Actions not Words (Will Herondale x OC)

Chapter 1

Dear Sophia,

This story is for you.

Love,

Your older sister

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Sorry if the plot line deviates from the original book. I am not intending to copy the exact actions and dialogue from Cassandra Clare's The Infernal Devices series. I will; however, check in the books to make sure that certain events are in correct chronological order. Enjoy!

Sophia's POV:

I, Sophia Carstairs thought that my life would play out to be as dull as any other's. As normal as a shadowhunter's life could be, of course. I lived at the Shanghai Institute, far away from the strict decorum of Idris, the capital city of the shadowhunters, allowing me to do as she pleased. I could practice fighting as long as I wanted, use as much runes as I needed, and live free of the strangle hold that other girls at other Institutes had to live by.

In the Institute, there was my family and a handful of other shadowhunters. The other shadowhunters did not mind my different upbringing than other girls. They only cared that one of the only shadowhunter children in the area was safe. The other kid was my younger brother, Jian Carstairs, but my dad and I call him James, his English name.

Our Institute was remote, and we liked it that way. Until it played to our disadvantage. The day that everything in my life, everything boring, was destroyed would forever be imprinted in my mind. James, or Jem I would call him (we were little and I couldn't say his name, back off), and I were playing in the stone garden, while our mother and father were having tea on the porch.

A great shudder went throughout the Institute. Our parents gathered my brother and I and attempted to spirit us away. The hallways that we passed held multiple signs of struggle, but no bodies. When we arrived at the main room, we were greeted to the sight of a ferocious demon, looming above us. Like a human looking down at an ant.

Although Jem and I were twelve, we knew the dangers of being a shadowhunter all too well. On more than one occasion, we were greeted to the distraught faces of members of our Institute coming home without their patrol partner. These were one of the few times that I despised being a shadowhunter. This was another.

The Greater Demon captured us, my mother, father, brother, and I. It didn't eat us, like many other demons do. It kept me and my family tied to chairs, torturing Jem and I in front of our screaming parents. I didn't know it, but the Great Demon was there to exact revenge on my mother. On an earlier mission, she found the demon's nest, where it's larvae were leeching off of children, and she destroyed all of them.

Jem was forced to take yin fen, a deadly Downworlder substance, causing him to go in and out of hallucinations and consciousness. I was not so lucky either. While my brother was attacked within his mind, I was attacked through my body. The demon would torture me with great blades and hot rods. Jem was relatively silent and unaware while he was beaten into submission, while I was wide awake and all too conscious. I felt as if my throat had been ripped apart from the inside, I screamed so much.

One day, I realized that my father had grown silent. The next day, my mother had also grown quiet. I shed tears, not because Jem and I were orphans but because my parents were not given the proper shadowhunter death. Death while protecting mundanes; instead, they were forced to watch their children get tortured and unable to help.

Later that day, the Greater Demon disappeared, given the revenge it wanted but not before leaving one last reminder of the danger that a shadowhunter's life could have. A reminder that would haunt me for the rest of my life. It was that day that shadowhunters from nearby Institutes came to our rescue. I was in a hazy state of consciousness, only remembering the pain that coursed through my body when I was finally released from my confines.