We are the last ones

breathing

Maia tried not to reek up her breakfast at the sight of Luke's contorted unconscious body. His arms where bended at an unnatural angle, and his head kept jerking from side to side, sweat hanging in beads below his hairline, his skin red and puffy with fever.
Jocelyn's head was in her hands, while Simon was sitting next to her, a hand on her shoulder, in an awkward but helpful gesture of compassion and love.
Compassion.
Something Maia hated.
Compassion tasted like pity on her tongue, and smelt foul.
After Maia had been bitten, she did regret it, but had never wanted anyone's pity, compassion.
She hated Jordan for making her what she was, but she did not pity herself.
She would not.
Her eyes found Jordan's, those comfortable brown as melted chocolate irises that had, had, always made her feel at home.
Now she could only remember them as the eyes of the creature who had attacked her and left her to bleed, alone, in a dead-blind alley.
Jordan's pupils became glassy, as if he could read her mind, as if he were going through all those moments passed together, and was thinking, like she was, that they had came so close to touching the tip of that highest star just to fall all the way back.
She looked away, it was too painful to keep regretting, to keep remembering.
"We need your help, Jordan," Simon said, standing up and covering Jocelyn.
Maia looked back at him, keeping her eyes trained on his Praetor Lupus necklace.
Simon explained, the veins on his neck standing dark and ugly against his pale, pale, vampire skin.
She wondered if Simon had eaten.
Then she wondered if he had ever pitied himself.
She wondered if he had wanted compassion, or tried to kill himself, or perhaps refused to accept it.
Jordan nodded when Simon finished, "i understand, i'm sure the Praetor will be able to fix it."
Jocelyn looked up at them, her eyes red and ringed with black by all the crying and all the insomnia.
"Fix him, please," her voice was strong, and the cracks in her posture disappeared as she straightened her spine.
"I promise," Jordan told her.
"I'll go with you," she'd uttered the words before she could stop herself, her body reacting and turning to face Jordan.
The boy was stunned, but he nodded, his chocolate eyes fixing once more on Maia's.

Supper at the Morgenstern residence had been a quite affair. Sebastian had stared at her all through, and Jace had done the same.
At one point, the tension had become unsustainable, so she'd scraped her chair backwards and left to go to sleep.
Now, as the sun filtrated through her blinds and her head ached, she could still feel Sebastian's gaze on her.
That was because it was.
She opened an eyelid, and saw her brother frowning down at her, his hands on his hips.
"What do you want, Sebastian?" She always used that tone of contempt every time she choked the name Sebastian out.
Sebastian opened and closed his mouth as if arguing with himself, shook his head, winced and left without replying.
Clary shrugged, it probably was usual behavior at the Morgenstern residence.
She had stood up and creaked her sleepy bones, debating with herself wether to change or not.
She sighed and opened the armoire door.
It was gurgling with dresses, silk, denim, elegant, casual. She stifled as a she tried one on and found it to be perfectly fitting.
She thought about her mother, about Valentine, about what she could've done to fix all of this.
Then it hit her.
She could've done nothing.