Angelic

Alec ~ 14

One of the first things I learned from being a Shadowhunter: you could fight every demon in the world, and kill as many of them as you pleased, but there was something you'd never be able to escape, not matter how hard you fought, or ran, or tried to be distracted--yourself.

I stopped running finally, finding a view I liked. I glanced down at the street below me, the heads of people smaller than specks of sand, even harder to see under the streetlights. In front of me, the dark East River expanded in both directions. The moon, full and bright, reflected over the water. I don't remember how I got on top of this building, but it didn't matter. I just needed to be away from everyone--everything--right now.
Valentine had disappeared with the second mortal instrument yesterday, but that wasn't what I was concerned about. I was worried about Ev, for reasons far beyond my understanding. Mom had already contacted the Conclave about it. Shadowhunters were out looking for her right now, searching every alley inside of New York. But she had been missing for six days now. If she hadn't come back by now, then maybe there was no point in believing she would be found. Or maybe she would be found, her body rotting in a dumpster...

Stop it, Alec. I scolded myself. I hated the girl with a passion, but for some reason, the thought of her being hurt made me want to go after anyone that had ever hurt her and snap their neck. It was weird, I knew that. I hadn't felt like this about anyone before. I don't think any normal human felt like that. But it was all consuming. Before I had known it, I had started thinking about finding her every second I was awake. It wasn't long before I started having dreams about it, too.

If I was Jace, I probably would have gone to a werewolf bar and picked a fight, or gone to a club overrun by vampires and staked a few of them through their hearts. Maybe even gone on a demon-hunting-killing spree. But I wasn't him, thankfully. I had more respect for my mortality. But I couldn't stay inside that institute, with Jace sulking about Clary and Valentine and Izzy pulling hormonal tantrums every other hour. I knew they were just stressed about Valentine, but there were other problems besides Valentine. It seems like Ev had just disappeared into thin air, and no one bothered to remember her.

I did it then, did the thing I had run out here to do before I could back out and change my mind. I screamed. I screamed until I ran out of breath, and then until my throat became raw, and then until my voice faded, the echo flying across the surface of the river. The urge to throw something or hit someone came over me, and before thinking too much about it, I grabbed one of my arrows from my quiver strained to my back and snapped it in half. That helped a bit, but not enough. I threw the two pieces back into my quiver, knowing I'd fix it later. Then, before I could stop myself, I clenched my hand into a fist and slammed it into the roof at my feet. I was pretty sure I heard something snap. I gripped my hand, losing my balance and falling to sit on the roof as my eyes filled with tears. And then, without anyone here to see me, I let the tears fall.

...

I woke the next day to the light of the
sunset brightening up my room. I yawned and sat up, and as the pain hit, I remembered last night. After I did what I needed to do by the river, I came back to the institute, stumbling through the doors around one. Not too surprisingly, Jace was still up. He saw my hand, bleeding and bruised, and didn't waste time before drawing an iratze rune on me. Of course, I had to bombard his questions--How did this happen? Where did you go? You could have gotten hurt, did you think of that? Why didn't you bring me along?--but once it was clear to him I wasn't in the mood to talk, he left me alone, going back to the training room, the place he spent his time most nights he couldn't sleep. I disappeared into my room after a quick shower and had just glanced at the time--it was five in the morning--before I passed out from exhaustion.

Staring at my hand now, no one would be able to tell I had done anything to it. The lack of pain was bittersweet. On the one hand, letting it heal on its own would take far too long, not to mention all the questions it would raise. On the other hand, the pain could have been a distraction, something to take my mind off of her.