Chapter Eight: Blame It On the Alcohol
As we reach Sebastian's house the party is already in full swing from the music I hear blaring. We park our cars on a not as busy street and walk the couple of seconds down the street to the party. As we get to the front door I feel Jace snake his arm around my waist. I knock on the door and wait a second. Someone comes to the door and opens it a crack.
"Name?" the male voice asks.
"Um...Clary. Clary Morgenstern." I say hesitantly.
He closes the door for a second and then Sebastian is there smiling creepily down at me. He looks up for a second to greet everyone else.
"Hey guys, welcome! Have fun the house is yours tonight. As for you." He says looking back down at me.
I feel Jace tighten his grip on my waist.
"Come with me." He says, grabbing my hand and pulling me out of Jace's grasp.
"Hey." Jace says grabbing my other hands making me look like a human tug of rope. "If you'd don't mind I'd like to spend some time with my girlfriend." He says a little annoyed at Sebastian.
There's tense moment where Sebastian and Jace just stare at each other. Sebastian finally lets go of me, looking like he's trying to control his anger.
"How rude of me." He says "Enjoy the party."
Jace doesn't say anything, just walks past him with his arm around my waist. As we enter his house I notice just how big Sebastian's house. It's huge; but maybe not as big as Jace's house. The bottom floor looks like it's dedicated to dancing with strobe lights and a dj with a huge space for dancing. There must be more than 200 people dancing on the first floor alone!
Jace takes my hand and pushes through the crowd until we find a big enough spot to dance. The dj is playing this more upbeat version of 'All of Me' which is pretty amazing. Jace is singing along to it looking ridiculous which makes me laugh. It's so loud in there anything I say is pretty much drowned out unless I yell. We dance to a couple more songs until he yells through the music.
"Want to go get something to drink?"
I just nod. We walk through the crowd of dancing bodies until we get to the kitchen. It's filled with all types of alcohol; beer, liquor, tequila, wine coolers, and other drinks I don't even recognize. This brings to question how he was able to purchase all of this at 17 years old. Jace goes to get a beer while I look through a smaller cooler for a bottle of water.
We walk out of the kitchen back into the chaos, weaving in and out of couples making out or practically having sex on the dance floor. We finally find a couch on the outside of all the chaos. We both sit down resting our feet from all of the dancing. I look around to see Jon having a good time himself dancing with a couple of girls from the cheer squad. Izzy and Simon are dancing, or at least Izzy is, I have no idea what Simon's doing.
"Having fun?" Jace asks me.
"Yeah." I say, probably a little too enthusiastically.
We're quiet for a little while just enjoying each other's presence; every now and then we would make a comment about someone on the dance floor. After a couple of minutes we both notice Izzy and Maia coming toward us.
"Why aren't you guys dancing?" Izzy says over the music
" We got tir-"
"Never mind," she says, interrupting my sentence " Come to the kitchen with us, there's a beer pong tournament!"
Maia takes my arm and Izzy takes Jace's practically dragging us to the kitchen. When we walk in I notice Jordan playing another guy at a table looking focused, he looked slightly drunk based on the two beer cans next to him, but not to the point where his words were slurring.
"Hey Jace!" He says to him as he throws the ping pong ball throwing it perfectly into the farthest cup, winning him the game (AN: I don't know how to play beer pong, I'm just a teenager, so…). There are cheers coming from the crowd around him.
Jordan looks at Jace with an eyebrow raised "Think you can beat the master?" He asks
"I don't think, I know." Jace says walking over to the other side of the table, getting another beer from the table.
As we're watching the game unfold I feel an arm fall across my shoulders. I look up to see Sebastian right next to me.
"Enjoying the party?" He asks me with a smirk on his face.
"Yeah, it's been fun." I say honestly
" Did you want something to drink?" He asks me.
Should I trust him? I mean it's not like he's ever hurt me or anything. Besides, he's my brothers' friend.
"Yeah, sure." I say kindly, he walks away for a second across the kitchen to get me something. When he comes back he has a red solo cup filled with a murky brown, bubbly, brown liquid.
"What is it?" I ask him
"Guess." He says, smirking. I look at him questionably, both my eyebrows raised then back at the drink in my hands.
"Come on, you know I wouldn't drug it." He says. I shrug at this and decide to take a big gulp of the liquid… I know, not my best decision.
"So…" He asks, waiting for a response.
I cringe at the taste at first, it tastes like stale bubbles and then something sweet but sour… lemons?
"It's pretty good. " I say, taking another drink which makes him smile. "What is it?"
"Not much, just beer and lemon juice."
"hmm." I say.
Izzy and Maia come over to us casting a curious look toward Sebastian and then to me. Izzy takes my drink out of my head and smiles.
"Yum!" she says smiling " I want one!" I can tell she's a little tipsy by how much excitement she says this statement with.
