Author's Note: This chapter contains captivity, explicit torture, mentions of incest, mentions of nonconsensual sex/rape, and, of course, Sebastian. This one is mean. Sorry, Clary.
Chapter Fifteen, Part II
When she was almost on the first floor, she heard the Endarkened shout from the third floor. "Adele! She's gone!"
Shit, shit, shit. He'd checked her room.
By the time she was at the bottom of the steps, she could hear Adele's heavy boots slamming down the stairs to join the other guard. With no time to lose, Clary raced through what looked like a living room, past an office filled with books and papers, until she finally came to a foyer that led to the front door, a little square window pane looking out onto a golden field. She thought she might sob in relief at the sight of it, as she heard two sets of boots coming down the stairs, but as she ran for the exit, a door to her right, one she hadn't even noticed, opened.
She skidded to a stop as Sebastian stepped out of the doorway, leaving what looked like the entrance to a basement, just between her and the front door. He turned towards her, his wide eyes and pinched brows displaying his surprise at seeing her. Sebastian slowly shut the basement door behind him, a bolt clicking into place and locking it as it closed, and a sly grin quickly replaced the look of shock.
"Clarissa. You're awake."
Clary said nothing, too surprised herself to move, her freedom once again blocked by her brother. Her hand went to one of the short swords at her hip, and Sebastian raised a brow.
She'd nearly forgotten about the Endarkened in her shock until the two of them ran up behind her, stopping their approach only when she spun around with the blade drawn.
"Don't come any closer!" she shouted, brandishing the weapon, and though the Endarkened stopped a few feet from her, they appeared unthreatened at her threat. Pinned between the guards and Sebastian, she turned her head back and forth, trying to keep an eye on all of them at once. Trying to find a way out.
"What's going on here?" Sebastian asked cooly, and though Clary wasn't sure who the question was directed at, the Endarkend man immediately replied.
"Sir, she escaped her room! We were only trying to retrieve her."
"Clarissa is allowed to leave her room. She has free range of the house," Sebastian said, and both Clary and the guards shot him a look of confusion.
"But, sir, we thought—I mean, she raided the weapons room. She's trying to escape, sir."
Sebastian sighed as if frustrated by their incompetence. "Well, yes, you're right, she shouldn't have stolen any weapons. But your job is only to ensure she doesn't get into any unnecessary trouble, not to keep her confined to any one room. Nathaniel and Jaime were supposed to have explained this to you when you traded posts this morning. She cannot leave this house, so there's no need for—"
"Watch me!" Clary hissed, drawing the other blade and angling it towards Sebastian. But he only looked at her amusedly and put up a hand when, in response to her aiming the weapon at Sebastian, the guards took a step toward her, halting their approach.
"You can't keep me here," Clary said, though her voice wavered and the tip of the sword trembled. "I'll kill you right now if you try to stop me leaving."
"Sir—"
"Silence," Sebastian ordered, and the two guards instantly quieted, shuffling back towards the office. He took a step towards Clary, who stepped to the side in return, swinging the second blade towards him as well now that the guards were out from behind her.
"Clary, listen to me, you can't leave. And besides, why would you want to, after what an amazing evening we had together?" he asked, his voice almost pouting, as if persuading a party guest not to leave so soon. Her cheeks flared red as he smiled at the thought of the night prior, and she felt anger boil up from the pit of her stomach.
"Amazing?! You raped me!" Her voice pitched with hatred, and tears welled up in her eyes.
"I did no such thing," Sebastian said, baffled by the accusation, his hands raising in a mockery of innocence. "I simply shared my love for you. You just weren't ready to accept it—"
"You're sick. You're fucking insane," she breathed, and even though they were just guards, just Endarkened puppets, she couldn't help but feel buried in shame at her abuse being made known to others.
"Watch your mouth," Sebastian said, and now his voice was firm, his hands dropping to his sides.
And the pit of anger grew, spreading up through her chest and hardening her stance, moving down through her legs to steady her knees. She tightened her grip on the swords and her face twisted in rage, and before she had consciously made the decision to move, she was moving, charging at him with all of her fury.
As she swung at Sebastian's chest he let out a surprised laugh, bending to dodge the blow and slamming backward into the basement door. Clary hadn't even noticed the Endarkened rushing at her back, her focus solely on Sebastian, but he barked at them to stay out of it, and they retreated again to the edge of the foyer. When she swung again, Sebastian was just barely able to dodge to the side, the tip of one blade cutting a shallow wound into his shoulder, and he laughed wildly as he drew a dagger from his belt.
"You can't fight me, Clary," he called, now rapidly blocking her two swords with his single dagger, and she cried out in frustration as he began to back her against the wall. But he was getting overly confident, loose in his posturing, and when she saw an opening—his arm raised casually, unthreatened—she took it.
