Disclaimer: I don't own anything.

Thanks to my ever so loyal reviewers: AnnaW14, I love your adjective choice. 'Heavenly' made me laugh. Taylor, Thank you very much! OmegaBanda14,as always I love your reviews.LOVERGIRL, I love the encouragement-as always- and when people reply to my A/N questions, and ,I know it took forever but school has been kicking me continuously in the butt. On the other hand your review made me smile.

I hope you enjoy- sincerely.

He stood in front of her, white hair a pale glimmer like the frost clinging to their small window by the fire escape. Clary's braid felt as if it had strapped itself to the back of her neck, grasping at the skin and sticking with all its might to her pale slender throat. Shines of moisture plastered her cheeks as she sobbed, trying to hold back her screams of agony. Fine carroty-red hair was pasted against her forehead as well, blood-drained skin standing contrast to the untamed strands. Her freckles were golden blotches stark and outlined as he glared at her wallowing mess.

Her father didn't care for tears.

"What are you doing in my room?" he asked harshly. He never sounded soft. Clary faintly wanted to snap back a smart reply, something along the lines of 'because this is my house too' but the thought itself made her wince with fear.

"I-I-I heard a b-bang-g," she sobbed hysterically."S-so I went to go check what i-it was" she let out a drowning hiccup. "And sh-she w-was on the f-f-flo-oor." Clary was heaving now. The sight of her mother was riveting, and grotesque, and gruesome. Her body had been sprawled across the tiles of the bathroom in a way that bones never did when alive and moving. Her hair was a dull rouge and a lot darker than it was before, the pale sheet of her face making it seem like blood. But then again, the blood pooling around her could have soaked into her hair, not just her clothes. Her right temple was a gaping hole, filling with the red essence that was once her life and spewing it out. Stringy tendons and blackened red seemed to infest the edges, chunks of meat and gooping muscle decorated the room.

She wanted to throw up thinking about it.

She cried instead.

"Sh-she had a gun in her hand Daddy! I-I-I think she d-did it to herse-el-lf!" Clary collapsed on the floor as her fathers face slackened.

"No,"he whispered. "No!" He erupted from the desk he was sitting on, his face now thoroughly animated with betrayal, anger, and a knowing sadness as he ran from the room. Clary heard doors slamming, her heart slamming just as loud against her chest. She couldn't stop crying, the tears were flowing freely, her head aching with realization. Her mother was gone-and judging by the expression on her fathers face, she did it because of him. And he knew it was coming.

Her mother killed herself because she wasn't anyone anymore. Long ago they had lost Jocelyn, and her father seemed to like his slave better anyways.

And it was not only her father but all the men that had taken her into that room and done those dirty things to her.

Clary would kill him, them, for what they did.

In that moment she could kill the world.

Her father ran back into the room, grabbing her and pulling her up by the braid that no longer stuck to her neck. Clary couldn't help her screech of pain as he yanked on her roots. Daddy's eyes were livid, his face red. Daddy could kill the world too. "What. Did. YOU. DO!" he screamed. Tears ran down his crumpling face. "Why did you make me look. Why did you make me see?!"The rage sparkled in his black irises. "Why!?"

The moment when he dragged her body through the door frame and across the living room was the longest time of her life; kicking and struggles did nothing to stop his pursuit. When her father tried to push her into their only bathroom she twisted to face him. She couldn't see the body. Not now. She'd go insane.

He pushed her and Clary felt desperation claw at her throat, her stomach. She grasped the edges of the door frame and dug in with her fingernails, leaving shredding of wood in her nails, scratches in the dirty white paint. A backhand across her face made her death-grip release, and she stumbled back.

"Clean that...thing...up." he said and stared at the body beside her with glassy detached eyes. And then, to Clary's greatest fear, he closed the door, a click signalling the lock.

She slowly turned around. Facing the bloody mess that she had hugged, and kissed. The mixture of death and pain that was her savior clawing tears into her throat and ripping through her heart. It was pain...so much pain...

Clary woke up with a start, swinging into a sitting position, fresh aching in her tormented mind. She was shivering, she realized blatantly. Clammy sweat covered her collar bones and the inside of her bare kneecaps, dampening her long fiery hair and forehead. The too-big shirt she had on was heavy on her shoulders and sticking to her back, as cold as her skin. She wrapped her arms around herself and tried to forget the pain. The nightmare was not just a nightmare, it was a memory. Clary was always hit with them in the middle of the night. And it was this one that made her put her plan in action- she needed justice as quick as she could get it. For her mother, but also for herself.

Suddenly Clary was acutely aware of where exactly she was.

Because their was no hard floor beneath her, but a soft down of slightly dampened comforters. She wiggled her toes, and yes, they were hidden beneath the silky black covers surrounding her. Clary wondered if this was a dream, but when the sound of an igniting furnace blew a gust of hot air over her body Clary remembered the most important part of her plan.

"Jace"

Even his name was beautiful.

And his room was just as so. The bed frame was a mahogany carved masterpiece, red velvet curtains hiding the outside world and a small lamp washing dim golden light across the dark wash wooden floors. As Clary laid back down and unfolded her arms into the surrounding blanket she imagined him sleeping in this exact bed. His head would have rested where hers was now, his lean muscles molding the mattress into his shape, these very blankets covered in his scent as he slept. With that thought Clary brought them to her nose and with glee found it did smell distinctly male. She smiled as she realized she didn't have to fake the attraction to Jace.

