Clary woke up slowly, out of a daze of swirling images and bright colors, none of which had made any sense to her unconscious mind. It seemed like an eternity before she could open her eyes, and when she did, she immediately regretted it.
The room, wherever it was, was dark, but it still sent a wave of intense pain shooting through her skull. She had been lying haphazardly in the corner, against the brick wall, as if flung there. She sat up now, slowly, blinking in the dark and fighting vertigo. She could feel thick, half-dried liquid covering the side of her face that had been on the floor, and judging from the pain in her head, she was almost positive it was her own blood. She could just make out the outline of the puddle on the floor, with the void in the middle, where her head had previously been.
She scooted back to lean against the wall behind her, mustering all her energy just to stay awake. Eyes adjusted to the dim light, she scanned the small room, making out small details leached of color in the dark. It was a tiny room, one that was probably preceded by a larger one. The wall she sat against was brick, the floor, bare concrete, and the other walls, plain, with a single, large door directly across from the one she sat against. A metal folding chair lay on its side in the center of the space. That was it. It looked like one of the interrogation rooms from the cop shows Clary had sometimes watched with Luke. Those ones probably didn't reek quite so much of mildew and rot though. Nothing good could go on in a room like this.
She was still wearing her gear. Slowly, the events from the patrol with Isabelle came back to her. What she knew anyway. One second, the coast had been clear and she and Isabelle had been immersed in conversation; and then, nothing but strange dreams and this dark room. She had no idea where she was or how long she'd been here. Where was Izzy? Something bad had obviously happened.
Wincing, she patted the pockets of her gear. Her weapons and stele were gone and so was her cell phone. Her Sensor was still there, but she doubted it would really be of much use to her. It was unlikely she'd be able to get away with stuffing one down a demon's throat twice. It had been unlikely enough the first time.
Assuming it was a demon that had brought her here at all. Or at least someone involved with them. What else could it have been?
After a minute, she took a deep breath and forced herself to stand, ignoring the dizziness as best as she could. Slowly, on unsteady legs, she crossed the small room to the door and was unsurprised to find it locked tight. It was solid. Even if she hadn't been injured and probably dehydrated, she wouldn't have been able to break it down. She turned back toward her spot in the corner, shedding her gear jacket and wadding it up to make something of a pillow for her to lay on atop the hard, dirty floor.
Clary knew she should have been terrified, caged in and most likely waiting for her death. She should have been crying or screaming, or trying to claw her way out. Maybe she was in shock, but she really didn't feel much of anything at all. Emotionally numb. The only real thing she felt aside from pain was fatigue. Maybe that should have been concerning, given her head wound, but she'd already slept for some time, long enough for her captor to take her and lock her in here. And it wasn't like she had anything better to do than sleep in this dark, muggy room.
Shifting to lie on her back, head tilted to keep the wound from touching the fabric of her jacket, she stared into the darkness, her eyes beginning to droop almost immediately.
It could have been minutes or hours later, but a noise near the door woke her up, the sound of a turning lock. She turned toward it, still slightly groggy, and watched as it began to swing open.
To love is to destroy. Jace couldn't remember the last time he'd thought about Valentine's twisted words. The man had been evil and conniving, a liar in every aspect and he couldn't have been more wrong in his evaluation of love. And yet, right now, Jace wondered if maybe it wasn't the tiniest bit true as the five words repeated themselves over and over again in his mind. Because he loved Clary with everything in him, and right now, it was destroying him.
He was in the library with the rest of the Institute's inhabitants and Clary's parents. It had been the unannounced gathering place since the Shadowhunters had returned from finding Isabelle injured and Clary missing, nearly an hour earlier. Jocelyn and Luke had shown up shortly after, having been notified by Maryse about what had happened.
The healing runes had worked almost completely on Isabelle's ailments by the time they'd arrived back; and now, other than some residual bruising, physically, she looked fine. Emotionally, of course, she was another story. And she wasn't alone.
"And you're sure you have no idea what it was that attacked you?" Alec asked her for probably the forth time.
Isabelle leveled him with an exasperated look. "No, Alec! By the Angel, don't you think if I did, I would tell you? I don't know! It wasn't just any random demon! I would have seen it coming! I'm not that stupid, and neither is-" Her voice broke and she gave in to more tears, which had been falling pretty much non-stop since she'd begun relaying what she remembered. Which wasn't much.
The rest of them had sat and listened, Alec and Maryse trying to fit together what had happened based on Isabelle's account and the evidence they had gathered. The rest of them though had pretty much sat in silence. Clary's mother had cried while Luke, beside her, hadn't looked far from doing so himself.
Jace had forced himself into something of a catatonic state and remained there, sitting and doing nothing else. He knew if he tried to speak, he would either end up lashing out or breaking down, neither of which he wanted to do. As it was, his heavy heart had beat painfully when Isabelle spoke of how Clary had hit the ground after the whatever-it-was had blown them both off their feet. He'd sat forward and placed his head in his hands, hyperaware of the eyes on him. He remained in that position now.
"I'm sorry, Izzy," Alec responded, "I just want to know what happened."
"Don't we all." It was Luke who spoke now, his voice pained.
"I'm so sorry," she said.
"It's not your fault," Simon said. He had sat by her side throughout the meeting and had, for once, said very little. He'd looked close to tears himself for a while. Jace wanted to be angry about how much he cared, as if the other Shadowhunter's pain could possibly be anything close to his own, but he knew he couldn't. It was hard not to love Clary, and Simon had known her for most of his life. He had every right to be distraught about this. Isabelle said nothing in response to his words.
