Deception

Chapter: Twenty Three

Chapter Twenty Three

"No. Absolutely not!" Clary glared, crossing her arms.

"Come on, Clare-bear! You gotta come." Mattie whined.

If looks could kill...

Clary looked as if she could murder Mattie right on the spot. "If you ever call me that again, I will kill you where you stand! You are not Louis, and even he shouldn't call me that." She spat.

Yes, but it would be a lot harder for her to kill him than it would be Mattie. Considering she could murder my poor best friend, I needed to step in somehow. I stepped forward, putting my hand on her shoulder. "Mattie, maybe we should leave her alone. She doesn't want to go," I tried.

We'd spent thirty minutes having tracked Clary down to an apartment I didn't even know she had just to have her tell us no. Admittedly I didn't think she'd come either. Her letting us in her apartment was actually pretty nice all things considered. Right now she was getting annoyed.

"Why doesn't she? Shes' going to the ball anyway."

"She has her reasons I'm sure," Max tried and Lily and Megan nodded in agreement.

"I'm sure she does. Britt, why don't you work your magic on her like you did Megan?"

"Are you kidding me? Talking to Megan is a whole lot different than talking to her. The whole relationship or lack thereof is different. By the way, it's got nothing to do with magic."

"Oh yeah, you did kind of take her lover didn't you," Mattie chuckled.

"I didn't take her-

"Oh, you did. Not that I want to talk about that or go dress shopping with her," Clary snapped.

"Okay in the past I did, but I didn't really mean to," I frowned.

"Right so anyway get lost."

"We want you to go with us," Lily said and she turned o her.

"Trust me you really don't. None of you do," she insisted.

"That's not true. It feels incomplete without you," Max offered.

"The sentiment of you humans is sweet but I'm not into them. I thought you weren't going?' she turned to Megan.

"I wasn't at first but I decided why not. Britt definitely helped me with that but we needed to move on. This is a good way of doing that," Megan explained.

"Obviously you let her talk you into going. I'm not going so save your breath. Feel free to leave now," she said disappearing from her living room to the kitchen and we turned to each other.

"Yes, she's not coming. I didn't think she would. We should go before she kills us," Max tried.

"I think there's a reason she's not going. Like a new reason, she's not telling us. Normally even she would hang out with us every now and then. I feel bad about leaving her but we can't make her come," Lily sighed.

"We have to do something," Mattie tried.

"I'll try. See what I can do," Megan smiled slightly as she followed after her.

"Think she has a chance of convincing her?" Max questioned.

"About as good of a chance as any of us," Lily spoke.

"Probably better than Britt," Mattie chuckled.

"Yeah probably."

We waited several minutes before Megan and Clary returned. The former with an accomplished smile and the latter an annoyed expression. So then which had won out? It seemed like the answer was right in front of us but I couldn't be sure until someone said something.