The only difference between the board room at the Cleveland Institute and the ones at every other Institute in the world was that the desk was in the shape of a giant sideways C. The most important people would be sat at the 'curve' of the C, and everyone else would direct themselves in the seats curving inward on either side. The projector was in the middle space between the two ends of the C.
"Welcome to Talk Your Ear Off Central." Eliza said holding her arms out with a smile on her face.
"Alright, that's enough of the jokes. We should really catch them up to speed so they can get started immediately." Adelaide said, pulling up a presentation as they all pulled their chairs away from the desk and into the center of the 'C'.
"For the past three months Eliza has stationed herself inside a high school in this small town called Lima. She's been tracking the energy that we think might lead you to the Mortal Cup. You three will blend yourselves in plain sight, and Eliza will take a step back to let you guys take over." Adelaide said.
"Sounds good. How will be hiding ourselves from the major population?" Jace asked. "Not that any should be denied this beautiful face."
"Keep thinking that buddy." Eliza said, reaching over to playfully tap his shoulder. "And actually you won't, that's the whole plain sight part of that. You'll be joining me in attending the beautiful, mostly mandatory, hellhole all mundies know as-"
"High school." Simon snarled.
"Bingo." Eliza pointed at him as if to acknowledge the correct answer.
"You know, I'm all for finding this Mortal Cup if it'll help my mom but." She said, turning specifically to the Rosebloods. "Is there anyway way I could be of use besides going undercover as a high school student?"
"Yeah, Clary and I have already done that for real, and I'd much prefer avoiding a Vietnam worthy flashback of four years of toilet water facials." Simon barked at them, before Alec decided to steal his moment and ask what exactly a toilet water facial was.
"They forcefully hold your head in a toilet." Clary said grimacing at the many of memories of having to help clean out Simon's hair.
"Sounds fun." Jace smirked in Simon's direction.
"Bully." He mumbled.
"Miss Fairchild, Mr Lewis your points are noted. Since Mr Lewis is a vampire, anyway, it's not like he could be out in the sun." Adelaide said, calming the group down.
"At least we're not 'and company' anymore." Simon laughed to no one in particular.
"So Lightwoods, you'll be spending 5 days a week, 8 hours a day in the brightly colored prison known as William H McKinley High School. In my time there I've learned it's best if you just keep yourself hidden, don't start anything with anyone and try not to get yourselves roped into clubs because that will only direct attention to yourselves. I myself, have set up a positioned in one of the most controversial clubs in the entire school and let me tell you hiding myself has not been easy." Eliza said, sitting herself down in one of the empty chairs.
"What club is that?" Clary asked, not really able to think of any 'fight worthy' clubs at her and Simon's old high school. Then again , she kinda just stayed to herself, with the exception of Simon of course, and her drawings.
"The Glee Club." Eliza said, as if the name was something dramatic.
"The what?" Alec asked.
"It's like a singing club, isn't it?" Simon asked, and Clary looked surprised that he knew what it was. "We had one, Clar, but it was only full of like six or seven girls who were nothing but attention whores."
"Simon!" Isabelle reached over and slapped his arm. He shrugged as if to say 'it's true'. Eliza threw her head back and sighed.
"I'm afraid this one's no different. Except everyone is terribly inquisitive and completely naive. Sometimes I consider telling them everything just to watch their terrible 'oh poor me' attitudes drain from their eyes as they realize the real demons aren't the show choir that has a better Journey song than them for regionals." She laughed to herself, not really paying attention to the fact that the rest of them didn't exactly know what she was talking about.
"So, let me get this straight, we pretend to be mundies for a little bit while you go sing and dance your heart out until what?" Jace asked.
"Till you get your information. Excuse me if we don't have your fancy smancy New York technology, but you'll just have to do your investigating the old fashioned way." Eliza turned and headed out the door, leaving them all to dismiss themselves for the night.
Alec was awfully quiet on the walk back to their hall, staring down at the bottom of his shoes as Jace stared at him waiting for the older boy to make conversation. Reaching the bathroom at the beginning of their hall, Jace stopped and waited for Alec to turn and look at him. Jace ran his tongue over his lip, searching for the right words to use there, and then ultimately sighing and coming out with it. "That friends of yours, a bit short tempered, ain't she?"
"Eliza? No. She just gets flustered around new people sometimes." Alec said, Eliza wasn't short tempered at all. No, she was actually one of the calmest people he'd ever known. SHe handled every frustrating situation with reason and logic before putting her emotional input, one of the few very Shadowhunter-like qualities of her.
"If you say so." Jace shrugged.
"This whole acting like mundies thing is weird." Alec blurted it out quick and fast like it was some kind of confession.
"I mean, maybe, but like haven't you ever wondered about what it would be like if we weren't half angel." Jace said, turning to lean against the wall of the hallway, partly closing his eyes as if to imagine a world where he wasn't the strongest, fastest Shadowhunter.
"I haven't known anything else." Alec said, a blush forming over his cheeks as to all the things he didn't know about. Not the raunchy stuff, just like relationships and drama and all that which had been hidden from behind the four walls of the Institute.
"This'll be good for you then. Maybe you'll get out and live a little." Jace said, clearly certain things on what Alec could do running through his head.
"Not likely. We're here for the Mortal Cup, not to get laid." Alec said.
"What's wrong with killing two birds with one stone?" Jace asked playfully.
