I would just like to apologise for the delay of this chapter. I haven't been well the last few days and every time I've tried to sit down with it, it just wasn't coming out right. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter and hopefully my updates can become regular once more (:

Jon sat with me until it got late, no games, no phones – just talking. I spilled my soul, everything that was bothering me other than that one sore topic. Jon stroked my hair and played the role of a big brother perfectly, making me wonder why I hadn't told him sooner.

"I'm going to go and get some sleep now, thanks for listening to me whine Jon." I smiled, hopping off of his bed lightly.

"You sure you're alright? Don't thank me Clary, it's the least I can do."

"I'm fine, I feel better for telling you."

"And it makes me feel better that you could tell me." Jon smiled, getting to his feet and opening the door. "Just knock if you need me during the night, okay? Any time."

"Thanks Jon." I said, heading off to bed. As soon as I stepped over the threshold, my phone vibrated in my pocket, twice. Maybe I'd had bad signal in Jon's room? Laying down on my bed, I examined it. The first one churned my stomach.

Sebastian: Sleep tight, angel.

I deleted it, flicking open the next.

Jace: Can I call you?

My stomach churned again, this time different. I felt strange, I never really spoke on the phone. Shrugging, I decided what the hell.

Clary: Go for it. I'm still up.

The five minutes it took for Jace to actually call me were agonising.

"Hi." I said quietly, holding the phone to my ear.

"Hey Red. I'm guessing you told Jon?" I nodded before remembering that he couldn't see me.

"Yeah, how did you know?"

"He text me."

"Oh?"

"He wants me to go with him tomorrow, to see Sebastian." Jace sounded curious.

"I know. He told me. You don't think it's a good idea do you?"

"Well, I think it's happening quite quickly. I think he ought to wait until it's not as raw. I think he should wait until he can deal with it level-headedly."

"That's why he's taking you with him."

"I thought you would know by now that I'm not the best person for keeping myself level-headed, let alone others."

"Will you try for me?"

"You're really pushing your luck here, Red." I held my breath but he laughed lightly. "Yes, I will try. Just this once though."

Jace POV

"You ready?" Jon climbed into my car bright and early. I caught sight of Clary in her bedroom window, watching quietly, probably reminding me of the promise I'd made to keep my cool.

"Ready as I'll ever be. You sure you want to do this?" I asked as Jon buckled himself in. He nodded, eyes facing forward.

"Of course I am. He hurt her Jace, imagine if someone did that to Isabelle."

"You're right. I couldn't imagine it." I could imagine it though because it had happened to Clary. "You know I've got your back right?"

"Clary gave me his number this morning, reluctantly. I've sent him a text pretending to be Clary and asking him to meet us in the park. He sent a crude text back so I'm pretty sure he's fallen for it." I turned the car on, getting ready to head off. Something crude. Never mind holding Jon back it was going to take everything I had to hold myself back.

Sebastian was waiting for us when we got to the park, standing in the shadows. He was dressed in some paint splattered pants – is that what he thought Clary went for? Jon tensed up next to me, before unbuckling his seatbelt and trying to open the car door in one swift motion.

"Woah there cowboy." I grabbed a firm grip of his shoulder, holding him back against the car seat. "Take a breath and count to five after everything he says, don't let him push your buttons." Jon was nodding but I wasn't really sure that he was listening to what I was saying to him. Once I was unbuckled myself, we headed over towards where Sebastian was stood. Jon skirted along the trees, making sure that we would come up behind him, rather than coming face to face. The park was relatively quiet, most people probably either at school or work. Once we were within reach of Sebastian, Jon paused momentarily. It all happened quite quickly. He lunged forward, dragging Sebastian back towards the trees by his shirt, before releasing him and stepping back. Sebastian had a smile on his face, his eyebrows raised.

"Jon! This is a surprise." Sebastian said, trying to play it cool.

"This week has been full of surprises." Jon growled back through gritted teeth.

"Something bothering you?" Sebastian asked, a look of knowing already gracing his face.

"Drop the act. He knows about you and Clary." I jumped in, Sebastian turned to face me immediately, a smile on his face but hate in his eyes.

"Does he know about you and Clary though?" He smirked. I could feel my heart thumping loudly in my chest. I really wanted to just punch the smug look off of his face. Thankfully Jon ignored his comment.

"I'm giving you one chance to explain yourself." Jon had his hands firmly planted at his sides, probably to remove any temptation of beating Sebastian to a pulp.

"You want the ins and outs of our relationship? I didn't realise you were into that shit." Sebastian laughed and I just say caught a grip on Jon's shirt as he went to lunge at Sebastian. Sebastian recoiled laughing. "What do you want to know Jon? You want me to admit to hitting your sister? I never hit her. Not properly. Yeah, I shook her a few times, maybe grabbed her a few times – but you have to do that with women. Especially women as rebellious as your sister. She agreed to be my girlfriend, so she agreed to those things. Maybe you need to have a word with her about it, clearly violent men are her type. But are you surprised? She's clearly been surrounded by it all of her life." He laughed again as Jon lunged once more.

"I swear if I ever see you around her again, it'll not just be your legs that I break." Jon hissed as Sebastian just laughed.

