"No, you need to understand!"

You might think I'm finding myself in a heated conversation with Jace, but nope, not yet. "When are you going to understand that you just need to back off and learn to be the loser you really are!"

Can you guess it now?

"Just stay away from my-,"

I cut Kaelie off before she could utter that word. "He. Is. Not. Yours." This point had to become clear to this child.

"Aww, jealous?" Kaelie retorted. I was so physically disgusted by her face that I had to turn and walk away before I could puke all over it.

A sharp pain suddenly pierced my wrist and I turned back to find Kaelie's nails drawing blood on my wrist. "Do you understand me?" Her voice was deadly quiet and if I hadn't been absolutely convinced Kaelie was too weird to be harmful, I might have actually been scared.

"Oh, my God. You are psycho," I told her, then pried her fingers loose of my arm and headed in the direction of the bathroom.

I quickly flushed away the blood—it was minimal, nothing to make a fuss over—before I hustled my phone out of my backpack. I clicked on the first number, and the most familiar.

"Clary?" Jace seemed surprised I'd called. It had been a few days since Jace and I fought, and the tension was too much. According to my calendar, I'd be kidnapped in exactly thirteen days. Thirteen days before I disappeared without a trace. Logically, I knew there was a very little chance they would kill me, I always ended up coming back, but there would always be a chance I wouldn't, and I didn't want to spend what could be my last few days with Jace fighting with him.

"Yup. I just had a run-in with demon-child. She's absolutely nuts. Thought you'd want to know."

Jace was quiet for a second, but I could hear the little grin in his voice when he spoke again. "You would be right. What did she do?"

I hesitated. I wasn't sure if I should tell him the whole story, Jace might flip. But I soon realized that hiding the truth from him would bring me right back to where we started with this fight.

"She was trying to tell me-," I hadn't considered how awkward telling him this would be. "That I has to stay away from you because you were supposedly 'hers.'"

I heard Jace gag through the phone, which brought a sharp twang of happiness and a subtle smile to my mouth. "Naturally, I turned to leave, but Kaelie dug her psycho fingernails into my wrist. I got her off and went to get the blood off my arm. But I'm fine," I assured him quickly. "It was nothing."

Jace went silent on the phone, before the call cut off. I gawked at it, almost hurt that he'd hung up on me, before his melodic voice rang out behind me, "Like hell it's nothing."

Before I could speak a word, Jace had my wrist in his hands. His touch was shockingly gentle, when compared to the murderous look in his eyes. He turned my wrist over and over in his hands, inspecting it. The concentration hidden in the furrow of his eyebrows was surprisingly endearing.

"Jace," My voice came out softer than I had intended it to be. I had wanted it to be laughable. "I'm okay."

"No one-," Jace let out a shaky breath. He was deeply unsettled, and it frightened me immensely. "No one hurts you."

I fell silent and Jace wouldn't meet my eyes. I hadn't realized he was so protective of me. And even if he was, there was nothing Jace could do to protect me from my worst nightmares. But I guess it was nice to be protected from everything else.

I twisted my hand so I was gripping Jace's with everything in me. "Thanks," was all I said.

So I wrote a short chapter this time around because I'd like to let you know I've just started a new story! It's a crossover between The Mortal Instruments and Red Queen (but you don't have to have read Red Queen, it's just that plot with TMI characters) and I wanted to tell you to go check it out!