Hi everyone,
Thank you so much for the reviews, you've all encouraged me to keep going!
Although I might not update as frequently, since I have exams coming up (ugh :/)
So, in this chapter, we might have a little JacexClary actionn...
Also, there might be some violent abuse in an orderly extent, but just a heads up :)
Info: So I'm trying a new way of introducing characters into the story. Whenever a new character is introduced, it will be written in bold. This is the world through Clary's eyes, so when she sees these characters, this will be what she thinks of. I thought this way was fun and different, and also in a way, more natural to read. Or I don't know, tell what you think ;)
Purple Marks
"This is absolutely ridiculous! She is an agent!" Father's voice booms through the interrogation room. He is standing with a middle-aged woman dressed in black. Her elegant black hair is tied up into a tight bun. She stands awfully straight, and her beauty makes it hard to believe that she is the head of the CIA.
Head of CIA : Maryse Lightwood
Her heels make her look taller than she actually is, and her eyebrows are drawn together in a slight frown. She replies back with a simple hand gesture towards Clary and a hushed answer. Clary is standing in the middle of the room, she refuses to sit down. Before Father came in, that is, she was sitting. As soon as he walked in, the tension changed, and she could not stop feeling Father's eyes boring into the back of her head. She had stood up immediately. Exactly like a soldier does when their lieutenant walks in, she couldn't help but think.
The interrogation room was a big one, she knew, NYIC also had one exactly like this. A one-sided mirror at the far end, revealed the bags under her eyes, her unkempt red and fiery curls falling down on her shoulders. She looked wild, yet professional. Clary looked into the one-sided mirror, wondering if Jace was standing behind it, looking at her. Instantly, she cast the thought away, feeling a light brush creep on to her cheeks. It was most absurd that she was thinking about Father's enemies in anything but a negative light.
An enemy of Father's was an enemy of Clary's. She had learned that early on.
The mumbled voices in the far corner of the room, draws back Clary's attention. An icy shudder works it way down Clary's spine, but she supresses it. Father's face is no longer one of anger, it is completely smoothed over. He could just as easily have been a stone statue. His face looked scarily neutral, but she knew the hidden facade under this mask of calmness. His eyes were shooting daggers, his lips were pursed. This side of Father is the scary one, Clary thinks, when he is this angry, someone always gets hurt.
Father nods once, before nodding his head once in Clary's direction, signaling that to follow him. She begins to walk towards Father, as he turns around and strolls out of the interrogation room. He has his hands in his pocket, letting the end of his long coat fall back in the wind. He doesn't look back once. Clary passes Maryse on the way out. Maryse looks frustrated, her lips pursed, her jaw set and a fire in her eyes. Clary nods once on her way out, before passing through the door.
As soon as she is outside, in the fresh wind of the first November days, she feels a heavy weight lifted off of her shoulders. The sun is shining its last rays of the day down on the city of New York. Looking at her watch, she realises she's been in there for 11 hours. With the worry gone, she can really feel the tired corners of her mind, dragging her down. She follows Father out and to his car. His bodyguard nods and smiles at Clary. She grins back, as he holds his hand out.
Father's Bodyguard : Luke Garroway.
Clary bumps his fist, as she's done ever since she could remember. Luke holds the door for Father, but he doesn't get in. He stops just before he's about to get in and turns around slowly. Clary can't see his eyes, his dark sunglasses make him look like the head of a mafia, she thinks, instead of a crime-fighting agency. Clary looks down, as she feels Father's hard stare on her.
"I'm sorry, Father." She says. "I'm sorry for embarrassing the agency. But this file, it's supicious, don't you think? The-"
"Leave the case alone, and stay out of it, Clarissa." He cuts her off, his smooth voice like a razor edge, cutting into Clary's heart.
"But-"
"Stay. Out. Of. It." He spits. His face is shaking in anger. This must be from the conversation earlier with Maryse. When he gets angry, someone always gets hurt. Behind him, Clary sees Luke's clenched hands shaking. Luke looks away, at anywhere except her.
"I'm sorry." Clary says again despondently and solemnly.
Father doesn't reply. He wants to see her walk away in shame, she realises. So she begins to walk away, but a hand catches her wrist. For a split-second her heart wells up in hope, that maybe Father regrets his choice. She has never gotten Father's permission for anything even relatively important, and yet she had done them anyway. But it would be nice, she thinks, if he for once would support her. That hope shrivels and dies when she feels his tightening hold on her wrist. She squirms and tries to pull out of his grasp. A hot fire ignites on the arm, and her wrist writhes with agony. She gasps in surprise and pain.
"Stop, Father!" She whisper-shouts.
They are in the parking lot, a couple of cars come and go. None look more than twice their way, thinking this is an earnest father-daughter chat.