"Needless to say this feels like a wasted morning. Here I was thinking I was going to get a little action in the park, this wasn't what I had in mind. If you guys don't mind, I think I'll be off." Sebastian smirked again, taking pleasure in his smart comments. Against my better judgement, I let Jon's shirt slip from my fingers as Sebastian made to leave and he was off like a bullet. I could only let him get one good punch in, that'd look believable. He made up the distance between Sebastian and himself in mere moment, spinning him quickly around before pounding his fist directly into his face. On cue, I dragged Jon back. Sebastian was stood, holding his bloody nose, his eyes blackening already. A grin spread on his face as he wiped the blood from his face.

"As I said, she's surrounded by violent men. Where's the harm in one more?" I continued to hold Jon back as Sebastian walked off, only letting Jon go once he was out of sight.

"Do you feel any better after that?" I asked, rubbing my palm with my other hand, holding him back had taken a lot of effort.

"Not really." He grunted. "I don't think I'll feel better until he's out of this city." We walked back to the car in silence. "What did he mean about you and Clary?" Jon piped up as we were driving back towards his place. I shook my head.

"Probably trying to wind you up. He's all talk." I dodged the comment. Jon seemed appeased by it. Jon's parents were out when we got back and we headed straight into the living room to vent some anger on some football game.

Clary's POV

I'd woken up feeling horrible. I wasn't sure if it was because I was worried about what might have happened with Jon but I decided that the worst place for me to be right now was school. Sending Simon a message, I told him I wouldn't be coming in today because I'd been throwing up. I lay in bed looking up at the ceiling for a while before I decided I should probably try and make myself feel better. Grabbing my sketchbook and some pencils, I headed off into the kitchen, setting myself up at the breakfast bar. I drew anything that came to mind. The front door opened about half an hour later and I didn't even realise, only realising people were in the house when I heard voices coming from the living room. I crept into the hallway, listening along from the doorway.

"I'm telling you, if I ever seen him again, it'll be the last thing he sees." Jon shouted before listing off expletives in relation to Sebastian.

"I think we need to keep our distance. It's not going to do Clary any good if you get locked up for hitting him."

"It was a good shot though." I could hear the smile in Jon's voice. I rounded the doorway, standing in it.

"You hit him? You said you wouldn't." I blurted out, both Jon and Jace turned to look at me.

"I couldn't help it Clary. I was just so mad. It was only the once."

"He was baiting him Clary. I tried to hold Jon back but he slipped out of my grip. He only hit him the once."

"Just the once." Jon reaffirmed and I nodded.

"I'm going to go and have a bath." I muttered, heading up the stairs, rejecting their offers to play whatever game it was they were playing. As I sunk in amongst the warm water, I questioned myself. What had I expected when Jon had come up against Sebastian? Had I expected everything to change? Had I expected myself to feel different? If anything I felt worse. I was glad that Jon knew but I was worried sick about what would happen. I knew Sebastian too well. He was constantly baiting people, constantly picking them apart to get a reaction and now he had leverage on Jon. Sinking under the water, I closed my eyes, thinking. I pulled myself out of the water quickly when I heard loud banging on the door. Grabbing a towel from the rack, I wrapped it around myself, answering the frantic knocking on the door.

"Yes?" I asked, faced with Jon on the other side. His face was red, his brow furrowed.

"What are you doing in there?" He asked, trying to peer around me.

"I'm having a bath, I told you." I was confused now.

"I knocked and you didn't answer."

"I had my head under the water."

"Why?" He was panicked again.

"Because I was thinking…" I trailed off. What had he thought? That I was trying to off myself in the bathroom? "I'm not trying to kill myself if that's what you're thinking I'm just having a bath." Jon nodded, releasing the tension from his face. I had to stop this. "I know that you're concerned Jon and I really appreciate it but you have to give me room to breathe. I'm not going to kill myself I promise. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Can you please just trust me?" I asked and Jon nodded.

"I'm sorry Clary. I'm just trying to help."

"I know you are. But I'm just trying to have a bath nothing more. If I'm ever feeling like that, you'll be the first person I come too, okay?" That seemed to calm him down as he headed out of my room and back downstairs. I closed the door, dropped my towel and got back into the bath, refreshing the hot water. I felt strangely cold. That cold that no matter how much I refilled the hot water, the heat just wasn't touching me, unable to warm me up. When I got out of the bath however, my skin was as red as my hair. Sitting on my bed, I realised Jon had brought my sketchbook up with him. Flipping to the page that I'd been working on downstairs, I recognised immediately why he'd been so worried. I'd drawn a girl on the page with a large shadow. She was curled up in the corner of the page, the shadow extending up the wall behind her and over the top of her face. It looked eerie and made me feel uncomfortable looking at it. I flicked my phone open to distract myself, a few messages adorning the screen.

Simon: Hope you're alright Clary. Isabelle and I got your workload between us, you should be able to catch up with it over the weekend though! Let me know if you need anything!

Sebastian: Nice little game you played on me today. Your brother is lucky that I'm not the type to press charges, mainly because I don't want to miss out on seeing your face on Monday.

Jace: Should I take it as an insult that you're trying to kill yourself before our date Saturday? Is that a subtle hint?

I didn't reply to any of them, changing into my pyjamas and getting back into bed, sleep coming fast.

Thank you to everyone who reads and reviews, you make my day that little bit brighter (:! All of my love, until the next time (which is quickly upon us!) ~Sapph