Jonathan ducked Clarissa's kick and punched her in the stomach, knocking her to the ground.
From the floor Clarissa glowered at Jonathan.
Jonathan offered her his hand but she ignored it and pushed herself off the ground. "One more time," She insisted.
"I have been kicking your butt all day. Can't we take a break?" Jonathan whined.
"Not until I get this down,"
"You do have it down. I'm just better then you." Clarissa glared at him, he stumbled to fix the sentence, "I'm older Clarissa, I'm thirteen and you're eleven. I have two years more of experience then you." The children had become best friends. For Clarissa, winter was relief from dad's brutal training, and daily 'lessons'. Winter was Johnny and her playing until they fell from exhaustion. Winter was her favorite time of the year. But each year Clarissa had notice Jonathan was getting darker and scarier to everyone with an exception of her.
"Again," Clarissa pressed.
Jonathan sighed and crouched down, his fists at his side. Clarissa looked at him, and assessed his position, like she had been taught. He had most of his weight on his right foot. So his left foot was his weakness.
She quickly swiped her foot under his feet and he swiftly jumped over her swinging foot. She was at loss for balance for a second and Jonathan to the moment to swing at her. She moved her head a little too late and his fist caught her in the ear.
She could feel the blood rushing to her ear and her adrenaline spiked. Jonathan swung again at her but this time she caught the fist and spun him around, pinning his hand to his back in an awkward angle.
"Ow, ow, ow, truce truce." Jonathan pleaded.
Clarissa held on for a second longer before releasing him. He rubbed his arm where a red mark was forming.
"That's my sister," He grinned.
She grinned back, "I say this calls for a snack."
"Finally!" Jonathan cheered. They headed to the door of the training room.
Something occurred to Clarissa that moment, "Wait,"
Jonathan paused in the door way. "What?"
She narrowed her eyes. "You didn't let me win. Did you?"
Jonathan scoffed, "Of course not."
Clarissa walked up to him and looked him in his dark eyes, she stared into them intently. Jonathan started to fidget under her intense stare.
"Okay maybe I went a little easy," He admitted.
Clarissa's mouth fell open, "You little," She paused because she couldn't find a word that described her disgust for him.
"It's okay Clarissa, I'm sure you can beat me next winter." It was almost Spring and Jonathan and Clarissa's days together this year were numbered.
She glared at him and shoved past him into the stairwell, running up the stairs she ran into her room and slammed the door shut.
She kicked over a chair and threw her pillow across the room. It was no fair, Jonathan was good at everything. He was super fast and had amazing reflexes. Everything came naturally to him. Her on the other had had to scratch and claw her way up to get this shadowhunter thing down.
She was so mad she wanted to break something. She grabbed a pencil off the desk and was about to snap it when something drew itself in her mind.
She picked up a sticky note and flipped it over to write on the empty back.
Her pencil swooped and dipped, curved and finally she ran out of lines. In front of her, a beautiful picture, no, it wasn't a picture but it was more like a lovely assortment of lines. She studied it until she placed it, it looked like a rune.
Her dad had her memorizing runes, but she wasn't allowed to start drawing them until the next unit of her training. Runes always came easy to her. But this was one she hadn't seen in one of the books before.
An idea formed in Clarissa's head. She poked her head out of her door, she didn't see Jonathan. She could here him loudly going through the contents in the kitchen looking for a snack with out her.
She tiptoed down the long hall the grand doors. Behind the tall dark doors was her fathers bedroom. Going in there without permission meant she was breaking a rule she had always kept, going in there meant a serious punishment. Clarissa gulped and looked up at them. Suddenly they seemed fifty feet taller then they actually were.
But her curiosity was just as strong. Slowly she wrapped her small hand around the brass doorknob and pushed the doors open.
They glided open without protest and Clarissa took a step into the forbidden room. A grand bed lay in the corner. The room was fairly neat with some book shelves and a big sturdy desk with two drawers on either side of it.
Heading over to the desk she tugged on the first drawer. It slid open, inside was a bunch of papers, she glanced over the paper on the top. It was information on some greater demons. Deciding that it was no different from some of the books in the library, Clarissa moved on to the drawer below, it held files on peoples names she didn't recognize.
Moving the other side of the desk, Clarissa tugged on the top one. Inside was an assortment of weapons. A steele tucked neatly to the side. She grinned satisfied with her find.
