Monster or Angel - Alec Lightwood

18 - Traitors Lose Hands

I stare at the monitors in front of me unable to wrap my head around what's happening. The Cup is gone. Lydia is hurt. And now we're frantically trying to find the security footage to find out who took it. I stand behind Izzy, chewing on my fingers nervously, as she finds the footage, Jace to my right with the most serious expression on his face. One that Clary is desperately trying to replicate on the other side of me, though her expression just wants me to punch her... so, nothing new there. 

"Don't bite your nails," Jace mutters next to me. I roll my eyes, but I take my fingers out of my mouth and cross my arms instead. He's always hated it when people bite their nails, it cringes him out. Normally, I would ignore him when he scolds me for it, but it feels so nice that he's actually noticing me do it. 

"How's Lydia?" I hear Clary ask. I glance over my shoulder to see Alec walking over. His eyes barely meet Clary's before he is looking at me.

"Better. Magnus is doing what he can to help her, but it's bad," he answers coming to stand right behind me, "And the Cup is definitely missing."

"So it was Hodge," Jace says which makes me frown. Hodge has cared about us for years. He was the one to help train us as we grew up. He was the person we turned to when we needed help... well, when one of us decided to stop being stubborn and ask for help.

"Maybe he was attacked, too," Izzy says obviously with the same amount of denial I'm feeling. 

"Maybe he's the one who attacked her," Clary suggests. 

"Hodge? No way. We've known him our entire lives. He would never do that to us," Izzy replies instantly.

Izzy locates the security footage, playing it instantly, and what I can see stills me to the core. Izzy replays the footage, leaning forward in her chair to start it again and I find myself taking a slight step closer to my Parabatai to try to comprehend what I'm seeing. It plays up again and we all stand watching as Hodge backhands Lydia before stealing the Cup.

"By the Angel," I breathe unable to accept it.

"We led him right to the Cup," Jace says and I can hear how hurt he is, just like the rest of us. 

"We treated him like family. How could he do this to us?" Alec splutters. 

"No, there's got to be a reason he would do this. He wouldn't do this," I say shaking my head. Jace gives me a look out of the corner of his eye, but I ignore it, staring at the monitor in front of me as Izzy follows Hodge through the different security cameras. She zooms in suddenly as he reaches where Jocelyn stays sleeping until we figure out how to wake her. And it's when he gets there we watch him pull out a ring, sliding it on his finger. My stomach drops in dread. 

"That's how he did it. What is that ring?" Clary asks

"Looks like he's talking to someone," Izzy says. 

"And I can bet who it is." I turn to Jace and all I see is pure rage. 

"Well, that explains how he deactivated the Punishment rune, but it doesn't explain where he got the ring," Alec says.

"I might have an explanation," I say looking to him. "The Foresaken attack." Alec shakes his head. 

"No. We killed that thing, and I didn't see a ring," Alec denies but I give him a pointed look. 

"Neither did I, but it's not like either of us hung around to examine the body. We left. Leaving Hodge alone with it."

Izzy locates the footage of the fight against the Foresaken and I am forced to watch myself get my ass kicked by it. I watch closely, ignoring how Izzy clenches her jaw when the wooden bo is shoved into my shoulder. I lean over her and skip the footage until I notice Hodge approach the now dead Foresaken.