Maryse went on to speak then, but Jace was through listening. It was obvious there was nothing more he was going to learn, and the longer he sat here, the more certain he became that he would eventually explode. Wordlessly, he got to his feet, cutting Maryse off mid-sentence, and walked from the room, ignoring his adoptive mother calling after him.
He wound up in the training room and went right for the heavy bag hanging on one side from the rafters, shedding his gear jacket and weapons belt, and leaving them on the floor as he went. Without bothering with sports tape or gloves, he began beating it, dealing with his pain the only way he knew how; letting it out with every punch he threw. It was almost a relief when his knuckles quickly began bleeding, as if somehow having physical pain evened out the internal agony he was in.
He didn't know how long he stayed there, but he was out of breath and his eyes were burning with unshed tears when a voice sounded behind him. "Don't do this to yourself." The voice was gentle, one he recognized quickly, but didn't expect in this setting.
He stopped punching and caught the bag as it swung back toward him, resting his forehead against it, eyes closed as he breathed quickly. "Do what?"
"You know what." Footsteps. Reluctantly, Jace turned toward the sound of them and met Jocelyn's eyes, still red-rimmed from crying, as she came to stand nearer to him. "Holding everything in. Lashing out. Hurting yourself."
"I'm not hurting myself," he said quickly. Even if he was getting blood on the floor…
"I know you're hurting, Jace. I know you're scared and worried. You aren't fooling anybody. And you're not alone in feeling that way. She's my daughter, for goodness sake. How do you think I feel?"
Jace was quiet for a few seconds. Had it been anyone else calling him out like that, he surely would have had an angry retort ready and waiting, but he couldn't argue with Jocelyn, much like he couldn't argue with Clary. She was her mother's daughter. And Jocelyn wasn't wrong.
"You love her," she supplied gently. It wasn't a question.
Jace didn't know what it was, except maybe that Clary just resembled her mother so much. He found himself meeting her eyes and answering sincerely, "Very much."
"I know. And I know you would do anything in your power to save her if you could."
"I will find her. I will go to the ends of the earth if I have to."
Jocelyn smiled kindly, though it didn't meet her eyes. "You're a lot like your father."
That brought Jace up short. "You knew my father?" He'd never thought about it before, but it was possible. Clary's mother wasn't that much younger then his father would have been.
"Not well, but yes, I did. He was Luke's brother-in-law for a while, as well as Valentine's right hand man after Luke, though by that point, I'd really had little interaction with the Circle and its members. He was a good man, Jace. Fanatical, but good. And so are you."
Jace just looked at her for a moment, unsure of what to say. The conversation had taken an unexpected route. Jocelyn continued before he could respond.
"I know how much you love my daughter-" She took a steadying breath before continuing, "I know this is incredibly hard. And I know you would be out right now 'going to the ends of the earth' to find her, if only you knew where to start. Believe me, I would go with you."
Rather than respond to that, Jace found himself asking, "When exactly did you decide you liked me?"
"I don't know. I have for a while though. I see how happy you make Clary, how much she loves you and you her, and I know that she could do much worse."
Hearing her name was like being stabbed in the heart. "I just-" His voice broke embarrassingly and suddenly, he was fighting tears. He would not cry here. He wouldn't. He studied the floor at his feet.
Jocelyn stepped closer still. "I know," she said softly and the next thing he knew, she was hugging him. He awkwardly returned it and found himself oddly comforted. He was still far from okay, but Jocelyn was the only other person who even remotely shared the same pain over Clary as he did and somehow that made it minutely better.
The shape that entered Clary's prison, silhouetted in the light shining in from behind him, looked vaguely humanoid. She squinted into the blinding brightness, long-used to the darkness that had enveloped her for so long, as the creature stepped inside. As her eyes adjusted, she was able to make out more details of him, and wished she couldn't. He had dark skin and was sickly thin, with a bloated stomach, like the African victims of starvation she'd seen in a textbook once at St. Xavier's. Its hands were clawed and his head, bald and elongated.
"Well, well, well. Look who finally woke up." His voice was something out of a nightmare, deep and ice cold. It sent shivers down Clary's spine. "I was afraid I would have to beat you awake myself. I didn't want to have to get blood on my shoes."
"Who are you? Why am I here?" Clary tried to keep her voice steady, unafraid, but she was starting to feel the fear that had eluded her before.
"You, little Shadowhunter, are here because I brought you here. And I brought you here because I was instructed to do so. You should feel honored, really. It's been quite a long time since I've had the pleasure of dealing with one of your kind, and never in this part of your pathetic realm. Far too long, really, as I only recently recovered from what they did to me." He'd begun walking forward as he spoke, stopping to right the folding chair in the center of the room and, and then, had continued from there toward Clary, his voice growing angrier as he talked. He stopped and stood looming over her, glaring down, "Do you know what it is like, Clarissa, to be trapped in the Void between worlds for a century and a half, broken and starving?" Clary said nothing, staring at the demon and trying to ignore the ever-quickening pace of her heart. "You don't, of course. You're nothing but a mortal weakling. However, I am back now. I will get my revenge. And I will start with you."
Before Clary was even aware of what was happening, she cried out as she was snatched up by the demon and dragged, by both the collar of her shirt and her hair, across the small room, hauled up into the folding chair, and bound to it.
"And as for who I am, my name is Yanluo. Perhaps you've heard of me?"
Thanks for reading!