As if it could get even tighter, he squeezes harder and leans his head down intimidatingly. She feels all the blood has been squeezed out of her arm. Her bones in her arm feel like they will break, and she feels tears pressing on. She widens her eyes and blinks them away, tries to blink away the agonising pain. She refuses to cry in front of him.
"Don't mess with this file Clarissa. You're starting something bigger than yourself." He whispers, his voice is so cold she fails to suppress the shudder that runs down her whole body, "Don't be an idiot, Clarissa. Use your head for once, like your brother." She stares back at him for some time, trying to focus on anything but the pain.
"Are we clear?" She feels his eyes behind his sunglasses, bore into her eyes. There is silence for the longest time, the tension filling over the brim with anxiety and coldness. The pain is so great, it starts to numb her wrist. She can feel the tingly sensation spreading through her whole arm like wildfire.
A throat clears behind them.
"Sir. We're going to be late for your 6 'o clock." Luke says behind him.
And as though a switch had been turned, his face snaps into neutral folders again.
"Ah. Yes, of course. We'd better get a move on then." He says over his shoulder, not breaking eye contact with Clary.
He lets go of Clary's wrist, and turns around without another word. Clary lets out a relieved and shaky breath as she feels the chilly air on her wrist. The coldness of the early evening wind, stings her sore ligament. Father swings himself elegantly into the the slick, black Audi, as if nothing has happened.
"It would do you well to remember our little chat, Clarissa." He says conversationally, not even bothering to look at her. Luke closes the door behind him, and begins to walk around to the front of the car. He doesn't look especially happy. On the way, he brushes his hand on her arm, giving her a reassuring squeeze.
She smiles the slightest bit, as he nods goodbye and sets himself in the driver's seat. A minute later, they're gone. First after Father is out of sight, does she dare look down. A shaky gasp is let out of her, as she sees the dark red-purple finger marks licking their way around her wrist. She can feel it throbbing. Throbbing with pain and loneliness.
She blinks her tears away, not wanting to cry in public. Tugging her coat longer down her arms to hide the purple marks, she begins to head home. Then it hits her. The CIA had confiscated her weapons, her throwing knives. She needed to get them back. Father had given them to her once, a long time ago, and she'd been using them ever since. They'd been a present for her, when Mother was still alive. Those days were long gone, but her knives were a reminder of those days. She'd do anything to get them back.
With a sigh, she begins to make her way back to the big glass swing doors, that made up CIA's grand entrance.
She'd seen him as soon as she'd gone inside.
"Why Clary! I didn't know I was quite that handsome." He winks, leaning against a marble pillar with his hands in his pockets. "But you know what they say...They always come crawling back." He grins toothily.
She ignores the urge to smile. Deep red and pink rays of sun shine on his beautifully golden hair, making it seem as if he had a halo. Clary rolled her eyes, "I didn't come for you, jackass. I came for my knives."
Jace feigns a shocked face. "What?!" He cries, "I thought I was your one and only!"
"Will you tell me where they are?" She says.
"Why should I?" He asks, one side of his lips tugging up in a careless smile. "I'm not sure I like these 'knives'."
"Look," She says one final time, gesturing with her hands, "Will you help me or not?" She vaguely registers the sleeves tug down as she tries to gesture with her hands.
"Hm. I like a little competition." He pretends to mull it over, "Okay. Those knives are in for a hell of a competition then!"
Clary simply rolls her eyes.
Suddenly his eyes darken considerably, "Where've you been?"
She scrunches her nose in confusion, "What?"
"It's an easy question," He says, his voice has lost his usual care-free tone, "Where've you been?"
He seems wary and suspicious. It strikes her, just how fast, he can change his mood. It makes her doubt his former care-free self.
"With Father, outside in the parking lot." Clary says slowly, being careful to leave out any unnecessary details.
His jaw muscles tighten, and his eyebrows draw together. He looks so handsome like this, she thinks, if she could just run her fingers through his hair— she quickly stops herself.
He begins walking away, and not knowing what to do, she follows him. He doesn't say anything about it, instead waits for her inside the elevator and presses "FLOOR 38", as she steps in. He leans against the railing, his hands in his pockets again. He's thinking about something. She would do anything to know what he is thinking. The elevator begins to shoot upwards, and they are plunged into silence again.
After a while, when they pass floor 16, he finally says something.
"Why do you let him do it?" He says.
She stares back at him. "Do what?"
He looks down at her arm. She looks down herself, and to her horror she realises her coat sleeve has been tugged up. It must've been when she was gesturing and talking to Jace earlier. The red has turned to purple, and the fingermarks resemble much like that of flames licking up and around her wrist. She looks down, not being able to meet Jace's eyes.
"I-I..." Her voice dies.
