Graphic Depictions of Gore/Blood/Possible Triggers (Abuse, Anxiety, and mentions of trauma and PTSD symptoms)

*PLEASE READ disclaimer: don't take this series as advice or any kind of booklet on handling mental health issues. If you have concerns about yours our anothers mental health please consult a doctor, or someone you trust, not this fanfiction.*

Thanks all, I just really want to clear that up, obligatory message and all, love ya and enjoy another exposition chapter!

Stupidgirlstupidgirlstupidgirl The Voice chanted in her ear.

Fuck. Shit. Clary could hear the group of men whoop below her, could hear the door downstairs rattling. All she could do however was stare at her father's bloated corpse. Part of his head was missing, the coagulated muscle and blood hanging off in chunks from his forehead. Black obsidian eyes stared glace-like into her own and his bloated face was swelled int something unrecognizable. Purple and blue blotches mixed with stark white, almost transparent skin, and the black hole that was his mouth was surrounded by open lips that were grotesquely white. The rancid smell sank into her nose, the scent of death seeped into her pores, down her mouth, making her stomach turn. Clary turned to the side before she threw up bile and water, the only things she'd really had in the past couple days.

Below her a holler was heard as the door was broken in.

Shhhhhh darling its okay

it wasn't the Voice in her head. This new voice floated airly into her mind, almost like a memory.

keep going. You've got to move.

But she was tired. She didn't want to move, couldn't turn back around to see the dead body and unable to tell her feet to bring her forward. Steps were thundering up the stairs.

Red, you're going to move if you don't want to die.

Clary nodded to herself and ran to one of the windows. She started ripping the wooden boards from the windows, adrenaline fueling her body. The wood wouldn't move and the act only gave her splinters in her palm. She made little progress by kicking the planks and God she wished she'd paid more attention to Jace when he was teaching her kickboxing an-

"What do we have here?" A voice behind her caused Clary to whip around. It was the group of men from outside. The leader was wearing a red bandanna, his skin so white in comparison to his dark clothes. He looked almost sickly.

Strength is key.

Clary steadied her feet.

Keep your core tight.

She tightened her abs, reading herself for an attack.

Focus

She didn't look at the dead body in the corner.

She smiled. "I'm a little lost," she said to the man. His grin was missing a few teeth.

"It's good that you found us then" he leered. The men behind him cackled. He turned to them and gave them a signal, in which they spread out from behind him, there were two, and circled Clary. Good, she thought. Now it was only the skinny, pale boy in front of the doorway. In front of escape.

Both the old Voice and the new one chimed into her head as the thought attack him now skyrocketed through her brain. She rushed forward and plowed into the man's waist. Startled he gave to her speed and weight and she managed to push him into the far wall. She didn't wait around to check for the other two men before bolting downstairs and out the second story window. She did, however, stop to push the dumpster out of the way of the window sill, not daring to help the men in any way possible. Clary raced into the light of the streetlamps to find the corvette thoroughly damaged. The men had keyed up the car, smashed a few windows and Clary had no idea where the keys were. Add that to the fact that the crashes behind her signaled the men were following and Clary wasn't even going to try to start the ignition. She knew these streets.

And so she ran them.

Her mind was silent as she fled 39 on 21st street, lingering bile burning her throat as her unshed tears stayed held in. She didn't know why seeing the body meant so much. Maybe because she never really believed he was dead, and now she had proof. Maybe because it was physical evidence that she'd murdered him, that'd she'd stooped to his own level.

There was no time to dwell as Clary opened the door to her old house and pushed her jumbled mind to the side. Find a clue, she thought to herself. Sleep until morning. Then go home.

Home.

Jace.

Would she even be welcomed back?

Look in the kitchen

Curiously Clary found herself mentally shushing the Voice. Something was wrong here, she recognized that. There was no police tape, nothing missing or taken for evidence. By the sight of her father's body in the nearby hotel, Clary had no doubt that Carlin was somehow connected to her coke-head father. He'd probably had his men clean up her little mess before the police could get involved. In fact, the only difference from when Clary'd been here a few weeks ago was the thin layer of dust covering everything and the lack of blood staining the floor. With a shaky breath, Clary ran a hand down her face.

His hands on her neck. Her throat closing. Breathlessness.

Clary tried to push the memories away. Look in the kitchen! the Voice called. With it came silence in her brain, an absence of the pain she felt with the resurfacing memories, something Clary craved so deeply. And so she followed.

In the doorway of the kitchen Clary swayed, assulted by an onslaught of memories and feelings, her hand grasping the siding of the door. Terror gripped her heart, making her hands screw into a talon-like shape. Her heart squeezed with fear, a silent cry erupting from her lips.

The gun was in her hand, so cold, so smooth. The metal pressed to her skin, biting so deliciously as she held it up against her father's fair feathered skull. Pull the trigger, the thoughts whisper, run they cried, and Clary could feel the blood rushing from her father's head as if it were her own. She found pleasure in the pain she gave him-

Clary shook her head again trying to stay in the present. The past was dangerous. The past was doubtful. She lifted her hands to see them shaking so violently the muscles twitched beneath the skin. Her breath was leaving her body as anxiety crawled up her throat, tying her tongue into a knot and making her choke on her own spit. Her heart became a rabbit in her chest as it beat to the rhythm of a rushing current. Clary tried to ground herself. She closed her eyes and crouched to the floor, running her fingers on the familiar tiles. Grooves and smooth paneling ran beneath her fingertips, the smell of musty air filtered through her nose. She didn't even realize the tears streaming down her cheeks until she tasted the salt on her lips. They were chapped against her tongue, rough with bitten skin. Clary ran a hand through her hair. This she could focus on. The frizzy texture of silk fine strands. The anxiety lessened it's grip on her heart. She was so overwhelmed, but this always helped her calm down. 'Just focus on the little things, baby' Jocelyn used to say when Clary woke up from night terrors and her mom had the time to console her. 'If you focus on the little things, the big things don't seem so big anymore'. Clary took a steadying breath and composed herself. This wasn't the first time she'd had a panic attack, she just hadn't anticipated it. But she was okay now. No one was hurting her now.