She closed the drawer with her elbow and looked at the inside of her wrist. She remembered seeing her dad drawing a rune right there. Clarissa closed her eyes and recalled the series of lines that had drawn into her mind. Keeping her eyes closed she drew the run remembering it perfectly.
The rune burned into her wrist and in shock Clarissa dropped the steele. But before the Steele had even touched the ground the pain was over.
Clarissa watched almost in a daze as the steele slowly fell to the ground. She looked around, what was wrong with the steele? Deciding she should probably catch the steele before it could actually touch the ground she bent down and plucked it out of the air.
Confused Clarissa studied the steele for any signs of magic. But it looked fine. Confused Clarissa dropped it again. Instead of falling directly to the ground, it slowly drifted downward.
"Johnny?" She called out nervously. Something was wrong with her. The house was quiet, Clarissa called out to her brother again. No response.
Setting down the steele,Clarissa started towards the kitchen, taking the steele to the kitchen with her just in case Jonathan could undo whatever she had done on her wrist.
Clarissa stepped into the kitchen, "Johnny?" Jonathan's back was to her, unmoving. "Hello?" He didn't respond.
Walking the side of him to get a better view she could see that he was moving, just very slowly. His hand moved inch by inch to spread peanut butter over a peace of bread.
Clarissa drew to a conclusion she wasn't sure she liked. The rune on her wrist had slowed time for her.
She had no choice, either she had to call her dad or wait for it to wear off.
It was a no brainier. Clarissa went and laid down on her bed, staring at the slow ticking clock, waiting for her rune to wear off.
oOo
Clarissa had been staring at the clock for thirty minutes now. She had watched the second hand on the clock tick slower then the hour hand moved. She had counted that every one second on this clock was five for her. So what had been thirty minutes was actually two hours and thirty minutes.
About ten minutes in Clarissa had gone to watch Jonathan train. He knew better then to bug her when she got mad so he had just gone back downstairs to hit things. She walked around him while his fist was half way to connecting with the punching bag.
She noticed that if she stood in one spot for a very long time Jonathan would start to turn his head and notice her. So she would quickly move around to the other side and he would look around the room confused.
After a while Clarissa got bored and went back up stairs. She looked in her room, but there was nothing to do in there. Clarissa looked around. Her dad's room door was still wide open. She had forgotten to close it earlier.
Maybe the steele could take off this rune. She walked into the room. Less intimidated this time and picked up the steele from where she left it earlier. Should she just scribble it out? Clarissa thought about it but didn't want to make it worse.
Clarissa squeezed her eyes shut and gripped the steele tighter in her fist. No ideas came to her.
She finally just sighed and set the steele where she had found it. She looked around the room to make sure she had left nothing out of place. Clarisssa was about to leave the room when something caught her eye. She turned back around but could see nothing out of the ordinary.
One of the book shelves beckoned her over. There was nothing there but books, but she felt drawn to the area.
In a daze Clarissa pulled at one of the books. The book came half way out then got stuck, the bookshelf made a popping sound, like air being released. Clarissa jumped back as the bookshelf clicked out of its place on the wall,
Some how she could tell it wasn't just a bookcase, it was also a doorway. Clarissa slid her fingers in the small crack between the wall and the bookshelf and pulled.
The bookself was heavy, so it slowly opened revealing a room behind it.
Clarissa had just gotten the book case to open far enough to stick her head inside. It was a dark room and the only light was from the light in Valentine's room, spilling into the dark room.
Her eyes barley had time to adjust to see what was inside when she was yanked back by the collar of her shirt. The book case door slammed shut.
"Clarissa Morgenstern!" a voice boomed.
Clarissa gulped. Dad was home.
She looked down at the wrist. Somehow the rune had finally worn off without her noticing, but there still was a scar in the shape of the rune. Clarissa looked up at her dad ashamed. She was usually such an obedient child, she don't know what had gotten into her today.
Valentine didn't say anything, but pure rage boiled in his eyes.
She opened her mouth to say something but his had came flying out and hit her across the cheek. Clarissa fell to the floor.
"How dare you go out behind my back?"
"I-I I didn't mean any harm," Clarissa stuttered out.
"You are mine Clarissa. Don't ever think of defying me. Disobedience is not something I accept, ever."
Clarissa held her breathe ready for another blow. But for some reason it had stopped. She looked up cautiously. Her father looked down at his hands like he didn't know who they belonged to.