Sebastian walks back to make another one of his drinks and gives it to Izzy, this time though, he has a drink of his own in his hand.
I take another large gulp of my drink loving the taste of it. When I go for another drink I find that it's empty. As I turn around to throw it away I trip on my feet causing me to fall into Sebastian who catches me before I can slam into the ground. At the moment I find this really funny causing a burst of giggles to erupt from me.
This causes Jace to glance over at us, he does a double take when he sees Seb's arm around me, when Jace give Sebastian a glare he lets go of me slowly.
"Want another drink?" He asks me.
I smile and nod at him. He goes back to the kitchen to get another drink I see Jace coming toward Izzy, Maia, and I.
"Hey, Clary." He says, giving me a kiss on the lips.
"Hey there. Did you win?" I ask.
"Nope!" Jordan chimes in, sounding proud… and a little more drunk. "Nobody can beat the champion!"
Jace rolls his eyes at him "you got lucky." He says, playfully giving him a shove. Jordan decides to get Jace into a headlock giving him a noogie. As Sebastian comes back the guys are still horsing around.
Sebastian hands me the drink which I take another gulp from.
"Did you wanna dance Clary?" He asks me.
I look over at Izzy and Maia who were listening in who nod enthusiastically.
"Sure." I say, finishing off my second drink.
As we walk back to the dance floor I start to feel the second drink taking effect and I feel… lighter. I like it. A lot.
I know I probably should of told Jace where I was going but my mind is just scattered.
"You look amazing tonight!" He yells over the music.
"You don't look too bad yourself." I yell back.
As the drinks start to take the full effect everything starts to mush together. The strobe lights above mix together making a beautiful stream of color above and all the music starts to sound the same. It's beautiful, everything's beautiful right now.
Sometime during us dancing someone bumps into me from behind hard, pushing me into Sebastian. He grabs both of my hips pulling me closer to him as he catches me from falling.
In the back of my mind I know this isn't right but I can't get the rest of me to believe that. I just go with it.
The dancing goes by in a blur of him grinding on me with the help of some other guys who come and go dancing with us. I feel the un sureness in the back of my mind go away after two more drinks Sebastian makes for me, maybe he is sweet after all.
After yet another random guy coming to dance with Sebby and I, Jesus why can't they just leave us to dance on our own, I see Jace looking around for something. He looks angry, maybe I should call him over.
He sees us before I even have the chance to yell his name. As he starts to walk toward us, he gets caught up by some girls circling around him to dance.
"Hey Clary." Sebastian whisper into my ear, a little urgently. "Why don't I give you that tour I told you about."
That sucks, I wanted to dance some more. I nod though. He grabs my hand as we run through the crowd. I keep tripping which makes me laugh harder each time I do, I'm so clumsy!
We finally make it to the grand stair case and begin to walk up together I see Jace and decide to yell to him.
"JACE!" I yell at the top of my lungs which is still pretty drowned out by the music. He seems to hear it though as he looks up at us and starts to push through the crowd toward us. Sebastian picks me up from the waist to get me up the next flight of stairs.
"I get it now!" I say to Sebastian, "We're playing hide and seek!"
"Lets go with that." Sebastian says, rolling his eyes.
"Where are we going?" I ask as he sets me down.
"You'll see soon enough." He gives me a smile which I happily return.
I hear Jace barreling up the stairs after us. I need to find a hiding place.
Sebastian pulls me into a closet with him putting his hand over my mouth as Jace passes by. This is fun! As he passes by we run down the hallways making me feel a little dizzy. I stop for a second the world spinning around me. I feel the little voice in my head start to come back. Sebastian picks me up and we start to run around again.
"SEBASTIAN! I swear when I get my hands on you I'll…"
He doesn't finish his sentence, Sebastian opens a door to a room a closes it just as quietly as he opens it. That's right. I came hear with Jace, this isn't right.
!WARNING: It gets creepier from here!
Sebastian lays me down on a soft bed making me feel tired.
"Did we win?" I ask quietly.
"Yeah, we did." He smiles down at me. Not the nice smile he's been giving me all night, a creepy one.
He gets on the bed with me looking me up and down for a second. I feel the mist from my mind starting to lift but my mind is still pretty clouded.
Get out of there Clary! The back of my head is screaming; but the bed is so soft, and Sebastian's touch feels so nice. Yell for Jace Clary!
"You're so beautiful." He whispers to me, his fingers trailing up my thigh.
I close my eyes for a second grunting as I try to push him away through my drunken mind. He tighten his grip on me ; his smile widens at my attempt.
"Not so fast." He says, putting himself on top of me, using his elbows to prop himself up. Then he begins to trail kisses from my collarbone up to my lips.
GET OUT! My mind screams.
