BLIND

Dissonance Part 7

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved." -George Macdonald

BLIND Chapter 7: Dissonance

His feet were leading him somewhere. His mind was in compliance, but he didn't know why. He hadn't really had any problems going with Isabelle, it hadn't mattered. It would have been better than being alone, or worse. But he felt a pull, a strong need to walk away from her, from the group. To be alone in a dark New York alley.

It wasn't a feeling he was particularly familiar with, far from it lately considering his new found relations to the trashier versions of a road. In better terms, his relation to Sebastian. Still, he concealed his limp as he walked to the dark alleyway.

Maybe his newfound, horrible, connection to alleys was relevant to his strange new desire to go to one. He was panicking, or ready to, looking around, alert to the possibilities of danger. There appeared, he assessed, to just be a mundie in thick clothes that couldn't see him with his glamour, and piles of filth. He thought of how exhausted he was- emotionally, mentally, and physically. Maybe the pressure of it was weighing him down. He wouldn't be surprised if he'd gone insane and no one, including himself, had noticed. But he was still alert, despite everything.

Shadowhunters knew how to raise soldiers, that was for sure. He wondered, briefly, if that was a good thing or not. He knew his fate either way.

A hand came from behind, startling him, catching his shirt and pulling him backwards. He flailed against the person behind him, his mouth drying out as he noticed the inevitable grey cement appearing around him. He fought to breath through a wave of panic, turning limp at the sight of the dark metal cuffs drilled onto the wall, splattered with blood stolen from his shadowhunter-healed wrists. He lost what was left of his dignity, pride, when he was ensnared in those cuffs.

"Given up, have we?" Sebastian. Could he control Alec, make him move to the alley and then to his person, like a dog to his master? It didn't really matter, but that if that was the case he could always be subject to his own body betraying him. Not that it hadn't, frequently, betrayed him in the last weeks.

"That's no good," Sebastian scolded. "There were so many things I wanted to do... Oh well, I'll just have to speed things up. Today Jace is going to be in charge of your fate."

Alec felt himself moving back, being dragged across the floor. He pushed his elbow back quickly, catching Sebastian in the hip. There was a groan, and before a struggle could truly begin Alec was thrown onto a cool, metallic surface. The sudden impact pushed his breath out of his chest and immobilized him long enough for Sebastian to rapidly tie him into his restraints. There was a strap across his chest, abdomen, thighs and shins. He couldn't move, a feeling he'd become used to in the basement.

"What are you going to do to me?" Alec asked as he regained his breath. Why was he even asking? Maybe there was something left in him, after all. Maybe he was still trying to keep it all together. He wanted to fight back. He'd gotten Sebastian to groan in pain... that was something, to him, despite its futility.

"That's the spirit," Sebastian chuckled. "I want you to confess, heartfully, to my video camera, that you are personally picking up where Valentine left off. You want to eliminate the downworlder threat and re-contruct the Clave. Showing hostility, of course."

"Why would I do that?" Alec spat, and perhaps it was courageous, but the coward in him regretted it the moment he'd said it. Sebastian could kill him, could do any number of things. What he'd said was stupid. But he would stand by it. If he did confess , as Sebastian wanted him to, he'd be stripped of his marks for treason. Magnus wouldn't forgive him. His family... who knew how they'd react, but it wouldn't be pleasantly.