Simon had been staying with Jace for two weeks. They had worked out a truce of sorts, Jace slept in the bed during the night and Simon used it during the day. The bottom drawer of the fridge was where Simon kept the butcher's blood packs. He had thought about going to one of the many distributors of human blood that Raphael had told him about but knew that the Dumort vampires kept a good eye on those and had discarded the idea. He was slumped in the kitchen against the counter slowly sucking on a blood pack when Jace stumbled out of the bedroom fully dressed.

"We've gotta get you out of here." Jace said pulling the jacket he had in his hands on. Confused, Simon took one last pull from his blood bag before dropping it into the trashcan and grabbing his bag to follow Jace out of the apartment.

"What's going on?" Simon asked as they made their way towards a fancier section of Astoria.

"I'm taking you to my girlfriend's apartment while Raphael and Magnus look for you at mine. Alec warned me that Raphael was bringing two of his clan members and I figured that it would be best to get you out of the apartment before they arrive." Jace said and Simon flinched. No doubt they would have made a mess of him if Alec hadn't given the warning.

"I'm sorry for all the trouble I'm causing." Simon mumbled reaching into his bag for the silver star. The holy symbol burned his palm but it only made him clutch it tighter. Pain was all he deserved.

"It's fine. Stop apologising." Jace said sharply turning abruptly at a building. He rang the buzzer and Simon tuned out the brief conversation that Jace had with the occupant. There was a quiet moment before a blonde mousy girl opened the door.

"Thank you Cassandra. This is Simon, he's a vampire and is willing to help you with your book if you ask nicely." Jace said and the girl smiled.

"I'll keep him here if the sun's up and you're not done with whatever. Don't worry, no one gets into the building without permission or a key." She said and Jace shoved Simon towards her.

"Thanks again." He said before hurrying off. Simon followed the girl into the building quietly. She led him to an elevator and waited until they were inside it and moving up to the fifth floor before speaking.

"Must be tough being around humans all the time." She said softly. Simon shrugged.

"I'm a vegan, I only drink animal blood." He said and she gave a tinkling laugh.

"I thought Jace was crazy when he told me. Then he drew a rune on his arm and it wasn't so crazy anymore. I think I asked him a million questions and I still don't understand everything. Are there more like you? Vegan vampires, I mean." She said as the elevator opened and Simon rubbed the back of his neck.

"It's not exactly healthy to drink only animal blood. It's like only eating rice. Just rice and nothing else. My clan leader told me about it because it can be used when our clan has a shortage on human blood and I was his advisor." he said softly as they moved down the hall.

"So why do you do it? I mean, it sounds like it's slowly killing you." Cassandra said unlocking 513 and pushing the door open. Simon shrugged as he followed her into the apartment.

"Better to starve than to be torn apart by the clan. Or caught by Camille." He said looking down at the black carpets.

"I'm sorry." Cassandra said causing him to look at her. She had a look of pity on her face and he shot her the best grin he could.

"There was nothing anyone could do. I made mistakes, now I have to live with them." He said with a sigh.

"Still. It doesn't seem quite fair." She said as she shut the door behind him.

"What's your book on?" Simon asked hoping to change the subject. Cassandra laughed.

"I'm writing a teen fantasy book about your world. Obviously I'm not using real people and I'm setting it in LA but I'm using a lot of the information that Jace gives me as research." She said sounding pleased with herself.

"Well I've only been a vampire for less than a year but I could tell you about how I was turned and maybe you could include it somehow." Simon said sitting on the small couch carefully.

"Sure, tell me as much as you feel comfortable. And don't worry, I won't tell Jace anything that you don't want me to." She said grabbing a pen and a legal pad.

Simon took a deep breath and began to tell her everything from how Clary had freaked out in a club about people killing a guy to when she had drawn the rune on his shoulder and even to the half a year he had spent on the streets. Cassandra was an amazing listener, never interrupted just wrote everything down on her pad.

"Sounds like this Clary's a bitch. One thing I noticed was you never said the name of the vampire who is the leader of the clan now. You referred to him as 'Camille's second in command', 'the leader', or 'the head vampire' but you never actually say a name." She said and Simon frowned.

"I don't know. Saying his name hurts." Simon said lamely.

"Tell me about him. What was he like?" Cassandra said

"He was very serious. I rarely saw him smile and when he did it was always a sarcastic smirk. He cared about his clan though. Always making sure they were safe from whatever might come. He wasn't old when he was turned but he seems so much older now. He's fair and does what he has to even if he doesn't like it. I donno, I know he hates me but…" Simon trailed off and Cassandra finished the sentence for him.

"You love him. That's why it hurts to say his name, because you feel like you betrayed him even though you didn't have a choice in what happened." She said and Simon didn't bother getting angry.

"Clary didn't care if the rune destroyed me. She never cared about me and I didn't see that until it was way too late. He cared even though he rarely let it show. He didn't mind my rambles though sometimes he would tell me to shut up, he never said it maliciously. We...he had just started to really let me in when the shitstorm went down." Simon admitted.

The room was becoming blurry around the edges but Simon put it off as simple hunger, after all he hadn't been able to finish his bloodbag before Jace had had him leave. There was a funny noise of something rushing, some sort of liquid. It didn't sound like water in pipes. Cassandra's lips were moving but he couldn't make out any sound over the rushing sound. There was a tantalizing smell too, sweet and vanilla-y and butter. It reminded Simon of the buttercream frosting his mother had made when he was a kid. Slowly, without him really noticing, something inside him snapped.