In one fluid movement, her body fueled by adrenaline and shame and hate, all of the emotions driving out the soreness and pain, she turned the sword in her left hand, parrying a lazy swipe of his dagger, and drew her right blade across his open and unguarded side. Just as the metal left his flesh, a deep cut from his side to his stomach instantly welling over with blood, she swung the heavy hilt of the blade in her left hand into his jaw with a back handed blow, his head whipping to the side before he stumbled and fell back onto the floor with a pained grunt.
The dagger slipped from his hand as his arm flew to press over his wound, blood spilling through his fingers and onto the floor. For a moment his eyes were wide in shock, his jaw already bruised and swelling from the strike there, but then he burst into laughter, blood spattering over his lips as he did.
"Who knew fucking you would make you a better fighter, Clarrisa," he cackled, spitting blood onto the floor, and she took one glance at the Endarkened, stunned and still locked in place, waiting for Sebastian's command to release them, before she stepped over her brother's legs and reached for the door.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," he said to her back, his voice lilting dangerously, but she was already turning the handle and pulling back the sturdy wood. It swung open easily on its hinges, and Clary was met with a warm breeze, the soothing sounds of wind rustling through leaves and grasses, the smell of flowering plants from the back garden wafting through the air. She could practically feel the sun on her skin before she even left the doorway, the warmth of freedom and the relief of escape rushing through her as she stepped over the threshold.
And as soon as her foot set down on the stony pathway leading up to the front door, a red rune was flaring brightly against the black metal encircling her wrist. In an instant, electricity was racing up her arm and through the rest of her body, all of her muscles locking up and her scream catching painfully in her spasming throat, stuttering past her lips in an ear piercing wail. She was thrown to her knees as her body contorted under the continuous stream of electricity, then falling across the entryway and jerking against the ground, her arms contracting painfully, her legs curling and stiffening, her teeth biting close over her tongue until blood was pooling in her mouth, choking her.
She thought her brain must have been melting in her skull, the pain so excruciating that she could have sworn her entire body had caught fire, and though her eyes were open, she could only see white. Her hearing went out within seconds, a high pitched ringing splitting through her head and drowning the sound of her own screams, still pressed through clenching teeth. It felt like it went on forever, an eternity of hot, spasming pain, until she was suddenly lying limp on the cold tile floor in the foyer, twitching and trembling uncontrollably.
The screaming had stopped, she thought, but the ringing in her ears had not, and though she was half certain the electricity was gone, she could still feel the ghost of it coursing through her in waves. Her mind spun and her lungs burned, her mouth indescribably dry, and as the white faded from her vision, she saw Sebastian standing above her, blood dripping down his chin.
"I warned you," his voice said, distant and foggy, as if Clary were underwater and he was just above the surface. "But you just don't fucking listen."
He reached down, grabbing her by her hair and pulling her off the floor, and then she was being dragged into the kitchen by his hand at the nape of her neck. Her legs stumbled numbly beneath her, her breathing hitching with each little muscle spasm that jolted through her, her nerves short circuiting and going haywire.
"I told you you couldn't leave this house. But do you listen? No. You never listen. You just insist on learning things the hard way, huh?" he hissed, angrily shaking her by the back of her neck. "Why don't I help you then? Would you like to try running away out the window?"
Clary couldn't even begin to respond, her tongue feeling like it had shriveled up in her mouth, her brain unable to recall words, but when through hazy vision she saw him slide up the bottom glass panel of a single-hung window in the kitchen and felt him grab at her wrist, her mind somehow managed to connect to her mouth to stutter out a plea.
"N-n-o, pl-ea–nn—ahhhghh!"
As soon as he forced her banded wrist past the open frame of the window, she was struck again by unfathomable pain, her exhausted and disoriented muscles contracting all over again, her back arching at nearly a ninety degree angle, and the only thing keeping her standing was Sebastian's hold on her neck.
When he pulled her wrist back into the house the electricity immediately stopped and her body fell limp, her feet kicking againast the floor, struggling uselessly to find solid footing beneath her.
"Do you understand now? Hmm? You. Cannot. Leave," Sebastian said, his lips pressed directly to her ear as he growled the words, and she would have sobbed if she had any energy to do so, or if her brain wasn't too fried to remember what crying even was.
"No? Still not clicking? How about the back, then? Do you want to try escaping out the back? Do you want to try leaving me through the garden door?"
Her throat caught on a plea again as he began dragging her through the kitchen towards the back of the house. As much as she tried to command her muscles to work, they refused to respond, jerking randomly and collapsing under her weight. When the back door came into view, she did manage a sob, tears flooding down her face in a waterfall, like they had all built up and at last been released.
"Se-Sebas—ple-ease, n-no—" she sobbed, and she finally managed to force her feet to the floor, pressing them back to try and stop them before the exit.
