Black || Jace Wayland [1]

| 29. could've tried harder

******

ASHER AWOKE TO a loud rapping coming from her bedroom door. She raised her head off of her pillow to see a shadow hovering in the center of the small line of light that filtered into her room. She dropped her head back down, hoping that the person would go away.

Ten seconds later, the knocks sounded again, this time louder and more urgent.

The young Shadowhunter groaned lightly and rubbed the sleep away from her eyes. She looked over at the clock beside her, which indicated that she was asleep for no more than an hour.

Sighing out in annoyance, Asher threw the duvet off of her and lowered her feet to the chilled wooden floor. She grumbled as the person pounded against the door yet again.

"I'm coming!" Asher snapped and slowly rounded the corner of the bed. Once the loud banging reverberated for the fourth time, she lost all of her patience.

"Fucks sake." Asher mumbled to herself as she made her way to the entrance of her room. "This better be good if you're going to disrupt my first peaceful sleep in a decade!" She rose her voice so that the person on the other side could hear her.

Grabbing the door knob, she swung the door open to reveal Alec. His face, unlike during their earlier conversation, was expressionless. With his straightened posture and collected demeanor, Asher assumed he came here for business.

She pressed the back of her hand to her mouth as she let out a yawn. "Dude," Asher rolled her tense shoulders. "I literally just fell asleep-"

"Come with me." The older Lightwood wasted no time and immediately walked down the hall. Asher's brain took a second to process what he said before she trailed after him.

Asher huffed as she tried to catch up to Alec's longer strides. "Mind telling me what this is about?" She called out to him, but nothing was returned. He turned sharply into one of the rooms.

She quickened her pace and entered the room Alec walked into moments before. Not comprehending how close to the door Alec was, she crashed into him.

It felt like colliding straight into a wall. The aches from the previous mission increased tenfold from the impact before fading back to its dull throbbing. Asher grunted and staggered backwards, the collision shortening her temper even more.

She sidestepped the raven-haired boy and glared up at him. "What was so important that this couldn't wait until morning?" His eyes remained in front, so her eyes followed his gaze to see Jace and Clary standing further inside the room. As soon as she made eye contact with Jace, she looked away.

Jace's eyes flickered down to Asher's pajama pants and a stifled laugh escaped him. "Nice pants."

Asher looked down at her purple cat-themed pajama pants. Alec side-eyed her and quickly looked away when she caught him staring.

"It's not like I had time to change." She bit back grumpily, her eyes shooting daggers at Jace. She folded her arms in annoyance and averted her gaze among the three people with her. "Somebody better start talking before I end up strangling it out of one of you."

As Asher's attention moved to something else, Jace couldn't help but let his eyes fall down to the exposed skin above her waistband. The pajama pants hung low, revealing her hip bones.