A/N So, i got some really positive reviews, but only like two. Seriously, could you spare just one minute to give me your views, otherwise I will stop writing for around a week (okay, I probably couldn't not update for a whole week, but you get the picture).
Come on people review otherwise I won't update as often as you would like.
Anyway, enough with the threats, however I would like to thank kel-vampyre for being the first to review my story. And iwritenaked for giving me such excellent feedback.
And to the awesome SahibaKT for being, well, awesome. This story was made infinitely better by her input.
Oh and I know you are all aching for some Clace, but you will have to wait. Clace and Malec will both feature in the next chapter. (Although Clace with just be meeting and not yet an item.)
P.s I own nought. If I did I would be living in the Bahamas soaking up the sun, not watching it rain and hail here in the UK.
Clary, held her body as she stumbled blearily to her bed, in a desperate attempt to break through the clouded fog of her mind, thanks to the almighty whacking she received by the hands of her once beloved brother.
Warily she pulled herself to her room, and studied the damage in the discreetly placed full length mirror, she used almost explicitly for such purposes, with an air of someone so used to seeing scars they both horrified her and no longer shocked her. She examined her neck and there stood in contrast motley of garish bruises against her pale skin, a token of the horror inflicted upon her anatomy, rendering her flesh into a landscape of pain and nightmares. Distinct, hand shaped bruises were patterned along her breasts and hips all merging with the trickle of blood trailing down between her legs.
Exhausted, in both body and spirit, she dragged herself to her bed, and floated into an oblivion that haunted her mind, as she waited for an inevitable continuation of her daily torture.
A part of her, wanted an out, a break, the other part, more dominant, simply waited for the inevitable pain.
She had barely felt her eyes close when she was awoken harshly by the sound of heavy footsteps crashing up the stairs. Clary braced for impact, for the oncoming storm.
The door to her room slammed open as someone she'd once perceived as handsome, a hero but now stood disheveled, in the doorway stood staring down at her. He reeked of alcohol, the stench hovered around him in an overwhelming cloud that almost suffocated her, his facial expression was that of someone who was so inebriated that even though they could carry such an impressive stench remained oblivious to the smell itself.
What forced her attention upon him, was not the alcohol, no. No, it was the look on his face, one of pure hatred. Features twisted in a kaleidoscope of cold,emotionless unkind icy disdain, with barely contained fury. He skirted around the edge of the room, almost as if having a silent debate, before approaching the bed she was laying upon. He growled, a low guttural almost animalistic sound, filled with pure malice, a sound so low and grating she could barely stand it.
Clary recognized it though, it was the same sound that haunted her days, since the first moment this started. It was the sound, which had instigated her anguish, her pain, her fear; it was the sound that controlled everything.
The memory forever etched in her mind, she could remember clearly. The day he first madethat sound. The day her life changed. It was when both he and Sebastian had stolen any innocence she may have had, any purity she possessed after witnessing the brutal murder of her mother. By her own father.
That was what started this whole route into madness, the horror of abuse and pain, both physical and mental, verbal and sexual. And the hours of torment and torture that followed.
Clary had been nine. The official report was 'Her mother was allegedly killed by a robbery gone wrong', Clary knew the truth. The horrid, heart wrenching truth.
It started seven years ago, it had been a Sunday, she remembered the soft sunlight of the afternoon creeping along the edge of the living room curtains, she remembered her mother's soft humming and the twirl of her dress, as it skirted around her knees. She remembered her mother's playful teasing, pointing out the clouds and peppering warm kisses across her face and neck. She remembered the scent of lilies, her mother's scent. She remembered everything. Her mother had taken a day off work to help her with the mural Clary was hoping to paint.
She never finished.
The painting was destroyed by the desperate attempts to scrape Jocelyn's blood off of it.
The water and chemicals used had all mixed together and had a corrosive effect on the paint. Causing it to burn off the wall. The nightmares started the same, her childhood burning away as blood red painted her mind.
Clary remembered, she remembered her mother had been stabbed, through the heart, in Clary's bedroom.
Anyone would think that she had done something terrible to deserve such a fate. But no. All that Jocelyn Fray had done was make pasta instead of potatoes. It was true, Valentine was a control freak. That he could allow his wife the tiniest bit of freedom, to choose what she cooks. The idea was preposterous.
Clary sometimes wondered was it her mother's idea, a shady form of relief, a bid for freedom, that she took the chance? Did she want to be free from him, that she made the mistake of changing the menu? Had it been chance or was it a genuine error.