He let out a sigh, "Clarissa I need to talk to you."
Clarissa was startled in this sudden change in topic, but relieved. She knew better then to talk so she stayed silent and waited for him to continue.
He dragged her out of his room shutting the door firmly behind him. He produced a key and locked it, showing that he hadn't forgotten her snooping. She wondered why he hadn't just locked it earlier. It would have saved her a lot of trouble.
He took large steps toward his study. She had to jog to keep up with him. Valentine's study was tucked in the back corner of the library, it was also off limits. But some how Clarissa found herself sitting in one of the big plush chairs in that very room.
Her dad spent a second straightening up papers even though the office was already very neat.
Finally her dad looked up, "Clarissa, things are getting rough for me." Clarissa stayed silent and just watched her dad, "People are out there who want to hurt me," He paused to look at her, "You don't want them to hurt me do you?" His eyes were cautious. Sometime Clarissa felt he was looking at her, but not really looking at her. Like he thought she was someone else.
Clarissa shook her head, "No," She said. Why would someone want to hurt her dad? What he did was always for the greater good, he always said. And most of the time he was right.
Clarissa moved to tuck a piece of her red hair behind her ears. Valentine reached out and grabbed her wrist.
Valentine turned her arm over and looked at the inside of her wrist at the scar the rune had left.
"What's this?" Clarissa didn't want to be in even more trouble so she pressed her lips together. But she didn't need to tell him.
"A rune? I have never seen this rune before." Valentine studied it for a second longer. Then he raised his eyes to hers. "What happened when you drew this on your wrist?"
Knowing the silence would no longer help her she explained, "It slowed down time. I counted five seconds for me was one second for Johnny."
"Amazing," Valentine breathed. He murmured to himself even though she was right there, "The angel blood. But she hasn't shown any other signs like Jonathan and the demon blood." He sat looking at her with wonder. But then he shook his head.
"Clarissa, you could be such use to me. But we will have to explore your talent later." The way Valentine said later made Clarissa scared.
"I'm going on the run Clarissa, and two children will be too hard to stay secretive. I feel I need to watch over Jonathan more then you."
"What are you saying?" Clarissa asked stunned.
"You're going to stay with old friends of mine, the Lightwoods."
"But I want to stay with you and Johnny!" Clarissa was suddenly whining.
"You're older then that," Valentine snapped at her. Clarissa drew back, hurt. After a moment of silence Valentine continued, "But you will be coming back to us Clarissa, I have a plan."
"A plan?" Clarissa asked. Usually if she spoke out of turn she would be punished but Valentine just smiled.
"The world is so lost and confused. I am going to help it. And you will be there to help. You will be a princess of the new world." Then Valentine grew solemn, "For now, for Jonathan and mine safety, you can't remember anything." This alarmed Clarissa.
"I won't remember anything?"
"Well you won't remember who I really am but you won't remember your brother at all."
"Dad!" Clarissa burst out. He sent her a look, silencing her immediately.
"Remember Clarissa, I will come back for you. Then all three of us will correct the world."
Clarissa stayed silent, her heart in her stomach. No more winters with Johnny? Valentine dismissed her and said that this plan would take place soon.
She went straight to her room and lay on her bed. How was she going to do this? An evil thought crept into her head. How was she even sure she could trust her dad? She shook her head trying to get the thought out. But its roots dug into her mind.
How did she know the world needed fixing? She had never left her house.
A memory from earlier floated into her head. Her dad was keeping secrets. Just like the room behind the stair case.
She had only a second to really see it. But she could have sworn she saw a person chained up in that room.
A person with wings.
Woah, over information overload I am sure. This is a pretty long chapter. I hoped you guys didn't feel like it was dragging along. I really like spoiling you guys. Trying to hold off posting this chapter until next Friday but posting it only two days after my last posted chapter. So yup. Here is my proof that I am really am back.
I felt like Clarissa should have loyalty to the man who raised her but also, how can you go years without noticing that there is an angel chained up in your house? So yeah.
Some of you expressed concern that Clary was going to be wimpy whist Jace stayed his hot play boy status. I was thinking more along the lines of a personality swap? Eh, you guys decide. You're the reason I'm writing. Cause the story in my head is good enough for me.
Which reminds me, for some reason in the second chapter, my compliment to you guys got cut off. So here is a make up compliment, you guys are super, amazing, marvelous, extraordinarily great. Thanks for the support.
Stay awesome.