Gun To My Head ➳ Shadowhunters [Rewriting]

0.4 || Carstairs

Paige heard the sound of her name being called by an unfamiliar voice at the end of the tunnel. "Paige. Paige. Wake up. Paige!"

She sat upright and looked around her. She was in a room with bright, florescent lighting. Paige felt something cold on her forehead, and moved to remove it. A cold hand caught hers.

"You can't remove that." She turned to the side to face Henry.

She gasped and fell back hard. "Great. This isn't a dream."

"You really wish you hadn't met me?" Henry smirked.

"You said it not me, and would you quit doing that? It gives me the creeps." Henry laughed. "Mind telling me what happened?" Paige asked.

"You passed out in the library. Your brother and I moved you to the infirmary, where we are now. Your brother is settling into his room." He said simply.

"We're staying?"

"Did you not expect to?"

"Not really. I'm a- What did Isabella call us?"

Henry regarded her with thoughtful eyes. "Mundane. It's not true. You must remember me telling you you're a Shadowhunter."

No, no, no. This wasn't happening. She tried to convince herself none of this was real but she couldn't. "You're lying." She blurted out.

"I'm not. I'm a very truthful man."

"Sure. But on another note, how do things even work around here?" Paige said.

Henry leaned back in his chair. "Isabella has been here her life. Her parents, also known as my uncle and aunt, run the Institute. I've been here since I was six and Isis came when I was about eight, I belive."

She looked around the room, getting to know her surroundings, as they spoke. "So where are they now? Your aunt and uncle."

"They're in Idris, but I figure they'll be coming back to meet you."

Paige widened her eyes. "Idris?"

Henry nodded. "Idris is the Shadowhunter home country. Most Shadowhunters train and grow up there, but there are a few, like us, who stay in Institutes."

"There's more of you?"

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

They sat in silence for a few moments. Then Henry asked, "What's your name?"

"What do you mean 'What's your name'? I told you, it's Paige."

"No. I mean your full name."

"Paige Grace Carstairs."

"Carstairs?!" Henry's mouth fell open.

"Yes?"

"I'll be right back." Henry patted her hand and left the room. Paige laid her head back on the pillows and fell asleep.

-

"Yes. Her last name is Carstairs." Henry said.

"Not possible. The Carstairs disappeared years ago." A female voice, unknown to Paige, said.

"Could it be possible-" Henry began to ask.

"No. I was there." A new male voice spoke.

"You don't even know what I was going to say." Henry mumbled.

"Henry, we leave the Institute in your hands while we're in Idris." The woman spoke.

She heard Henry kneel beside her. She could feel his breath on her neck, but she didn't dare open her eyes.

"What was that about?" She blurted out and heard Henry's startled intake of breath.

"How much did you hear?"

Paige sat up. "I heard that my parents were killed- or something like that . What did that mean?"

"Everyone thinks your parents were already dead, and no other alive Carstairs are to be known."

"But that can't be true, right? Or else Cole and I wouldn't be here. Wait." Henry nodded, and put the cold cloth back on her forehead.

"Why are you being so nice to me? You barely know me."

"You have Nelipilim blood. You're one of us."

"First, I do? Second, what if I don't want to be?"

"Your parents were Shadowhunters, and now your parents are dead. You have no choice. It's the law." His voice turned ice cold.

Paige tilted her head up at him. "Law?"

"Covenant law. Sed lex dura lex. The law is hard, but it's the law."

He was silent for a couple minutes.

"Do you like to read?" Henry asked, abruptly.

"What- yes. Why? Do you?"

"Yes, but that's not why I asked." He laid his hand on the top of a book on the nightstand. It's title read The Codex , and it must've held a great deal of pages, since Henry even had a little trouble picking it up.

"What's this?" Paige asked and moved towards it.

"The Codex it'll tell you almost everything you need to know about shadowhunters."

"Thanks."

"No problem." He smiled and left the room.

-

After three hours in the infirmary reading The Codex, Paige grew bored and decided to go and find her brother. She walked around the corridors until she found what looked like a hallway of bedrooms. She stopped at the first door when someone came up behind her.

"That door doesn't open." It was Henry's voice. Paige let go of the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

"Are you following me?" She said without turning around.

"No. My bedroom in this hall." He stepped closer to her until she finally turned around.

"Oh. I'm sorry. What time is it?"
Henry's face was inches apart from her's and she could feel tension running through them like a telephone wire.

"Almost midnight."

"Did I wake you?"

He laughed, "No, you did not. The girls hall is the next one to your right." He walked away without another word, and walked into what she thought was his bedroom.
She tried the door. It opened with a slight hesitation and a creak.

The room was shaped like an octagon. It held three long windows. The middle one was opened half way, and dust covered light shone in. In the middle of the room, a bench was built into the ground out of dark oak. The two side windows had thick white curtains, yellowed from the years. The floor must've held at least an inch of dust.

Paige sat on the bench and looked down at the floor. Her combat boots left footprints. She could see two golden letters, each about the size of a fist, on the floor. PI...The next thing she knew she was on her hands and knees dusting off the letters. PIVIK HOBIC. Paige gasped and fell backwards over the bench. No, no, no, she told herself, go back and look! It's not true.

She couldn't go back, instead she turned and ran. She ran as fast as she could out of the Institute and right on the streets again. Everything around Paige turned blurry like a dream. Not again, she thought before tumbling onto the cement.