Alec's stomach felt like it was trying to jump up out through his mouth as his head tried to slowly crush his brain that was inside of it. He heard what sounded like an echo of his sister's voice, a ghost of her hand on his shoulder, before the car came to a screeching fault and both his breakfast and his lunch had decided they didn't want to be digested. He reached open the door of the minivan and hurled the containment of his stomach onto the black pavement below him. As the car turned off, Alec dry heaved towards the ground again before tumbling out of the car (attempting to avoid the vomit on the ground) and leaning up against the side of the car. He was dizzy, and he felt two sets of hands try and steady him before his sister's face came into view.
"Alec? Alec." Isabelle's voice sounded very far away, he tried to lean toward it but ultimately lost his balance and fell into a strong pair of arms, which he assumed belonged to Jace.
"Come, kiddo, let's get you inside." The voice sounded a lot like Eliza's, but he couldn't quite tell as his vision started to blur and her and Clary looked exactly like the same orange haired blobs. He could feel people moving him, multiple hands guiding him up a couple of steps and through a door. Then he was falling, he gripped at the closest fabric in attempt to stop himself from collapsing against whatever it was.
"Alec." The voice sounded so calm, so sweet, a relief from the throbbing pain he felt almost everywhere. "We're just setting you down on the couch."
"Okay." He thinks that came out, although he wasn't really sure because as he was laid down against the soft couch his head started to swallow him, his eyes closing as if on their own circuit system. He was falling asleep, and he hurt so much, so as will dissolved he let it consume him.
When he woke up, there were three sets of eyes on him as he moved his arm to sit himself up straight. The first he saw were his sister's dark browns staring back at him, happy that he was okay now, and she was sat at the side of him kneeling down next to the couch. The next were Jace's, as he stopped pacing back and forth to take one look and knowing that Alec was all right he fell into the lounge chair next to the couch a sigh of relief escaping his lips. The third set was Eliza's, who held a glass of water in her hand and some pain killers in the other, and she smiled at him bright and comforting.
"Well that's one way to christen a new house." Simon's voice bellowed from a hallway near them as he and Clary came into Alec's view. Clary's hair was pulled back into a ponytail and Simon's glasses were hanging from his pocket. Their hands were covered in bright blue plastic gloves with a full trash bag in Clary's left hand.
"House?" Alec's voice was raspy, he hated how weak it made him sound. No one seemed to notice it however, or if they did they at least had the courtesy to not mention it.
"You probably couldn't hear me, car sickness can be a real kicker. You're staying with me here in Lima, which is about two hours away from the Institute. Your mother, Max, and Adelaide are going to report to these two over here on all mission advancements and vice versa." Eliza said, handing him the pain killers and glass of water. He dry pilled the pain killers and then chugged the water, feeling better now that his throat wasn't so dry.
Alec sat up straighter, looking around at the fairly small looking house they were in. It wasn't hard to tell that Eliza had done most of the decorating. Most of the furniture was either white or black, the couch he was sat on at the moment happened to be white scattered with dark brown pillows and a cream colored blanket draped over the side. The space behind him led to a white colored kitchen with a tint of green to match the living room. The whole house seemed small but open. The black spiral stairway on the other side of the kitchen presumably led to an upstairs.
"You're okay, right Alec?" Eliza asked, letting her concern slip into her voice, normally she was able to mask her emotions behind a cocky and cool tone but she was among friends, people she could trust.
"Yes. I would like to see the rest of the house." He said.
"It's small, normally meant for only a few people to live in but I've had my team make the proper arrangements. The study has been tarped so that no sunlight can get in but still has an amazing wifi connection for our geeky little vampire. Alec and Jace can take the smaller bedroom down the hall to our right here and the girls and I will be in the master bedroom here." She said opening the door to a beautifully simple gray bedroom. Three beds, all tucked into different corners of the room (with a closet space tucked into the last) were covered in pastel blue bedsheets. There wasn't much to the room, it was about as large as the living room, but what little furniture was there seemed to be a happy medium between the three girls.
As Alec and Jace took them to their room, the boys was something similar. The light brown contrasted well against the orange bed sheets, something Alec would normally never be caught in. Orange was meant for the criminally charged and yet it somehow shaped the room so it felt bigger enough for two young adults teetering both above 5'10. Simon's bedroom was white with it's hints of red and black, like in the bed frame that had clearly taken the place of a bookshelf as by the shadow of dust left against the wall.
Alec fell back against the bed softly, the quiet that had fallen over the house not calming his nerves a single bit. Why did that little girl have to get them involved in this whole mess? Why couldn't his mother have just gone to check out whatever this lead may or not be? And why couldn't they just stay at the Cleveland Institute and portal in? Also why did he sound so fricking whiny?
He huffed in frustration, kicking the end of the bed with the back of his heel. Beside him, he heard a chuckle erupt from Jace's chest, the genuine sounding kin of laugh that almost said me too man. "You good?"
"No." Alec pouted.
"Wanna talk about it?" Jace asked.
"No." Alec retorted turning on his side to face the blonde. Jace smiled, turning to face him as well and Alec was reminding of a similar situation when they were younger. Sleepovers in Alec's room at the Institute, staying up way past curfew just to talk. About studies, parents, that one time Jace thought he had a crush on Isabelle when he was 15 but it turned out to just be puberty working its magic.
"Me neither." Jace said.
"Glad we have that covered." Alec said, laughing. Before long the two were laughing away their problems,letting it consume what oxygen was left in the room before th e pair eventually called it a night.