My Beautiful One

25. Divine justice

I stared at Sebastian and he stared back. I felt like a mouse caught in the gaze of a snake, for that was what I was: so shocked and devastated that I was vulnerable while Jonathan Morgenstern was none of those things, plus being the most deadly being on the planet.

Jonathan Morgenstern; I'm in love with a monster. Jonathan Morgenstern; I'm in love with a monster. Ran through my head like the disjointed yet continuing beat of a damaged heart, mingling with my fear and shock and sorrow and desperation.

I thought he was going to kill me, now I knew his identity.

I thought the monster would come to the surface, now he had nothing to hide.

But it didn't. He just stared at me with huge black eyes, his every feature screaming the oh-so-human emotions of heartbreak and despair. I tried to see him as Valentine's son, as Jonathan Morgenstern, and not the Sebastian that I loved, but I couldn't. There was no evil there, only sadness.

"Don't let him fool you, Amari." Clary's voice broke through my thoughts, and my gaze snapped to her. She was standing in the corner of the room, her dagger still held out towards her brother. "Go through the wall. Now. I'll hold him off."

I shook my head, dazed. 

I can't leave without his permission. I wanted to say. But my mouth felt dry, and my words came out in noiseless puffs of air.

"What are you waiting for?" Clary yelled, "Go!"

"She can't." Said Sebastian, and he said it in a tone that I hadn't heard in a long time. It was the amused, condescending drawl that I remembered from when I'd first been at the apartment, and I finally felt like I could see that Sebastian was a lie. This was Jonathan. There was a reason that I'd hated him. I'd only begun to like him when he switched on the charm, and now that it was all gone, the one I'd despised for weeks was back.

"You see, she's loyal." He continued, his long, elegant eyes narrowing to slits. "Unlike you, little sister. You didn't act particularly pleased to see me and look at what it's done for you." He shook his head mockingly, and it brought my attention to Clary's injuries. Her face was streaked with blood from a long cut on her cheek, and her gear was ripped in several places. There were knives lodged in the wall from what I imagined was their fight, and the glass and steel coffee table had been smashed.

The sounds of destruction I'd heard from upstairs... I realised. That was them fighting.

She glared at him, her green eyes alight with anger and indignation. "I will never be loyal to you." She snarled. "I never was. And don't tell me it's because I'm so much like you, because I'm not. I will never be like you because I am not a demon; I can love, and you are nothing, Sebastian. Nothing."

But Jonathan appeared unaffected by her words, and simply stared at her with boredom in his gaze. "Nothing? Well, I wouldn't say nothing." A smirk tugged at the edge of his mouth, and he looked downright evil. "Tell me: how is Jace? You see, your fingernails cut deeper than you'd think, little sister, and now every time I look over my shoulder I think of you two-"

"Shut UP!" Clary shrieked, and hurled herself at him with her knife outstretched. She landed on him, and as soon as they fell to the ground, she started slashing at him with her knife. But Jonathan wasn't even trying to defend himself; he was laughing. The sound echoed through the apartment and seemed to shake the floor, even as his own blood spattered the wall.

I couldn't watch any longer.

I lunged for Clary and dragged her off Jonathan. Her knife -still moving in its blind frenzy- cut me as I pulled her away, but she didn't apologies; she was still too busy screaming at her brother.

Now that Clary was restrained, Jonathan got up and took a running jump onto the bar top. It was an unnatural movement, even for a Shadowhunter, and as he stood up there, he looked like an avenging angel ready to dispatch divine justice from on high.

But he was no angel. Despite all his injuries, he was grinning like the devil himself, and it made fear shoot through me. I'd said that I wasn't scared of him, but now, as he smiled with bloodied lips, I was.

"See?" He said, and pointed at me. "Amari is loyal. It is you that is nothing, Clarissa Fray. You would kill your own brother."

"Killing you would be a mercy, Sebastian." She spat, trying to break out of my hold. When she couldn't free herself, she looked at me with an expression halfway between confused and pleading. "Why do you protect him?" She asked me, "He has no soul, Amari; there is nothing left to save."

I just shook my head because I honestly didn't have an answer. I had no idea why I had stopped Clary from killing him, because under all my confusion, my logic told me that I should have let him die.

"It's because she loves me." Clary's gaze switched to Jonathan, who was sneering down at us. "You do don't you?" He was looking at me, his expression half crazed. A drop of blood trickled down his chin, its bright red in sharp contrast to his pale skin and eyes that seemed darker than ever, like tunnels.

Something about his full attention was magnetic; I couldn't keep my eyes from him, and before I knew it, words were coming out of my mouth.

"I... I don't... I can't-" I stammered, the words choking me. This experience was like Valentine's torture all over again. The way he'd forced me to lie by giving me no other alternative but one worse than death.

Yes. I wanted to say. I love you, but I wish I didn't. Demons cannot love and do not deserve to be loved.

"Of course she doesn't love you." Said Clary harshly, finally succeeding in getting out of my hold. "Nobody can love a demon, especially somebody you've been torturing for almost two months. Now let us go, Sebastian, or I swear we will make you regret it."

"Sebastian, is it?" Jonathan spat, practically baring his teeth at his sister as he jumped off the bar top and stalked forward so that he was face to face with her. "Why Sebastian, little sister? Can you not bear that we share the same name? That my blood is your blood and you crave this power just as much as I do?"

He looked angry. So, so angry, with colour bright on his high cheekbones and his eyes narrowed so that all you could see of them was a glittering strip of black. He was shaking, too; his fists trembling as he clenched them, and I suddenly felt a smarting pain in my left arm, and drew up my sleeve.

The rune was glowing bright red, and with each passing moment, as Clary shouted and Jonathan shouted back, the pain grew to a searing burn that made me feel faint.

I stumbled backwards, bracing myself against the wall as it felt like my body was being consumed by fire. I could still hear them yelling at each other, and before long, blades were clashing and the sounds of fighting echoed around the apartment.

I can't take it. The thought was a tiny whimper amongst the swirling chaos of my mind. I can't take it anymore.

Images flitted across my vision, merging memory with reality. Sometimes I was watching the Morgenstern children fighting, others I was in the Institute poring over a demonology textbook. Sometimes I was slipping further and further down the wall, my energy drained by pain, and others I was talking to Sebastian about life's big questions. At one point, I was even back in the desert, kissing him under the stars, and that was what jerked me back to real life.

I was on the floor, my back against the east wall of the living room, and Clary and Jonathan were still locked in intense combat. She was bleeding from several cuts on her arms and face, and he was not much better. It seemed as if they were going to kill each other, but this time, I couldn't intervene. All I could do was watch and wish that I was somewhere -anywhere- different.

Suddenly my gaze caught Jonathan's, and it seemed like time had slowed down. He had his sister in an arm lock, and for some reason, everything went still.

It felt like the only sound in the room was the rapid beating of my heart.

With my last bit of strength, I parted my lips and spoke a single word.

"Please." I whispered, and then I was falling into darkness.