"Oh, are we finally starting to understand?" he asked, his voice high and slow like he was talking to a child. "You're telling me you don't want to walk out that door?"
Clary lurched her head from side to side, incomprehensible mumbles of no, please, no, spilling from her lips, but his hand still grabbed at the handle and threw the door open, pulling her up to the doorsill. She continued sobbing and shaking her head as she tried to grab his hand at the back of her neck, tried to push against the door frame to keep from being forced out, and she choked out one more useless plea.
"Plea–se–ple—y-you're gon–ki-ill me!"
"Kill you?" he laughed, showing bloodied teeth. "No, Clary. Never. You don't get to die. You get to stay right here with me."
"Plea-se, n-no lea-ving, I uh-unders-stand."
"I don't believe you," he spit, and shoved her over the threshold. Her arms instinctively flew up to break her fall, her hands passing through the open door first, and she was writhing before she ever hit the ground. This time she didn't scream, only a horrific, hoarse, constant whine bubbling from her throat as air was forced up her lungs and through her locked vocal chords, and everything went white out, the electricity turning everything a stark, lighting white-blue. She thought she passed in and out of consciousness multiple times throughout the next ten seconds that Sebastian let the bracelet electrocute her, but she couldn't be sure, couldn't begin to comprehend what consciousness even was when every synapse and cell that made her up was ignited with the fires of hell.
When Sebastian at last grabbed her ankle and pulled her back into the house, she flopped and gasped like a fish out of water, struggling to take in air as she thought she could feel even her lungs twitching from the aftershocks.
"That bracelet stays on until I deem you are trustworthy enough to be without it. If I were you, I'd focus my efforts on behaving instead of trying to escape all the time," Sebastian declared, and as he bent down to grab her again, he paused, lifting the bottom of her shirt to reveal the dagger tucked away there. He clucked his tongue as he slid it from her jeans, tucking it into his own weapons belt. When he leaned over her to try and pick her up again, he groaned, a hand pressing to his stomach and brow furrowing at the sight of the blood, as if only just now remembering his injury.
"Goddammit," he sighed, picking up one of Clary's arms and dropping it, watching it fall limply to the floor, her muscles only moved by their own occasional jerking. "Adele, Keo, carry her to the kitchen table."
Clary heard footsteps rush over to the back door before she was being lifted under her arms and dragged back into the kitchen, her head rolling back in exhaustion as she continued to struggle for air. She was set down in a kitchen chair, sliding down the seat some when the Endarkend let go of her shoulders. Tears slipped freely down her cheeks as she stared out blankly across the table, and she watched as Sebastian took a seat across from her. He pulled his stele from the back of his belt and began marking a healing rune on himself.
Clary's vision swam before her, the ceiling lights in the kitchen a warm, swirling yellow, like a brilliant cloud of fireflies—or maybe yellow jackets. Maybe it was a swarm of hornets that had just stung her a thousand times over, leaving her shuddering and seizing in their wake. For a moment, she forgot where she was as she watched the spinning lights, and then she heard Sebastian quietly spitting curses.
"Stupid bitch," he muttered under his breath as his flesh sizzled beneath the adams. "Should have just fucking listened."
"Ple–can't—can-t lea-ve, I-I un-under-stand…" she whispered, not entirely sure what she was saying, only understanding the need to say it, and any other words trailed off into meaningless mumbles.
Sebastian glanced up from his now completed iratze, looking her over and grimacing at the sight. "Yeah, I bet you do," he said shortly, accepting some salve and dressings from Zeo, who awkwardly looked from Sebastian to Clary and then walked out of the room.
"Now, when your brain starts working again, we're going to have breakfast together, and then take the fucking day off. Too much goddamn excitement for one morning," he huffed, and began unraveling a roll of gauze. When he finished treating his wound, he got up and started cooking something on the stove. By the time he set a plate down in front of Clary, she was able to mindlessly pick up a fork and sit upright in her chair.
They ate without another word to each other, the eggs and bacon tasting like ashes on her tongue, the orange juice he had poured her like pure acid down her throat, and when they finished eating he left the plates at the table and scooped her up into his arms. She didn't struggle or protest as he carried her towards the stairwell, and she rested her head atop his shoulder, too tired to hold it up, tucking into the crook of his neck, and watching the front door recede down the hall.
Author's Note: Let me know what you think. I'm going to try and keep a schedule of posting a new chapter at least once every two weeks, if not once every week. Do readers have any preference on word count? I've been trying to keep the chapters anywhere from 1,500 to 3,000 words so that they're not too lengthy or boring (hence some chapters being devided into two parts) but if you don't mind longer chapters then I won't split them up. Also, I have a general plot planned out, but I realized that if anyone has any specific requests or ideas that it might be fun to add them. Anyway, I'm excited to be back—feel free to comment or message if you have any preference on chapter length or any requests for chapters!