Half of Clary wanted to hate her mother.
—
Valentine clambered on top of the bed and started to remove her clothes. Slapping her, punching her and kicking her even when part of her tried to fight back, the small infinitesimal part of her which, squirmed.
—
If her mother hadn't changed anything, when she knew, small things bent the man off his rocker. Why had she changed the menu? Why? And then she remembered the night this first happened. The night he made that sound for the first time, the sound that would forever haunt her.
Clary recalled the night in one quick flashback, as if everything was playing at one hundred times the speed it naturally would be. The night her life ended.
The murder had passed and Clary was blank and numb.
The funeral had passed and she was still numb, but that night, it all changed.
Her brother's multiple personalities had only recently been discovered and he was having trouble with them. She noticed how deep the difference between Sebastian and her beloved Jon ran.
Clary scurried home, relieved to escape from the pressing, cloying and suffocating cloud of sadness, regret and a whole host of other negative emotions that threatened to consume her. She opened the front door to find her dad and her brother there. And for one, short moment everything seemed normal.
Then the screaming started.
"It's your fault she's dead! It's your fault!" Screamed Sebastian, it took a little too long to figure out this person before her was not her beloved Jon, no, if she had noticed, she could have ducked for cover, ran back out, hidden. She could have avoided their combined wrath. But the precious few minutes that took for the shock of being yelled at, to leave her had cost her, her innocence.
"You look too much like her, how dare you share that whore's face!" yelled Valentine.
Together they threw insults at her, blaming her for Jocelyn's death and accusing her of looking too much like her late mother. His wife. His mother.
All at once, Clary broke.
The realisation of her mother's death, which had been in the corner this entire time, hit her like a ton of bricks. Crashing down upon her, before she even had time to comprehend what was happening.
And she cried.
Somewhere deep down inside, she knew that was the wrong reaction, but it barely registered. Even when they began to hit they hit her.
So she cried even harder.
So they took a knife to her. First came the Knife, then a belt, when the whipping began, she hardly noticed, what she felt was pain. Scorching pain, the branding iron? ….
And all the while she cried.
But she never, not once, fought therein lay her first mistake, the only one she ever counted.
There was a hand. Not hitting or angry like the others. It was rough yet at the same time gentle. Then it was joined by another hand, and another, and another...
Clary was momentarily confused at the distinct change of mood settling in the atmosphere. Barely noticed what horrific end result was becoming of her life.
Two hands travelled North, two hands travelled South.
She remembered.
Felt the intrusion in all three of her holes.
But the rest of the night transformed into pain. And a noise. White hot concentrated pain, red pressing pain, yellow stabs of pain, the blue burn of pain, there was noise. The sizzle of the branding iron, the swish of the whip, the clank of the belt buckle hitting the ground, the clap of their hands on her skin, the slap of their skin meeting hers, the growling sound that captured her attention, imprinted into her mind forever more.
She woke up that day with wounds all over her body, many of which remained as scars, too many bruises to count, blood caking her legs, and four letters marked on her back:
VM and SM.
And there they would stay until her body joined with the earth...
—
So lost in her memories, Valentine had removed both their clothes. Uninterested in foreplay, he entered her in one quick move. Although it still hurt Clary quite a bit, she was so used to the pain she had suffered for the last seven years and she simply accepted it as the devil on top of her reached his peak.
Valentine came in her, climbed off, gave her a hard kick in the ribs for good measure and left the room.
Defeated Clary slumped down on her bed, silent, praying.
להיות איתי , אלוהים . אני מרגיש כל כך אבוד . אני לא מצליח לברוחענן הכהה
שתלוי מעליי היום . עזור לי , אלוהים . תן לי כוח
ב שלי בפרספקטיבה . ללמד שיש אמונהביום החדש כי הוא בא
כדי להילחם בייאוש ופחד . הראה לי איך לשים את הכא. תודה לך , אלוהים ,לברכות של היום , לתקווה של מחר ,ולאהבה הגדולה שלך .
אמן .
She leant back and closed her eyes,
Embracing the darkness.
translation of the prayer: Be with me, God. I feel so lost. I can't seem to escape the dark cloud
that is hanging over me today. Help me, God. Give me strength
to combat despair and fear. Show me how to put my pain
into perspective. Teach me to have faith in the new day
that is coming. Thank you, God, for today's blessings,
for tomorrow's hope, and for Your abiding love.
Amen.
~sorry about the llama's~