Just make him trust you.

Nothing else Clarissa.

She ran the blanket over her legs, her torso, hugging it across her chest, imagining it was him.

What if he slept naked...

Her mind was bipolar. With the variations of her thoughts, it had to be. But the thought made her shiver. If he slept naked then his muscles would have been touching these blankets, his body would have been directly on those sheets. She let out a breath and turned stomach down. Swallowing hard she closed her eyes. He'd have been beneath her, his body, his- a knock on the door stopped her train of thought, and she didn't know whether she was happy or disappointed.

"Are you descent?" he asked before opening the door.

Clary turned so her back was on the mattress and drew the blankets up high, a scowl screwing into her face. She was only wearing a large button up shirt and her underwear. So, she was not, in fact, descent.

But he came in anyways, as if it was a rhetorical question.

"Excuse me," she started. "But I am not 'descent' and you should at least wait for a reply to the question you asked before barging into the room and disrupting the person whom you asked!" He let out an exasperated breath before walking towards the curtains.

"It was more of a warning than a question." he wittily replied and drew open the folds of fabric. Behind them was not the morning dawn Clary expected but the settling dusk. Stripes of rouge, apricot, and lilac streaked the lower sky, a navy haze enveloping the higher air. Clary let the blankets drop from her chest with shock at his perpetual flippancy. Could he not take being in the wrong? Was failure really that scary to him?

"Well then," she replied with unintended animosity. "You shouldn't have voiced it like a question then."

He turned with a smirk, the outside light igniting his eyes into amber fire. "And how would you like me to voice my warnings." She didn't know if it was meant to sound seductive-it surely wasn't an innuendo- but his voice must have just been naturally husky.

"Like a warning. Some things aren't meant to be complicated, some things don't always have to have hidden meanings." She glared. She shouldn't be pushing her luck with him, shouldn't be trying to annoy him, but he seemed to like it. And so she didn't stop herself.

"But most things do don't they?" he tilted his head and with a swish of his body started to walk away, intending to have the last words. But she stood up when she said simply, "No"

He stopped in his tracks. "What?"

"It wasn't a complicated answer." She started to walk towards him, not stopping until her body was close enough to his that she felt the heat radiating from him like a sauna. "Most things are simple." She fixed her eyes on his back as the words flew out. His shoulder blades left a loose part in his other wise tight black shirt. "Love, lust," she listed slowly. "Money, jealousy, sex," she couldn't help but place her hand on that spot, her palm sinking until it reached his vertebrae. "Hatred" she all but whispered. "They're all simple things that people mistake for complicated."

She could feel him swallow. "Then what is complicated, Gandhi? Please enlighten me." She could practically feel the sarcasm weighing down that sentence.

What in the world is a Gandhi?

"Pain." She paused after the word as his muscles relaxed. She didn't even know how tense they were before they were pliable beneath her hand. "Death. Sadness."

His chuckle ran through her arm. "Maybe those are just the thing you don't understand." he said.

"Maybe," she smiled. "But if so, you don't understand them either."

He turned to face her and she could read the inner turmoil in his features. "I understand pain and death and sadness more than anyone, Little Girl."

"You haven't met me yet," Her smile widened.

The connection between them died before she could grasp at it. "That's for sure. What's your name? I've told you mine, I think I have a right to know."

Clary bit her lip. She didn't really want him to know her name. She could somehow foresee her going weak in the knees had his lips somehow captured it. So she changed the subject. "Why'd you come in here?"

He snorted. "It's my room. Jace's. Now what would it be called had it been your room?"

"Seriously, why? Did you need me to leave? Because...well...I was wondering-" she was cut off.

"No."

"I didn't even finish my sentence?!" she was dumbfounded. She needed his help.

He arched an eyebrow. "You wanted to stay here. With me. As my partner or something along the lines of all that bullsh-" Clary cut him off this time.

"Actually, I was wondering if you could just help me...I don't know...train ,I guess would be the proper verb-" It was like they were having a competition to see who could cut each other off more.

"You want me to train you?!" His eyes widened and he laughed hysterically while falling back against the door. When his laughter died down he just looked at her through his lowered lashes.

She sighed, defeated. "I want to know how to kill somebody." Clary pressed her lips together before flitting her eyes away.

His silence prompted her eyes to search for his again. He was just staring at her. "Why?" he whispered hoarsely.

She chuckled humorlessly before responding. "Because revenge is complicated."

He shook his head as he regarded her, his answer shining in his eyes. "Well, so is trust."

Pretty Please Review?

Sorry this took so long- and the content doesn't really compensate for it- but until school is almost over, so late May and June, expect irregular updates, sorry.

Question: What do you think their first training session will be like? And did you expect the whole suicide thing, it wasn't supposed to be a surprise but...

On another note, I reread the story and I'm going to fix a few things. Mistakes and the whole lot. Sorry about those.

Follow, favourite, review, thanks to all those that have done so, or please just keep reading, Lovestory112.