Raphael wasn't stupid. He knew when they had portaled into an empty apartment that Herondale had hidden his fledgeling elsewhere.

"Track him." He ordered Elliot and Peter who had come with him to the Shadowhunter's apartment. They were out the door in a second, tracking the scent of the fledgeling. Magnus rested a hand on his shoulder and Raphael turned towards him.

"We're catching up." Magnus said with a small smile. The door opened and the Herondale boy walked in. He stopped and raised an eyebrow at them.

"You know it's impolite to portal straight into someone's living room." The Shadowhunter said in a bored voice.

"Where's Samuel?" Magnus asked and the bastard shrugged.

"He's out somewhere." He replied and Raphael couldn't help the growl that slipped his lips.

"Because you warned him." He snapped and the damn Shadowhunter sent him a blank look.

"And how would I do that when I didn't know you were coming?" He said in a monotone drawl but Raphael could hear the undertone of amusement. Magnus tightened his grip on Raphael's shoulder to keep him from lunging at the bastard who was keeping his fledgling from him.

"Do you have any of the blood he's been drinking?" Magnus asked politely. There was a moment where Jace was obviously trying to figure out what was going on before he nodded towards the fridge.

"Bottom drawer. He gets it himself and keeps it there." The Shadowhunter said moving away from the small kitchen. Raphael stalked forwards and opened the fridge with more force than necessary. The bottom drawer was half filled with vacuum sealed bags that weren't labeled. Grabbing one randomly, Raphael bit into it before choking at the stale taste and spitting it out on the white tile floor earning a shout from the Shadowhunter

"Animal. Cow or goat." Raphael said tossing the blood bag into the trash. All eyes shifted to the Shadowhunter who seemed to realize that something was seriously wrong.

"Look, I don't push with him because if I do he'll run. He's only been with me for a little over two weeks and that's not nearly long enough for him to feel comfortable here." The blonde Shadowhunter said and Raphael let out a deep growl from the back of his throat.

"Raph, enough. Look, the more our dear Sam drinks animal blood the weaker and more dangerous he becomes. He might not seem it but he could lose control without meaning to. The animal blood masks the signs of the starvation." Magnus said and the Shadowhunter paled. He pulled out a cell phone and dialed a number.

"Cass, thank God...Cass? What's going o-Cass! Cass!" The Shadowhunter sounded panicked and Raphael got a sinking feeling in his gut. He pulled his own phone out and dialed Elliot. The other vampire picked up after the first ring and Raphael was pleased.

"Get to Simon's location now. The situation is worse than we thought." Raphael said in a sharp tone before hanging up. The Shadowhunter was still on the phone with who ever he had hidden Simon with. Magnus, the intelligent creature he was, crossed the space between him and the Shadowhunter and put a hand on the idiot's shoulder.

"What's the address?" Magnus asked and the Shadowhunter paused in his reasurances to the person on the other end of the phone long enough to rattle off an address. Magnus created a portal and the Shadowhunter was dashing through it. Raphael followed at a more sedated pace. The scene was not a pleasant one. The apartment was completely trashed, the bedroom door was shut and the rabid fledgling was clawing at it. Obviously the owner of the apartment was on the other side. Jace was laying dazed where the fledgling must have tossed him in the remains of what had been a bookcase.

"Simon." Raphael said and got no response from the younger vampire. Carefully, Raphael approached the fledgling until he was close enough to grab him. The fledgling struggled in Raphael's grip as Raphael had both of his wrists in a tight grip while keeping Simon close to his body by wrapping an arm around the fledgling's upper body. It was a struggle but Raphael managed to spin the fledgling around until Simon's nose was pressed into Raphael's neck.

"Drink, bebé." Raphael ordered as Simon nosed where his pulse point would have been. Somehow, the order made it through the haze of the hunger because Simon sunk his fangs into Raphael's shoulder and took a deep pull. It was like all the fight had drained from the fledgling and Raphael had to hold the younger vampire up.

Magnus helped Raphael maneuver the fledgling onto the shredded couch without jostling either of them too much since Simon hadn't stopped drinking. The Shadowhunter was talking to whoever was on the other side of the door but Raphael ignored the exchange in favor of letting his eyes slide shut and enjoy the feel of his fledgling feeding. It would have been erotic if Raphael hadn't known just how starved Simon really was. Simon went from drinking as fast as he could to slowly suckling after a while and Raphael let his eyes slide open to find that Simon had fallen asleep.

"Is he going to be okay?" A woman's voice asked from behind the couch and Raphael slowly turned to look at the speaker. It was a mundane woman with plain brown hair and green eyes. Raphael couldn't see anything special about her but since he could smell the blonde Shadowhunter all over her, he surmised that there must be something about her that was interesting.

"He'll be fine eventually." Raphael said softly as he returned his gaze to the sleeping fledgling in his arms. Simon looked innocent in his sleep, like a child but Raphael knew looks could be deceiving. Simon may need him at the moment but that didn't mean he wouldn't betray the clan again. The only difference was that this time Raphael wouldn't be putting his own heart on the line as well.