I begin to whimper and try to wiggle out but to no avail, he pushes more of his weight onto me as he flips over so that I'm now on top. As he's roughly kissing me I feel his hands snake around my back to the zipper of my dress. As he slowly unzips it I feel tears start to fall down my cheeks. He flips us over again as he wiggles me out of my dress exposing my bare chest and my underwear. He breaks out kiss to look at me, he gives an evil smile, scaring me. I take the chance to spit in his face with all of the energy I have left. His calm façade turns for a second to anger as he slaps me in the face so hard I move a couple of inches.
"Stupid bitch." He says with venom. " Looks like Jace can't save you this time."
I start to cry harder. He pushes my back down as he takes off his shirt. He comes back down to give me another rough kiss on the lips as I feel his hands start to wander down my body.
As he reaches my hips the door slams open. Through my still hazy mind I don't recognize at first that it's Jace. But when I do, he looks hostile. Sebastian looks up to see its him. Through the dizziness in my head and the tears falling down my face, I see Jace run at Sebastian making a hole in the wall from where Sebastian's head made impact. I don't know what else to do but curl up into a ball as Jace pummels Sebastian to a pulp in the corner.
"I swear." He says to a half conscious Sebastian "If I ever see you near her again, I'll show you how there are worse things than death. Got it?" When Sebastian doesn't answer, Jace picks him up by his hair "GOT IT?!" he says louder this time.
The only thing Sebastian can do is nod furiously at him. Jace lets go of his hair dropping Sebastian to the floor. He turns to me on the bed, his mood changing completely.
"Oh, Clary." He says sounding powerless, walking over to me slowly. He takes out his phone for a second and calls a number.
"Jordan, you and Maia meet us by the car, we're leaving."
He listens for a second.
"Dammit Jordan!" he yells, scaring me a little, " please, just get everybody outside, we'll be out in like 5 minutes."
He turns all of his attention back to me once he hangs up. I'm still curled up into a ball, my tears falling freely as my shoulder fall up and down with each silent cry. He takes my dress from the ground and walks slowly to the other side of the bed towards me. He hands me my dress and graciously turns around. I attempt to stand up but once my feet meet the ground I feel myself falling, weak from all of the alcohol.
Jace turns around just in time to catch me and helps me pull up and zip my dress.
"There," he says, smiling at me " All better."
I choke on another sob and hug him, letting it all out.
"You… you s- s-saved m- me." I say through sobs
"Anytime." He whispers back.
As I try to get my breathing under control enough to make a full sentence without stuttering I look up at him and he gasps. He goes to touch my cheek; which is probably red from when I was slapped. He gently touches it with his fingertips making it painless. His fists ball up in anger and he looks at Sebastian's unconscious body looking like he's ready to kill him. I put my hand on his balled up fist and his attention immediately comes back to me.
"Carry me?" I ask, still pretty weak from the night's events.
He swoops me into his arms as gently as he can but I still grunt a little from the soreness in my body. I rest my head on his chest as tears start to fall again, more slowly this time. He gives me a kiss on the cheek as we walk through the crowd.
When we get outside from the blur of the flashing lights and people; Jon, Izzy, Maia, Jordan and Simon are already out there loitering around the sidewalk. As they notice us walk out they all come running toward us overwhelming me a little. I start to cry a little more into Jace's shirt, hiding myself from their pity filled stares. I feel Jon's hand combing his hand through my hair. I spare a look up at him and his expression shows a mixture of resentful anger and sadness, the same as everyone else's, as Jace recall the events as quietly as he can.
I don't really remember us starting to walk to the car but the next time I open my eyes Jon is driving Jace's car, his knuckles turning white from holding the wheel too hard. Izzy is next to him in the passenger seat. I'm in the back seat with Jace laying on his lap.
The next time I open my eyes Jace is laying me down in his bed. He's about to turn off the lamp light and leave when I raise my voice.
"Jace?" I whisper. He looks at me softly. "Could you stay with me?" I don't think I could survive this night without him.
He come back to the bed taking off his shirt and jeans and gets into the bed with me after turning off the lamp, cautious at first to not touch me until I move close to him until I can feel him next to me. He hesitantly puts his arm around my waist, using his other arm as a pillow for his head.
"Jace?" I say after a second, whispering.
"Yeah?" He says.
"I think I love you." I whisper, not sure what he's going to say back. There's silence for a long time and I feel my eyelids getting heavy.
"Clary?" he says just as I'm about to slip out of consciousness.
"Hmm?" I say back, having not enough energy to form words.
"I think I love you too."
I feel myself smile and snuggle closer to him.
Jace.
My Jace.
AN: I hope you guys like this chapter! I probably would've finished it earlier but I got SHERLOCKED… hehe…anyone? No? okay.
I love you all!
R & R
XOXO
Erin