"Valentine gives me the creeps." He says. "That guy is a damned awful bastard."
Clary laughs colourlessly, all traces of humour gone. "He's my father."
Silence once again.
"You choose your family." Jace finally says so lowly, she wasn't sure he'd said it at all.
Clary still hasn't looked up yet, she keeps on looking at her wrist. As if on command, it starts throbbing again. She bites her lip to keep the pain at bay.
Suddenly she feels a finger hook under her chin. She lifts her head slowly, and her heart skips a beat. Jace is standing in front of her, looking down at her. Staring into her eyes, searching them.
"Not the other way around." He whispers, finishing his previous statement.
She lets out a shaky breath, her heart is racing against her ribs. Thudding so loudly, she's afraid he can hear it. His face is so beautifully rough and pretty at the same time. He looks different than he usually does. Something about him feels real, feels more alive than before. She likes him this way, she realises, real and vulnerably alive.
Then the elevator dings overhead, and the doors open. She jerks away from his reach, stepping out of the elevator a little shakily. She has never been this attracted to boys before, sure they were after her, but never the other way around.
When did she begin to feel?
Behind her, Jace strides forward. His usual reckless bad-boy smile is plastered back on his face. But somehow, it looks fake now. It looks like a mask, hiding him away from everybody else. Having seen the real him, makes his usual attitude seem like a mask he dons.
She walks behind him, feeling awkwardly exposed and vulnerable for the first time in forever.
"Wait here." He says with his usual smile. There is absolutely no sign of the elevator-indicident on his face. Everything that shows his true self is gone again, and she misses the other side of him, suddenly. She doesn't know what it is about him, but when she is with him, she feels different. He's like a drug, so unresistably addictive and bad.
"Hey." A girl walks by with long dark hair. She definitely looks like a cover model, with the long thin legs, beautiful features and the soft long hair billowing around her. She looks undeniably a lot like Maryse. Just a great deal younger and taller.
"You're the girl Jace brought in." She says, cocking her head slightly, in a frown. Then a huge smiles breaks free on her face, making her even prettier, if that's even possible.
She reaches her hand forward, "I'm Izzy."
CIA Agent : Isabelle Lightwood.
"Well, Isabelle Lightwood, but let's skip formalities, shall we?" She laughs. Even her laugh seems from something out of a fairytale book.
Slowly and a little hesitantly, Clary takes her hand and shakes it.
"I'm Clary Fray." She smiles back, she's never met anyone as open and warm as Izzy.
She likes it, she decides.
"Already making friends, are we?" Jace comes back with a plastic bag and a cocky smile on his face. A label on the packet reads: Clary Fray, Belongings. Her weapons and beloved throwing knives are inside, she sees.
Izzy glares at Jace, punching him hard in the shoulder.
"I'll see you around, right Clary?" She calls, as she begins to walk away. She mumbles a string of words as she passes Jace. Clary catches the words; jerk, ass and pig. Her dark hair catches in the wind, as she walks away.
Jace laughs a little to himself, before turning around to face Clary. "You ready?"
In his hands are a set of keys and the plastic bag with Clary's weapons. He hands her weapons over as a peace offering.
"Thank you." She says swiftly, taking the bag in her arms. Instantly she tears open the bag and puts her knives in her boots. Two guns on either side of her inside coat pocket. The last gun she tucks in her waist. First after this, does she realise Jace's eyes on her. They stay a little longer on her, before she turns around and blushes, as she asks, "Ready for what?"
"I'm going to drive you home." He replies without blinking, as if it is the most natural thing to do.
"I'm quite capable of getting home by myself, thank you." She stated blandly. She just wanted to go home, and ice her wrist. And be alone.
A slight pang resonates inside her as she realises the latter.
"Right." He says sarcastically. "Look, it's dark, it's cold and there are plenty of wackos out there, ready to take advantage of you. I'd rather skip any unneeded drama."
The straight-forwardness takes Clary aback for a moment. "You don't think I can handle myself?"
"I do. I just want to behave like a gentleman." He winks, and pressed down for the elevator. My cheeks burn at the thought of another elevator ride with Jace. "And also, your knives are accompanying you home. I need to up my game."
"I don't need a gentleman." She says.
"Sorry." He doesn't sound sorry at all. "By order of Maryse."
Her heart sinks the slightest bit. "Oh. Okay then."
He hadn't genuinely wanted to take her home. If anything, the gas was probably courtesy of the CIA anyway.
"Besides, everyone needs a gentleman."
The elevator dings, and they step into the elevator again. For the first time since Mother died, she felt taken care of again. It felt nice, she concluded, to know somebody wanted you safe.
Hello again!
Please read and review!
I hoped you liked the chapter; comments are much appreciated! :))
~Roluv3r