She laid a hand on the nearby tabletop and tried to remember where her father kept important documents, back to business.

The study? It seemed a likely place to keep check books and other incriminating stuff. Though Clary was never allowed in there she knew where the key was and quickly grabbed it from the kitchen. She had to get out pf this goddamn house. It was doing crazy things to her head. The keys jangled in her shaking palms as Clary made her way to the study. She could barely get the key in the hole with the dying light and her violent shivers.

Her face dripping with blood. Her hands covered in red. The floor strewn with muscle and tissue bits.

No. She shook her head and squeezed her palms together again. Her hands were clean. She was safe. He wasn't there to hurt her anymore.

He's dead.

Yes...dead...though the thought didn't exactly console her. She killed him. Her. The power that accompanied the thought was now tainted with self-disgust. And a little bit of regret. Because god, she could have done so much worse to him. If she knew then what she knew now...she would do so much worse to him.

Clary shook her head. The light was almost completely faded outside, darkness settling on the streets. Clary keyed her way into his study. It was just like any other, though a little too messy for her liking. There was a wooden desk, cheap and stained, adorned with a stack of papers- bills he had yet to find a way to pay- and eviction notices. a dusting of fine white powder decorated one corner, and a rolled up one dollar bill sat in the mess. Clary's face crinkled in disgust. A cheap looking file cabinet sat in the corner of the small room and Clary made her way towards it. The top drawer groaned as she rolled it from the confines of it's rusty enclosure. She rifled through the papers quickly, finding only bills, receipts, etc. In the 2nd of the 3 drawers sat a single file folder. It was full of old receipts and letters. Clary regarded them with slight interest, and when she glanced at the names of the transactions they all seemed to be with a company.

"The RAMC," Clary wondered aloud, "Wonder what that means." She stashed a few of the bills in her pocket and then moved to the next cabinet. This one was stuffed full, filled to the brim with files of random men and women alike. They didn't seem to be like any other part of the office, following an alphabetical order and so on. Clary was instantly intrigued. She looked at the labels, finding one on the RAMF that she did a quick scan through. She snagged a piece of paper with general information on it, the file being too big to carry. Further down she caught sight of a fairly large file labeled OP-CLANDESTINE. Clary's fingers made quick work flipping through the files in the folder, and she'd only made it a couple papers in before seeing a headshot of Luke Garrowway. Interest peaked, Clary reluctantly plucked the thick folder from the case and stuffed it into her arms.

Shouts and hollers rang through the streets just outside the house and startled Clary from the silence around her. She jumped a little bit in the darkness that had settled around her. Scanning the cabinet once more she shut it gently with her foot and moved to hurriedly check the desk, wanting, no needing, to get out of the house. The only thing worth value was the check book that Valentine had written in, before his death. A few names were scrawled on the soft pages and Clary plucked it up just in case these were his usual regular clientele.

Clary almost closed the door after walking out but the thought of her father's bloated dead face stopped her. She almost started shaking again when she remembered the way his beady eyes stared into her soul from his purpled face. Disgusting. Disgusting that his rules and regulations had been so forcefully branded into her brain that she still respected his privacy, still closed the door to his office, when he was fucking dead. Clary gingerly withdrew her hand from the doorknob and as she walked into the hallway, she left the door open.

Despite the things Clary had done in the past weeks, this act felt like her first real act of defiance.

Her arms ached from the files so she moved quickly to her room to pick up one of her old canvas bags, She slung it over her shoulder after plopping the info in it and zipped it tight.

Looking around her old room Clary was struck with a silent sort of sadness. So much terror was felt in this small space, but so much relief as well. This was her sanctuary for 17 years. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she sat on the bed. Her knees slowly curled inwards as her heart exploded in her chest.

Sometimes the world was too much. Clary was so used to desensitizing herself from her own emotions, but no one can do that forever. They made a dam out of her chest, her throat a lodge in a coursing river that never stopped it's relentless pounding. Sometimes that dam got worn down, too weak to keep the river at bay, and it would rush out of her mouth. She clutched a pillow to her chest as she screamed a silent scream, her mouth stretching wide enough as if saying to her sorrow, this is the exit now leave. Her eyes shut, her head ached, snot dribbled down from her nose. It was the ugly cry that you never see happen in movies, the kind of cry that is painful just to watch. And she suffered through it alone. The Voice was silent, as was the memory of the nicer voice.

Her small whimpers slowly stopped, the hurt and pain and sorrow being replaced by exhaustion.

Clary couldn't wake up here. If she woke up here she wouldn't be able to handle herself. And that was the one thought flying through her head as she moved to leave. Her bones felt stiff as she unfurled her legs, her joints clicking as she stood. Before walking from the door Clary grabbed her mother's ring from the vanity next to her door, a reminder of the pain she'd felt here, of the pain he'd caused. She felt the anger renewed, subtle for she was still tired, but lingering beneath the surface. Men like her father didn't deserve to live. And she would avenge her mother, and the life she could of had.

With resolve in her heart, Clary left the house with the bag on her hip and the ring clutched in her fist, never looking back. She started on her journey home.

Clary and Jace reunite soon...so stay tuned y'all.

Also, let me know if any of you would like to see Jace's POV on the past day/night when Clary was gone? I'm probably gonna write it anyways but let me know if I should post it.