Authers note: thanks for the reviews! if you have any advice i would love to hear it. sorry there was no zombie slaying in this paragraph. next one i promise x
Walking on my ankle still hurts but the wound that the piece wood had etched into my skin is healing rapidly. These people may be strange but they sure know a thing or two about medicine. Isabelle leads me down a series of corridors, so winding and maze-like that at first I think she's trying to get us lost on purpose. When we turn the twentieth corner I spot a small boy playing with a figurine soldier. He looks up at me and smiles, I can't suppress the urge to smile back at the small freckled boy and so I grin. He stands up and offers out his hand to me and I shake it. Then, still holding hands, he pulls me along to a set of grand stairs that widen out into a dining room.
The room is beautiful. The classical wood work on the walls makes it look as if it just escaped out of a fairy tale ball room. Pillars on either side keep the roof up and look white as the moon in stark comparison to the rose gold wood. The floor is also- like the pillars- made of marble. To add to the picture the north wall is completely made out of glass. The sunlight that streams through illuminates the hall and the people that sit about it.
"Isn't this place nice?" asks the little boy. I can merely stare, unable to gasp a coherent thought to express how sublime this is compared to the ways I've been roughing it out on my own in the city. "We're on a hill to so the dead don't come up here." That last statement definitely takes the cross from my shoulders.
Isabelle dismounts the stairs and the boy and I follow after her. There are two tables in the hall that lie parallel to each other. People are scattered on each in groups of about four or five. Some of the people look as if they could be related, but most don't. There are about twenty- five people in total and I wonder how difficult it must be to keep everyone fed. I was only feeding myself and most nights I had to go without food.
Isabelle leads us over to the far end of the second table. Seated already are Jace and a dark haired, blue eyes boy who I presume is Alec. They are in deep conversation and I only arrive to hear the tail end, but I know both mine and Valentines names where mentioned. I sit next to the little boy (who I later find out is called max) and across from Jace. He half smirks at me and takes a bite of whatever the gloop is inside our bowls.
"People keep talking about this Valentine person," I say, not liking the sound of him at all. "Is he like your leader or something?"
"My father," Jace says.
"Oh. Sorry."
"It's okay." Jace smiles, easing my embarrassment. "But yeah, I guess he is our leader. He was the minister of our church before all of this shit went down, before we all decided to leave to find the Promised Land."
I nearly choke on my food. At first I didn't think I'd heard him right. Did he just say they were looking for the Promised Land? I wasn't religious at all, but even I knew what the Promised Land was. What it was supposed to be.
I stared at the boy sitting across from me, wondering if delusions could strike someone so young and handsome. Jace rolls his eyes.
"Yeah I know." He gives me a small smirk, cocking an eyebrow. "It's crazy, but were not looking for the biblical place," jace continued. "The promised land is a city. A huge city. One with the technology of the old days, before the plague. There are no infected in the Promised Land."
I stopped chewing to gape at him. "You're joking."
Alec gives a disgusted snort. "If you don't believe him, leave," he challenges, glaring at me. "No-one is stopping you."
I resist the urge to snap at her, and focus on Jace, instead. "Is it really out there?" I question, trying to give the notion of a zombie-free utopia the benefit of the doubt. "You really think you'll find it?"
Jace shrugs, unconcerned, as if he's heard it all before. "Valentine seems to think so," Isabelle says, looking up from her almost empty bowl. "Maybe it's out there and we'll never find it, but either way it gives us something to think about. Other than our dead coming back to life I mean."
"We'll find it," Max says, nodding enthusiastically. "We'll find it soon, Valentine says."
"Jonathon!"
Everyone straightens. We all turn as a man comes striding up, dressed in black, his entire frame locked into a sense of determined purpose. Everything about him seems dark and hard, from the pinched, angled face, to the sharp, bony shoulders. His long hair is the colour of steel, tied behind him in a tight tail.
His sharp grey eyes rake over me, missing very little. "The stray I presume?" he asked. "You've spoken to her Jonathon?"
"Yes, sir"
The man continued to observe me, betraying no emotion. "Your name?" he asks, like a master barking orders to a slave. I swallow a growl and meet his piercing star head-on.
"Clary," I reply, giving him a smirk. "And you must be Valentine."
"indeed." He says, with a slightly offended air. "And all know that I turn away none in need, so you are welcome here. However, if you choose to stay, there are rules you must follow. If you fall behind," he gives me a tiny smirk that suggests I wouldn't want that to happen "if you fall behind we will leave you. There is no free meals here- everybody contributes. If you don't go out hunting you don't get to eat. Thievery of any sort will not be tolerated. Follow these rules, and you are welcome to stay."
"Thanks so much." I say as sarcastically as I could. I can't help it. Throwing rules in my face; expecting me to follow. After years of being alone, I was not about to start trusting anyone else's rules but my own. Alec and Isabelle stare at me, shocked. Valentine just gives me a meek smile. But I can tell it leaks with poison.
After nodding at Jace, Valentine leaves the table. I am tempted to make a face at his back but Jace is watching me so I resist. I shoot him a side way look and raise an eyebrow.
"Jonathon?"
"Jace is just a nickname." He says, slightly embarrassed. "Come one, I'll introduce you to everyone."
Not long after, I had met nearly everyone in the small congregation. Half of them were adults, but most of them were kids: my age and under. None of them seem to have parents witch suggests the group had been a lot bigger at some point. I wonder how many people they had lost chasing after the whims of a delusional man. I shouldn't stay here. There are too many risks. And yet, I still can't shake the attraction of being part of a group, a family. "These people could be my family." I think to myself. Sure, a half insane starved family, but a family none the less.
