec interrupted. Shocked she looked at him and then back to Jace, who seemed to have similar thoughts.

"Or a full mundane.", Magnus added. He knew she would feel safer as a mundane. She wasn't a fighter. She had just defended herself all these years.

Sue had never thought about that. The idea of belonging somewhere fully, scared her more than it should. She couldn't say anything. Make her a full shadowhunter? But could she go back to a normal life again? Living among the people, who had tortured her? And on the other side, could she live among mundanes and not being able to see demons anymore? Panic rose in her. Her breathing became quicker as her thoughts began to race. She hadn't had a panic attack in years. Tears welled up in her eyes, but she refused to let them damage her self-confidence. Before she could react by running into the bathroom, arms embraced her, and she was pressed against a warm body. It was Jace. He held her head in his hands and said low smoothing words in her ear while hugging her tightly. She never felt so safe in her whole life.

"When I found out about Valentine and what he had done to me, I thought my head would crash. But after everything that had happened, I am still here. So, don't worry. We will find a way through this and maybe it's even turning out alright."

The only thing she could do, was nodding. His smell was making her confused. This was definitely not the right place nor the right time to fall for someone. They stood there for a while until Magnus cleared his throat. Suddenly the situation was awkward. She was standing in the arms of a total stranger. With a jolt she moved backwards. Even if she did not want to see his face, her eyes drifted to him and of course he was smiling just like any other arrogant man would do, who just got the validation that he was in the game. She needed to remind him that there was no game – fast.