𝔀𝓸𝓾𝓵𝓭 𝓲 𝓵𝓲𝓮 𝓽𝓸 𝔂𝓸𝓾?| 𝓪𝓵𝓮𝓬 𝓵𝓲𝓰𝓱𝓽𝔀𝓸𝓸𝓭

Chapter Thirteen

(WE ARE AT NINETY NINE READS OH MY GOD I AM GOING TO CRY I LOVE EVERYONE WHO READS THIS SO SO MUCH!!!! I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!! sotc is afraid by the neighbourhood, happy reading!)

Ness whipped her head around so hard it felt like she'd broken her neck and stared at Alec. She was already ghostly white, her electric blue eyes standing out from her face, like a shock of colour in a black and white photograph. She opened her mouth to say something, but Alec held up his hand and cut her off.

"I do not want your shitty apologies, for sneaking out with absolutely no word, considering everything that is going on at the moment and you just decided it would be fine and dandy to bugger off and not bother to tell me or anyone!" His voice grew in momentum as he spoke, until he was yelling, his eyes blazing and furious, his whole body shaking with fury.  

Ness just sat there for a moment and took it, willing herself not to cause a huge scene in front of Magnus. As if Alec hadn't already.

She scoffed and stood up, shoving her chair in under the table and looked at Magnus gratefully.

"Thank you" she mouthed, and he nodded sympathetically, his brow furrowed in concern. She shoved past Alec, and began walking down the corridor, her entire body consumed with fury and embarrassment that Alec couldn't just leave her alone, just to live, live her life the way she wanted to, not the way he did. She absolutely despised him in that moment, any of the fondness she had ever felt for him evaporating. 

Why couldn't he see that she needed this, just to talk to someone? Why couldn't he see that it couldn't be him? 

She prayed that when the cold air of the night hit her skin, that it would cool her white-hot temper, calm her down, even just put her body into shock just so that she could calm down, because she didn't want to hurt him. However much she hated Alec, she would never forgive herself if he was number twenty-four. He wouldn't be. She wouldn't let him be. 

Her breath hitched in her chest, and suddenly she became completely lightheaded, and leaned against the wall to steady herself. Her breaths were shallow, and her sight was blurry; with tears or fear, she didn't know. She couldn't calm down. She needed to calm down.

Cool it, Venus. Just cool it.  

"Just cool it" she muttered to herself. "You're not going to kill anyone". She leaned back against the concrete wall, the friction between the wall and her head scratching her skin and caught her breath. As the oxygen hit her lungs, she calmed down slightly, and her vision cleared. He wasn't here yet. He was probably arguing with Magnus.

She didn't want him to know that he made her this vulnerable.

This fragile.

This weak.

She inhaled jaggedly and straightened herself up. She wasn't going to do this now.

She heard Alec before she saw him, his angry footsteps startling her. She'd underestimated just how mad he was. Mad at her.

It was her fault.

She made him like this.

She was so, so bad for him, but she didn't care. She wanted him anyway.

He stared at her for a moment and opened his mouth to say something, but she went quickly towards him, and inhaled shakily.

"You have to let me talk" she demanded, and he scoffed.

"God, would you just shut up?" he jeered, shaking his head and her eyes narrowed.

"Make me."

He grabbed her jaw and held forced her to look at him. His fingers were freezing, causing a shock to spread through her body and she gasped, half out of shock, half out of fear. He stared into her eyes, the familiar cold fire blazing in them and his lip curled into a smirk.

"You're brave for a Downworlder" he sneered, and she snapped out of her shock and scoffed, wrenching her jaw from his cold grip.

"And your ego is obnoxiously big, you insufferable bastard" she spat. "Even for a Shadowhunter, although heaven help us, you all think you're God's gift to man. Well, you're not, are you? You're absolutely useless, completely incompetent at running your stupid Institute, which may I add, is old and freezing and creaky, although you don't mind the noise, do you?" she smirked nastily, and he flinched. 

"What do you mean?" he growled angrily, and she laughed softly and leaned up so that her lips were almost brushing his ear.

"I mean, stupid, that you seem to have absolutely no issues listening to Jace and I" she jibed, that ugly smirk still on her face. "Or maybe you're out smoking?"

She laughed, her blue eyes narrowed meanly, her lip curled, the nasty expression turning her kind face into a mean one, a bitchy one. Not the girl Alec knew at all. 

"How pathetic is it, that a big strong Shadowhunter like you can't even read a book without a smoke? You're weak" she spat. "You're weak and pathetic, and you'll never be good enough, can't you see that, Alec?"  

He shook his head, willing his eyes not to well with tears.

Something was off about her.

Why was she doing this?

Why was she hurting him when he loved her the most?

Then he remembered.

The Institute was stiflingly hot, and she'd told him it was freezing.

Ness loves the cold, and complains about the heat.

"This isn't real" he declared, shaking his head. "I know you, and you wouldn't say that to me". His breath was shallow in his chest, and he knew that whatever it was that he was coming up against wasn't human.

She smiled slightly and ran her tongue over her lower lip, trailing her finger down his jawline and grinning. Her nail was surprisingly sharp, and Alec shivered unpleasantly as it brushed over the skin of his neck.

"Very good" she murmured, glancing suggestively at him, before slicing open his throat with her sharp nail, as is his skin was paper, and her nail was a scissor blade.

The thing that wasn't Ness flickered, before turning into the human form of a beautiful raven-haired girl with scarlet eyes and smirked at Alec's bleeding body.

"Not good enough, apparently" she mused, checking her pointed scarlet nails for a moment, turning her tanned hand over and back, before shrugging indifferently and then disappearing as quickly as she got there in the first place.