City of bones (fan fiction)

Chapter 7

"What is this about Sebastian?!" Clary demanded, as she paced in one of the spare bedrooms angrily.

"I put a silencing rune on the door, you know, you can call me by my real name," he responded icily.

"Whatever, Seb--Jonathan! I want to know what's going on!"

"I'm letting you explore New York, little sister, just like you've always wanted," he said, but Clary could sense that he wasn't telling her everything.

"Do you think I'm an idiot? The day after I say I want to go to New York, dad goes on a trip and we end up here. But 'here' happens to be the dwellings of three of dad's former followers! Also, you've been acting weird! I can tell when your hiding something from me, Jonathan!" Clary all but exploded.

"I'm not hiding anything!" Jonathan yelled through clenched teeth. His black eyes were getting bigger the way they did whenever he was feeling emotions stronger than usual. Clary couldn't see any white in them any more.

"Jonathan! Tell me what is going on! I have a right to know!"

Jonathan called Clary a few names that would have gotten him a couple more scars on his back had Valentine been around. "Fine! Dad sent me here to check on his old followers to see if they were still loyal to him! He wanted to know who will stand with him against the corruptness of the Clave! I just thought you might like to come along because you said you wanted to go to New York sometime! But if you want to throw a hissy fit like the little girl you are, be my guest!" Jonathan was breathing heavily by the time he was finished and his black eyes made him look demonic.

Clary stopped short. A feeling of guilt washed over her as soon as Jonathan had said that. It was just a mission to check in on Valentine's old followers? "Oh." She felt foolish. "I-I'm sorry, I over reacted."

"Yeah. You did." Jonathan said before barging out of the room, almost breaking the door in the process.

"But I wasn't the only one who overreacted," Clary muttered to herself. She followed in suit after her brother. She knew it wasn't a good idea to leave him be after a big fight.

"Sebastian. Sebastian!" she called as she jogged to catch up with her brothers quick pace. He didn't look at her as he walked into a room that Clary realized was the training room. He always went to the training room when he was angry. Something was wrong, though. Sebastian was more angry than usual, and losing control rapidly.

"Sebastian, would you look at me?" She grabbed his shoulder with one hand. He spun around, twisting to face her and brought the back of his hand against her face, hard.

Clary was not unfamiliar with pain; she had toughened up a lot during all of Valentine's whipping sessions and when she and Jonathan practiced fighting. Besides, an iratze could easily fix most of her injuries. However, Jonathan and her weren't practicing now, and the darkness in his eyes frightened her. She backed away slowly, in hurt and shock.

All at once, Sebastian seemed to realize what he had done.

"Clary, I'm so sorry," he started, stepping towards her small, slowly retreating form.

She moved away and he tried to reach out at her, but she shook her head with a look of fear.

"No." And she ran out if the training room, leaving Sebastian cursing under his breath.

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Clary walked through the long corridors quickly. She wasn't sure where she was going, but as long as it was in the opposite direction of her brother, she was okay with it.

Sebastian would never hurt her, she insisted to her quarreling thoughts. Sure, they both caused each other quite a few injuries while practice fighting, but that was different. And it seemed now that Sebastian would hurt her.

She hastily rounded a corner and smacked into something hard. That 'something' held her steady as she almost fell backwards.

Jace.

"Sorry," she mumbled and tried to brush past him, but he held her there.

A look of surprise and questioning dawned on his face as he looked closer at her. He brushed her flaming red hair out of her face and tucked it behind her ear to see her more clearly.

"Are you alright? What happened to your face?" he inquired, his voice tinged with alarm.

"I'm fine," Clary murmured, looking down to hide her bruising face.

Jace tilted her face back up so her green eyes met his concerned gold ones. "No, you obviously aren't fine, Clary, you're crying and there's a massive bruise on your cheek."

Clary hadn't even realized she was crying and quickly wiped away her tears. They were replaced by more.

"Tell me what happened," Jace said in a soothing voice, using his own scarred thumbs to brush away her tears.

Reluctantly, Clary told him what had happened, of course leaving out Valentine's plan. Despite everything, Valentine and Sebastian were still her family.

When she finished, Jace looked angry, and it frightened her quite a bit.

"Sebastian hurt you? That son of a---"

"Jace!" Clary said, alarmed, "its okay, it was an accident! He just has anger issues sometimes, that's all."

"Anger issues? That's no excuse! I have anger issues, but I don't go around hitting Izzy!"

Clary burst into a fit of hysterical giggles.

"What?" Jace asked, still upset.

"It-it's just that--" Clary said between laughs, "it you hit Izzy---she'd probably hit you back."

"Yes, well, if I ever did hit her, I'd deserve to get hit back," Jace chuckled before becoming serious again. "Yesterday, when we first met, I saw all of those cuts across your back. Even now, I can see you wince at little movements. Did Sebastian. . . did he do that to you?"

"No!" Clary said quickly, "no, Sebastian would never do that."

Jace gave her a look as if to say, and yet he would hit you?

"No." Clary said more firmly, "Sebastian and I went demon hunting a few nights ago and we ran into a giant demon that we didn't recognize. It wasn't from the Book of White. It had whip-like claws and got a few good hits in before we took it down."

"It wasn't from the Book of White? But that's impossible," Jace said uncertainly.

"That is what Sebastian and I had thought, too."

"This is bad. We need to alert the Clave about how out of control the demon entry is. We need to---" he turned as though to do so.

"Jace!"

He turned back to face her.

"It's okay. Sebastian and I already contacted them," Clary lied. She had made up the demon attack and really didn't need the Clave around to intervene with whatever Sebastian was planning.

"Oh."

There was a silence that hung between them. They stood there staring at each other. In the dim light, shadows lingered on Jace's chiseled face. His gold eyes were dark in the lighting, yet somehow also bright. She couldn't help but notice that there was a small chip in his tooth. It was quite endearing. He was so tall and for some reason he looked so much like an angel to her in that moment.

"Well," Jace said, his voice cutting through the silence. "I was actually looking for you earlier."

For some reason this made Clary's heart flutter in her chest.

"Isabelle got invitations for all of us to go to a party tonight. I thought you might like to be warned ahead of time."

"Warned?"

Jace's laughed, "oh, yes, Izzy wants to help you get ready."

"Why would I need to be warned about that?"

Again, Jace just laughed as though he knew something that Clary did not. "Come on, I'll show you were she is. She's waiting for you."