A/N: Before I start I'm just going to rant for a minute... You can skip through it's fine...It's just... There's a difference between liking someone and loving someone. Liking someone is inviting someone over for dinner and kissing them and introducing them to your parents. Loving someone is sacrificing yourself for them. You might not benefit from it, but it consumes you. You just want them to be ok, to make them smile, and that one smile warms your heart so much that you don't think it's possible.

I mention this because a friend I know has a boyfriend, and she always talks about how much she loves him, but I don't think she quite understands. Love is talking to someone until they fall asleep because they've been having trouble drifting off. Love is trying to send people lyrics over the phone because listening to the music they love has been giving them headaches. Love is putting your heart on the line because gods it hurts, and you know they're going to die but you need to make them ok.

Love is bleeding. It's constant, heartwrenching, bleeding.

Love is what it feels like to be hollow.

Chapter dedicated to San. Thank you. For everything that you said. And everyone who's been so supportive. Thank you. And it hurts, gods it hurts, but I'm not alone I suppose. I know one day, I'm going to feel like I'm very very alone, but that's what it's like to be in love with someone who's dying. It's a constant pain. But I don't mind being so hollow.

Alec POV

My heart was in my throat as I looked in front of me, or rather slightly above me, to where the figure was standing, bow drawn to her shoulder. From what I could gather, she had been sitting in the little grove of trees for a while, maybe a few hours. She looked scared, like a startled deer- for I had much experience with those- and her brown hair fell over hear shoulder, cascading over until it almost reached the boy string.

She was like a tightened spring. I feared any moment the spring would jump, and the arrow would be realised, but I was too weak to be able to move out of the way. It was possible she could kill us right here. In fact, very likely, though I didn't like the idea.

"DON'T SHOOT!" Magnus yelled, weirdly softly, since it didn't make the girl jump, or me in fact.

I saw her eyes dart to me, taking in my condition, and she backed off, slinging the boy over the top of her arm.

"I can hardly kill a man who can't fight back..." She murmured, by way of explanation. Whether it was for us or herself I didn't know, nor did I care. I relaxed, hitting my head back against the tree I was resting against, closing my eye lids slowly as a rush of heat raked my body, and not the good kind.

I was still feeling better than I had, but that wasn't exactly hard. Magnus, a little to my surprise, was quickly leaning himself over me, his arms stretching across my body so that my chest was covered with his. It made me feel safe, remarkably so.

"What's wrong with him?" Asked the girl, as I heard her footsteps heading towards us, though she slipped and slid across the sand, seemingly inexperienced with the arena, which Alec took great comfort in.

A low grumble elicited from Magnus throat, and it made me look up at his face in surprised. His expression was one that an angry cat might have held if you tried to stroke it's sharpened claws; a look that said 'don't mess with me'.

"Don't come any closer." Warned Magnus, turning away from me to glare at her, but she ignored him.

"What are you gonna do? Kill me?" She taunted.

"If I have to." He threatened, now stepping away from me despite my sharp warnings of 'dont' and they began to circle each other.

"I would like to see you try Magnus Bane." She sneered, "It's not as if it makes a difference. I'm a dead man anyway." She said, sounding resigned and tired.

And in that moment, Magnus hesitated. And she moved lightening fast. Grabbing him by the front of his shirt she threw him so his back collided with a tree, and held her fore arm against his throat with such strength that it held him fast.

I struggled to my feet, staggering towards him in desperation.

It was only then, as I got to my feet, that I noticed that the brown haired girl wasn't the only person in the grove. There had been a second. Could I get any more stupid?

I shook my head, dizziness causing my thoughts to tumble from one to another. The second person, or figure, finally came into view as my head started to clear, and I recognised it as the boy from district 7, the only other boy who was even a little bit experienced with a bow.

A bow he was pointing directly at me.

I froze. I could see Magnus struggling against the girl, screaming my name with lungs that had no air.

"Do it, snap his neck, come on Clara!" He urged. Magnus gave one last shove against the girl then, and to my surprise, she loosened her grip, just enough for Magnus to shout,

"Alec! Run!" But I wasn't going anywhere. I knew if I moved I was going to die. But I also knew that despite that, Magnus would die if I moved. He might die if I didn't , but at least then he wouldn't be alone.

"Clara do it!" He urged, starting to panic. She didn't move, seemingly frozen.

Then the next minute she broke into fractures, it was like she just lost it, and began screaming. She clutched her head in her hands and dropped to her knees, and Magnus collapsed to the floor, breathing heavily and rubbing his hands all across his neck in relief.

The boy with the bow froze, seemingly unsure what to do.

"Clara?" He asked, unsure of what to do, and obviously concerned.

Then finally, she looked up to him, and shouted in desperation, "I'M SORRY." And other phrases that I couldn't really decipher, just mutterings, things like 'can't take it' words like 'die' and 'kill' but nothing really of meaning.

She writhed and thrashed on the floor, and it was only then that it began to click in my mind. Poison berries. The girl had committed suicide.

Since the berries would have taken around 2 hours at least to take into effect, then I knew she had planned it. There hadn't been 2 people in the grove when we first entered it, because she had left him alone, alone to die. She didn't want him to see her slowly deteriorate.

It was heartbreaking really, and as I saw her body relax and go still, it was like I could feel all of the boy with the bows sorrow, all of his grief, but then I was sick so it wasn't exactly hard to believe.

What was the worst thing, though, was that the boy looked so lost without her. I heard the canon go off into the air, and he just stared down at her body, like he couldn't believe like she was really gone.

I swayed on my feet as Magnus rushed towards me, hugging me close, and I breathed in the scent of his hair.

Our moment of silence and reprieve was broken by a loud clashing of something being dropped. More of a thud, as the sand blew around us and Magnus spluttered as it went into his face.

We pulled out of our hug, and that was when I saw it, the silver bow the boy had been holding was staring up at me from the dusty ground.

The boy was staring at me with hollow eyes, and I knew what he wanted. Clearly he and the girl had been close, or maybe they shared the same ideals, maybe they didn't want to kill, I didn't know.

What I did know was what he was thinking. His eyes said it all. Dull, unmoving.

He wanted me to kill him too.

A/N: Thank you again to San, to which this chapter is dedicated to, and thank you all of you. I can't thank you enough. I'm trying to though.